Chapter Text
You Came to Take Us (All Things Go, All Things Go)
“It’s official,” Kate announces as she slides into the seat across from Deena’s at the lunch table. She has her shoulders thrown back, her head held high, and a bright sparkle in her eyes.
All things Deena has plenty of cause to be wary of.
Especially when Kate kicks her ankle under the table, impatient. “ Ask me, ” Kate demands, waving her hand as though to pull the words she wants from Deena’s mouth.
Deena rubs at her ankle, trying to resist the urge to give Kate the same treatment in return. “Ask you what? What the hell is wrong with you?”
Kate just rolls her eyes, glancing toward Simon and apparently finding him equally useless. She sighs, disappointed in the both of them. “I’ve officially signed up to run for homecoming queen.”
“And that means you have to break my ankle why?”
“Such a baby,” Kate coos, reaching across the table to pat Deena’s hand. Deena swats her hand away, not that it does much good, because Kate helps herself to a handful of soggy tater tots from Deena’s lunch tray. “Winning homecoming queen senior year will just be another way to pad out my resume. It’ll show how well rounded I am. And…you both get to help me.”
Simon doesn’t pause in chewing the impressively large bite of corndog that he’s just taken. “Help you what?”
Deena wishes that Simon hadn’t asked, not that it will make a difference. She’s going to be stuck helping Kate regardless of whether the opening to explain her no doubt elaborate plan had been presented. But Kate just beams, sitting up straighter and reaching for more of the tater tots. “I need a committee. To help me strategize and run my campaign.”
Deena pushes the styrofoam tray toward Kate rather than continue to fend off her advances. “You need to campaign for homecoming queen?”
Kate rolls her eyes at Deena’s question. “It’s a popularity contest. I need to convince people to vote for me.”
“Everyone loves you,” Deena points out. “I don’t see why you even need to-”
Kate waves a hand to dismiss what Deena considers a very valid point. “I’m appointing you two as the head of my committee,” she tells them with a toss of her perfect ponytail. “Congratulations.”
Simon almost looks pleased with himself while Deena just rolls her eyes. “Wow. I’m honored.”
“I can tell,” Kate says flatly. “You’ll thank me one day, Deena.”
Deena lifts an eyebrow. “For you forcing me to be on your homecoming…whatever the fuck? Don’t hold your breath.”
“After school.” Kate ignores Deena’s words with the same sort of easy dismissal that Deena has seen her dish out to assholes and friends alike. “The library. We’re going to strategize.” She points toward Simon. “You bring paper.” And toward Deena: “And you bring that sunny disposition I love so much.”
Deena gives Kate a forced smile that looks like the baring of teeth and Kate just grins in response, saccharine sweet, and pats Deena’s hand again. “That’s my girl.”
The bell rings and Deena slings her bag over her shoulder, following Kate and Simon and the rest of the unfortunate schmucks of Shadyside High. Her feet take her down the familiar hallways bathed in flickering fluorescents, past lockers that have seen better days and open classroom doors, past the occasional club sign or homecoming game flier stuck to the cinderblock walls. Calls for school spirit that only people like Kate seem capable of actually heeding, especially judging by the amount of people who have already scribbled graffiti or crass slogans on the posters in the few hours they’ve been affixed to the walls. Someone has crossed out show your spirit and written blow your spirit, which is hardly creative as far as Deena is concerned, but seems perfectly reflective of the people she sees around her. Creativity is often hard to come by in Shadyside.
Deena slips free of the milling crush of students and ducks into her English classroom, dropping down in her usual seat toward the back. The surface of her desk is uneven and scarred with years of writing and she often finds that her time is far better spent tracing the carved letters and assurances of love than it is listening to a discussion about Shakespeare. K + S or fuk Shittyside make it so that she has to write using her textbook as a flat surface to avoid poking holes in her paper.
Despite her best efforts to keep her gaze down and her attention elsewhere, Deena’s eyes seem to wander toward the door on their own accord, always traitorous. She watches her fellow classmates file in, filling up the seats around her and either continuing with their earlier conversations or completely zoning out, ignoring the bell work prompt on the blackboard. Right before the bell, she walks in, hair brushing her shoulders as she swings off her backpack, cheeks rounding as she smiles at someone before taking her seat in the front row. Sam.
Deena hates everything about her.
The little dimple right at the corner of her mouth. The little bit of curl in her hair that is clearly natural and not the effort of trying to tame and style for hours. Her slender fingers and delicate wrists. The way her clothes always make her look like the first perfect day of spring. How she rubs at the back of her neck as she focuses on what the teacher is saying. The flex of shoulder as she raises her hand to answer a question.
But, most importantly, Deena hates the way Sam makes her feel. All fluttery and nervous and jumbled up, like some stupid baby deer trying to walk for the first time. Deena hates the way her heart starts beating the second Sam takes her seat, hates how she spends most of class praying that Sam will look over her shoulder and notice Deena there. Hates how she doesn’t want Sam to notice her, how the idea of it floods her body with panic and makes her want to crawl under her desk.
No one makes Deena Johnson want to hide under her desk. Especially not perfect blondes like Samantha Fraser.
Sam doesn’t look over her shoulder. She doesn’t do anything but get her notebook out, flipping it to a clean page, and start writing. Deena hates her stupid perfect handwriting too, how it had even looked good on the blackboard last week when the teacher called Sam up to answer one of the questions that had been written there.
Deena chews on the inside of her cheek, absently flipping the cover of her textbook open and closed again as the teacher starts in about sonnets. Life in Shadyside is already hard enough, but if Deena had ever needed proof that God had well and truly abandoned this place, she gets it in the form of Sam Fraser.
And how she feels every time she sees her.
Stupid wobbly baby deer legs. Stupid pounding heart. Stupid Deena Johnson.
Rather than stare at the back of Sam’s head or take notes about the structure of a sonnet, Deena just turns her attention toward the window, staring out at the school’s front lawn, with its scraggly patches of grass and spindly trees. The weather is only just now beginning to change, cool in the mornings but still warm throughout the day, which accounts for most of the jackets and sweaters Deena can see hanging limply from the backs of everyone’s chairs. Some of the leaves are starting to change, reddening at the tips, and Deena watches them flutter in the breeze, taunting her for being stuck inside when she would much rather be anywhere else. Clearly no one has gotten the memo that knowing what a sonnet is is not going to help anyone in Shadyside.
Even still, Deena is never the first person to bolt for the classroom door when the bell rings. No, that would put her way too close to Sam, would only increase the chances that they would run into each other by accident. Better to slowly gather up her things, shoving them into her bag, shuffling out behind the rest of the stoners and those who are groggy and slow moving thanks to the naps they’d just been roused from. Not that Deena doesn’t glance down the hallway in the direction that she knows Sam goes for the last class of the day, one they, thankfully, do not have together. One class is hard enough to sit through, thank you very much.
Sam is impossible to miss, even among the other faces and bodies. A flicker of sunshine among a sea of gray. Or…you know…whatever. Deena turns away, heading in the opposite direction, gritting her teeth. All around her are people who go through their days without the barrage of thoughts that Deena has to contend with. They have normal, regular person thoughts. Not thoughts about Sam’s wrists or ankles or the way she brushes her hair aside after it falls past her shoulder when she bends down to write.
Deena tries to ignore all thoughts of Sam Fraser, or of anything at all really, as she sits through geometry, arms crossed over her chest and jaw set. She works the problems on the board purely to keep herself occupied, blowing through their effortlessly and starting over again lest the thoughts of Sam creep in.
Simon meets her at her locker after the final bell, giving her a shit-eating grin. “Kate told me to chase you down so you couldn’t claim you forgot about the homecoming thing.”
Deena rolls her eyes like that wasn’t exactly what she had been contemplating. “I didn’t forget. Stop smiling like that. You can’t actually be excited about this.”
“Hey, I’d probably be hanging out with you guys anyway.” Simon shrugs, effortless. “What do I care if we’re like painting posters or some shit instead of raiding Kate’s fridge.”
Deena smiles even as she rolls her eyes. “Okay, fine.” Most of her afternoons are spent with the two of them or some such combination, unless Kate has some after school commitment or Simon is at the grocery store. Even then, she and Kate have spent more than one afternoon following him around the Grab & Bag, asking inane questions whenever his manager looked like he wanted to chase them off.
As they start toward the library, Deena’s smile falters somewhat. “You don’t actually think we’ll be like…painting posters, right? Because-”
“We all remember the class president debacle,” Simon says seriously, expression grave. “I don’t think Kate is going to let you near another one of her posters.”
Deena makes a face, brow furrowing. “I swear it was supposed to be a duck.”
Simon just pats her on the shoulder sympathetically.
Every time Deena steps into the library, she regrets that she doesn’t do it more often. Something about the smell of the place has an immediate calming effect, slowing her heart rate and loosening some of the tightness from between her shoulders. The books around her always seem inviting rather than intimidating, the chairs and couches beckoning her to curl up, to lose herself in the pages or just in thoughts of a different life, even if just for a moment or two. The place is quiet, somber, the kind of chapel Deena thinks she would want to go to, cocooned in the ink and paper smells of a hundred different worlds.
All that relief and calm flies out of her body immediately the second Deena sets eyes on the group gathered around the table in the center of the library.
Kate is already holding court among a half dozen faces Deena recognizes from the cheerleading squad, all of them laughing at some joke that Deena had missed. All of them, including Sam Fraser, who ducks her head as she smiles, nose crinkled, dimple on display.
Deena actually jerks to a stop because she’s an absolute diaster not to be trusted, causing Simon to run right into her back. “Shit. What’s-”
“Hey!” Kate’s voice rings out across the library, earning a look from the librarian that she predictably ignores. “Finally. Hurry.” She beckons them with an impatient gesture and Simon pokes Deena in the back and really, what choice does she have but to remember how to walk forward, one foot in front of the other.
Because. Of course. Deena should’ve seen something like this coming. Did she really think Kate Schmidt was going to trust the success of her campaign for homecoming queen to Deena and Simon? Of course she would enlist people who would actually know a thing or two about homecoming and why they were supposed to care about it.
People like Sam Fraser, whose cheeks are still pink from laughing, who has thrown her hair into a messy ponytail, who has her elbows perched on the table in a perfect display of comfortability. Because why wouldn’t she be comfortable? People like Sam are made to inhabit whatever spot they’re in.
Simon takes the seat still empty beside Kate while Deena sits in a chair that has to be pulled over, forcing two of the cheerleaders to shift their own spots to allow her admission into the circle. They barely glance in her direction, which is just fine with Deena. She needs a minute to school her expression of surprise into one of annoyance.
“Okay, thanks everyone for your help,” Kate says, folding her hands on the table in front of her like a general ready to engage in diabolical warfare.
“Like we had a choice,” one of the other girls says and that gets another laugh from most of the people around the table and Deena can’t help but notice again that Sam ducks her head even as she smiles, like she might have cause to hide her reaction from everyone.
Kate takes the ribbing good-naturedly, mostly because they all know it’s true. And she doesn’t seem to mind. “Simon, paper.” She holds out her hand and Simon dutifully passes over a notebook and pen and Kate spends the next twenty minutes outlining her approach for winning the majority of the votes in what feels like a multi-pronged attack that never would’ve occurred to Deena in her wildest imaginings.
This shit is complicated.
“We need to divide and conquer,” Kate says finally, once she’s filled several pages with ideas and thoughts. “We have just a few weeks before the game and the vote and we need to make every second count.” She nods, pleased with herself. “So we’re going to tag-team this bitch, okay?”
Deena isn’t surprised that Kate has this all figured out already, appointing herself as the head of all the little factions she’s about to create, and Deena fully expects to hear her name partnered with Simon’s because, duh, but apparently both God and Kate Schmidt hate her because that’s not what happens.
No, not at all.
It feels like the sort of some made-for-TV diaster movie as Kate partners her with Sam, like a comet hurtling toward Earth, ready to crash and burn and blow up some pre-school or something. Because…surely she’s heard wrong. Earth can’t possibly be in the direct path of some million mile wide comet…and she surely can’t be expected to actually look Sam Fraser in the eye and make conversation with her over Kate’s stupid homecoming posters or something.
Right?
Deena is so busy glaring daggers at Kate that it takes her a second to remember that everyone else at the table can see her face too. Including Sam, whose efforts to smile at Deena quickly fizzle and flicker out, leaving the both of them looking anywhere but each other. Deena can feel the heat creeping up her neck and into her cheeks and hopefully it can be attributed toward blood-boiling rage toward Kate and not…anything else.
“Okay, good,” Kate says, snapping the notebook closed and getting to her feet. “I can practically taste victory already.”
Several other people at the table rush to assure Kate that she most definitely does, that she’s going to be queen, easy, and Deena is grateful because it means that no one is going to look at her and tell that she’s imagining taking the homecoming crown and shoving it down Kate’s throat.
“Okay…earlier…what the hell was that?”
Deena glares, managing to resist the urge to throttle Kate as they walk out toward the parking lot. “Exactly! What the hell was that? ”
Kate lifts her chin, going for innocent in a way that hasn’t fooled anyone since they were six-years-old. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really?”
Kate looks entirely unimpressed. “Why were you a dick to Sam?”
Deena sputters, walking around to the driver’s side door of the car and unlocking it. She’s tempted to forget to unlock the others, to drive off and leave Kate and Simon staring after her in the parking lot. Maybe then Kate will keep her dumb opinions to herself.
But the impulse passes quickly and Deena hits the unlock button, glaring at Kate from across the roof of the car. “I was not a dick to Sam. I didn’t even say one word to Sam.”
“Exactly.” Kate’s ponytail swings as she gives Deena a smirk before sliding into the passenger seat.
Groaning, Deena throws her backpack into the back seat, just barely managing to avoid taking Simon out in the process. Wisely, he remains silent about the projectile, and the conversation unfolding in the front seat.
Deena twists the key in the ignition, blowing out a breath before snapping her head in Kate’s direction. “Why did you have to fucking partner me up with her anyway? Why can’t I work with Simon?” She rolls her eyes, resisting the urge to smack her hands on the steering wheel. “This is so stupid! I can’t believe I’m sitting here talking about fucking homecoming and-”
“Relax, Deena,” Kate says, her expression softening, brow knitting together. “Simon and Jennifer both work at the Grab & Bag. It just makes sense, okay? And Sam is nice.”
Without bothering to answer, Deena puts the car into drive and heads out of the mostly empty parking lot, Boyz II Men on the radio. Her knuckles are white around the steering wheel and her teeth are pressed tight enough together that Deena knows her jaw is going to be aching later, but she can’t bring herself to relax. Not even with Kate’s eyes on her; not even when she can see the concerned look on her friend’s face out the corner of her eye.
“Seriously, Deena,” Kate says softly, tilting her head. “What’s going on?”
Really, Deena can’t hold Kate responsible for anything that’s happened over the past hour, or even the way that she’s feeling right now. It’s not Kate’s fault that Deena has never so much as said the word Sam around her before, or mentioned the dizzying, completely terrifyingly unwelcome feelings that Sam conjures up whenever she’s around. It’s too hard to find the words. Impossible. Even with Kate and Simon.
The summer before freshmen year, when they’d been sitting in Kate’s basement because everywhere else was way too hot to even consider, leaning against the back of her couch with the oscillating fan pointed right at them and Simon having gone upstairs to dig through the pantry, Kate had turned to her and reached for her hand, giving it a squeeze. “It’s okay if you like girls, you know.” The words had come completely out of nowhere, unrelated to anything they had been talking about earlier or ever and Deena had stared at her, had opened her mouth to assure Kate that she didn’t know what she was talking about, only to burst into tears, crying into Kate’s shoulder as she’d stroked her hair and held her close. Deena had never asked Kate how she knew or what had prompted the words, or even how Kate had managed to know that’s exactly what Deena had needed to hear, but it had taken a weight off her chest, had made all the broken, jagged pieces rattling around inside of her a little easier to carry.
But that doesn’t mean that she and Kate lounge around and gossip about all the girls that Deena thinks are cute.
Because Deena doesn’t think girls are cute.
And talking about Sam has felt as impossible as talking about all those strange and confusing feelings had been all those years before.
So, yeah. Not Kate’s fault.
Deena shifts in her seat, hands still death-gripping the wheel. “Nothing. I just…this is dumb. What do I know about homecoming…shit?”
“Exactly.” Kate nods, pointing a perfectly manicured finger at her. “That’s why you have Sam. My dream team.”
Deena turns up the radio to drown out the sound of her groan.
Deena wakes to the sound of the front door slamming shut and she groans, rolling onto her side, a glance at the clock confirming what she already knows. It’s barely five AM, which means it’s way too early to be awake and way too early to be slamming doors, not that anyone is going to be able to tell her father that. The house is quiet aside from the sound of his footsteps, the opening of the fridge door, the hiss of a pop top and the subsequent slamming of the bedroom door. She knows the man just worked a double, so she tries to dish out a little bit of sympathy, but it’s about as hard to come by as his efforts to be quiet so he doesn’t wake his sleeping children before school.
But now that Deena’s awake, she knows it’ll be impossible to go back to sleep. Which means she has two full hours before her alarm to stare at the ceiling and think about all the things she could be ignoring if her dad didn’t go around slamming doors in the early morning hours.
There’s a chance all of yesterday was just a dream, that Kate is going to look at Deena like she’s grown an extra head the second she brings up homecoming. A chance that Deena won’t ever actually have to talk to Sam. Or look at Sam. Or acknowledge being in the same room as Sam.
Unfortunately, even Deena isn’t that good at denial.
By the time the sky starts to brighten and the numbers on the alarm clock start to creep a little closer to seven, Deena has fully exhausted every possible scenario for Sam Fraser Interactions, and all of them end in spectacular diaster-movie-sized crash and burns. Exploding preschools and all. There is one thing worse than being completely and utterly ignored at Shadyside High and Deena thinks that’s being known as the creepy lesbian girl with the big, gay, embarrassing crush on a cheerleader. So, you know, she’s got that to look forward to because it seems unlikely that Sam will look at her and not see I daydream about you during English class stamped across her forehead.
Deena throws back the blankets, shuffling into the bathroom rather than engage in daily warfare with Josh, taking a shower and brushing her teeth before his alarm even goes off. She grabs her school books from where she’d taken them out of her bag last night in a half-hearted attempt to finish her homework, shoving them into her bag along with her drumsticks and Walkman and heads into the kitchen, just barely resisting the urge to slam every door and cabinet in retaliation for all the thoughts that have been running through her head thanks to the early morning wake-up call. Unfortunately her dad would likely win that particular battle and Deena doesn’t want to head to school in a worse mood than she’s already in.
Josh walks into the kitchen, giving her an unimpressed look when he spots her sitting on the kitchen counter eating from a bowl of cereal like a Dickensian orphan. “You look tired,” he remarks, pulling open the fridge door and studying the meager contents.
“Thanks,” Deena mumbles around a mouthful of cereal. “Takes a lot of effort to look this good.”
Josh scoffs, shaking his head at her. “Yeah, I can tell. Did you drink all the milk?”
“Yup.” Deena slides off the counter, putting the bowl into the sink. “Be in the car in five minutes or I’m leaving without you.”
Throughout the drive to Kate’s, Josh complains about the lack of milk, how it really is human decency to be more considerate and blah blah blah, all things that Deena ignores because she has more important things to worry about other than Josh getting his bowl of Corn Pops.
Which, for the record, she finished those too.
When Kate steps out of the house, looking far more put together than anyone has any right to be ever in Shadyside, Josh doesn’t even grumble like he usually does whenever Deena asks him to do anything. He just sits there in silence like he does every time he’s in Kate’s presence, struck blessedly mute.
Though Deena figures she can’t really judge Josh too much. Clearly the Johnson siblings are cut from the same cloth when it comes to dealing with a really pathetically unfortunate crush.
“Deena, don’t forget, I need you to actually help me out with this, okay?” Kate says as they pull into the school parking lot. “No punking out.” She turns around, looking at Simon. “You and Jennifer are going to get the stuff for the posters today, right?”
Simon gives her a thumbs-up as he shoves the rest of a Poptart into his mouth. “Yup. Two for one at the store.”
“I’m not going to punk out,” Deena mumbles, though it doesn’t seem like her reassurances are appreciated. “Your homecoming crown is, like, so important to me.”
Kate just gives her a grin. “That’s why you’re head of my committee.” She slams the car door closed before Deena can offer further commentary on the subject.
They shuffle through the metal detectors and the bored, overweight officer manning them, the same one who always looks at each of them like they’re smuggling in a bomb or an entire Nintendo system regardless of how cheerfully Kate greets him or how solid Simon’s glare of annoyance is. Most days Deena contemplates slipping something into her backpack, like a squirrel or one of her dad’s six-packs, just to give the guy something to really get worked up over.
The day goes as it always does, which is to say…slowly and without anything of note. Gym class, check. Biology, done. History, finished. Lunch is far less exciting than it had been yesterday, considering that Kate has already done just about all she can to rock Deena’s world and it, unfortunately, goes faster than anything else has so far. Which means there’s nothing left to do but go to English class.
She could skip. But then she wouldn’t get to see…
Yeah, she’s not going to survive this homecoming stuff.
Deena sits. She stares at the door. She watches as Sam comes in, wearing a skirt and a blouse with sleeves that stop just above the elbow, which gives Deena the opportunity to really study all the ways someone’s elbow can look, perched on a school desk. She’ll bomb the exam on Shakespeare, unless the dude wrote a sonnet about the inside of Sam Fraser’s elbow…which, if he didn’t, was definitely an oversight on his part.
When the bell rings, Deena feels like she can finally exhale, that she can loosen some of the tension in her body, ease the racing of her heart. All these knotted up, panicky parts of herself that she’s trying so hard to hide from the people around her, but especially from-
“Hi.”
Sam.
Deena looks up from the bag on her desk and directly into the eyes of the person whose elbow she now has committed to memory. “Um.”
Great.
Sam smiles at her anyway, tentative and polite, the kind of smile a kid might give to the friend of one of their parents that they’re being forced to meet. “So…um…” Sam shifts, her fingers around the strap of her backpack. “I thought you might want to…talk? You know…about this homecoming thing.” She rolls her eyes, though Deena isn’t sure if it’s just for her benefit or because she really finds the whole ordeal ridiculous.
Deena stands up because it’s better than being eye level with Sam’s waist (stop, Deena, stop) and shrugs. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever.”
“Okay. Good.” Sam follows her as Deena steps around the desks and toward the door, which seems somehow miraculous in and of itself. “We could always meet up after-”
“I kinda just thought, I dunno, you would just tell me what to do and I could do it.” Deena says, stopping outside the classroom door. “Like, just give me a list or whatever. I mean it’s not a group project. Kate isn’t going to take points off if we don’t work together.” She offers Sam a wry smile.
Which Sam does not return. Instead, she looks almost disappointed, which is a familiar expression on many a face around here.
English in not Deena’s favorite class by any stretch of the imagination, but she is grateful that it gives her the opportunity to let her mind wander most of the time and invent all types of scenarios. Scenarios in which she charms Sam with her wit and percussive skills and makes her laugh all throughout a first, very romantic, date. Scenarios in which both she and Sam get the hell out of Shadyside and get an apartment together in a big city where they can be anyone they want, where they cook dinner together each night and no one slams the front door at five in the morning.
Scenarios, even, where she talks to Sam and has a full-on, charming conversation where she says sweet things and gets Sam to smile.
It takes Deena five seconds to realize she’s actually having a full-on conversation with Sam right now and she most definitely is not smiling.
“Yeah, but…still…”
“Look, I don’t know how any of this works,” Deena says. “This homecoming…whatever. I’m only doing this because Kate’s scary and she’s my best friend. So, can we just…not make this a big thing?”
Can Sam hear the way her heart is beating right now? Can Sam look at her and see that Deena has been thinking more than a few things that someone normal would definitely not think about their female classmate? Is she going to realize at any minute that Deena is nervous and her palms are sweaty and figure out why that is?
Sam just rolls her eyes. “Right. So me doing all the work, that kind of thing?” She presses her lips (stop, Deena, stop) into a thin line. “You think I want to be running Kate’s errands after school? No, you’re stuck doing this with me.”
Deena is surprised by the smile that turns up the corners of her lips, completely unexpected given the situation. “Why don’t we just tell Kate to fuck off and run her own errands.”
It seems quite miraculous that Sam smiles, just enough to let Deena appreciate how much nicer her smile is up close. “Because she’s scary, like you said.”
“She’s small, we could totally take her.”
The smile on Sam’s face lingers for a little longer and it makes Deena forget, just for a second, about wanting to strangle her best friend for putting her in this position. “Why don’t we meet in the library tomorrow during lunch? We can figure something out.”
Deena is nodding before it even occurs to her what she’s agreeing to. Lunch tomorrow with Sam.
Or, time with Sam during lunch hour while they talk about Kate.
Either way, it’s too late to take her nod back, especially since Sam is already heading off in the direction of her next class and Deena is standing there short-circuiting rather than going to geometry.
Okay, well. That wasn’t so bad. She managed to have an actual sort-of-conversation with Sam without the sky falling and people bursting into flames. Maybe she can do this after all.
Kate better fucking win that stupid plastic crown or Deena is yanking it out of the hands of the actual winner and jamming it onto Kate’s head whether she likes it or not.
The following day, Deena takes a tray full of food that she’s not going to eat into the library and tries to maintain even the slightest semblance of cool. Since the start of freshmen year, she’s eaten in the cafeteria with Kate and Simon. She’s never had any cause to wonder about what goes on in the other areas of the school during lunch hour, but it looks like people actually spend that time in productive ways, not just scarfing down lukewarm squares of pizza and gossiping about their fellow classmates. The two clunky computers set up near the librarian’s desk are in use, the printer screeching for dear life as it desperately attempts to comply with the request to produce someone’s English paper, and there are a few people taking up space among the circular tables, lunch trays among open textbooks and sheets of paper. There’s even someone sprawled out on the couch with a Stephen King novel that looks like it could be used to bludgeon someone, and Deena is slightly jealous of how much more comfortable they look than she feels.
The nervous flutter in her stomach only grows when Deena scans the half dozen tables and spots Sam toward the back. Seeing her comes with a strange mixture of panic and relief; there had been a small (okay, maybe not that small) part of her that had thought maybe Sam was just messing with her and wouldn’t show up, laughing to herself at what a fool Deena Johnson was. But there is she, unaware of Deena’s presence, absently picking at her lunch as she flips the pages of the book open on the table in front of her.
Deena wants to know every single thing about her. What she’s reading now. What she likes to read. How it might feel to have Sam’s fingers brush her skin with the same absent gentleness that she uses to turn the pages. What does she hum to herself when she’s home alone.
She hates it.
Still, Deena forces herself to cross the library, to put down her tray and pull out the chair opposite Sam’s. “Hey.”
Sam looks up and Deena is surprised to see what looks like a flicker of relief in her own face, like Sam had shared similar doubts about whether this whole thing was actually going to happen. “Hi.”
“You look surprised to see me.” Of all the things she could’ve lead with, Deena isn’t proud that that’s what she went with. Even to her own ears, her tone is sharp and uninviting, a manifestation of the anxiety thumping inside her chest rather than the tiny, warm sliver of excitement.
Sam folds down the corner of the page she’s reading (oh, so she’s one of those types) and sets it aside. Interview With a Vampire… not what Deena would’ve predicted. “Well. You didn’t exactly sound like you were on board yesterday.” She shrugs. “I thought you were going to stand me up.”
Deena is grateful Sam can’t hear the way her heart stutters at that, about how her phrasing makes Deena think of dates, of dating, of dating Sam Fraser and how she would never in a million years leave her hanging if she were that lucky. She works at keeping her face as blank as possible, even though Deena is sure that does little to make Sam think she wouldn’t just back out of this whole homecoming thing.
Not that she doesn’t want to.
Because she really, really does. Especially because when Deena had mentioned that she wouldn’t be having lunch in the cafeteria today so she could meet with Sam, Kate had looked far too proud of herself, smug at her success in pulling Deena’s strings.
“Well, I’m here,” Deena says, like Sam is somehow the lucky one. “So are we going to figure this out or what?”
Sam sighs, eyes flicking toward the book beside her like she would much rather be dealing with bloodsucking monsters than Deena Johnson.
After a beat, Sam seems to decide something, gesturing toward the chair Deena has been standing behind, an invitation to finally take her seat like a normal person. It hadn’t even occurred to Deena, this thing that would be so effortless for the rest of the senior class: that she could sit inches away from Sam Fraser and somehow be allowed to be there.
“Have you thought about what Kate said at the meeting?” Sam asks, picking up one of the carrot sticks from her styrofoam tray. “About what we could hand out to make people want to vote for her.”
No, Deena has definitely not been thinking about this. Mostly because she hadn’t been paying attention to anything that Kate was saying once she’d figured out she would be occupying the same space as Sam Fraser. Still, she smirks. “You mean bribe.”
At least that gets a bit of a smile from Sam, who nods. “Yeah, pretty much. Still.” She shrugs. “People are pretty motivated when you give them things.”
Deena feels like a complete idiot, but she files this away anyway. What type of things would make Sam smile if Deena Johnson were to hand them to her?
She doesn’t get the ponder the answer to this question for long because Sam is continuing, ticking things off on her fingers as she lists them: “Candy, but that could get a little expensive. Buttons…ribbons…pencils?”
Deena scoffs. “No one is going to want pencils.”
At least this comment doesn’t seem to offend Sam. “Right. Dumb.” She rolls her eyes at herself and Deena almost regrets saying anything at all. “We could bake something. Cookies.”
It’s the memory of how Sam had looked following Deena’s previous comment that gets her mouth working before her brain can catch up. “Yeah. Good idea.”
The words leave Deena’s mouth before all the pieces click into place. Cookies. Baking. Something that Deena Johnson most definitely does not do.
Especially not with Sam Fraser.
Baking cookies with Sam Fraser.
What the fuck is wrong with her.
But it’s too late to take the words back, to swallow them up and make all of this disappear into all those hidden and secret parts of herself. Because Sam is smiling, nodding, with a flutter of relief crossing her features and Deena is a sucker, really she is, because of that dumb smile and the dumb dimple that goes along with it.
“Okay. Great. I think we should have the stuff at my place to at least get us started.”
And then Sam says the words that Deena has allowed herself to fantasize about in nearly every single English class she’s had since the start of the semester: “Do you want to come over after school?”
At the heart of it, her wildest desires, the things she longs for the most, can be boiled down to that simple phrase right there. Eight words and a tentative smile.
Deena most definitely does not want to go to Sam’s house after school. Her and Sam and no one else to buff and smooth out all those embarrassing parts of her that will surely be all too noticeable when there’s nothing else to take Sam’s attention.
But Deena isn’t even really sure the choice is hers. She nods, shrugs, looks at the cold food on her lunch tray. “Fine.”
At least Sam can blame her lack of enthusiasm on her hatred for all things homecoming. Deena isn’t even going to vote for Kate anymore, just to prove a point.
Deena takes a little too much joy in informing Kate that she needs to find another ride home because she’s going to be busy working on her stupid homecoming campaign, though Kate is not nearly as annoyed as Deena wishes she would be. It sours the victory, just a little bit. Instead, Kate just contemplates her reflection in the small mirror affixed to her locker, as though she might somehow be any less perfect than she was moments before. “Fine. I’ll get Tara to drive me.”
Deena rolls her eyes, leaning against the locker beside Kate’s. “I didn’t realize I’d be so easy to replace.”
Smirking, Kate closes the door, taking Deena’s cheeks between her fingers and smooshing them together. “You’ll always be my favorite chauffeur.”
She laughs when Deena swats her hand away, stepping out of range. “I really hate you, you know that right? Like definitely testing the limits of our friendship.”
Kate snorts as they head toward the parking lot with the rest of Shadyside’s desperate student body. “What limits? You know you love me, bitch.”
“I’m about to go bake cookies with Sam fucking Fraser,” Deena grumbles. “So, yeah, I think it’s pretty obvious.”
Kate’s sunny smile falters, a furrow appearing between her eyebrows. “Um…is that a good idea? I mean…does Sam know what happens when you get in a kitchen?”
Deena tries to get her hands around Kate’s neck to strangle the life out of her but Kate is unfortunately nimble on her feet. “You’re the fucking worst.”
“Hey, I’m just looking out for the rest of the student body,” Kate says defensively. “They can’t vote for me if they’re dead.”
The fact that Deena’s car is only a few feet from them is likely what saves Kate’s life. Deena gives her the finger as she unlocks her car, throwing her stuff into the passenger seat and slamming the door shut behind her. She isn’t sure what’s more annoying: the fact that Kate isn’t entirely wrong or the fact that she’s about to willingly subject herself to what is sure to be an extremely embarrassing experience.
But on the plus side, maybe Sam will leave her alone once she realizes the danger to humanity Deena truly is.
The address Sam scribbled down for her before they’d left the library sits on the dash, the edges of the paper Sam had torn from her notebook fluttering in the stale air as Deena sits behind the wheel, seemingly unable to remember how to put the car in gear. She could not show, could just…hide out at the Shadyside Mall for the next three hours or enter witness protection.
I thought you were going to stand me up.
There’s no forgetting the timid relief that Deena is almost certain she’d seen on Sam’s face when she’d realized Deena had actually shown. Or how easily she’d accepted that her suggestions for how to help Kate were ‘dumb,’ which, for the record, they were not. Something Deena definitely should’ve pointed out rather than just sitting there and glowering at the table.
Damn it.
Sighing, Deena shifts into first, studying the address Sam had written once more. They actually don’t live all that far from each other and Deena figures she must’ve driven by Sam’s house a dozen times before and never realized it. Now she’s probably going to have to take pains to avoid the address, especially if she completely destroys Sam’s kitchen or something.
There aren’t any other cars in the driveway when Deena pulls up to the curb and just because there isn’t a car in sight doesn’t mean she’s not about to waltz into some sort of meet-the-parents situation that will inevitably go terribly because everyone knows everyone in Shadyside and everyone seems to really dislike the Johnsons. Deena blames her father because she’s a goddamn delight.
The front door swings open before Deena even makes it halfway across the yard and she’s not even to the door before Sam is saying, “You can take your shoes off” only to shake her head and grimace. “I mean…sorry…hi.”
“Hey.” Deena glances toward the spot by the door where, as promised, several pairs of shoes sit lined up like sentries. “Shoes?”
Sam’s grimace doesn’t fade. “My mother…sorry…”
“It’s fine.” Deena toes off her beat-up Chucks, trying to nose them into an orderly pair like that might somehow make up for how ragged they look. “We do this at my house too.”
Sam gives her a slightly wary look. “Really?”
“Yeah, totally,” Deena deadpans. “Having shoes everywhere really distracts from the piles of beer cans.”
Sam rolls her eyes but she looks a little like she’s pretending to be annoyed, or maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Deena imagining that she might somehow be charming and witty…like she didn’t just throw out that comment about the beer cans her father leaves scattered all over every surface of the living room. Deena regrets it all the more when she sees just how spotless the rest of Sam’s house seems to be, or, at least, the parts of it that she can see as Sam leads her toward the kitchen. Everything about the place looks perfect, polished and gleaming to a shine and if you squinted and tilted your head, you might actually believe you were in Sunnyvale.
“I already got everything out,” Sam says, pointing toward the items waiting on the kitchen counter. More than a few things look completely foreign to Deena, whether she would admit it out not. “We should have enough to make a few batches.”
Deena lifts her eyebrows nearly to her hairline as she studies the assembled ingredients. “Wait…you mean like…actual baking and shit.” Sam looks at her like she’s completely lost it. “LIke…not from a box.”
Sam full on grins at the hopeless mess that is Deena Johnson. “It’s not that hard.” Her tone might be reassuring if she didn’t look like she was trying not to laugh. “I can show you.”
Well it’s not like Deena is going to back out now. Not now that she’s here, in the quiet of Sam’s space, just the two of them. Alone together. “Your funeral.” Deena shrugs, undoing the strap of her watch and laying it by the sink. “Okay. Now what?”
Sam shakes her head but her grin stays firmly in place.
As it turns out, spending time with Sam in real life is definitively better than hanging out with the Sam that Deena conjures up in her mind during English class. Real Life Sam proves to be quite adept in the kitchen, though Deena figures that her touchstone for what counts as capability is pretty low. She doesn’t even pull out a recipe before directing Deena toward mixing bowls and measuring cups, thankfully taking pity on her when it becomes clear that tablespoons versus teaspoons is a little bit out of Deena’s wheelhouse.
“How have you even survived this long?” Sam asks, fishing broken pieces of egg shell out of the bowl for what she called “the wet ingredients,” which Deena is still puzzling over. There are different kinds of ingredients? She’s screwed. “Or are you one of those people who is better at cooking than baking?”
Deena lifts an eyebrow, wisely deciding to hang back while Sam finishes with the egg shells. “Um…there’s a difference?”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Sam mutters. “Remind me never to eat anything at your house unless it comes in a package.”
At your house keeps bouncing around in Deena’s mind despite her best efforts to calm her wandering thoughts. “We eat a lot of frozen pizza,” she admits.
Sam pushes the bowl toward her and hands her the fork, which Deena takes with a careful precision that keeps her fingers from brushing Sam’s. “Start mixing this together. Then we’ll add it to the rest of this stuff.”
“Your job was, like, way easier,” Deena says defensively. “Anyone can put flour in a bowl.”
“And most people can crack an egg.” Sam shrugs, carefully wiping the counters down with a damp sponge. They haven’t even finished mixing things together, yet the proof of their previous steps has been almost completely erased by Sam’s meticulous cleaning. “And yet here we are.”
Okay, so. Maybe she’d been a little too gung-ho about the egg cracking thing. Who knew the shell would splinter like that?
Rather than defend herself, Deena just asks, “Where did you learn all this anyway? Your mom teach you?”
Deena doesn’t miss the quick face that Sam pulls, the way the scowl flickers across her features and disappears just as quickly. “No. I spent a lot of time with my grandmother when I was younger. She taught me.”
Here’s another way Deena is learning that Real Life Sam differs from the one she’s invented in her mind during her most indulgent daydreams: there are so many sides and facets to Sam that she doesn’t know, all these little things that extend beyond her favorite song and whether she likes books about vampires. Things that are somehow more important, like why she frowns every time she brings up her mother or why she’s giving up her afternoon to spend time baking cookies for someone else’s homecoming campaign.
It’s dangerous, this feeling that Deena can feel growing inside of her, spreading like a fungus. This ravenous desire to know every single thing about Sam Fraser.
Before Deena can actually form the words to ask -a perfectly normal impulse, she assures herself- Sam is reaching out a hand again, though thankfully she just slides the bowl away from Deena rather than getting close enough to let skin brush against skin. “Okay, that’s good. Now you can mix it all together.”
“You’re still trusting me to be able to handle that. Interesting.”
Sam combines the wet ingredients with the dry ones -see, she is learning- and then sets the bowl back in front of Deena. “Somehow I think you can handle this part.”
There’s a part of Deena that wants to somehow figure out how to fuck this up too, to be able to shrug and tell both Sam and Kate “well, I told you so” and wash her hands of the whole thing. But there’s also a new, slightly unfamiliar piece of her that wants to make the best goddamn cookies anyone in Shadyside has ever seen in their lives just on the off chance that she might earn another smile from Sam.
So Deena picks up the fork and dutifully starts mixing away. Kate would be so proud.
Sam picks up the bowl that is now past its usefulness, dropping it in the sink and switching on the water. Deena tries not to make it too obvious as she watches, though her gaze sweeps past Sam and toward the rest of the kitchen, which is just about as clean as everything else. There’s a trio of cookbooks stacked on the counter, their spines look fresh and unbroken, and on the fridge there’s one of those stupid free calendars that comes from every bank and car dealership, ones with the anonymous paintings and stupid aspirational quotes and Deena can’t help but notice that this one is advertising Goode Reality down at the bottom. She doubts people in Sunnyvale have a need for these cheesy calendars; what further aspirations could they have to strive for?
“You said you used to hang out with your grandma,” Deena blurts out before she even means to say anything at all. It would probably be safer to just stand here in silence, to bake these stupid cookies, and then get the hell out of here. And there’s nothing Deena Johnson understands better than a determined silence.
Still, she doesn’t exactly hate the impulse.
Even if she does regret the question, especially seeing the flicker of hesitation cross Sam’s face even as she keeps her focus on washing out the inside of the mixing bowl. It already looks spotless in Deena’s opinion, but what does she know?
“She…” Sam shrugs. “She died a few years ago. She was my dad’s mom anyway, so my mom didn’t really like me spending too much time over there.”
Deena lifts her eyebrows. “Your mom didn’t like her?”
“She doesn’t like my dad,” Sam says flatly, turning off the sink and setting the bowl onto the drying rack. “What about you? Your mom didn’t teach you how to use an oven?”
To Sam’s credit, Deena assumes that she means for the comment to be light. Teasing. A joke, even. But the residue of her previous comment sticks the words, making them sharp and accusatory.
“No.” Deena pushes the bowl toward Sam, who thankfully catches it despite her surprise. “Think that’s done.”
Sam looks at the contents, which surprisingly look how Deena imagines batter is supposed to, and seems to be completely on board with changing the subject. “Yeah. Looks great.”
The kitchen is already hot thanks to the pre-heated oven and the next step is easy and one that can be performed in relative silence, something Deena isn’t sure if she’s grateful for or not. Each question she has about Sam seems to lead to another and another, but having all these little facts about Sam Fraser dancing around in her mind feel about as useful as the list of plans to get out of Shadyside that Kate keeps in the notebook she hides under her mattress.
Instead, Deena loses herself to the repetitive motion of rolling the dough between her palms, pressing it flat, and turning it into something that looks vaguely cookie shaped. It’s completely ridiculous but she can’t stop the hint of a smile that creeps across her lips as she studies the trio of baking sheets on the counter, each one loaded down with a future, presumably edible, cookie.
Sam catches the grin before Deena can force it off her lips but it seems to loosen a bit of the tension Deena can see between Sam’s shoulders. “Looks good.”
She holds out her hand for a high-five and Deena thinks for just a moment about leaving her hanging, pretending somehow not to notice. But no one else in school would even have to debate the simple motion of palm-on-palm, a two-second brush of skin. So why should she? Because she’s normal, normal, normal.
Deena rolls her eyes even as she returns the high-five. “Go team,” she teases.
Sam shakes her head, still smiling even as she slides the baking sheets into the oven and sets the timer on the stove. Predictably, her focus goes immediately toward the clutter on the counter: the mixing bowls and measuring cups, the fine dusting of sugar and flour among what Deena is certain are a few more pieces of egg shell. She turns on the sink, grabbing the sponge.
“I can help.” Deena starts hesitantly toward her, half-tempted to tell Sam that that’s at least one thing she is good at: cleaning up after her father and brother.
But Sam waves her away. “I don’t mind. There should be some sodas in the fridge if you want to check.”
Deena moves on autopilot, just to give herself something to do. “You like a clean house, huh?”
If Deena has learned anything in English class, it’s that someone’s shoulders can move with a certain fluid grace that she never would’ve noticed before sitting behind Samantha Fraser. Sam shrugs and Deena makes herself look away from the small of her back. “My mom does.”
“She’s one of those, huh?” Deena remarks and when Sam looks at her, confused, she taps the calendar on the fridge, the one with its picture-perfect landscapes and inspiring quotes. “Like if you do everything just right you magically become as good as Sunnyvale.”
Sam presses her lips together and once again Deena regrets her words. Rather than wait for Sam to answer, Deena yanks up the fridge and spends an embarrassing amount of time staring at the shelves like she can’t see the red soda cans staring at her from the door.
Finally the sink switches off and suddenly Sam is standing right behind her and it’s all Deena can do to keep from jumping out of her skin. It’s one thing to be this close to Sam in the hallway or at school, but it feels completely different here in her kitchen.
Stop, Deena, stop.
Sam reaches past her and grabs the cans, pressing one into Deena’s hand. “We can hang out in the living room until they’re ready.”
“Oh yeah, right. They actually have to cook.”
Sam smirks. “Seriously how do you survive?” She leads the way into the living room, though she sits on the floor with her back against the couch rather than on the couch itself. “I doubt Kate would win homecoming queen if you give everyone salmonella.”
“ Me? I’m not taking responsibility for anything. Unless they turn out awesome.” Deena shrugs, popping the top on the soda.
Sam cradles the can between her fingers (stop, Deena, stop) and looks like she’s trying not to smile. “Oh, I see how it is.”
Another shrug. “Just how I roll.”
“I feel like I’m learning all kinds of things about you today.” Sam lifts her eyebrows.
Deena can’t resist the urge to say, “Oh yeah? Like what?” in a tone that she hopes is casually intrigued and not desperately panicked.
Hopefully Sam hasn’t used this time to figure out all the things Deena so desperately wants to keep hidden, things Deena thinks, even now, might be painfully clear in her eyes.
“Well, you can’t crack an egg for shit. But you didn’t have any problem doing the math to triple the recipe.”
Deena shrugs, glancing down at the pristinely white carpet even though she feels strangely like smiling. “Anyone could’ve done that.”
Sam makes a noncommittal noise. “And you’re a really good friend,” she adds. “Otherwise there’s no way you would’ve let me talk you into this.”
It goes without saying that Kate is not the entire reason that she’s sitting here right now, but Deena is fine with letting Sam think that. “Make sure you tell that to Kate. I need her to know how much she owes me.”
“Will do.”
It seems like too much to wonder if Sam wants to know even more about her than she seemingly already does, so Deena figures she needs to just content herself with what Sam has apparently already noticed. That feeling is back, that walking the edge of a tightrope sensation that makes Deena certain she’s going to slip right off, light-headed and unable to stop staring at the chasm of space beneath her. But that doesn’t stop her from saying, “I’ve learned some things about you, you know,” even though the safe thing to do would be to just keep her mouth shut and count down the minutes until she can get out of here.
Sam tilts her head, curious, and Deena doesn’t miss the way some of her hair slips free from behind her ear and how tempted she is to tuck it back.
Really, she should just go.
Instead, Deena shrugs. “You don’t need a recipe to bake, which honestly seems kinda like a super power. You hate couches apparently.” Sam smirks, rolling her eyes. “And you look really, really cute in your school pictures.” She points toward the frames on top of the mantle. “Seriously…are those braces…and…shoulder pads?”
“Oh my god,” Sam grumbles, pressing her forehead to her knees, drawn up to her chest. “I thought I would look cool. And I was like…eight so you can’t make fun of an eight-year-old.”
“No, I think I can,” Deena assures her. “I’m not above it.” Sam does look ridiculously cute, despite the apparent shoulder pads, though she can’t help but notice there’s only one picture where she’s smiling enough to show off the braces on her teeth. The next few years in the Samantha Fraser timeline feature a more demure smile and closed expression rather than the wide-open brightness of the eight-year-old.
“Let me see your school pictures,” Sam retorts, “so I can make fun of little Deena.”
“Excuse you, I was perfect,” Deena replies with a toss of her curls. “So good luck there.”
Not that there’s any fear of Sam figuring out this is not true, unless she managed to somehow dig up old Shadyside grade school yearbooks and count the number of years that feature a scowling, mismatched Deena Johnson. There are no school pictures at the house and definitely none on display.
“Somehow I believe it,” Sam says with a grin, finally working her nail beneath the pop top on her soda can. “ You weren’t wearing shoulder pads.”
It’s easier to focus on nodding and forcing a grin rather than wondering if Sam had really just said she was perfect. “Damn right.”
The timer on the oven goes off right as they’re talking about their English teacher’s twenty-minute-tangent on Christopher Marlowe and Deena is almost disappointed not to be talking about long-dead playwrights anymore. If Sam was in charge of every lesson then maybe she’d actually be learning something.
Deena dutifully stands out of the way while Sam lays the cookies out to cool and… “Hell. They actually look really good.”
Sam gingerly works one of the cookies off the baking sheet, wrinkling her nose as it burns the tips of her fingers, not that that stops her from breaking it in half. She hands one of the halves to Deena, nodding. “I think we make a pretty good team.”
The cookie tastes perfect on her tongue, all sugary sweetness and melty warmth, but it doesn’t warm her nearly as much as Sam’s words.
We make a good team.
The smile. The sincerity. The idea that if Deena suggested coming over again, or spending another afternoon together even without baking, Sam wouldn’t be against it. The possibility that feels more terrifying than promising.
She is so screwed.