Chapter Text
“Forbidden thoughts of youth
They will never know, they will never know
My forbidden thoughts of you
You will never know the truth
I swear I saw you smile at me
There was something in your gaze
Could it be, oh could it be
That you feel the same?”
1983
Realizing you have a crush on the mysterious new girl in school shouldn’t have been something to freak out about. But Grace was absolutely freaking out, because she realized she had a crush on the mysterious new girl.
She had been doing fine for the first part of the year. Sure, she may have barely survived the sheer awkwardness of her Freshman year at Niskayuna High, and sure, it didn’t leave her much hope for the rest of her time in high school, but she was a Sophomore now. She had a bit more confidence, enough to get Ethan Masterson’s attention, enough to get him to ask her on one date and then another, enough to make him want to go steady. Enough to finally leave Gross Adler behind (god, that nickname had stuck forever, she was glad to leave it in the dust). Enough to make Ethan’s friends become her friends (and he had a ton of friends), to be invited to parties (and there were a ton of parties). Enough to make her think she could have the high school experience that would truly make these years the best of her life.
And then after Winter break, this Senior waltzes in out of nowhere to finish out her last year and graduate with a class she didn’t know and didn’t seem to care to know. Dark hair falling past her shoulders. Wrapped inside a leather jacket even though the Schenectady winter made it a pointless garment most days. Hazel eyes that anyone could easily get lost in. No one knew exactly what brought her here so late in the year, and she wasn’t talking. She didn’t owe anybody anything. She wasn’t about to get close to anyone.
She was all Grace could think about. And she knew she wasn’t supposed to. But this girl was the most beautiful person she had ever seen, and in spite of everything, she liked the way it made her head swirl every time she looked at her.
She hid it well at first. It was easy to keep track of the conversations she was supposed to be a part of while her mind wandered. But as the weeks went on, and the new girl’s walls grew higher than ever, Grace became obsessed with finding the smallest piece of that puzzle, just one thing she could go off of. Instead, she only had her circle’s rumor mill to go off of. And she could only entertain that for so long. As Spring finally arrived in New York, the new girl was still the topic on everyone’s minds, with the entire school throwing out endless, ridiculous reasons why she was lurking around the halls. She was at the lunch table with Ethan and their friends as they settled in for another round of conspiracies.
“I heard she’s a kleptomaniac,” Jake Miller, Ethan’s teammate on the baseball team, started. “Just went around town lifting whatever she could and got caught too many times, so now she’s here for a clean slate. Better hide your backpacks just in case.”
Across the table from Grace, Katie Cooper’s eyes grew wide. “Jeez, you’re clueless. She’s a runaway. My mom told me. She couldn’t stand her mom’s boyfriend, so she swiped his bike and just took off.”
Jake crossed his arms across his chest. “See?” he said, clearly satisfied with himself. “Klepto.”
Ethan’s sister Mindy furrowed her brow. “Wait, she got here on a bicycle?”
Katie rolled her eyes. “No, you dork. A motorcycle. Rode through, like, five states before ending up here.”
“Oh. God, why would she want to stay in this hellhole?”
“Because nobody wants to stay in this hellhole. So who would ever think to look for her here?”
Ethan couldn’t help getting in on the action. “Nah, she’s not a runaway. I heard she got shipped off to live with her aunt ‘cause she got caught with another girl behind the bleachers at her old school. Her family couldn’t go anywhere without hearing someone talk about it.” His features pulled into a smirk, his brow arched. “Wonder how far they got before someone squealed on them.”
Katie reached across the table to give Ethan a playful hit on the shoulder. “You perv,” she laughed. It had been clear from the day Grace started dating him that Katie had a thing for him, harboring a jealousy that she thought she hid well. She always laughed wholeheartedly at the things that Grace couldn’t even muster a giggle for. “Grace, how do you put up with him?”
Grace could hear her name, hear the chatter spark back up around her when she didn’t answer, but she was too in her head to respond. Because where she sat, she had a perfect view of the new girl through the cafeteria window. It was the first day they opened up the courtyard for the Seniors to eat outside with no teachers monitoring the space, an escape that must seem like paradise compared to the confines of the obnoxiously loud cafeteria, one that Grace couldn’t wait to be part of. She could see the girl seated at a table by herself, ignoring the last of her salad in favor of a paperback that Grace wished she could see the title of. She wanted so badly to know what could hold so much of this girl’s attention that she didn’t register it at first when she watched her bring something to her lips. But then she saw the tip of it glow orange, saw the cloud of smoke that the girl exhaled.
The part of Grace that had always followed the rules was immediately squashed by the part of her that immediately became enthralled with the girl who didn’t give a damn about them. Ms. Kramer, the gym teacher on lunch monitor duty, could have easily walked by and taken a glimpse through the window. It could have easily been the thing that pulled her out of school just as quickly as she dropped in. But as Grace watched her, she saw nothing but peace surrounding the girl. All eyes had been on her but no one dared to make the first move and talk to her. It was a strange kind of invisibility, and Grace wasn’t sure if it could even be counted as such. But it clearly gave the girl a freedom that she was determined to take advantage of whenever she could.
Still, that freedom had to get lonely sometimes, and it was always nice to be noticed in the right way. Grace couldn’t help but want to be the one who could give that to her.
As if she read Grace’s mind through the glass, the new girl shifted her gaze from her book and locked eyes with her. Slowly, the girl’s lips curled into a smile, her cigarette barely an inch away from them. Instantly, Grace matched the smile she was given, hoping it wouldn’t get too much bigger than the girl’s; she didn’t want to scare her off. She watched as the girl shifted her book into her cigarette hand and put her finger to her lips, a playful plea to keep her secret. She sealed it with a wink that made Grace melt. Slowly, so that she wouldn’t catch the attention of her friends, Grace brought her hand to her lips to pull an invisible zipper across them. When the girl’s smile got bigger and her shoulders shook, Grace could swear she heard her laughter, even through the glass of the window and the raucous din of the cafeteria. She watched as the girl took another drag of her cigarette, not caring that she was staring, wanting to burn the image into her memory and keep it with her for the rest of--
“Grace?”
A jolt back into reality, and Grace found the entire table staring back at her. “Sorry, what?” she asked.
Katie threw her a confused look. “What were you staring at?”
She didn’t dare explain the thoughts that had been running through her head. So instead, she copped out. “I just zoned out. What are you talking about?” she asked, even though she already knew.
“The new girl. Why do you think she’s here?”
Grace tried her best to play it cool. “Dunno,” she shrugged. “Why don’t you ask her?”
Katie scoffed. “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t be caught dead talking to some klepto lesbo.”
Soon enough, the table switched up the conversation, but Grace was still circling the image of the new girl’s smile in her head. She wanted to catch another glimpse, but when she looked out the window again, the girl was gone, no trace that she or her cigarette were ever there. She glanced at the clock across the cafeteria and realized there were only a few minutes left in the period, but when she looked towards the trash cans, she couldn’t find her anywhere. Grace felt her shoulders drop as she grabbed her tray and made her way to the trash. She was distant the rest of the day, and she knew Ethan could tell. But she couldn’t help living in the memory of that girl’s smile, wondering what her laugh actually sounded like.
It was the day she realized that everything she was keeping bottled up was about to spill out all over the place.
She couldn’t be alone with Ethan without wishing he was someone else. It wasn’t like she ever truly felt sparks when he kissed her (if she was being honest, it wasn’t like she ever even had a crush on him in the time that led up to their first date at the bowling alley; it was just the first time a boy had seemed interested in her, and she knew she’d be a fool if she turned him down), but when he kissed her now--god, even when he held her hand--she could feel the overwhelming lack of…well, she wasn’t quite sure what was missing. But whatever it was, she couldn’t stop thinking that a certain someone wrapped in a leather jacket and a mystery could be the one that gave it to her.
Ethan did try; she had to give him that. He pulled out all the stops he could on their dates, tried to be as romantic as any sixteen-year-old boy knew how to be. He never left her alone at parties, always suggested that they could find an empty room in whatever random classmate’s house they were at that night so that they could have some privacy (even though she could always tell by the tone of his voice exactly what he intended that privacy to entail). He never called her a prude when she told him she wasn’t ready, even though she knew he was starting to get impatient. On the surface, it seemed like he really did care about her. And it made Grace feel guilty when he let her mind wander.
But god, she loved the places her mind wandered to. In the moments when her biology teacher was handing out the class’ freshly graded tests. In the moments when her English teacher’s lecture seemed particularly pointless. In the moments when she couldn’t stand the chatter at her lunch table, and she’d glance over at the window to see if she would be lucky enough to find the girl that had completely taken over her mind. She would think about what it would feel like to hold her hand, how she would melt when they kissed. She would think about riding on the back of that stolen bike, leaving everyone who couldn’t understand them behind. On the days when she could see her in the courtyard, she would think about all the different ways she could try to get her to flash that smile again. Some days, she didn’t need to do anything; the girl would simply look through the window and give her a gift.
It wasn’t fair to Ethan. But she could never let him know what was going on.
For a while, the only time Grace could focus on something other than the dark haired girl was during art class. There, she could channel all that frantic energy and leave it on the sketchpad, turning it into something that had nothing to do with the girl. It got to the point where she sought out permission to spend her study halls in the art studio, so that she’d have more time to take her mind off the singular track it had been on so that she could at least try to be okay around her boyfriend. She would take her colored pencils and sketch whatever came to mind, and by the time the bell rang, she would typically feel confident enough in her ability to make it through the rest of the day. In the middle of April, she was killing time during her study hall by sketching out a design for a living room done up in earth tones--lately, she had been taking comfort in interior design even though there was no room for it in her art classes--and had just finished filling in the loveseat with a muted green when the bell rang. She sighed, not quite ready for the buzzkill that was her algebra class, and took her time packing up her pencils. But by the time she was reaching for her sketchpad, she heard a voice over her shoulder.
“Hey, that’s pretty good.”
And her heart leapt into her throat.
Grace turned around to find the dark haired girl smiling at her before taking the seat beside her and unloading her bag. She couldn’t believe she had gone nearly four months without hearing this girl speak. When she finally did, the voice was a bit higher than Grace had imagined it, but it sounded like a song she didn’t want to get out of her head. She watched as the girl pulled out a sketchpad of her own and set it down on the table. “My house could use some of that magic,” the girl continued. “It’s so boring; it’s like we’re actively trying to drive people away.”
Come on, Grace. Say something. Anything.
“It’s nothing, really. Just some doodling.” She rushed to close her sketchpad and hoped to god the heat rising to her cheeks wasn’t as obvious as she felt it was. She glanced over at the girl’s sketchpad, seeing fashion sketches go by one by one as the girl tried to find a blank page. Gorgeous gowns, stunning suits, sweaters in patterns Grace wouldn’t have thought of in a million years. She couldn’t believe she got a peek at a talent that no one else knew; she couldn’t believe she had this piece to the puzzle all to herself. “Uh…” she fumbled, willing the words to come out. “You’re pretty good, too.”
The way the girl’s eyes brightened was incredible. “Thanks. These are actually a few redos. I sent a portfolio to a couple schools in case I ended up wanting to go to college, but as soon as I sent it off, I wanted to change a few things. Go figure, huh?”
The girl finally found a blank page, and Grace was disappointed that she didn’t get a bigger window into her art. “I’m sure those schools will love you.” God, could she sound like any more of a dork?
The girl just smiled. “I guess we’ll see.” And then in the next breath, “I’m Karen, by the way. Just in case you wanted to put a name to the girl you’ve been sort of having lunch with.”
Grace had a name. She had a voice. And she had the sinking suspicion that spending her study halls in the art studio wasn’t going to do anything to quiet the thoughts in her head anymore. “I’m Grace,” she managed.
“Well, Grace,” Karen grinned, “as much as I'd like you to stick around, I have a feeling you’re about to be late for class…”
Oh. Right. Algebra.
“But I’ll see you around.”
At that, Grace couldn’t help but smile. “Sure. See you around.” And with that, she slid her sketchpad into her backpack and rushed to her next class, her pace matching the way her heart raced. She made it to her seat just before the late bell rang, catching her breath while Ethan looked on next to her.
“You okay?” he asked as she rummaged in her backpack for her homework.
No. She wasn’t okay. But she wasn’t okay in the best way. “Yeah,” she said, her smile more for the girl she left behind than it was for him. “I just got caught up in the art studio.” At least she didn’t have to lie to him this time. But she knew it was about to get a whole lot harder for her to pretend that she didn’t think about Karen. She knew there was a very real chance she would mess up somewhere down the line, and that when she did, her whole world would probably implode.
In that moment, though, she decided that it didn’t matter. She was determined to talk to Karen again.
It wasn’t like the two of them really had opportunities to hang out. Karen was well aware that she was the outcast of the school, and she seemed to be sensitive to the fact that being associated with her would do some major damage to Grace’s social life. But they had their workarounds. They still had those glances at lunch, but those glances could only do so much. And Grace never knew what to do to get Karen’s attention without also getting everyone else’s in the process.
Thankfully, Karen was an endless well of ideas.
There were the days when the Sophomore gym class was wrapping up their field hockey game while the Senior gym class was running laps on the nearby track. Grace hadn’t thought to even glance over at the track before, too focused on making sure she didn’t make a fool of herself on the field. By the time Ms. Kramer blew the final whistle, she was a sweaty mess, her face beet red as she tried to catch her breath. But one day, as she passed by the track to head back inside the school, she heard the voice she was beginning to think she had made up completely.
“Looking good out there, Red.”
Grace froze, the rest of her class passing by her as she dared to turn her head to find Karen with the same smirk that had been burned into her memory, her fingers hooked around the wire fence, making the school’s gym uniform look better than it ever had a right to look. The redhead thanked god that the blush rising to her cheeks wouldn’t be noticeable as she tried to match the dark haired girl’s smile. “I’m a total disaster at field hockey,” she managed.
“Oh, come on. I saw the goal you scored. It was impressive.” Karen stretched out her fingers like she was inviting Grace to make the contact. She didn’t pull back when Grace reached out her hand. Grace wondered if she felt the same fireworks from the other side of the fence when their fingers brushed against each other. It was a moment that could have gone on forever, if it weren’t for the way the world around them kept moving.
“Delaney! What are you doing? Get in gear!”
In an instant, both of them pulled away, Karen looking over her shoulder to find her visibly annoyed teacher waiting for her. She let out a sigh and rolled her eyes. “Right, ‘cause running around in circles for half an hour isn’t a giant waste of time at all.” She gave Grace a quick wave before heading back to the track. Grace didn’t start walking back to the school until Karen had rounded her first curve.
From then on, Grace had trouble keeping her head in the game, constantly looking to the track to see if she could catch a glimpse of how good Karen looked out there.
There were the minutes between Grace’s study hall and Karen’s art class. Ever since that first time, Karen automatically slid into the seat next to Grace like it was second nature, always with the same question on her tongue: “Whatcha workin’ on today?” Grace had gotten better at leaving her sketchpad open instead of instinctively flipping it shut at the first sign of attention, but still wasn’t great at explaining her work, or at receiving compliments on the things she put her passion into. Still, she slid her sketch of the day over to Karen and watched as the dark haired girl studied it with an intent that couldn’t possibly be faked, waiting for the moment of truth, waiting for the moment the novelty finally wore off and Karen told her she lost that magic touch. It was a moment that never came. It was a moment that was always replaced by the reality of Karen’s “This is beautiful, Red” and “Lord, I want to live there” and “I never would have thought to use those colors together.” And that reality was never something that she could get used to. She wished she could say thank you like a normal person instead of feeling those words knot themselves in her throat, making it impossible to say anything else besides the one question she always asked.
“What are you working on?”
It always got that smile out of Karen, the one that shot straight to her eyes and blinded Grace in the best way. It always opened the door to a world of gorgeous women in gorgeous outfits, one that Grace wished she could jump into. She wondered what she would look like in Karen’s hand. Maybe Karen could tame her curls and put her in a gown she could only dream of wearing. Maybe she would look as beautiful as the other models on those pages. Maybe she could get a sense of what Karen thought of her if she ever found herself in that sketchpad.
She wouldn’t have to wonder for long. Because soon enough, there were the days when Grace would find notes in her locker, slipped into the slats in between periods. Well…they weren’t notes so much as they were prompts. She had no idea how Karen knew which locker was hers--the first couple of times, she looked for Karen in an attempt to catch her walking away--but every once in a while, she’d find a piece of notebook paper that wasn’t there before, always with an idea for Grace to design. Sometimes they would just be one sentence: I want to see the coziest living room you can dream up. Make me a bedroom I never want to leave. Sometimes, Karen would give her swatches of color scribbled from her pencils: shades of blue with a challenge to make an appealing monochromatic room, wild combinations that no one in their right mind would think went together with all the faith in the world that Grace could be the one to make it work. One day, Grace found every color in Karen’s arsenal on the paper with a note at the bottom: I want to live inside of a rainbow today. She’d spend her study halls hard at work on Karen’s requests, and she’d spend those minutes during her big reveals marveling at how much Karen seemed to love each one. She never had someone believe in her this much before. She had tried showing Ethan what she had been working on in the past, but he never seemed interested in the things she was interested in. But Karen made her believe that she could turn this into something big.
And then came the day, a week before school let out for the summer, when she found the note that wasn’t a prompt at all.
The last bell of the day had rung, and Grace was headed towards her locker to pack her books and go home when she saw Karen slip something into her locker. She picked up her pace, hoping to catch the girl before she disappeared, and as Karen started to walk away, she couldn’t help herself; she called out to her. “Wait!”
Karen stopped, turned around to watch Grace shorten the distance between them.
“How come you waited ‘til the end of the day?” Grace asked when she finally got to her locker. “You think I need more time to draw or something?”
Karen let out a small laugh and shook her head. “Nah, it’s not a challenge. You’ll see when you open it.”
She thought Karen would walk away. But as she twisted her combination into the lock and opened up the door, she felt Karen’s eyes on her, waiting for her to take the piece of paper that was inside and open it up. When she did, she found one of Karen’s sketches, a stunning emerald gown, off the shoulder, the skirt perfectly pooling at the model’s feet. She was so caught up in the design that she didn’t think to look at the model herself at first. But when she finally let her eyes travel to the model’s features, her breath hitched.
Grace saw herself staring back at her.
It was unmistakable. Those were Grace’s eyes, Grace’s red curls styled in a way she would never be able to achieve herself. This was how Karen saw her. And no matter how weird it was to think this about herself, Grace couldn’t help thinking that this sketch meant that she was truly beautiful. And she couldn’t believe that this girl who barely knew her saw her in a way that her boyfriend, who had been in her life for much longer, never really seemed to. She wanted to tell Karen how much this meant to her. But when she looked back up at Karen, the dark haired girl was already starting to make her exit.
“See ya tomorrow, Red,” she smiled before turning to leave.
Grace watched her go, vowing to herself to make sure that Karen knew exactly what she thought of this gift when she saw her again. Because it was a gift. It was incredible. It was--
“What is that?”
It was about to destroy everything.
Grace turned around to see Ethan looking at the sketch, with Katie just behind him craning her head so she could get a glimpse too. Before she could stop him, Ethan grabbed it from her hands so that they could get a closer look. Grace’s heart sank to her stomach. “Did you do this?” he asked.
“No, I found it in my locker.” Grace hated how small her voice sounded.
“Oh my god, is this supposed to be you?” Katie scoffed. “Maybe you’ve got a secret admirer.”
Grace couldn’t look at either of them, couldn’t believe this was happening. And just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, she heard Ethan speak up. “What the hell is she doing near the Sophomore lockers?”
She felt sick. She knew Karen hadn’t completely disappeared from sight. And she knew there was only one way this was going to go.
“Ew, you think she was the one who put it in your locker?” Katie asked, an evil laugh bubbling to the surface.
“Wouldn’t put it past her,” Ethan chimed in.
“What a creep. Jake was right, she is a lesbo.”
Grace wanted to run. After Karen, to the other side of the school, straight outside until she couldn’t run anymore. She didn’t care where; she just needed to get out of here. But then she heard the sound of paper being crumpled up, and her eyes shot straight to Ethan balling up the sketch in his hand. And her outrage got the better of her.
“Stop it!” she blurted out, snatching the paper from his hand even though the damage was already done. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What?” Ethan asked, genuinely confused. “It’s not like you were gonna keep it, right?”
In that moment, she couldn’t believe she ever let this boy anywhere near her. “Do you always have to be such a jerk?” she shouted before she stormed off. She could hear Ethan and Katie call after her, but she didn’t stop until she walked out of the school and into her mom’s car waiting for her in the pickup area. She spent the ride home avoiding her mother’s questions about how her day went, trying to smooth out Karen’s sketch as best as she could and trying her hardest not to cry.
She knew her relationship was over; she couldn’t be with someone who treated Karen or her gifts like that. She just needed to say it out loud.
Grace decided to wait until school ended the next day to break up with him; it was best to do it once he had dropped her off at home, when they could be alone without any chance of Katie or Jake or any of his other friends interrupting them. Ethan had to know it was coming. For months, they had been miles apart when they were in the same room. He had stopped trying to find an empty room for them to be alone in at parties. Lately, it had felt different when he kissed her, like something was off, something deeper than the usual lack of sparks Grace felt. She would be doing them both a favor. He could find another girl over the summer and forget about her completely. She would be free to finally figure out what all these feelings about Karen meant for her. They would both be fine.
The final bell rang, and Grace rushed out of her last class to gather her things and meet Ethan at his car. She wanted to get the car ride over with so she could do the thing that had been on her mind all day. But when she got to Ethan’s car, she saw him leaning against it with Katie, making out for everyone filing out of the building to see.
In an instant, everything around her went dark. It wouldn’t have felt real if it wasn’t for the way her heart was pounding in her ears, the way her legs nearly gave out at the sight of it. She tried to find her voice, but couldn’t at first. She cleared her throat, hoping it would get them to stop, but they didn’t seem to hear. Eventually, though, everything she was feeling made its way to the surface.
“Are you kidding me?!” she shouted.
That was it. That was the thing that got them to break away and look at her. She didn’t know what was worse: Katie’s smug smile or the way Ethan seemed completely unfazed by getting caught. Her (ex) boyfriend put his arm around Katie and shrugged. “I was tired of waiting around for you,” he said.
“You didn’t think you should talk to me first?!”
“It wasn’t like you ever talked to me. Come on, Grace, we both know this was over a long time ago.”
She didn’t care that he was right. “You could have broken up with me before shoving your tongue down her throat,” she bit out.
Katie rolled her eyes at Grace. “You could have told him you didn’t care about him instead of stringing him along for months,” she said before she turned to Ethan. “I told you that you never should have gotten together with Gross Adler. Come on, let’s get out of here.” They got into Ethan’s car and sped off, leaving Grace behind in their dust.
Grace didn’t understand why it hurt so much when she was planning to break up with him anyway. But as she stood there, she couldn’t stop the tears from falling, couldn’t stop wondering if this was a brand new thing or if it had been going on for a while. For all she knew, that was part of the distance that had been growing between them. For all she knew, this had been going on before Karen ever set foot inside the school. For all she knew, some of the kids staring at her were in on it and didn’t have the heart to clue her in. For all she knew, she had spent her entire Sophomore year being an idiot for following this boy around. She wanted to get all of these eyes off of her. She wanted to disappear.
“Need a ride, Red?”
Grace startled at the voice, tried to wipe away any trace of tears before she turned around. She had no idea how long Karen had been standing there smoking her cigarette or what she witnessed, but it didn’t much matter, because this dark haired girl was looking at her with the softest smile she had ever seen. Grace had to hug her books closer to her chest to keep her heart from beating straight out of it.
She wanted to say that she’d ride anywhere Karen wanted to take her. Instead, she took a breath and said, “Oh, you don’t have to. I can walk it.” Her house was a fifteen-minute drive from the school, but bowing out seemed like a better option than being locked in a car with Karen and waiting for the inevitable moment when she made a complete fool of herself in front of the coolest girl she’d ever met. She’d just wait for Karen to leave, go back into the school, and ask the secretary if she could call Janet to pick her up.
Her older sister would be pissed, but at least it would be a situation she could handle.
Karen let out a small laugh. God, how was it possible for those eyes to light up even more? “Please, don’t be silly. It’s no trouble at all. Come on. I’m parked around the corner.” She looked down at the books covering Grace’s chest before their eyes met again. “Uh, you may wanna put those in your backpack,” she said before motioning for Grace to follow her.
Grace tried her hardest to hide how eager she was to follow. “How come?”
Karen arched her brow. “You’ll see.”
When they turned the corner, every nerve in Grace’s body started sparking like fireworks. Because soon enough, Karen made her way towards the crimson motorcycle resting in the first parking spot they came to. Grace watched as she opened the top box and pulled out a helmet, holding it out to her. “Your chariot,” she joked. But Grace couldn’t answer. All she could think about was the endless speculation Ethan and his friends kept spreading across the lunch table. All she could think about was Karen making a swift exit on the bike she stole from her mom’s boyfriend, realizing that if it was true, then this had to be the same one. All she could think about was the fact that she didn’t even know what the boyfriend had done to make Karen run, but whatever it was, she was pretty sure he deserved a stolen bike.
All she could think about was that she’d have to wrap her arms around Karen’s waist, hold her close and hold her tight, for the entire journey home. It made her nervous and thrilled to hop on the bike at the same time, and she moved a little too quickly to shove her books into her backpack. The stack began to slip from her hands as she maneuvered her bag. And if it weren’t for Karen’s quick reflexes, swooping in to hold them in place with her free hand, they would have dropped to the ground in an instant.
“Easy there, honey,” Karen smiled as she saved Grace from the embarrassment of being a total klutz. Her voice sounded golden sweet when she let the nickname slip from her tongue. “There’s no rush.” She looked at the helmet in her grasp before meeting Grace’s eyes. “Here, how’s about we trade? The helmet for your books.”
Grace nodded in silence as she took the helmet from Karen’s hold. She kept still as the dark haired girl grabbed her books, carrying them in the crook of her arm as she worked the zipper of Grace’s backpack and slid them into their resting place. “Your bag might be able to fit in the top box if you want to put it in there,” Karen said as she zipped the backpack back up. “But you’ll be fine if you wear it for the ride.”
Grace didn’t move to put the backpack in the top box; she just watched as Karen closed it back up and got on the bike. She turned her gaze to Grace, waiting but in no rush to leave, as if she wanted to make sure Grace knew she could take her time. Slowly, Grace put the helmet on and settled in behind Karen. When she put her hands on either side of Karen’s waist, her nerves took over her entire body. But that was nothing compared to the way it felt when Karen took her by the wrists.
“You’re gonna have to do better than that if you don’t wanna fall off,” Karen said as she guided Grace so that she was hugging her. Grace got close enough to smell the intoxicating mix of smoke and a floral perfume she couldn’t quite place, and even though her nerves were still off the charts, it was a blend that made her feel safe. “I’ll go as slow as I can, but hold on tight anyway, okay?”
“Okay,” she answered, her voice wavering. Grace got it together enough to tell Karen where she lived, and soon after, they were on their way. She was thankful that there wasn’t any room to talk during the ride; she was too flustered to make small talk. So she spent the journey hoping the rumble of the bike masked the way her heart was jackhammering against Karen’s back and taking in how brilliant it felt to be so close to her. She wanted this ride to keep going forever; once they hit the red light closest to her house, she wondered what would happen if she told Karen to just keep going until they ran out of gas, not caring where they ended up. Karen seemed like the type of girl who would go along with it. If they did, maybe they could find a place where they wouldn’t have to hide the fact that they liked each other, where the people there understood. It sounded a lot better than the hellscape that was surely waiting for her at school tomorrow. It sounded a lot better than trying to survive the rest of her time at Niskayuna High, especially if Karen got into one of the colleges she sent her portfolio to. Especially if Karen left Schenectady behind when she graduated next week.
She got lost in the fantasy long enough to realize that Karen had moved past the red light and powered down the bike outside of her house. She kept her hold on her longer than she should have, reluctant to let go. But when she finally did, she took the helmet off and tried to get off the bike as gracefully as possible. “Thanks for the ride,” she murmured.
“Anytime, honey,” Karen chirped. “It wasn’t too bad, was it?”
Grace’s smile started to play across her face. “It was pretty great.”
“Well, I don’t want to keep you. I’m sure your parents are probably waiting for you.”
“Actually, no one’s home.” Her dad was working late. Her mom was in rehearsals over at the community playhouse. Janet was going to hang out with her boyfriend once she clocked out at her job. Her younger sister, Joyce, went over to her friend’s house after school for dinner. If they wanted to, they could have a little more time to themselves. “Would you…maybe want to come in?” And then, realizing how bold that was, she tried to walk it back. “I mean, I’m sure you have somewhere else to be, don’t feel like you need to keep me company or anything.” She expected Karen to take the out, grab her helmet and get the hell out of here. But Karen surprised her; she got off the bike, took the helmet and put it back in the top box.
“I’d love to come in,” she said. “Lead the way.”
Grace rushed them inside the house and up the stairs; she didn’t want to risk Karen stopping to study the museum of embarrassing baby pictures her mother decorated the place with. “My room is the second door on the left,” she said. “I’m just gonna use the bathroom real quick.” She watched Karen make her way into her room before slipping into the bathroom she shared with her sisters to check herself in the mirror, convinced that she looked terrible after crying over Ethan. Her eyes weren’t nearly as red as she thought they would be, but her hair didn’t really survive the helmet. She ran a brush through her hair as quickly as she could to get her curls to look something resembling presentable. And without thinking, she grabbed the tube of strawberry lip gloss off of the sink and put it on. As she did it, she couldn’t really explain why; she only ever put this on while she was getting ready for a date with Ethan. But as she pressed her lips together and checked the result in the mirror, she had to admit that it did make her feel better to have it on. Even if there was no reason for it.
She gave herself time to take a couple fortifying breaths before joining Karen in her room. When she walked in, she saw Karen holding the snowglobe she got from a family vacation in Orlando a million years ago, turning it upside down and back again to watch the glitter fall. It took the dark haired girl a moment to realize she was being watched, but when she did, she shifted her gaze to the redhead in the doorway. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m not gonna pocket it or anything. I’m not a klepto.”
In her head, Grace was cursing out the friends she used to have for getting sucked into the rumors. “So you’ve heard what people are saying about you.”
“Kind of hard not to.” Karen made her way to Grace’s bed and sat down at the foot of it. “Go ahead, ask me. I know you want to.”
“Ask you what?”
Karen smirked. “What, you don’t wanna know if the rumors are true?”
Of course she did. But not for the reasons everyone else wanted to. She just wanted to get to know her better. “People like to say stupid things,” she said as she shook her head. “I know none of it’s true.”
“Well…parts of it aren’t true.” Karen patted the mattress next to her, motioning for Grace to sit down with her. She waited until Grace settled in to continue. “I wasn’t shipped off to live with my aunt, but I did technically run away.”
“Because of your mom’s boyfriend?” Grace asked before she could stop herself. She winced as soon as it came out of her mouth.
Karen slid her hand over Grace’s like she was telling her that it was okay. “I mean, he didn’t help things. But Lois never really got the hang of being a mom, you know? So a couple years ago, I just decided I was done. I’ve always been pretty close with my aunt and I knew she’d be cool with me staying with her for a bit, so I got on my bike and made the move. My bike,” she amended, “not Bernie’s…I saved up for it.”
Grace couldn’t stop staring at Karen’s hand on hers. The warmth of it in that moment was everything. “How did you end up in Schenectady?”
“My aunt moved here for work just after Christmas, so I figured I’d tag along to finish out high school and figure out where to go next after I graduate.”
Grace knew what she wanted to ask next. She knew it was more for herself, to see if it could help her confirm the way she thought Karen was looking at her lately. “So you didn’t leave because you got caught with your girlfriend?”
Karen laughed. “Hate to break it to ya, but my story’s not as scandalous as everyone wants to think it is.” Oh. Well. Maybe Grace did just hype it up too much in her mind. Maybe she-- “I did have a girlfriend back home, but we never got caught. We were actually pretty good at keeping it on the down low.”
Oh.
“Does she know you’re here?” Grace asked, finally daring to look Karen in the eye.
“She knew that Lois was pretty unbearable, and she knew that I wanted to leave home. I filled her in about my plan as I came up with it. Which wasn’t fair to her, because she knew it meant we’d have to break up. But I made sure I said goodbye to her before I left. I didn’t want to be an asshole and leave her without a proper breakup.”
So she did see everything that happened at school; Grace could tell in her voice that it was a dig at Ethan. She flinched as a reflex, but it only made Karen tighten her hold on Grace’s hand.
“I’m sorry about your boyfriend,” Karen murmured.
Grace wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about it, but she knew this was a safe space. “It probably should have ended a long time ago. I was actually going to break up with him when he drove me home today, so I don’t know why it stings so much.”
“I do. That kind of thing always hurts. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t love him.”
God, she was so caring. How could no one else in school see this girl for who she was? “I didn’t,” she said, the first time she actually said that out loud. “I think I was checked out for a long time. I think…” Don’t do it, Grace. Don’t spill everything, no matter how safe it feels. “I think I started liking someone else.”
Shit.
Karen arched her brow. “Is that so?”
Well. There was no going back now. “Yeah,” Grace said, hating how unsteady she sounded. “I just didn’t know what to do with that. I still don’t. Because I like someone I don’t think I’m supposed to.”
“Says who?”
Grace couldn’t respond; she just shook her head. “The world” seemed like way too dramatic of an answer, even though it sure felt like it. Everyone at school had pretty much written Karen off the second she got here, and if the dark haired girl felt like she had to hide her relationship with her girlfriend back home, there was definitely a good reason. But now she felt like she just talked herself into a hole she couldn’t climb out of. She shifted her eyes to her lap, cursing herself for talking too much.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Karen said softly. Grace wasn’t sure she believed her, and she knew Karen could tell. Because after a beat of silence, she followed it up with, “Can I let you in on a little secret, Red?”
Grace nodded, waiting for the secret. But then Karen took Grace’s chin in her hand and gently guided her to her gaze.
“It’s really fun, doing what you’re not supposed to.”
And before Grace fully realized what was happening, Karen guided her closer, until their lips met.
This. This was how it was always supposed to feel. This was what Grace was waiting for, what she never got, every time she kissed Ethan. Sparks that turned into fireworks, that lit up her entire being. Everything fading away except for the person in front of her. Time standing still, like they could make the whole world wait for them. Grace inched closer to Karen until there was no space left between them, kissing Karen back when she pulled away like she was gauging whether she just made a massive mistake. She felt Karen’s arms snake around her, and it was the first time she ever felt like she was exactly where she was meant to be. She couldn’t believe this was real. She couldn’t believe that Karen felt the same way.
It may not have been Grace’s first kiss. But it was the first one that counted.
When they eventually pulled away, Karen giggled. “Ooh,” she said, placing a fingertip to Grace’s lips. “Strawberry.”
Grace let out a burst of laughter that filled the room. “What was that for?” she grinned.
Karen shrugged, but she matched Grace’s smile. “You deserve to be kissed by someone who can see how special you are. Someone who really likes you, too.”
There wasn’t really any room left for doubt after that kiss. But it still took Grace by surprise. “You do?”
Karen nodded. “You were the only one at school who never gave into any of those stupid rumors. You treated me like an actual person. And then I got to know you a little better, and I couldn’t help it. But you had a boyfriend, so I figured you were just being nice to the new girl. I was so sure I messed everything up when I gave you the sketch.”
There was no point in holding back the truth now. “The sketch was perfect. Karen, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since you got here. All I wanted to do was be around you, but it freaked me out.”
Karen brushed her hand along Grace’s cheek. “Are you freaked out now?”
Her nerves were still on fire, but for all the best reasons. “Nope,” she murmured. “Definitely not freaked out.”
“Good.” Karen leaned in again. “I’m glad, honey.” And she went in for another strawberry kiss. She pressed her body against Grace’s as Grace wrapped her arms around Karen, burying her face into Karen’s hair when the dark haired girl’s kiss traveled to her neck. Maybe they never did ride until they found a place with people who understood them, but at least they were able to create their own little world now. At least they were in a world that convinced Grace that they were the only two people in existence. At least--
“Anyone home?”
Immediately, the spell was broken, and they pulled away at the voice coming from downstairs. Grace tensed up as soon as it hit her.
Why the hell was Joyce here?
“Dammit. That’s my little sister.”
“I guess that’s my cue to leave.” Karen stood up, but Grace caught her hand before she got too far.
“Wait. When can we see each other again?”
Karen smiled as she tugged on Grace’s hand, pulling her up from the bed. “How’s about I come by this weekend? We’ll go for a ride, anywhere you want. I’m sure we can find somewhere to sneak off to.”
Grace smiled as Karen pulled her into her arms, relaxing as soon as she was nestled into her hold. “I think that sounds amazing,” she said. “I can’t wait.” For a moment, she was convinced that if they stayed like this, they could get that feeling of being in their own world back. But she heard Joyce call out again and knew she’d have to answer eventually. So she reluctantly broke away from Karen and led her downstairs.
Joyce didn’t even acknowledge Karen’s presence; she was too focused on the fight she had with her friend that caused her to leave before dinner. She started rambling about all the details, but Grace paid her no mind. Instead, she walked Karen out to her bike, taking in the sight of her climbing on and basking in the knowledge that she’d be joining her again in just a couple of days.
“I’ll see you soon,” Karen said before she put her helmet on.
As Grace watched her leave, she felt the promise of more with Karen fill her. It made her feel weightless. They had a date. They had so much time ahead of them. Sure, Karen graduated next week, but they’d have the summer. They could sneak away on her bike, they could find time to be alone with each other. They could have their own little world. And if Karen did end up going to college in the Fall, they would be able to figure it out. They could call each other. Karen could visit on the weekends. It wouldn’t be like it was with Karen’s last girlfriend; there would be more freedom. It could work. Grace was certain.
This was the start of something incredible.