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“Adaine?”
The girl behind the counter stiffened but didn’t acknowledge the name as she continued pouring the overly complex drink Fig ordered, her slender but muscular arms seemed to tense as if she was restraining herself from hitting something.
Fig put down the plate with a brownie she'd been given on the counter.
“I knew I recognised you, um, Hi, I’m Fig, not sure if you recognise me, I used to look, well… different and I used to go by ‘Figueroth’ but that’s beside the point we went to-”
“I know who you are.” Adaine responded flatly, adding the steamed milk and still not looking over her shoulder at the customer she’d greeted with an expression of utter shock.
“Oh, well um, hi, how’ve you bee-”
“There, I hope you enjoy it, next?” Adaine put the cup down heavily, not meeting Fig’s eyes and smiling to the next customer who stepped forwards and started ordering.
Left standing, looking a bit gormless, Fig awkwardly walked off to the table where Kristen and Tracker were having a loud argument, while still holding hands. Because of course.
“Hey, you ok?” Kristen said, noticing the unsure way Fig slumped into her seat and looked over her shoulder.
“Yeah, just a bit surprised I guess?”
“What’s wrong?” Tracker swiveled her head around to take in the entirety of the small independent coffee shop they’d dragged Fig to.
“Too many plants?”
“No, it’s just the barista/server… person, is this place douche enough to have baristas? Anyway, I knew I recognised her,”
“Oh, Adaine?” Kristen asked, looking over to the girl behind the counter, pushing her glasses up her nose as she noted down an order.
“You know her?”
“Of course, we’re here a lot and she’s usually working, she’s cool,”
“You just think that cause she helps you cheat at chess when we play,”
“It’s not cheating, is it cheating when you use your superior chess ability?”
“Anyway,” Fig cut in, ending the argument, “yeah, I thought I recognised her, then when I got closer I realised, and we went to high school together, back before I moved school across town”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah! She looks different with the undercut and without a blazer, but it’s definitely her,”
“Oh, cool,” Kristen said, stealing a marshmallow from Tracker’s hot chocolate. They had been there for a while when Fig got there and so were already a good way through their drinks.
“Wait, then why is that a bad thing?”
“Well, I don’t know? I said I knew her, and who I was and she said she knew me but she… didn’t seem to be happy about it.”
“Really?” Tracker raised her eyebrows, watching Adaine punching numbers into a cash register.
“She’s usually lovely, what did you do?”
“Wait what? Why do you assume I did something?”
“I mean, weren’t you… kinda… difficult back then?”
“Ok, I was a bit of a dick in high school, but not to her specifically?”
Both her friends gave her a dubious look.
“I’m serious! And, by the way, I was a cheerleader not a serial killer!”
“One does not preclude the other,” Kristen said, sagely.
“Well I wasn’t a serial killer,”
“Me thinks the lady doth protest too much,” Tracker stroked her chin as if deep in calculating though before laughing.
“But, like can you remember anything you might have done specifically?”
“I mean… we sat next to each other in biology for a few terms, so we were partners a lot of the time and we were kinda friendly, I even stopped some of the girls from messing with her… I might have forgotten to return a pencil or something I don’t know?”
“You monster!” gasped Kristen, dramatically.
“Shut up, you’re supposed to be helping me out here!”
“With what?”
“Remembering what she needs to apologise for so she can ask Adaine out on a date,”
“Wait, what?” Fig, who had been looking back over at Adaine, choked on her coffee slightly and whipped her head back around.
“Hmm?”
“Where did you get that idea?”
“Well, apart from the fact that you’ve checked her out like five times since you sat down?”
“What? No, I’ve just been… looking…”
“Right…” Kristen winked, obnoxiously, which made Fig sigh in exasperation.
“Alright, so she’s good looking, but even if I did want to ask her out, that doesn’t solve the immediate problem?”
“Well, just go apologise?” Tracker waved dismissively.
“Ooh, get me another drink while you’re there?”
“Yeah, me as well?”
“What am I apologising for?”
“The serial killing for a start.” The voice from behind her made Fig jump way more than she was proud of.
“Small cafe guys,” Adaine explained to the table, Tracker and Kristen having the decency to look slightly abashed.
“You forgot to pick this up by the way,” she said, putting down the plated brownie Fig had clearly left at the counter.
“Oh, um, thank you,” Adaine turned away and Fig turned in her chair.
“So, you heard all that, whatever I did back in highschool to hurt you… I’m really sorry about it…”
Adaine was silent for a moment.
“It wasn’t you- ”
“Ha!” Fig smirked at her friends in triumph before Adaine continued.
“You could be a bit of a bitch,”
“Fair.”
“But after you left… the rest of them, they got a lot worse.”
“What do you mean?” Fig hadn’t really kept in contact with her old cheerleading friends after her parents divorce disrupted most things in her life.
“Well… they started picking on me a lot more. It started off small stuff that they did to most people, tripping me, super gluing by bag shut, that kinda thing. But then they got a hold of my journal.”
“What, how?” Even though they hadn’t exactly been friends, Fig had known Adaine enough to know that her parents never let her have company over.
“I… I don’t have any evidence but I think that my parents might have given it to them.”
“Why would they do that?” Kristen asked, both her and Tracker leaning forwards, intrigued.
“Well, I’ve told you about how my parents are not the most tolerant?”
Tracker nodded, while Kristen answered,
“Shitty parents club,”
“Yeah,” Adaine laughed, “and I had written in my diary about… feelings… that I had, which they wanted to discourage.”
“Woah, they outed you?” Tracker looked shocked.
“Yeah. And, well, you know what your friends were like to queer people.”
Fig did know. She’d cried herself to sleep after she realised her sexuality and understood that her old friends would hate her. Part of Fig wanted to object that she hadn’t been friends with them for a long time, but she knew that wouldn’t be helpful.
“Yeah. I do. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, I know you’re not like that, and it must have hurt knowing your friends were like that.” Adaine gestured to one of the pride buttons on Fig’s jacket.
“I guess seeing you just brought a lot of that back.”
“Wait,” Kristen said, confused, “are you angry just cause she used to be friendly with them?”
“I’m… I’m not really angry, just shocked I guess,”
“You sure?” Tracker asked, narrowing her eyes, “you seem a bit angry,”
“Tracker,” Fig glared at her friend, “just cause you’re a psych major doesn’t mean that you’re psychic,”
“I’m just saying!” Tracker raised her hands in surrender.
“She’s right. A bit. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it, I get it,” Fig didn’t but really didn’t want to press the issue.
“I don’t?” Kristen asked and for once, Fig was slightly glad of her friends’ nosiness.
Adaine sighed before answering.
“I don’t know. I guess it felt like she’d abandoned me a bit, seeing as she used to help with the rest, and I know that’s stupid but whatever. And…” Adaine turned to Fig, an apologetic look in her eyes, “I suppose… It kinda felt like it was your fault…”
“Wait what? How?” Fig asked.
“The… um feelings I had written in my journal… they were… for you? And the rest of them, they kept saying they were going to text you, tell you that I was gay and that I liked you, then that you’d probably be sick if you heard.”
“Oh my God, really? That’s disgusting, I’m so sorry,”
“Well they usually used slurs instead of ‘gay’ but… yeah.”
Fig sat silent for a moment before she realised Adaine had cleared the table of the empty cups and plates and had begun walking back towards the counter.
“Um, Adaine?” she asked as she stood and walked over behind her.
“I know that it really doesn’t help now, but I just wanted to say that if I had found out that you liked me…” Shit, asking out a girl was hard enough, but saying that had she asked you out years ago you would’ve been interested without it sounding like you were asking her out, this was something else entirely.
“I wouldn’t have been sick, I think it… would’ve made me really happy.”
Adaine turned and smiled, sadly.
“It does help, a bit. I know it wasn’t your fault, I shouldn’t have been so rude when you came in.”
“I mean, if it would help you… process it or whatever, you could curse me out, or I could show you that I’m, like, really gay and,” Fig’s brain only caught up to her mouth when she saw Adaine’s eyes widen in shock.
“Oh shit, no, not like that! I meant… shit I don’t know what I was trying to say-”
“Hey,” Adaine smiled, clasping Fig’s shoulders gently, “it’s ok, really, I appreciate it.”
“Thanks. I used to be cool, didn't I?”
“Honestly I um, I liked you a lot more when you were struggling in biology and blushing when I teased you about it.”
Fig laughed.
“Well, I think I can pull off ‘adorably incompetent’ pretty well,”
“Maybe you could be ‘adorably incompetent’ over drinks?”
“I’d like that,”