Archive of Our Own

It was really just a hobby.

At least that’s what Laura told herself whenever she caught herself neglecting her schoolwork to scroll through pages of other people’s photography on Tumblr.

Hobbies are healthy. They’re good for stimulating the brain and stuff.

Her mom was the first one to ever buy her a camera. It was nothing special, just your average point and shoot camera. It sat on her shelf, unused, for longer than she’d like to admit.

She just lacked the interest in photography that her mother had, preferring to take in everything with her eyes, trusting her brain to preserve the memories better than any picture ever could.

The accident had come out of nowhere. One day Laura’s mom was there, kissing her goodbye as she left for school, and then she was gone. The house she’d grown up in was suddenly cold and empty, both Laura and her father feeling the missing spaces where she should have been.

Laura couldn’t bring herself to touch the camera for weeks after the accident. Plagued with memories of how excited her mother had been to give it to her and own lack of excitement at receiving it, she pretended it wasn’t there, haunting her every time she stepped foot in her room.

When she finally got up the courage to look through the camera, she realized her mother’s obsession with photography had led to a severe lack of pictures of her.

She scrolled through every single picture on the camera, dating back to when she had first gotten it, and there wasn’t a single picture of her mother on it. All the family albums were filled with pictures of nature and Laura and her father rolling their eyes as her mother snapped shots of them whenever she could, but none of her.

Laura was seventeen years old. She’d gotten a camera for her sixteenth birthday. She’d had a camera for over a year. But it had still never occurred to her to take a picture of her mother.

She’d lived to be forty six but there wasn’t a single picture of Debbie Hollis.

That camera went everywhere with Laura after that day. She was determined to never miss a chance to snap a picture of her friends, her school, anything, because Laura knew better than anyone that it could all be gone the next day, just memories left to fade as the months went on. 

After her mother’s accident, Laura and her father had come to the mutual decision that it was time for a change.

Their entire town had known about the accident, and pitying stares followed them wherever they went, the house felt haunted, the absence of Debbie clear in the quiet of the turned off radio and the drawn curtains blocking out the sunshine.

They collectively agreed that they needed a change. So Laura said goodbye to her friends, who had long run out of things to say to her, Papa Hollis requested a transfer to another police department, and they left behind all the painful memories that the town held for them.

Laura almost regretted transferring schools the summer before her senior year of high school, but her fresh start proved to be beneficial.

School had started just a month ago, and she already found herself being slowly accepted into a close knit group of friends.

It was Danny that noticed her first, squinting up at the one measly map of the school that was taped to the wall just a few inches above Laura’s head. When Danny found her, she was muttering curse words under her breath, trying to determine whether the room on the far side of the school was 180 or 100.

“Need a lift?”

As someone who had been the brunt of short jokes her whole life, Laura was unamused. Her face bunched up as she turned to look at whoever had decided she wasn’t very aware of her height.

But her face quickly softened into a smile as she took in the sparkling blue eyes and kind smile towering above her. “Uh yeah...actually- well, no- not a lift. I mean, do you by any chance know how to get to room 180?”

The ginger girl’s smile doubled at her stuttering. “You’re in luck, I’m headed there too. Lit with Hogan, right?”

Laura’s relieved nod was all it took for the two to take off down the hallway together, Danny’s questions about where she was from fueling conversation.

It turns out that Danny and Laura had another class together too, along with lunch. At lunch, Danny introduced Laura to her friends LaFontaine and Perry, who immediately took her under her wing.

Their pictures were the first that Laura took on that first day of school.

Danny laughing at a joke, Perry and Laf looking at each other as if no one else was there, Danny aiming a paper airplane at a football player that went by Kirsch. It was perfect. No one questioned her camera. Everyone just assumed she was an art student. Exactly how Laura wanted it.

A week later, Laf had convinced her to make a Tumblr for her photography. At first, Laura had hesitated. She wasn’t a photographer. She just liked recording memories.

Eventually, she gave in, and Laura’s photography blog was born.

Just a month later, she’d gained over a thousand followers, some of her pictures getting as many as a hundred thousand notes.

Every picture she took went on her blog, whether she particularly fond of it or not. The way she saw it, her followers could help her see the beauty in a picture she didn’t like.

That was how Laura found herself standing in front of Silas High School, camera held to her face, snapping pictures of the school from every angle she thought had potential.

It had become her daily routine to show up twenty minutes early to school and see what she could capture with her camera. It was her favorite part of the day, no one to disrupt her, just her camera and the sun rising behind the school.

The first time she saw the girl, it was in passing.

She’d taken her pictures for the day and was heading to meet up with Danny before their first class when she spotted a girl lounging in the shade of a tree, face buried in a book, just a few feet from the school doors.

Dressed in black from head to toe and curled into the tree as if trying to sink into it, she was easy to miss. But once Laura had seen her, she couldn’t unsee her.

Wild black curls hid her face, and Laura only managed to sneak a peek when she lowered her book slightly to turn the page. The short glimpse that Laura had seen of her face was beautiful. Pale skin brought out the darkness of her eyes, and Laura had a hard time decided whether her eyebrows or her jaw were sharper.

If the girl picked up on Laura’s gawking, she didn’t show it, continuing to flip through her book.

The harsh ringing of the bell snapped Laura out of her reverie. She walked off to her first class at the fastest speed she could manage, only glancing back to look at the girl once, only to find that she still hadn’t moved.

The girl wasn’t there the next morning or the morning after that.

It wasn’t until Monday of the following week that Laura saw the girl again. She was in the same spot, the same position, another book perched on her knees.

Laura wasn’t going to miss her opportunity this time. The sun’s rays illuminated the girl’s pale skin, shining across her hair, bringing out the soft curls in it. The girl looked almost angelic.

Crouching on one knee, Laura raised her camera, checking the screen multiple times before clicking the shutter button. This picture had to be just right.

Following about a minute of adjustments, Laura snapped the picture. The camera displayed the picture preview and Laura smiled softly at it. It was perfect. She raised her head, staring into the sky, knowing her mother would be proud of her, wherever she was.

Upon arriving at home, Laura immediately uploaded the pictures from the day to her Tumblr and tagging them all. She found herself constantly going back to the picture of the girl under the tree. It easily took the spot of one of her favorite pictures that she’d ever taken.

All her homework having been done ahead of time, Laura mindlessly scrolled through Tumblr for a number of hours. She didn’t miss the number of notifications building up on her dashboard each time she refreshed it, but she didn’t question it. It had become easy to ignore the notifications that always flooded her dash when she would post her latest pictures.

One last glance at the picture before she went and readied herself for bed caused Laura’s mouth to drop the ground. In just a few hours, the notes had scaled up to 300,000, beating her personal record by over 100,000.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she refreshed the page over and over, watching the notes grow. She’d expected some recognition for the picture, but this was more than she’d ever expected.

The smile didn’t leave her face till she drifted off to sleep, dreams of her mother’s smile and laughter filling her head, rather than the usual dreams of screeching tires and crunching metal.

Walking through the school halls the next day, Laura felt on top of the world. The girl had been absent from her spot that morning, so Laura had spent her time taking pictures of the birds flying away as winter approached.

She was digging through her locker, trying to find the book she’d shoved somewhere into the depths of it when a hand smacked down on the locker next to hers.

Startled, she jumped, smacking her head into the underside of one of the shelves in her locker.

“Are you Laura Hollis?”

Laura didn’t look up at the person the unfamiliar voice, closing her eyes as she clutched at her throbbing head. “Yes? Did you need something?” she said, not bothering to keep her frustration out of her voice.

“What the hell is this?” Confused, Laura glanced up, only to squint at the phone screen being shoved in her face. On the screen was the picture she had taken and uploaded yesterday of the girl reading under the tree.

Her stomach dropped as she lifted herself out of her kneeling position to look into the dark eyes that had captivated her.

Up close, the girl was even more stunning. Laura’s eyes were immediately drawn to the girl’s lips, painted a deep red.

“Are you going to answer me or are you just going to stand there gawking, buttercup?” Laura’s eyes shot back to meet the other girl’s, who had turned to glaring at her.

She felt her stomach lurch as the panic began to set in. The girl was really angry at her. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I know I shouldn’t have posted without asking - but I guess I don’t know if I did anyway, I was just thinking about how nice it came out and I completely forgot that it was a picture of an actual, live person, I’m so sorry. I don’t even know how you found it, I don’t really give out my blog, I hope no one - oh no, did someone who wasn’t supposed to know you were here see it? Did I ruin your life? Oh my god, I’m such an idiot, I’m so-”

Her rambling was cut off by an eye roll and a quick retort from the other girl. “How many other Laura Hollises go to this school and are in a relationship with the jolly ginger giant?”

Laura stared at her, open mouthed. “Wait, Danny? We’re not-” as the insult registered, her confused stare turned to a glare. “Hey, you’re not allowed to call her that, you don’t even know her!” A second of thought brought another confused look to her face. “How do you even know my name? Or that I’m friends with Danny?”

Another eye roll came from the girl, this time followed by a sigh. “It’s plastered all over your blog. I don’t have time for this, just take the picture down.”

Heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway as the girl stormed off, leaving Laura to stare after her.

--

It was hard enough as is for Laura to pay attention in her calculus class, her only solace being her seat next to Laf, who seemed to actually enjoy, but with the added stress of this mysterious girl finding the picture she took of her, trying to pay attention was pointless today.

Laura had a cell phone, what high school senior didn’t? The problem was that it was a flip phone that looked like it’d been saved from the early 2000’s.

The accident that had killed her mother had involved a teenager that had been texting and driving, so, naturally, Laura’s dad forbid her from having a smart phone.

She didn’t really blame him, but in situations like this, she really could use a phone with internet access. Once the picture was off her blog, it was out of her hands, she wouldn’t have to deal with the surprisingly rude girl again.

The girl obviously knew her name, but she had never seen the girl anywhere but outside the school before today. She had no idea how she had found her blog, or even what the girl’s name was.

A glance at the clock hanging above the doorframe told her she was only five minutes closer to getting home. Letting out a quiet groan, she dropped her head to the table. The rest of the school day was going to drag on.

“I don’t think getting any closer to your notes is going to help you in this class,” Laf said as they dropped into the seat next to Laura. “You know, if you’re really struggling that much you could have just asked me for help.”

Laura slowly lifted her head from the table. “I just kinda might have gotten myself into a bit of a situation.”

“Would this situation happen to involve one of your friends being kidnapped and fed to an ancient god?”

Laura stared blankly at Laf, momentarily debating their sanity. “Um…no.”

“Okay, continue. What was this situation?”

Deciding to just ignore the comment, Laura continued. “You know that girl-” she abruptly stopped as it occurred to her that she’d never gotten her name. “Shoot, I don’t know her name. Uh, black hair, well, black everything. Super pale, kinda looks like she could kill you, but still gorgeous, like too gorgeous.”

Laf raised their eyebrows, “Carmilla Karnstein?”

The blood drained from Laura’s face and her stomach felt like it was doing backflips. “Karnstein? Like Lilita Karnstein? Like the principal of this school Karnstein? Oh my god, oh my god. Laf, I can’t get expelled, I just moved here! My dad will have to transfer back to the old station and we’ll have to move back and oh my god I already told everyone I was moving, what am I gonna say when I just show up again. ‘Sorry, I got expell-’” A hand placed over her mouth cut her off.

“You’re not getting expelled. From what I’ve heard, Carmilla and her mom aren’t exactly best friends.”

Calming down at their words, Laura let out a breath through her nose and nodded. Only then did Laf remove their hand.

“Sorry, I just…” shaking her head, Laura pointed to Laf’s pocket, “Let me see your phone.”

Confused, Laf dug into their pocket and pulled out their phone, handing it off to Laura, who immediately went to the Tumblr up and pulled up her blog, scrolling down till she found the picture. “Here!” she said, handing the phone back to them.

“I see...a picture of Carmilla Karnstein on your blog? Let’s just forget about the why for a moment and let’s go to the how. How did you get this picture? It came out great!”

Laura’s face lit up at the compliment. “I know right! I was just here in the morning doing my thing and the sun hit her just right and tada!” Her smile immediately dropped to a frown. “But Carmilla found it and now she wants me to delete it.”

“That’s rough. Did you try asking her why? I know she’s a little intimidating, but I always thought she was a nice enough person.”

“She didn’t seem like a very nice person when she insulted Danny and then stormed off.”

Laf’s eyebrows came together as they frowned. “Wait, why Danny?”

Laura shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I don’t even know, something about us dating or something.”

Clutching at their stomach, Laf couldn’t contain their laughter. “You? And Danny? Oh my god.” Laura’s pout brought them to contain their laughter as much as they could. “Sorry, sorry. It’s just. You’re so small, and Danny’s so tall.”

Sighing, Laura’s face dropped back to a frown. “This just sucks, I was actually pretty proud of that picture, and she looks good in it! I don’t know what her problem is.”

Laf shot her a look of sympathy. “I was serious when I said to talk to her.” The teacher chose this moment to rush into the classroom, barely managing to hold her papers in her arms and muttering something about the coffee machine.

“I’ll think about it,” Laura whispered as she dug through her bag for the half done homework assignment she had buried in there.

--

The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed. People took pictures of strangers in public places all the time. It was just part of being an artist. Most of the people who saw it probably don’t even know the girl, and just like it for the pretty shot.

Besides, Laura was proud of it.

That’s why, when the last bell of the day rang, she hurried out of her physics class towards Kirsch’s locker. Danny had asked her to meet her there a few times before, so she knew exactly where it was.

Luckily for her, the lockers in the school were distributed in alphabetical order, and a search around the hallway confirmed her suspicions, Carmilla’s locker was just a few down from Kirsch’s.

She had been so sure of what she was going to say, even planning out a speech instead of listening to her teacher review for the test, but as she approached the girl currently digging through her locker, she froze.

Suddenly this seemed like a stupid idea. She could just take the picture down, she still had a copy, it wouldn’t even matter.

As she was about to turn and walk away, a low, raspy voice caused her to stop in her tracks. “I know the view back there is nice, but I can feel you staring at me.” Laura’s eyes widened as the meaning behind the girl’s words set in, the blood rushing to her face.

Carmilla turned around, smirk plastered on her face, but as they made eye contact, it momentarily dropped to a look of surprise, only for her to quickly plaster a sneer in its place to cover it up. “Hello, creampuff. Come to take some more stalker shots of some of my...better angles?”

Laura hadn’t thought her face could get any redder, but now she was sure she resembled a tomato at this point. “I- No! My camera is in my bag!” Carmilla only raised her eyebrow at this.

Shaking her head, Laura collected her thoughts for a moment. Taking a deep breath, her face started returning to its normal color before she spoke again. “Listen, I just wanted to say that I really would rather not take that picture down and I know you said you want me to but photography is really important to me and I think it’s one of the best pictures I’ve ever taken, and what I’m trying to say is, can I just leave it up?”

The words had come out in a rush, and as Laura subtly tried to catch her breath, Carmilla just stared at her, expressionless. What felt like an hour of silence passed between the two, though it must have only been a few seconds. Finally, Carmilla clenched her jaw and dropped her gaze to the floor before looking back up at Laura. “Fine.”

Just the one word caused Laura’s face to break out in a smile so big she thought her cheeks would explode. She could have sworn she saw the corner of Carmilla’s mouth twitch almost into a smile before she covered it up by rolling her eyes and sighing. She kicked her locker shut with her boot before turning her attention back to Laura. “Well, I’ve got things to do, places to be. See you around, cutie.”

Laura lifted her hand in a wave goodbye, but was met with Carmilla’s back, as the girl had already started walking away. She was about to start heading out to get on her bus when she heard Carmilla call something over her shoulder that made her stop in her tracks.

“Oh, and that was by far not your best picture.”

--

It was later that night when her curiosity got the best of her.

She wouldn’t call it stalking per say, just researching. She just wanted to know how she’d seen any of her other photos. They were exclusively on her Tumblr, because she didn’t want people that weren’t her friends judging her for them. Actually, the only friends that even knew about her Tumblr were Laf and Perry, and she knew they didn’t tell Carmilla.

That’s why it was nearing ten at night and Laura was in the 2010 section of Carmilla’s Facebook. The profile obviously hadn’t been used in over a year, and even before that appeared to be rarely used. There was barely anything on it, and the profile picture showed the same Carmilla she saw at school, but slightly younger, her jawline not as sharp and her clothes not as dark.

Maybe checking her about page was a bit excessive, and Laura couldn’t deny the prick of interest when she noticed that her sexuality and relationship status were both private.

The girl was gorgeous, it was only natural of her to be curious which team she played for.

Facebook proved to be useless, despite her deep search through it. The girl didn’t appear to have any other social media accounts, absolutely nothing came up when Laura searched her name on Twitter and Instagram.

About to admit defeat, an idea came to her. She clicked back to her Facebook and went straight to her family section. There it was, Carmilla has a brother named Will.

Will Luce was the name Laura typed into the twitter search bar, and the first result looked about right. Dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin. There weren’t any pictures of him on his facebook, but the  boy in the picture on Twitter could easily be related to Carmilla.

Briefly, Laura wondered if this was too much. Why did she even care how Carmilla had seen her pictures? For all she knew, she could have just been mocking her.

Her inner journalist won over. There was nothing wrong with a little good natured social media stalking.

Will’s Twitter profile proved to be a success, because there in his description was a link to what appeared to be his Tumblr.

Laura couldn’t help but cringe at the look of his Tumblr. She put a great deal of effort into making sure her theme looked nice and made her Tumblr easy to navigate. Will’s was a mess.

All of the pictures on his blog were clumped together with some theme that made it impossible to focus on any one thing. Following a couple minutes of glancing through, a picture a little ways down the page drew Laura’s attention.

It was a picture of Will smiling at the camera, his arm around Carmilla, who was scowling at him. The caption underneath it read “Me and the sis creatureofthenight”.

Squinting in confusion, Laura clicked on the URL. Something about it seemed familiar, like she’d seen it before. She almost wrote it off as someone having a similar URL that she knew of, but when the page loaded, the blog was definitely one she’d been on before.

There wasn’t any personal information anywhere on the blog. No name, no gender, no pictures of the owner. Laura had looked at it before because she had been curious to know who ran the blog. Because the blog liked nearly every single one of her posts.

--

“Laf! Laf! Laf!” Laura hurried over to the lunch table that was already occupied by her friends. She’d tried to intercept Laf at their locker so she could keep this just between them, but they must have gone to Perry’s instead. She was too excited about her discovery to wait till calculus anyway. “You’ll never guess what I found!”

The table all turned to look at her, as she had interrupted their previous conversation. At the raised eyebrow that Laf gave her Laura practically jumped up and down as she excitedly pointed at the phone sitting in front of them on the table. “Phone, please!”

Laf wordlessly handed it to her, and the whole table looked at her expectantly. Laura pulled up the Tumblr app, hurriedly typing in Will’s URL and scrolling down to the picture of him and Carmilla. “Look!” she said, holding the phone out to show everyone the screen.

Danny took it out of her hands, squinting at the picture on the screen. “And it’s a...picture of Carmilla Karnstein and her brother?” She passed the phone around the table, it reaching Laf last.

“Does this have something to do with that picture?” Laf passed their phone back to Laura.

Laura clicked the URL that lead to Carmilla’s blog and handed the phone back to Danny. “Yes and no? I confronted her about the picture and she said something really weird about how I’ve taken better pictures and naturally, I was really confused, so I did a few hours of research and I found her blog!”

Perry shook her head, refusing to look at the phone again when Danny handed it to her. “You dug through this girl’s life just because she complimented you? Honestly, Laura, maybe she was just being nice!”

“No! No! No! Carmilla Karnstein dishing out compliments? Unless she’s been abducted and replaced with a decent human being, then that’s a definite no.” Danny cut in before Laura could get a word out. “You’re right to investigate this.” She pulled the phone back from where she’d been reaching out to pass it to Laf. “Don’t mind me, just going to dig through her blog.”

At Laura’s questioning stare, Laf spoke up. “Carmilla and Danny go way back. Mutual hatred and all.”

Nodding slowly, still not completely understanding, Laura decided not to question it further. “Well, turns out, she’s been liking almost every single one of my posts!”

“No kidding, really? Do you think she knows it’s you?”

“She has to, I’ve posted a ton of pictures of myself and you guys. Come to think of it, the only ones she didn’t like were the ones with Danny in them.” She looked over at Danny, who was intently searching through something on the phone, not paying any attention to the conversation.

“Okay, so she has interest in photography! You should be happy she likes your pictures, and drop this. Now who wants some homemade cookies?” Perry held up a bag of cookies, earning a smile from Laf as they grab a handful of cookies out of the bag.

Laura sighed, watching as Laf devoured the cookies. “Sorry Perry, I just wish I knew why she didn’t just come say hi to me or something. She obviously liked my pictures.” She jumps nearly a foot in the air in surprise when Danny’s free hand comes down to slap the table.

With everyone within a few feet of her now staring at her, Danny excitedly turns the phone around, swinging the screen in front of everyone’s faces. “Look what I found! Look what I found!”

“Danny, if you don’t stop swinging that around, no one’s going to be able to see anything.” Laf grabbed her by the wrist, bringing it to a stop in front of their face. As they read on, a smile broke out on their face. “Oh this is too good.”

Laura struggled to catch a glimpse of the phone over Laf’s shoulder. “What is it? C’mon I can’t see anything!”

Jumping forward and grabbing the phone out Laf’s - who was now giggling hysterically - hands, she pulled the screen up to her face.

It was a text post that was dated about two weeks ago. The post itself didn’t have much to it. It just said “I’m an idiot.”. At first Laura had no clue what had Laf and Danny so giddy. An ominous, angsty text post seems exactly like something that someone who dressed all in black and spent sunrises reading under a tree would post.

It wasn’t until she glanced at the tags of the post that she realized what it was about. “#crushes are so fucking stupid #i am so above the whole angsting over some girl who doesn’t know me thing #there’s just something about her #what can i say #i love artists #namely photographers”

She stared at the phone for a moment before sighing and setting it down on the table. “Okay, it doesn’t have to mean-”

“Laura, who the hell else could it be about? Photography? Liking all your pictures?” Danny dropped her voice to imitate Carmilla’s. “There’s just...something about you, Laura. Something...that makes me want to...eat you.”

Laf and Danny burst into giggles. “I’m not entirely sure which version of eat you mean, but I’m sure either one applies to Miss Pale and Avoids Human Contact at all Costs.”

“I don’t know, she seemed to be really into that human contact thing when I walked in on her and that Elsie girl in the girl’s bathroom.” Danny’s face twisted to one of disgust at the memory. Glancing down at her lunch, she began to pile it all back onto her tray. “Actually, I think that just killed my appetite.”

Laura’s annoyance at the turn of conversation had prompted to her only half listen, but her interest was yet again piqued at the mention of Carmilla’s sexuality. “So, you guys think she’s gay or bi or some form of ‘I like girls’?”

Laf shrugged. “I mean, it’s all rumors and what Danny saw, but she practically bit some poor kid’s head off when he asked her to prom. Could just be her personality though.”

“Definitely not. My gaydar is never wrong.” Danny rose to throw out her lunch, but paused when she caught sight of Laura’s eye roll at her statement. “Don’t roll your eyes at me, Hollis. I had you pegged the second I saw you.”

Danny walked away to toss her lunch in the garbage, leaving Laura with a slightly reddened face.

Perry took the lull in conversation as her opportunity to change the topic. “So, who’s going to the senior movie night? Laura? We’ve managed to get together some great movies!”

Once Danny had returned, the conversation quickly spun into whether modern or older horror movies were better, something Laura found herself easily zoning out of.

Carmilla Karnstein making angsty posts about a crush on her blog was really none of her business. But Danny’s remarks about it being about her wouldn’t leave her alone.

Conversation at her table in full swing without her input, she glanced around the cafeteria, trying to spot the black leather and dark stare sitting somewhere in the room, but Carmilla didn’t seem to have lunch at the same time as her.

What was strange, was that when she glanced over towards where Kirsch and his football friends were sitting, she noticed Will Luce’s eyes quickly dart away from her general direction.

That was it. She was gonna talk to her. She didn’t know what, exactly, she was going to say, but she was going to strike up a conversation with Carmilla and try to figure this out. It wouldn’t hurt to just try and befriend her.

Considering she was alone every time Laura had seen her, she’s sure she could use a friend.

--

She didn’t share any classes with Carmilla for the rest of the day, so Laura went about the rest of the day excited to put her plan into action the next morning.

She’d sit next to her by the tree and start up a conversation about whatever book she was reading and she was sure they’d be fast friends from there.

The next morning, she arrived at school, early as usual, and there Carmilla was, sitting under the tree, book in hand. Laura almost thought she saw her eyes flicker up from her book to glance at her, but it easily could have been a trick of the light from the still rising sun.

Taking a deep breath, she marched determinedly over to the tree, stopping in front of Carmilla, expecting her to at least glance up at her. She was, however, met with nothing.

Laura Hollis was not easily discouraged, so she sat herself down next to Carmilla, making sure to leave an appropriate amount of space, but make it clear that she was trying to talk to her.

Still, not even a glance from Carmilla. She was starting to think this was a bad idea, but it was too late now. If she got up and left she’d just look like an idiot. She was determined to figure this out. “So what are you reading?”

At Laura’s voice, Carmilla’s eyes stopped their flitting across the page in front of her. A moment of silence passed, causing Laura to wonder if she’d just ignore her, but Carmilla slowly closed her book, placing it down on the grass next to her.

“I already told you the picture was fine. What more could you possibly want from me?”

Laura was slightly startled by the question. She thought it was pretty obvious why she was sitting here. “I just thought you could use some company, is all.”

Carmilla’s already dark gaze turned cold. “I don’t need your charity. If I wanted company I would have brought one of my friends. Now go back to taking picture of the sunrise, or whatever it is you do besides take pictures of me.”

Laura wouldn’t say she had a temper, but her photographs were something that were special to her, and she refused to sit there and take Carmilla’s jab at it. Standing up to tower over Carmilla’s still sitting form, she glared at her as she spoke. “Well, you’d definitely know a lot about my photographs, wouldn’t you? Correct me if I’m wrong, but you sure seem to...like quite a few of them.”

Carmilla momentarily froze, but quickly formed her expression into a sneer. “I said your other pictures were better, I never said anything about liking any of them.”

Now it was Laura’s turn to smirk at the girl. Maybe she was imagining it, but she could have sworn she saw a glimmer of fear in the otherwise blank expression on Carmilla’s face. “I know I haven’t been on Tumblr for very long, but I’m pretty that liking a post means you like it. Feel free to let me know if I’ve been doing it wrong.”

Carmilla now rose to her feet as well, quickly grabbing her book off the ground and turning to leave. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, now leave me alone.”

“Whatever you say, creatureofthenight.”

Back turned to Laura, Carmilla stopped walking. Laura was starting to regret her words. She may not have been at this school for very long, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to make the principal’s daughter who dressed all in black her enemy.

She was about to stutter out an apology when she saw Carmilla’s shoulders heave, as if she was taking a deep breath, before she stormed off so quickly that Laura barely had time to process that she was no longer standing in front of her.

--

By first period, the guilt was enough to consume Laura. She didn’t know what she was thinking, she was just so angry. The jab at her photography had really hit her where it hurt.

She always knew she wasn’t a real, trained photographer, but she liked to pretend that her mother would be proud of her work. Proud of all the different, realistic pictures she tried to take. Getting called, essentially, mediocre kind of made her feel like an idiot. Like she never should have started this taking pictures thing. Like it was all pointless, because her mother was gone and never coming back.

On top of that, she’d mocked Carmilla for liking her pictures and told her that she’d figured out it was her blog. She knew that a blog was personal for a lot of people, and judging by the textpost she’d seen, Carmilla was one of those people that didn’t share hers with people much.

She was the first one to get to her lit class, having gone straight to the room. She wasn’t in the mood to see her friends at the moment.

As the warning bell rang, the rest of the class began to file in, including Danny, who took her seat right next to Laura. Danny took one look at the sour mood Laura appeared to be in and asked the question that she’d intended on easing into. “Did something happen between you and Carmilla?”

Laura’s head snapped to meet Danny’s gaze as soon as the question was out of her mouth. “How did you know about that?”

Danny bit her lip, dropping her gaze from Laura’s. “Well, I was just checking her blog this morning to see if she, y’know, made any more posts or anything so that I could tell you, and well...she definitely made a post alright. Here, I screenshotted it.”

She pulled her phone out of her pocket, flicking through it till she got the picture she was searching for, then handing it over to Laura. Laura hesitantly took it, looking down at the post on Carmilla’s blog. As she read it, her stomach dropped.

“I can’t believe this.” As before, the tags contained more than the actual post. “#i can’t believe she KNEW #this whole time #i feel like such an idiot #i actually thought #she’s probably reading this right now and laughing it up with her girlfriend”

If she felt guilty before, Laura felt awful now. Groaning, she handed Danny her phone back and buried her face in her hands. “Danny, I messed up.”

Danny put her hand on her shoulder. “Do you wanna tell me about it?”

“Ladies! If you two are done gossiping about your boyfriends, then do the rest of the class a favor and open up your books to chapter three.” The teacher’s voice erupted from the front of the room, drawing some snickers from the rest of the class, who were now staring at the two of them.

Rolling her eyes, Danny shot Laura a look that told her that this conversation wasn’t over yet.

--

“...and then she stormed off! I was looking for her in my calc class that we have together but she must have left school after it happened and guys what am I going to do?” Laura glanced helplessly around at her friends, who were sitting around their usual lunch table, giving her sympathetic looks.

“Don’t you think that maybe she’s overreacting a bit? Who cares if you saw her Tumblr. It’s her fault for following you and liking all your pictures anyway. She had it coming.” Danny shrugged and took a bite out of her sandwich.

Laura sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. “She obviously didn’t want me to see it for a reason. I could have just left it alone.”

“That reason being that she didn’t want you to see her posts about you.” Laura dropped her head to the table dramatically at Laf’s words. “Sorry Laura, but you gotta say, there isn’t much to prove Danny’s theory wrong right now.”

“That just makes it worse,” Laura mumbled into the table.

Perry, who had been silent throughout the entire conversation slammed her bag of cookies down onto the table. “Enough! I didn’t want to get involved in this mess of privacy invasion and internet stalking, but Laura, you’ve obviously managed to hurt this poor girl’s feelings, and it’s up to you to fix it.” At the mention of Carmilla’s feelings, Danny snorted, causing Perry to turn to her. “And you! Need to forget about this ridiculous grudge you have against her from freshman year. If you’d actually taken the time to speak to the girl, you’d realize her mother has nothing to do with her grades. Now if you all will excuse me, I can’t listen to this anymore.”

Laf sat, mouth hanging open for a minute before quickly rising and gathering up all of their stuff. They let out a quick “Sorry guys, I’ll go find her,” before rushing off in the direction that Perry had disappeared.

The table settled into a stiff silence at Perry’s outburst, as Danny and Laura both had no idea what to say.

Finally, Laura spoke up. “You know what, she’s right. I need to find her and apologize to her. I need to fix this.” She stood up from the table, a determined look on her face, causing Danny to snap out of her stunned silence.

“Woah, woah, woah, Laura, hold on. We’re in school, you can’t just leave and try to hunt her down. Come on, only one more class left.” When Laura looked hesitant, Danny sighed. “Alright, I’ll tell you what. Carmilla lives down the street from me, I’ll take you to her house after school if you just sit down and wait it out through one more class.”

Laura appeared to consider it for a second before plopping herself back into her seat. “Fine, but right after school, before I lose my nerve.”

Danny just rolled her eyes.

--

“Alright here we are. Casa de Karnstein. Which brings me back to, are you sure you want to do this? You know this could just wait till school tomorrow.” Danny was staring at Laura with concern.

Shaking her head, Laura replied. “No, I have to do this now. Who knows if she’ll even show up tomorrow? Or, you know, ever again.”

Danny nodded. “Alright, I’ll just wait out here. Just be careful, okay? As unpleasant as Carmilla normally is, I don’t want to know what she’s like when she’s this mad.”

Laura opened the door the car without replying, and stepped outside, making her way to the front door of the house. It was average sized, not much different from her own, really. When she reached her destination she took a deep breath before pushing her finger into the doorbell. There was no turning back now.

A few moments passed before the door slightly cracked open. Through the crack, Laura saw the spiked up brown hair and pointed jaw that clearly belonged to Will. He didn’t say anything, his gaze switching from confusion to a glare the second he recognized Laura.

Laura decided it was probably up to her to speak first, as it seemed that he knew what had transpired a few hours ago. “Hey...Will, right?” When he didn’t respond, she glanced to the side before continuing. “Listen, I know neither of you probably want to see me right now, but if I could just talk to Carmilla, it would be great. I really want to make this right.”

When Will just continued to glare at her, Laura let out an exasperated breath. “Things just got taken out of hand and I’m an oblivious idiot and I just really want to make this better because I know I hurt her and I was wrong, so can I please just talk to her?”

Will looked at her for a moment longer before his head disappeared from the crack and the door opened. He stood to the side, making a path for Laura to walk in. When she did, he shut the door behind her.

“She probably won’t want to talk to you anyway. When I tried to go in her room earlier, she threw her remote at me.”

Laura gulped and nodded. “It’s alright, it’s a worth a shot, right?”

Will didn’t respond, moving to walk in the direction of the stairs. “This way.”

Laura followed him up the stairs, subtly glancing around at the house. All the walls were bare, devoid of any family pictures. For the most part, the house appeared to be completely silent. As they walked up the stairs the faint sound of rock music grew louder and louder.

They reached the top of the stairs and Laura managed to identify the source of the music as the first door on the left side. She could have figured it was Carmilla’s anyway, because of the no trespassing sign hung up on the outside of it.

Stopping at the door, Will looked pointedly at her. “Well, I don’t want to be a part of this, so goodbye!” he said, giving her a sarcastic wave as he walked back down the stairs.

Suddenly, Laura didn’t know if she could do this. She didn’t even know what exactly she wanted to say. Sorry, I didn’t mean to spend a night tracking down your Tumblr, won’t happen again!

As she was standing in front of the door, debating her options, the door swung open to reveal a very disheveled looking Carmilla. The t-shirt she was wearing appeared to be multiple sizes too big, along with the sweatpants she wearing, and her hair was tied back into a messy ponytail, with pieces having fallen out framing her face.

Her face that was currently wearing a completely flabbergasted expression. The two girls stared at each other, both shocked to be standing face to face. Just as Laura thought she had gathered herself enough to actually speak, Carmilla retreated back into the room, slamming the door in her face.

Laura sighed, and moved closer to the door, so that Carmilla could hear her through it. “Carmilla! I just want to talk!”

Not a second passed before Carmilla screamed out a “Leave me the fuck alone!”

Laura tried at the doorknob, realizing that Carmilla hadn’t locked the door behind her. She hesitantly cracked the door open, fearing the same reaction that Will said he got.

“Just because I’m not allowed to have a lock on my door doesn’t mean you’re allowed to just walk inside. Now go away.”

If she was going to do this, she couldn’t be afraid of Carmilla’s reaction. Besides, if she was angry enough to actually hurt her, she would have done it at school.

She pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped into the room. The walls were a dark blue and covered in posters of bands that Laura had never heard of. In the corner of the room, up against the window, was a bed, with Carmilla laying down on it, her face in her pillow.

As she made her way into the room, she found herself stepping over numerous black articles of clothing that were scattered all across the floor. Making her way over to the bed, she came to stop in front of it.

Now what? The apology would feel much less sincere delivered to the back of Carmilla’s head, so Laura stood there awkwardly, trying to decide how to get Carmilla to look up at her.

Carmilla, sensing her presence, lifted her head from the pillow to glare up at her. “What part of go away and leave me alone do you not understand?”

Laura took a deep breath, preparing herself for the rambling apology she knew she was about to let out. “I know I messed up and that I shouldn’t have mocked you for liking my pictures and I know that your blog is probably pretty private and that you didn’t want people looking at it so I should have told you the second I found out that it was you or at least been nicer about telling you. I feel really awful and I’m really glad you like my pictures and I’m sorry that I went about the way wrong way of trying to talk to you.” She was met with silence and a blank stare. “So yeah...I’m really sorry and...yeah.”

She tried to smile at Carmilla, hoping it would prompt her to say something, but she just laid there, staring up at her with an expression that went from empty to disbelief.

After what felt like an hour, Carmilla spoke up. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to apologize for?”

Laura, confused, furrowed her eyebrows together. “Uh...yeah?”

“Get the fuck out.” This time Carmilla’s order was much softer. She almost sounded defeated.

As Carmilla threw her face back into her pillow, Laura continued to stand there. She didn’t think she’d done anything else wrong, Carmilla did give her permission to keep the picture up after all, and she already apologized for posting it without asking.

Unsure what to do, Laura cautiously tapped Carmilla on her shoulder. Carmilla slowly lifted her head off the bed, glaring at Laura. She said nothing, so Laura went ahead and voiced her question.

“What else, exactly, did I do?”

Carmilla groaned and pulled herself into a sitting position, leaning her back against the wall above her bed. “Haven’t we embarrassed me enough for one day?”

“I’m not understanding?”

Rubbing her eyes with her hand, Carmilla sighed before continuing. “Yeah, sure, why not do this. Alright cupcake. I’m not stupid. I know you and Xena found my posts about you and you and your gargantuan girlfriend have been laughing it up how pathetic I am. I get it, alright? What I don’t get is why you felt the need to rub it in my face by putting on that pity show this morning with all of that ‘Oh I just thought you might want some company because I’m so sweet and nice’ bullshit. Now, if you will leave me, I have some Joan Jett to get back to.”

Carmilla got up from the bed, shrugging past Laura and walking over to a record player in the corner of the room that Laura had failed to notice when she first walked in. Laura, however, was dumbfounded.

Flipping over the record, Carmilla set it back on the turntable. She paused before hitting the play button, sensing that Laura still hadn’t moved. “You gonna stand there all day, cutie? Beat it. You had your laugh.”

Laura snapped out of her daze and just stared at Carmilla’s back disbelievingly. “You know, if you’d just asked me out like a normal person, I would have said yes.”

Carmilla gave no sign of a reaction, except for the finger that had frozen just before hitting the play button.

“And you know, maybe, if you’d taken the time to talk to me and tell me you liked my blog in person we could have skipped this entire….debacle.”

Finally whipping around to glare at Laura, Carmilla growled out, “Listen, I may be a lot of things but I’m not about to homewreck you and Bigfoot out there. It was just a stupid crush and after today, I can assure you that it is long gone.”

Laura shook her head and took a step towards Carmilla, who, despite her best efforts to look unaffected, drew in a shallow breath. “For the last time, me and Danny are not together, have never been together, will never be together. And honestly, anyone who is willing to track down my blog, which, wow, and go through every single thing I post and like it, definitely deserves a shot.”

Squinting as she gauged the sincerity of Laura’s statement, Carmilla slowly nodded. “There’s a movie theatre a few streets over and the new Fantastic Four just came out.”

Laura’s face broke out in a huge smile and she grabbed Carmilla’s hand. “Lead the way!”

--

Carmilla and Laura’s lips broke apart as a flash interrupted their moment. They looked over to see Danny sitting across from them with a playfully irritated scowl on her face. “Figured if you guys were gonna be all sappy, I might as well document it.”

“You’re the only one who seems to have a problem with it, Xena. You’d think you’d be used to it after three months.”

Setting the camera down on the table and gesturing at Laf and Perry, who were too caught up in each other’s conversation to care about what was going on around them, Danny glared at Carmilla. “See, before, me and Laura were both third wheels. It worked. Now, here I am, a lone fifth wheel.”

A smirk formed on Carmilla’s face. “Well why don’t you invite that football playing giant that you’ve been hanging around to come join us then.”

Swiping the camera from the table, Carmilla snapped a picture of Danny as her face turned bright red.

Laura reached over her girlfriend’s arm to hit the playback button and clicked back to the picture Danny had taken of her and Carmilla. She smiled at how perfectly the picture had captured them, her pulling Carmilla closer with a hand around her neck, Carmilla smiling slightly.

“You know what? I think my mom would have loved this one,” she said, just softly enough so only Carmilla could hear.

Carmilla smiled softly as she looked down at the picture. “Yeah, I think she would too.”