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When Allison first delivered a pile of assorted odds and ends, mostly comprised of hair ties and socks, Patty had thought nothing of it.
It was when a few days passed without a movie night or getting into bed together that she first began to think that something was wrong.
Patty had never been great with people. Other people, people who were somehow normal in whatever way Patty was not, had some secret way they communicated with each other that Patty had never been able to decipher. She could have sworn that Allison was the same way she was at the end of the day until Allison pulled a weird song and dance about hair ties. Patty didn’t even want or need the god damn ties— she’d had most of them for fifteen years and could get a new pack for less than the price of a pack of cigarettes. Neither of them, no one in the history of humanity maybe (except for Patty’s Great Depression survivor hoarder great grandmother) had ever cared about a pack of fucking plastic hair ties.
Nope. The hair ties were some type of symbol, the way vodka had been Tammy’s way of changing her. Well, Patty wasn’t going to cave in and whine and beg to go back to how things were with Allison. If Allison wanted to be done, they could be done.
But three days later— it was because of her period, she would insist after, she never would have been as weak otherwise— she turned up at Allison’s front door with a six pack of PBR.
Allison let her in and made no comment about the cheap beer. She knew Patty was saving up for nursing school. Something that was going to be almost impossibly expensive that nearly every pleasure had to be sacrificed to pursue it. Except for cigarettes. Patty was probably going to smoke until she died.
It took a beer and a half for Patty to put her head on Allison’s shoulder. Allison jumped slightly at the touch but didn’t pull away. Allison kissed her then, taking off Patty’s hair tie and sliding it around her own wrist.