Work Text:
One day, Nicole Yu realises she doesn’t want to die.
Maybe she can see something for her at eighteen, twenty, thirty, fourty, besides a half-remembered gravestone in Virginia, buried next to her father. Nicole Jane Yu, 1991-2008, beloved daughter and sister. Uh huh, yeah, right. Why the fuck would she go through all that just to be defined by her deadbeat-with-a-little-more-dead-than-beat dad, screaming whining bitch of a mother, and pedophile brother? Immortalised by some black and white photo of her forcing a smile at some stupid family vacation in 2005 with some rapist stepdad or another’s arm around her shoulder but face cropped out? Fuck that.
But anyway, whatever, it’s not that that’s putting her off from finally ending her shit and leaving the most spiteful vitriolic note ever written, it was Jecka. Fucking Jecka. Nicole came to this city, this school, with the full intention of fucking around. Protect herself from the clones of every rapist and pedophile from the last seven or so schools and leaving as much destruction in her wake as possible because she was bored, it was funny, and eventually, her mom would get another divorce and drag her to Maine, Delaware, New Jersey…some other equally ephemeral and transient house and school and life for the next couple years.
Things don’t always go as planned, she soon realised.
Jecka, with her stupid fucking smile and her body glitter and her honey-amber-sunshine eyes. Jecka with her way of remembering every little detail about Nicole. Jecka and her voice and her warm hands and how she made hours feel like seconds.
Fuck, that Smallville-watching bitch was making her soft. As it turns out, spending every single waking moment together since the first day of junior year together, sharing earphones and sleepover beds and showers and every single piece of gossip they were sworn to secrecy about could maybe one day turn into a pipedream of moving to LA by yourself turn into a pipedream of moving to LA with your best friend turn into a pipedream of moving to LA with your something-lingering-between-the-spaces-of-friendship-and-romance turn into late nights looking at apartments on Zillow and finding actual jobs in California.
When Nicole Yu was twelve years old, she thought surely she wouldn’t live to see her high school graduation, and as she collected her diploma, walking fast as she could and not bothering to shake Miss Lynn’s hand, she didn’t want an expiry date for the first time in a long time.
Fuck this school, fuck Burke, Virginia, fuck her family, fuck everything and everyone but Jecka chatting about how she wants to decorate the apartment.
Nicole doesn’t want to die, she just wants to get out. Maybe, as she stands at the airport, that was the truth all along.