Archive of Our Own

People are stupid. Whether it was in general common sense, or knowledge on certain topics in particular, people never failed to astound Cherri Fire with how stupid they could be.

Katie was one of those people. Don't get her wrong, Katie was good academically. But her common sense? Well, sometimes Cherri questioned it a little bit. Especially in times like these.

"So what? You invite her over, act all helpless like ‘Oh, Apo, I don’t know how to put together a chair!’. Then, she helps you, you guys make out, and bam! Two birds, one lesbian kiss!” Katie gestures wildly, as if her plan makes any sense at all. 

Cherri and her are sitting in Cherri’s room, on the floor. The floor, because Cherri’s only chair—a shitty swivel chair at her desk—had completely broken. They could be sitting on the bed, but Cherri thinks that sitting on the floor is what Katie deserves, especially after that ridiculous idea. 

“Katie, there is not one singular thing in the universe I want to do less than that.” Cherri speaks slowly, trying to contain her temper. “I can put together a chair on my own.”

Katie raises a brow. Cherri fights the urge to throw up her middle finger in response. The reason they were there was simple. Cherri’s chair had broken, and she had bought a new one. She had to assemble that new one. 

Cherri was terrible at assembling furniture. And Katie insisted she was too busy to help. 

Cherri called bullshit on that, but whatever. Katie had slyly suggested that Cherri just invite Apo over, and here they were. 

“I’m not inviting her over so she can see how terrible I am at assembling furniture!” Cherri bursts, dragging both her hands down her face. 

“What? I thought you guys were ‘getting closer’ or however you put it.”

Okay, Cherri might have been exaggerating when she said that. Apo and her had been texting for two weeks at this point, and while Cherri had hoped it would be outwardly flirty, neither of them had made any… romantic moves. 

Well, Apo hadn’t. Cherri had tried to invite the other woman out for coffee, hoping they might broach the topic of ‘Hi, I’ve been sort of crushing on you for 8 months?’. 

Apo had declined. Apo had declined, citing that she had plans, and Cherri had… given up. Katie reassured her that Apo had definitely just missed the signals, but Cherri hadn’t quite recovered from the rejection yet. 

She had vowed not to make any moves unless Apo actually showed a definite interest in her. 

So until Apo so much as said she liked Cherri’s hair, nothing was going to happen. 

Besides, it was a lot to lay on a person for a first date that Apo probably didn’t even think was a date in the first place. Eight months was an abnormal amount of time to have been crushing on someone you didn’t really know. For all Cherri knows, Apo might be scared of that kind of commitment. 

“Not ‘Come over to assemble furniture’ close!”  Cherri exclaims, before standing up. “I’ll just do it by myself.”

“Well, don’t come crawling to me saying that your chair has 8 legs instead of 5.” Katie shrugs, standing as well. Cherri’s roommate stretches, before her shoulders slump, and she heads for the door. “All I’m saying, is that you have her number, so it's time you do something about it.”

—————————————————————————

Apo has known Katie almost her whole life. From fifth grade until now, Apo has seen Katie throughout all her embarrassing phases. They had met in elementary, when Katie had apparently noticed that Apo didn’t have many friends, and had trotted up to her with a request that they become friends. 

And they had been inseparable ever since. In high school, Bek had come into the picture too, and then they were a trio. 

Yes, Apo has known Katie since she was 11, so she knows when Katie wants something from her. 

“Yeah, and it’s so annoying, because she keeps coming into my room to do her assignments!” Katie finishes, sending a meaningful glance across the table at Apo. They’re sitting in a mom and pop diner, and Bek is eating fries like she doesn’t have a care in the world. 

They were talking about Katie’s roommate. Katie always seemed to want something from Apo when it came to Cherri, and Apo never quite knew what it was. It was a point of weariness whenever Cherri came up in conversation. 

“That sucks.” Bek mumbles through her fries, her eyes sympathetic. “Can’t she just buy a new chair?”

Apo is about to suggest that maybe Cherri’s starving artist lifestyle might not support a new chair, before Katie responds. “She has! But she’s really horrible at assembling furniture, so we’re going to hopefully do it this weekend.”

The weekend? But it was only Monday, and if Katie was as annoyed as she seemed, it was probably a good idea to get it done sooner.

“Why aren’t you doing it a little sooner?” Apo asks innocently, and then raises a brow when Katie lights up at the question. 

“Oh, well I’m too busy to do it sooner,” Katie shrugs, a grin on her lips. “And Apo, you know how I am with furniture. I’m no good either. It’s like two engineers trying to garden.”

Apo snorts, and then debates her next move. She could offer to help. She’s willing to admit that she’s kind of a legend at furniture building, her and Bek’s apartment was proof of that. Everything was assembled perfectly down to the last screw, and Bek had even praised her diligence on the matter. 

It was a weird thing to be so good at, for sure. But Apo debates offering.

Cherri and her were still… well, they weren’t uncomfortable, but they certainly weren’t best friends. Apo had been quite anxious about it, actually. She wasn’t the best at social queues, or guessing what people meant, and that translated to them messaging as well. Apo worried about coming off as aloof, or dry, as she was often accused of being over text. 

So she had adopted emoji’s, and smiley faces in response. Apo had thought it fixed her problem, but apparently not. Cherri had begun pulling away once more, for seemingly no reason. She had been so friendly and awkwardly nervous, but now she barely ever texted first. 

It was… disheartening, to say the least. Apo had just been beginning to get to know her, so the switch was jarring. 

Not to mention, Apo was, scarily enough, starting to have a little hope again. After Cherri had denied being interested in Bek, (A magical moment, where Apo had stared at Cherri’s laugh a little too hard) Apo had been… relieved. And the request for her number had supported the fact that Cherri might be interested in her. 

However, Apo didn’t want to be too hasty with her assumptions. Katie had said—many a time, Apo might add—that Cherri wasn’t the best person at tone, or queues either. 

So, Cherri could be just… a very friendly person. Her nervousness and frequent keysmashes over text were undeniably cute, and her face might be pretty, but Cherri could also just be an anxious person with a pretty face. 

So Apo hesitated to be anywhere with Cherri. So she debates offering to help. 

Katie will be there though, right? 

“You’ll be there this weekend?” Apo confirms. Katie and Bek shoot each other an unreadable look, and Katie nods. 

“Yeah, I’ll be there.” Katie tilts her head, “Why?”

“I could come over and help you guys. I’m free Saturday.”  Apo suggests, and Katie grins. It brings a certain sense of dread to Apo, and she frowns right back at Katie. 

“Wow, Apo, you’re so nice.” Katie says, and Apo immediately wants to take it back. 

“You’re welcome.” Apo says, furrowing her brow.

She has a feeling she’ll regret this.

Cherri grimaces, looking at the instructions like they’re in an unknown language. It had been an hour since she sat down to attempt to build her new chair.

She had also just taken the entire thing apart after it had collapsed after her first attempt.  The scrape on her arm was proof of that.

Cherri had gotten cocky, and sat on the chair when it was done. Rookie mistake (Sitting on a chair, really, Cherri?), and she had paid for it. The injury on her forearm wasn’t bleeding, but it still hurt, and left a visible mark. The only thing that was truly wounded was her pride, and she had taken a ten-minute break, staring at the pieces of the now-disassembled chair, like they had a generational grudge against each other. 

“Hey,” Katie pops her head in through the doorway, startling Cherri out of her furniture-burning thoughts. “Gonna go out to eat with Bek and Eloise.”

“‘Kay,” Cherri mumbles, still sort of salty about the scratch she’s nursing on her arm. “Bring me back leftovers?”

“You must seriously be miserable if you want my leftovers.” Katie teases, but Cherri isn’t really in the mood for it, so she doesn’t react. Katie sobers up after a moment. “The chair is giving you trouble?”

“As usual, yes.” Cherri remarks dryly. She just might take up Katie’s horrific Apo idea soon, if the instructions still looked like they were written in ancient Greek in around an hour. “Why do they write these instructions like literal engineers are putting together the chair? Everyone needs a chair! It’s something that is in everyone's house!”

Cherri is whisper-shouting to herself now, and Katie gives her a sympathetic look, to her roommates credit. “I’ll bring you leftovers.”

“Thanks.” Cherri will take her wins where she can. “Why are you going out with Bek and El? That seems like a one-way ticket to being the most left out third wheel ever.”

Yes, Bek and Eloise were obsessed with each other, for lack of a better word for it. Cherri had heard the story of how they got together after years of hopeless pining, yes, she had, in fact, heard it around a million times. 

Mostly because she kept mulling it over in her head and wondering why her and Apo couldn’t have a story like that. One that was written in a romcom, or a famous romance novel.

Of course, there was always the option that Cherri’s own hopeless pining would pay off, but she wasn’t really counting on it. 

But yes. Bek and Eloise were obsessed with each other. Oftentimes though, they were so enveloped in each other's very presence, that it was hard not to find it somewhat endearing. Cherri had met Eloise a couple of times, and met Bek once when Katie had invited her to tag along to go to a party the mechanics student was hosting. It was loud, overwhelming, and the only reason that Cherri had gone was because Apo was Bek’s roommate, so she might've been there.

Looking back now, there was no way that Apo would ever go to a party like that. 

“They invited me,” Katie shrugged, “Apo was coming too, but she cancelled last minute.”

Unfortunately, Apo’s name is like a buzzword for Cherri, and she visibly perks up at the mention of it, before shrinking back in on herself in utter disappointment. Katie fights a laugh, and Cherri groans a ‘shut up’. 

“Fine, fine. I’m leaving now.” Katie steps back from the entrance to Cherri’s room. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.” Cherri says miserably. The wishes of good fortune will probably do nothing, and if she allows herself to feel hopeful, she risks getting disappointed by failure again. 

She stares at step one. 

Jesus Christ. 

The door closes, signaling Katie’s departure, and Cherri wonders for a moment if she should get something to drink. Dehydration always made her a little more volatile, and she would do anything not to feel so utterly hopeless. 

She swallows experimentally, and finds her throat staunchly dry. It was actually shocking Cherri hadn’t picked up on her thirst before. Water would do her good.

She pushes herself up to standing, and walks into the kitchen. It’s not clean, not by any means, but it’s certainly still functional, which is really all that matters.

Her and Katie have around three cups, and neither of them particularly care about it, so it’s not an issue that needs to be resolved. Cherri’s cup is a deep magenta, with slightly lighter colored flowers decorating the sides, and Cherri grabs it, opening the cabinet a little harder than she means to. 

Cherri takes her cup, and fills it up at the tap. It could be dangerous, who knows, but Cherri actually doesn’t care at this point. She could die right now. At least she wouldn’t have to deal with the fuckass chair anymore. 

Cherri takes a sip, closing her eyes, and effectively resigning herself to her fate. In three minutes, she will go back to being miserable, and working on the chair. 

But for these three minutes, Cherri will ignore it, focusing on how good water tasted after being parched. 

Three minutes. That’s all she gets. 

But her three minutes are cut short, by three sharp knocks at the front door. 

Cherri sighs in frustration. Her three minutes were up. 

She stalks towards the door, vowing to silently get revenge on whoever dare interrupt the sacred three-minute rule. 

Yes, who could it possibly be.

———————————————————————————

Apo tries her hardest not to be a disruptive person. She doesn’t like to mettle, prefers not to pry, and more importantly, just doesn’t want to. She kept her volume down at all times, which actually was also a product of her own sensitivity to loud noises, and tried to give people their space. 

Standing at the door of Katie’s dorm feels a bit disruptive, though. She’s knocked. Three smart raps on the door, as usual. She never knocks differently, Apo thinks, frankly, that it sounds unnatural to do so. Besides, she just likes the number three. It was a good number. 

Apo had practiced her smile this morning in the mirror, making sure it didn’t look stiff. She had failed. It still looked too stiff for actual amusement or joy, but Apo had given up, in favor of protecting her sanity. 

Oh, and another reason it feels disruptive, is because of the way Cherri looks at her, like she’s not real. Like Cherri wasn’t expecting her at all, which doesn’t make sense, since Apo agreed to help her and Katie assemble the chair today. 

Apo momentarily doesn’t care about being disruptive, though. Cherri’s eyes are tired, her hair pulled into a ponytail that looks like it’s on its last legs. 

And she has glasses. Cherri has glasses that look like cookies, their frames and lenses too big for her face. Cherri has glasses on, and she has moles too, which are usually covered up by makeup, apparently? But they’re not now, and Cherri has glasses, and moles, and an astonished look on her face. She’s flushed, from what, Apo isn’t sure, but the redness paints her face like it’s a canvas, and Apo is just admiring the art.

And all Apo can think, in return, upon receiving this information, is:

Wow. 

“Apo.” Cherri asserts, like she’s delegating Apo a role in a play. “You’re… Here.”

“Yes?” Apo hears herself say, the word coming out more like a question than the statement she meant it as. “Yes. Katie told me today would be a good day to help you with that chair?”

A dozen emotions fly across Cherri’s face, fighting for dominance. At first, a flash of what looks to be relief, followed by exasperation, annoyance, and then relief once more. Apo holds her breath, though she’s not sure why, as the silence stretches awkwardly between them. Then, Cherri sighs, some of the tension releasing from her shoulders. 

“Thank god.”

Apo laughs. She laughs, and she’s not sure why, but she’s laughing anyway. Something about Cherri’s long pause, into relieved sigh, is utterly funny. It doesn’t help that Apo laughs when she’s nervous. 

Cherri stares at her, and then wordlessly steps aside to invite Apo in. 

“Sorry, you just sounded like I was a first responder on the scene of a crime, or something.“ Apo says, recovering from her momentary laughter. Cherri, in turn, looks deathly serious. 

“Might as well be.” Cherri replies gravely, “Worst case I’ve seen in all my years as a detective, Watson.”

The joke, when combined with the somber tone, makes Apo’s chest tighten, and she smiles uncontrollably. This is going well. It’s going well! 

She’s talking to Cherri, and it’s going well, and they’re going to assemble a chair! 

“Lead me to the scene, Sherlock.” Apo deadpans back at Cherri. The art student seems to delight in the banter, and her eyes light up, like she hadn’t expected Apo to joke with her. It makes Apo feel warm, that she’s the reason that Cherri is making that expression.

“Of course.”

Cherri leads her through the dorm, apologizing for the mess, which Apo tells her is fine. Then, they stop in the doorway to Cherri’s room. 

It’s worse than she thought. The chair looks to be half torn apart, pieces strewn about like someone had haphazardly taken it apart after doing it wrong, before giving up and perhaps sobbing. Cherri’s eyes hadn’t looked red, so hopefully she wasn’t at that stage yet. 

More importantly, Katie is nowhere in the room. Which is fine, Apo is sure. She’s probably just around the corner in her own room, and had been waiting for Apo to show up. 

“Doesn’t look too bad. Why don’t you go get Katie and we can get started?” Apo suggests, stepping towards the chair catastrophe, and glancing back at Cherri in the doorway. The art student, frankly, looks a little awestruck, just standing in the doorway, and staring at Apo. Her glasses are falling down her nose, and Cherri looks like a spring rainstorm, just… staring. 

It makes Apo’s face feel warm, until she is sure they’re wearing matching flushes on their cheeks. “Cherri…?”

Cherri snaps out of whatever trance she was in. “Oh- Yes- Sorry- Uh. What?”

“I asked if you would go collect Katie.” Apo repeats, the words sounding too formal in her ears. Whenever she got nervous, it tended to happen. She would revert back to a violently professional way of speaking. 

Yes, but the question was why was she so nervous? It was going well. Cherri and her had been joking around, and now they were going to assemble furniture. It would be fun, and it would go well. 

“About that,” Cherri says, glancing away from Apo. The architecture student finds the gesture wildly adorable, with Cherri’s eyebrows knitting a furrowed line. “Katie said she was going out with Bek and Eloise to eat. She’s… not here.”

Apo can’t help herself from choking on her next inhale. Really, she’s just lucky that Cherri seems distracted by the remnants of the chair, as Apo stares at her incredulously. 

Cherri obviously didn’t know about Apo’s nervousness about coming over if her roommate wasn’t home. There was no way she did, and Apo certainly hoped Katie hadn’t told Cherri, although Apo doesn’t believe Katie would actually ever do anything like that. 

Devious and conniving or not, Katie was good at keeping people’s secrets, and she would probably take them to the grave, if she could.  

Onto the second problem. Other than Apo’s issue with her nerves, the fact of the matter was that Bek and Eloise were currently on a trip to a neighboring city, not far from their own. They had left the night before, and weren’t expected back until the following day. 

So Katie, pointedly, couldn’t be going out to eat with them. 

“She’s not here.” Apo echoes dumbly, pressing her lips into a firm line. Yes, this was why Katie had looked so elated at her offer to help. This had been her plan all along. 

Get Cherri and Apo to hang out, assemble a chair, and more importantly, talk to each other. 

Not a bad plan, and Apo can’t say she would have agreed had she known Katie planned to ditch. 

Katie was smart, in her own, sick and twisted way. She was probably hanging out with that odd volunteer at the library that she had met recently. Katherine? Kit? Kitty? Whatever, it didn’t really matter what she was up to. 

All that matters is that she and Cherri are trapped in this situation until Cherri’s chair is functional. 

Oh, but it’s more that Apo is trapped with Cherri, because she might need to leave the room to steel herself before actually attempting to focus. 

Glasses. Moles. This was the first time she was seeing Cherri like that. It was… intimate, Apo decides the word like it’s about to solve all of her problems. It won’t, but she hopes for a moment anyway. 

Apo’s eyes catch on a red mark that makes its way down Cherri’s forearm. It looks to just be skinned, but a flash of concern shoots through Apo. 

“What’s this?” Apo says, unable to stop herself from reaching out to touch Cherri’s arm, tracing the mark gently. 

Cherri doesn’t answer. She does, however, stiffen up, and Apo glances up at Cherri’s face, to find the art student looking at her with an absolutely mortified expression. Her face is flushed, and she seems to be electric under Apo’s touch, like she’s waiting for Apo to say it’s okay for her to move. 

The air crackles with static energy, and Apo can feel herself waiting like Cherri. Waiting for what, she doesn’t know, as she stares into Cherri’s one visible eye with Apo’s face heating up more by the second. 

Cherri’s eyes are blue. It’s not a scary blue, like some people, no, Apo would dare say the colour of Cherri’s eyes was soothing.

Cherri is beautiful, is what Apo is trying, and failing to say. It’s her usual reaction, the one that had made Apo dub her Katie’s weird roommate, but there’s something a little off this time, and Apo steps away quickly. 

“Sorry,” Apo blurts. Her words get jumbled in her head, but she manages, “That was inappropriate. I won’t do it again.” 

Apo looks towards the chair, then, and takes a step approaching the pile of discarded chair bones for good measure. 

Yes, she looks away, so she doesn’t catch the way Cherri opens her mouth, and reaches towards Apo slightly. No words come out, but the frustration is clear as day, and so is Cherri’s message. 

Come back.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cherri had excused herself to the bathroom after her embarrassing stunt with her minor injury. Now, she stares at herself in the mirror and wonders what the fuck is wrong with her, actually. 

Apo had reached out, ghosting a touch across Cherri’s arm, and Cherri had frozen up, not just because it was Apo, but because… She didn’t want Apo to know how horrible she was at assembling furniture, apparently. 

Yes, it felt like a little bit of a failure on her part. 

She had instead sat there, breathing in how close Apo was, how it felt like a long time coming, and now, they were finally alone, for the first time. Cherri wanted to kiss Apo at that moment. She wanted to lean in, and murmur how Apo didn’t have anything to worry about, how Cherri wouldn’t want to clutter her mind with such trivial affairs. 

She had wanted to press her lips to Apo’s, and had wanted Apo to reciprocate. She wanted to tangle her hands in Apo’s hair, wanted to smell the scent of pine, or whatever Apo’s cologne actually smelled like. Cherri wanted the smell to cling to her as she pulled away. 

Cherri had simply wanted so much at that moment. 

But Cherri had stiffened instead, tracing Apo’s eyes obsessively, watching the concern fade into regret, guilt, and then settle on something unreadable. And Cherri had ached for all the things she was too frightened to do. 

Then, she had excused herself to the bathroom to get her shit together. Her reflection looks back, taunting her. Cherri ignores how it has every right to do so. 

Should she splash water on her face or something? It might help her flush from getting any worse. 

Jesus, Cherri had known in the back of her head that something like this might happen. She had known that Katie had some stupid fucking plan, had known that her roommate would have gone behind her back like this. 

But now, Katie isn’t there, so there’s no one who Cherri can send tortured looks at. 

She’s alone, which is terrifying, exciting, and mortifying all at once. 

It seems, though, she isn’t the only one to catch onto Katie’s plan. When Cherri had said that Katie was out with Bek and Eloise, Apo’s brow had furrowed. 

Then, she had just… accepted it. God, what Cherri wouldn’t do to know what was going on inside Apo’s stupid head all the time. Apo had simply echoed her, and then gotten distracted by Cherri’s mark on her arm. 

Cherri blows out a breath forcefully, shutting her eyes and trying to calm her nerves. Surprisingly, it works a little. Whatever god above that has taken pity on her, Cherri thanks them most ardently, before opening the door. She makes her way down the hallway, and peeks into the doorway to her room, before entering. 

She half expected Apo to have left, for some reason. But no, Apo is sitting on Cherri’s bed, squinting at the instructions with a mostly-built chair in front of her. 

Cute. And impressive, Cherri thinks, after her catastrophic attempt at putting it together. It, at least, looks a little more stable this time. 

“Back,” Apo looks up, her eyes warming up immediately. It makes Cherri’s mind melt, seeing Apo in her room, sitting on her bed. “Sorry I took a bit.” 

I was trying to get over the shock of seeing you, is what Cherri doesn’t say, instead opting to adjust her glasses on her face, where they’ve slipped down her nose. 

“You’re good,” smiling, peering at Cherri like she’s something other than a frail, skittish art student. “I managed to get like, halfway done.”

Cherri feels embarrassment wash over her, and she frowns slightly. Apo had managed to get done what she couldn’t in an hour, in around ten minutes. Unfortunately, along with the embarrassment is a suggestion of hey, if you’re so good at building furniture, why don’t you move in and we can build, like, a family? Or something?

“Katie wasn’t kidding. You are good at this.” The compliment brings a flush to Apo’s cheeks, and the other woman looks away, almost shyly, which might actually be the cutest thing in the world, now that Cherri’s thinking about it. 

“I certainly hope she hasn’t been bragging.” Apo’s eyes glint with humor, and Cherri feels herself light up in return. 

“Maybe a little,” with a bitten back smile, “Either way, she wasn’t exaggerating.”

“Thanks.” Apo says, her words quiet, and then she seemingly realizes that she’s stopped working, and stands. “Uh- We really just need to assemble the seat and then put it on the base.”

Complete gibberish, Cherri thinks dreamily. Wow, Apo is like. So smart.

“Sounds good!” Is instead, what she says. Cherri tries her best to look helpful, offering suggestions on how Apo can best maneuver the chair to fit the pieces together. 

Other than that, though, she’s quite useless. But Cherri tries anyway, and Apo keeps humming, saying thank you, thank you, thank you, almost like she’s thanking Cherri for her very presence in the matter. 

Of course, she isn’t. However, a girl can dream, no matter how fantastical those dreams were. 

They finish putting together the seat in record time. Cherri smiles, and Apo looks up. 

“We did it,” standing up, Apo’s hand holding the seat up almost triumphantly. 

“You did it,” Cherri corrects, “I just kind of stood there.”

“That’s okay,” Apo says, “You know how some people get annoyed whenever someone else is in the kitchen with them? That’s how I am.”

Cherri almost fails to contain herself at how adorable Apo is, as she gestures with a fucking chair seat in her hand, not bothering to put it down. 

“But the kitchen is… a chair?”

Apo nods. “The kitchen is a chair.”

Before Cherri can mull over how stupid (Cute) Apo sounds, the front door opens with a creak. The good thing about the front door is that you can always hear people coming in, due to how the door slams when it shuts. Cherri glances at Apo, who has heard the noise too, her expression becoming unreadable. 

Sure enough, slam. 

“Cherri?” Katie’s voice floats towards the room. “I’m back. No leftovers, though, Bek ate my-” 

Katie freezes as she spies the two women in Cherri’s room. “Oh.” 

Cherri feels… annoyed. But not too annoyed, since she’s gotten closer to Apo, and now her chair is pretty much complete. 

“Yeah. Oh.” Apo says, and Cherri looks over in surprise at the anger in Apo’s voice. Sure enough, Apo’s brows are furrowed, and she looks at Katie with an indecipherable expression. “How were Bek and Eloise?”

“Fine.” Katie chokes, looking frankly, sort of terrified. “They were… Fine.”

“I’m glad.” Apo says, and Cherri marvels at the complete 360 from the woman who was talking about kitchens being chairs just a moment prior. 

They stand there, awkwardly, tension crackling in the air, and Apo sets down the seat of the chair. 

“Well, now that you’re back, Katie, you can do the rest of the chair,” walking towards the doorway, “Like you promised.”

Katie stares, dumbfounded towards Apo, who is now almost at the door. Cherri scrambles past Katie, calling, “Thanks for helping!”

No response. 

Slam. 

Cherri whirls around, glaring at Katie. 

“I- I didn’t think she would react like that.” Katie says defensively, like Cherri might attack her. Cherri just might. 

“Was that the first time you lied to her about one of your schemes Katie?” Cherri says, absolutely shocked, “Jesus, she looked pissed!”

“I- I guess it was- I just- She’s not usually like that.”

And Katie has known Apo long enough to know that. So Cherri suddenly feels a little guilty. Maybe Apo had just been humoring her the entire afternoon? It wasn’t too far-fetched of an idea. Maybe Apo had just wanted to tell Katie how angry she was in person?

Maybe Cherri’s presence hadn’t really even mattered much at all.

—--------------------------------------------------------------

Apo is pissed. It didn’t really occur to her how pissed she was, until Katie walked through the front door, spouting lies upon lies to Cherri, about her ‘dinner with Eloise and Bek’. 

No, Apo hadn’t been angry that Katie was lying to her. Katie did it all the time, little jokes, Apo was indeed quite gullible. 

Apo had been angry that Katie was lying to Cherri. Cherri didn’t deserve it, and she most certainly didn’t need to be lied to in order to hang out with Apo. 

Apo didn’t want that. Cherri needed to want it too. Apo wanted Cherri to want it. 

So, Apo is almost at her own apartment now, at her brisk, angry pace. She can’t even confide in Bek about it, because again, the woman was away. 

She tries not to step too angrily up the stairs, until Apo flings the front door open, and it closes with a deafening slam. 

Then, it’s silent. Apo walks down the hallway, and flops into her bed, groaning with frustration. 

She had ruined it. Cherri and her had been having a good time. They had been talking! 

And Apo had ruined it with her own indignant anger. 

She pulls out her phone, ready to text Cherri an awkward apology, when she sees the notification from Bek. 

Bek (3:04): Yooo!!!

Bek (3:04): I know you keep saying no but I figured I’d say soemthing 

Bek (3:05): *something

Bek (3:05): anyways Im having a party this next coming weekend

Bek (3:06): u in?

Apo was, admittedly, not in. Bek’s parties, hosted at her parents house whilst they were away on vacation—which was often—, were rather rowdy. Loud, crowded, and rowdy. There was never a lack of drinking, and never a lack of bass-boosted music making your head ache. 

Safe to say, Apo wasn’t a fan. Being in a room filled mostly with people you didn’t know, with the music making it impossible to really say anything? Not her idea of a good time. 

She’s about to tell Bek just that—maybe talk about Katie’s sinister plot with her over text—when a notification for Katie herself makes Apo frown, she forgets about the reply entirely, opening the message. 

Katie (3:31): why did you leave like that???

Apo [YOU] (3:32): Why do you think?

Katie (3:33): idk thats why I asked

Apo [YOU] (3:33): Katie, don’t do that again

Katie (3:34): if this is about the whole ‘going out to eat with bek and el’ thing I can explain

Apo [YOU] (3:34): I don’t want you to have to lie to Cherri for us to hang out

Apo startles, sitting up as Katie calls her. She debates for all but a moment, before accepting the call grudgingly. There’s a pause on the other end, the telltale sound of a phone call, and then, Kaite speaks. 

“Apo- I- I didn’t think you’d care so much.” Katie says, “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

“You’re sorry for lying to me?” Apo seethes, “I’m not mad about that!”

“What are you angry about then?” Katie asks incredulously. Apo stands, beginning to pace. 

“I’m angry that you lied to her! To Cherri!” Apo bursts, “I don’t- I don’t want to hang out with her when someone is lying to her for it! It’s- It’s wrong!” 

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to convince you to come if I hadn’t lied to both of you!” Katie says frustratedly. “I swear, you two are so difficult!”

Before Apo can ask what that is supposed to mean, Katie continues. 

“If I thought either of you were ever going to woman up and ask the other to hang out, none of this would need to happen! But it never will! And I’m sick of you two tip-toeing around each other!” Katie takes a breath, and then falls silent, before continuing. “I think I need to cool off. I’m sorry for yelling. Give me an hour and I’ll call you back?”

Katie has gotten better at that. She’s better at communicating these things now. When she’s getting too angry, when she’s not in the mood. There had been a patch in highschool when Apo wasn’t sure they were going to make it past junior year. But they had, obviously. And Katie was getting better at knowing when she needed to take a break. 

“Alright.” Apo agrees, “An hour, and then I’ll call you back.”

Katie hangs up without another word. Apo flops onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling with a groan.  

“I don’t care if you lie to me. Just don’t bring Cherri into it.” Apo sighs, rubbing her temples, “She doesn’t- she doesn’t deserve to be lied to because of me.”

She wants to ask Katie why she’s even meddling in the first place. Unless Cherri had come to Katie and said ‘Apo is like, super hot’, there was literally no way to know these things! Katie always tended to charge into social situations acting like she knew all the emotions involved, but Apo highly doubts that Cherri is actually interested in her. 

Cherri is just friendly.

However, something that Katie had said lingered in Apo’s mind, even now. 

If I thought either of you were ever going to woman up and ask the other to hang out, none of this would need to happen.

That much is true. As much as Katie reads things wrong, the angry statement was spot on. Apo needed to make a move if she wanted Cherri. She needed to do it, whether Cherri was interested or not. Because if she was, if Apo could finally have good luck with love? 

Well, Apo might just start being religious. 

Just kidding, she would never do that. 

But Apo opens Bek’s message about the party.

Apo [YOU] (3:46): Sure. What time?

And then, with shaking fingers, Apo types out a message that could possibly ruin her whole life. 

Apo [YOU] (3:48): Any plans for the weekend?