Chapter Text
She walked through a field of sunlight before disappearing into shadow.
It was that girl again. Aubrey knew it was: the jet-black ponytails tied in red, her unassuming black backpack, painfully barren. Her black skirt waved just slightly in the soft breeze, and her hands were clenched into fists as usual, like she didn’t know what to do with them.
Aubrey was lounging around on a warm sunny day, trying to get her homework done and get some fresh air at the same time. Her dingy laptop screen was hard to see in the sun, and with all the people talking and laughing around her on the field, it was only natural that she got distracted.
She’d been haunted by this girl for two years now. She saw her everywhere, yet she’d hardly ever seen her face. She didn’t even know her eye color. But still, even from this much of a distance, she could recognize her by her gait, not to mention her typical monochrome, blank-slate outfits. It almost infuriated her how little she knew about this girl. She showed nothing on the outside, not like the many other students who were frankly too loud about their interests. Aubrey liked to keep it modest—a couple pins on her backpack to show what she liked, the occasional piece of band merchandise, something to help people start a conversation with her. Not to mention her flamboyant pink hair.
This girl was the opposite. She didn’t want to be perceived. Yet Aubrey noticed her anyway; she stared, even. She wondered if the girl ever noticed. She hoped she wasn’t being a creep, and she swore that it was never on purpose. She just kept appearing, and Aubrey couldn’t help but look.
Sighing, she returned to the dim laptop screen, typing out another boring assignment. After so much time spent in college, she was supposed to declare a major by the end of this year—well, it was actually supposed to be last year. But she still didn’t know what to do, so she chose one at random. Luckily, it wasn’t too difficult to change majors, but time was quickly running out, and she actually needed to do something soon, at least by the end of this semester, or else she’d be locked into psychology.
She had been everywhere, from computer science to biology to linguistics to music theory and more. None of it particularly appealed to her. As much as she wanted to be successful in her career, she couldn’t even begin to imagine life after campus.
She knew that being here was a privilege. She hadn’t paid for her own tuition; it was generously done for her. By not making the most of it, she felt like she was wasting it. No matter how many times Basil told her not to worry, all those times when he would clasp his hands together and insist that she was somehow deserving of all of his money, how he would even fund a doctorate if she so desired. After all this time, he still couldn’t get over her forgiveness. It was ridiculous. It almost made her feel uncomfortable. Any time she was given money, it just felt like she was exploiting him, making him pay reparations like a repentant criminal, even if his sentence had ended a while ago.
Thinking about Basil just made her think about Sunny again.
As far as they knew, he was off the grid entirely. Searching nearby cities and looking through phonebooks didn’t yield any results. After everything, it felt a bit like betrayal, especially to Basil—Aubrey knew what he thought of his absence, even if he refused to talk about it. Sunny had given out their most guarded secret to the world and walked away like it was nothing. How could that not hurt? Every year, they would hope for a letter, or even a visit to Mari, but no one ever came, no matter how many picnics they had. Sunny was gone, as much of a ghost as his sister.
She had lived without him for nearly four years by that point, and since then, she’d lived without him for four more. It was probably time to accept that he didn’t want to be contacted again. The only thing he left behind, besides those bunches of flowers from various Faraway residents, was Basil’s prized photo album, save for one picture. It was that dusty photo of when they’d built the treehouse, the last one they’d found together. It never made sense to her why he would choose that one specifically.
But Basil was overjoyed by the album’s return, even sans one photo. And still, after everything, he spoke highly of Sunny for leaving it to him as if it weren’t his property in the first place. Aubrey didn’t dare talk down on him for it—though sometimes, she thought Basil really needed some more backbone. Still, it wasn’t her place. But it was clear to her that his absence was haunting the boy, that he didn’t quite get the closure he wanted. So he yearned for him and sang his praises, all in the hopes he would one day return.
She didn’t think Basil knew it himself, but she could tell why he said such things about his partner in crime.
He loved him.
“Checking out that girl again, huh?”
Aubrey broke from her stupor, darting her eyes away. Her face glowed a light red. “Shut up…”
Kim snickered and took her seat, watching the girl walk out of the library with her twintails trailing behind her. “You know, ever since you pointed her out to me, I haven’t seen her once by myself. It’s only when you look at her that I see her.”
Aubrey curled her lip, trying to concentrate on her writing. “Whatever. I just think she's… interesting.”
“Interesting… how?”
“I dunno. Her… look,” she said, gesturing at the air like she was grasping at straws.
“There’s, like, not much to look at, no offense. What, you think she’s hot? Are shy girls your type?”
“N-no!” Aubrey said defensively. “I don’t mean it like that. I don’t even like girls like that.”
Kim paused. “I never see you looking at guys.”
“Well…”
“I mean, Kel’s like, a girl magnet. Why doesn’t it work on you?”
Aubrey fake-vomited. “Never. Ew. And that’s mutual.”
“Okay, fine.” Kim leaned back in her chair. “What about… hm… have you ever thought about me?”
Aubrey stared at her for a little too long. “…no.”
She sat up with a smirk on her face. “Oh, really…”
Aubrey’s face flushed as she faced the paper again. “Stop. I-I… I need to focus.”
“I’m distracting you? With my… magnificent form?” Kim teased, posing like a sculpture. She laughed. “I never really thought about it, but… yeah, you know, it would make sense, since you’ve never dated anyone before.”
Aubrey stopped writing. Truth be told, the fact that she had no kind of dating experience whatsoever was a bit embarrassing to her. She usually told herself she just hadn’t found the right person yet—after all, she’d only ever been on the receiving end. When men asked her out, she never felt anything for them, so she would reject them, often in a flat monotone. Sure, she had to admit, some of them might have been attractive. But only in looks. By the way some people talked, she could tell if they meshed well with her, and unfortunately, very few people met her standards. She’d never met anyone she actually wanted to date.
“For the record, I don’t think I would date you.”
“Agreed,” Aubrey mumbled. “So, uh… can you stop talking about it now?”
“Oh, whatever,” Kim said, shaking her head. “You know, if you wanna talk to someone, you should just do it,” she added, retrieving her notebook from her bag. “YOLO, and stuff.”
“...what does that mean?”
“You only live once,” she said, almost incredulously. She wondered how it was possible she’d never heard that one before.
“Hm. Well, I’m not gonna just go up to a stranger,” Aubrey muttered. “That’s weird.”
“Okay, then you can look like a creep and keep staring at her, then,” Kim fired back.
“I-I don’t…” She hesitated, blinking. “Does it really look like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m a… weirdo?” She tugged at a couple loose strands of her hair.
Kim sighed. “No, not actually. You’d have to be looking for it to see it. But it is a weird thing to do.”
Aubrey pouted. She didn’t like that answer. “Fine. I’ll stop looking at her.”
“Ha. Yeah, right. Good luck.”
With both girls now focused on their work, Aubrey found herself in reflection. Did she like girls like that? No, she thought, but then again, she didn’t particularly like boys, either. If she weighed her attraction to men and women on a scale, it would come out about even. She could recognize the beauty in both. But Kim was right: she did tend to stare more at girls. She couldn’t help it; they were just on average more expressive with their dress and general look. Though, that didn’t exactly apply to this specific girl. Still, a lot of men were boring-looking on the outside. Especially their clothes.
Now, without clothes, that was a different story. The scale was much more even. But Aubrey was in a public library, so she couldn’t really think about those things at that moment.
Instead, her thoughts turned to the girl sitting beside her. When Kim asked her if she thought of her ‘like that,’ Aubrey’s answer wasn’t technically a lie. It was just that she honestly didn’t know what ‘like that’ meant. Did she love her best friend? Yes, of course. Would she want to get married to her? No, probably not. Neither did she want to see her body, or kiss her, or anything of the sort—if anything, that thought actually repulsed her. But then again, if marriage meant spending a lifetime with someone, Kim wouldn’t be such a bad choice.
She struggled to find a label that fit her. She was no stranger to queer identities; hell, Kim herself was very openly bisexual. But that didn’t fit Aubrey. Neither did being simply straight, or even lesbian. She felt attracted to being aromantic, but that wasn’t quite right, either—she didn’t feel no attraction to people, and she did sometimes find herself yearning for a closer relationship. It frustrated her that she couldn’t find a concrete label for herself, so often, she just called herself the default: a boring heterosexual, even if that was far from the truth.
Was that what she was feeling for the mystery girl? Her first time falling in love, and it was someone she didn’t even know the face of? That sounded absurd, but the feeling she got when she looked at her was different from anything else she’d felt before. Despite that, she obviously couldn’t get to know someone just by staring at them. Sometimes, she tried to guess her name, but she never got a good answer. For a short time, she’d settled on Amelia—that sounded like a nice name to her, and it wasn’t too uncommon. Plus, she didn’t personally know anyone named Amelia, so she wouldn’t mix them up in her head. That lasted until one specific moment where she’d finally, actually heard something. Someone had talked to her, but Aubrey had been too far away to make it out. It was one of the very few instances she saw her interacting with another person.
Then, Amelia was out the window. The name ended with an ‘-y’ sound; she knew this for sure. Like Penny, or Mary, or Lily. Maybe even Aubrey. She couldn’t tell. The more she replayed the scene in her head, the more she leaned towards a ‘-ny’ sound. And it was clearly two syllables. Jenny or Penny seemed like her best bet, but maybe she was mishearing something like Tammy or Sally.
Aubrey sighed. It was no use. She was the Mystery Girl, first and foremost, and even if she learned her actual name, she would probably keep calling her that until the end of time.
Well, unless she could get close to her and unravel the mystery. But that was never going to happen.
“Aubs,” Kim said, nudging her. “You wanna eat out tonight?”
“Mm… I’m good,” she said, turning her head to the page and quickly realizing that she hadn’t written anything in fifteen minutes. “I have leftovers.”
“Suit yourself,” Kim said, shrugging. “So, are you actually gonna do any work, or…”
“Shut up,” Aubrey grumbled, putting her pen to the paper. “It’s just notes. They’re not even required.”
Kim sighed. “Yeah, but I guess if you don’t take them your thoughts are gonna be filled with that girl all the time.”
“S- ugh! Stop talking about that! I wasn’t thinking about her!” she said as her face flared red. “I never should’ve told you…”
Kim’s lips curled up in a slight smile. “I could talk to her, if you’re too chicken.”
“I-I…” Aubrey hesitated. When she really thought about it, there was no reason she couldn’t just go up and introduce herself. Other than getting embarrassed from a social situation with a stranger. But that’s exactly what she was: a stranger. For all Aubrey knew, she would never see her again in her entire life. If anything, that was greater encouragement to go up to her. Imagine if she was someone she actually knew, and she embarrassed herself in front of her… she would never live that down. But a stranger? That was surely more manageable, if only by a little bit.
Still, that social anxiety really outdid any kind of reasoning she could come up with.
“…you know what?” Aubrey said, reconsidering, “Yeah. You go talk to her.” She prodded Kim’s shoulder. “Get her name. Please?”
She scoffed. “What, so you can stalk her online?”
“No! Weirdo… I wouldn’t do something like that…” Aubrey said, awkwardly playing with her hair.
(She’d once Googled the school directory to find pictures that matched the mystery girl. No luck.)
“Mm… tell you what,” Kim said, the gears visibly churning in her head. “I’ll get her name for you… if… you can find me a boyfriend. Or girlfriend. As like… equal exchange, or whatever.”
“Th-that’s not equal at all!” Aubrey sputtered, “You want me to get you an entire partner in exchange for her name?!”
“Well, it’s not like the relationship has to last that long…” Kim said, looking to the side. “As long as they’re fun to hang out with. Like, someone who’s chill with being friends after breaking up. But, you know, you could just go talk to that girl and ask for her name yourself, if you’re so desperate.”
“B-but I- well… ugh…” Aubrey grumbled, knowing she was going to regret this. “Your terms are terrible.”
“Take it or leave it,” she said, knowing in that instant that she had her in the palm of her hand.
“…fine. It’s a deal.”
Kim smirked, holding her hand out. “Okay. I better see a cute boy or something show up on our doorstep soon.”
Aubrey reached out and shook it, her face burning. What did she just get herself into?