Chapter Thirteen

After I sent the photos off to Sabrina and Parker, I'd deleted them from my phone and had a couple of hours without them existing in my world. I could pretend that we never went to the roller rink at all. Come Saturday; I shouldn't have stuck to my routine of lounging in my bed first thing in the morning and scrolling through my phone. My feed was covered with the torturous pictures and videos of Sabrina and Parker roller skating clumsily, them toppling over. Then there was the precious video of Parker kissing Sabrina on the cheek, and them feeding each other muffins.

The response to the duo was swift; oohing and ahhing, crooning, gossip and envy and that was only on the internet. The news would hit people that weren't the biggest followers of social media on Monday morning. Which was the perfect time as it would be announced what the theme was for prom. Both Sabrina, Parker and prom would be shoved into everyone's faces, and it would be hard not to link the two together. Propaganda worked.

The only thing that I could say after Friday night was that I didn't cry. That was an improvement, surely? And I knew for a fact that I wasn't going to die. Hell, I'd even skated all the way home without a hint of a threat to my life. My experience with girls could only improve from there on out. Maybe it was already near the end of January, but it wasn't too late to make a new year's resolution. Stop being a mess and get your shit together. No more running, skating or otherwise from girls who kiss you.

I opened my bedroom curtains and staggered back, covering my eyes with the back of my hand as the light shone into the room. Parting my fingers slightly, and peeking out the window, I was met with Sabrina's naked back from the bedroom opposite mine. My eyes widened before I dropped to the ground, crawling over to my bed and faced the other side of the room without the damn window.

Sabrina was on my feed and outside my window.

There was no escape.

Someone knocked on my bedroom door, and my heart jumped into my throat. What if it was Sabrina there to interrogate my eyes whereabouts a minute ago?

But Anna slid into the room and sat with her back to the bed beside me between the bed and the bookshelf against the wall.

"You look . . . traumatized. Is it because of the state of your room?"

"The state of my room?" The only thing out of place in my bedroom was the bedsheets and a pair of socks that were on the ground. "Speaking of, why are you in my room? You hate it in here. You once called it 'a murder scene' when I spilt a drop of red paint on the carpet that one time."

"I'm compromising."

"Oh. Cool."

"And I came to see if you were okay. Clearly, you're not."

The guilty chewing of her lip exposed her. "You've been talking to Sabrina, haven't you?"

"Sam. You skated away. Skated all the way home. I saw you last night when you got home, you know. How's your knee? Must've hurt bad to whack into the bin as fast as you were going."

Okay, so the lie I told myself that I skated home perfectly exploded in my face. "Little bruised."

"So . . . what did Sabrina do to piss you off so much that you skated home?"

"She didn't tell you?"

"She said it was up to you if you wanted to talk about it."

I huffed out a laugh because Sabrina knew if she even hinted at a secret drama, Anna would be all over it. "Okay. I'll tell you. But you have to promise that you won't get mad."

"I'll try my best."

"No. You have to swear."

"I swear on Jimmy Neutron that I won't get physically angry."

" . . . Good enough." Leveraging the mattress of the bed, I pushed myself up and encouraged Anna to sit on the other end. She flattened the sheet before she sat down. "We kissed."

"Excuse me for a second. I'm reframing my entire future this year."

My hand whacked against her shoulder. "Don't do that. Help me."

"You kissed her. She kissed you? Which is it?"

"Mutually?"

"Then what happened . . . You literally skated all the way back home. You're such a useless lesbian, Sam."

"You're not mad?"

"I'm going to say my selfish thoughts again. Is that okay?"

Sucking in a deep breath, I nodded. "Go ahead."

"It was the year 2015, and all of us were marathoning Harry Potter. Me, you and Sabrina, were the best of friends. We fell asleep. From there on out nothing was the same again. I'm not asking you to tell me what happened, because you two have been refusing to tell me that for years, but whatever happened destroyed your friendship with each other. I think you need to talk about that first of all. And well . . . if you do talk about that, and you do want to explore a relationship – and not only a friendship, what happens if it ends badly? You've got this truce right now. I feel like . . . what we've got going on now, especially since the start of this year is so good. I'm scared I'll have to end up choosing between you both. My sister and my best friend. It's my nightmare come to life. I've actually had this nightmare. It's the only one that repeats itself over and over again."

Her rushed rambling only came to a stop when I threw one arm over her shoulder and pulled her head to lean on me, using my other hand to cover her mouth. "Okay, Anna, okay," I soothed.

She took my hand from her mouth and held it. "I know it sounds like I'm not for you being in any relationship and it's not true."

"I never said anything."

"I want to explain, though. You and Maisie? I'd reframe the entire year. But you and Sabrina? Sam, it would be so intense. When you two barely spoke there was so much . . . tension. It's an all or nothing situation. You can't dip your toes in. You need to jump all in."

"Are you telling me to dip my toes or jump all in?"

"I can't tell you what to do," she said, squeezing my hand. "I'm explaining that your choices have consequences. Something you can't run or skate away from when it comes to Sabrina now. You need to be careful. That's what I'm saying."

"I'll . . ."

"No, you don't need to have an answer right this second."

"I don't?"

Anna stood up and headed to the door, shaking her head. "No. You need to Jimmy Neutron this."

I leaned my head against the headboard. "A brain blast?"

"A brain blast," she confirmed. "I'm going to go study up. Come over tomorrow, okay? We need to finish the marketing material for prom before sending it off to Mr. Byers."

As quickly as she came into my room, she escaped. She might've come over for a visit to hear about the whole skating into the bin thing, but she stayed to give me some life advice. Either the conversation drained her to the point of needing a break, or the state of my room did. Either way, she was there for me, and I was still no step closer to figuring out my life.

Usually, brain blasts were for Anna's benefit, but this time it was for my own. But there one was little problem. Every time I brought my fingers to the temple of my head and closed my eyes, my lips were tingly. It was like Sabrina was right there on my bed, making me feel like I was floating on air and simultaneously sinking into a deep wave and letting it carry me around the world.

Mediation led to dreaming about Sabrina kissing me.

So I couldn't look at my phone, I couldn't look out my window, and I couldn't close my eyes.

If there was any excuse to turn my attention to studying, this was it. Who knew schoolwork could be a form of perfect procrastination? I sat in the middle of the bed, doing math problems, chucking a pencil in or near the jar of my paintbrushes on my desk every time I got an answer wrong. In an hour, I'd run out of pencils and had to go over and get them to resume my work.

"Anna was right. Your room is a mess."

I spun around with a bunch of pencils between my fingers like Wolverine and gaped at Sabrina who threw herself down onto my bed, shoving aside my work to the end of the bed.

Pointing all the pencils at her, I stammered, "What the fuck?"

Sabrina stretched back on the bed and looked up to the ceiling and saw my painting. "An arrow and a heart. Cute."

"Sabrina, how did you get in here?"

"Your window."

"And you say you're nothing like Joe Goldberg."

"I'm joking. Your dad let me up." She cocked an eyebrow. "How is this going to go, Sam? Are we going to ignore the fact that we kissed each other for another half of a decade or are we going to talk about it?"

"I'm . . ." I sighed.

"I brought tea," she said, nodding to the turtle mug on the bedside locker.

I grabbed the steaming cup and took a sip, sighing because it was perfect. "Thanks. I love this cup."

"It relaxes you."

"It does."

"I don't know about you, but I'm in the mood to watch Zootopia." Out of nowhere, she brought out her laptop and played the movie on the screen. "You're not even ready to talk about our first kiss, never mind our second. Why did I think giving you fifteen hours would be enough time?"

"Poor analysis on your part."

"I know."

Her teasing tone made it so much easier to crawl up to sit beside her slyly. The tea sloshed about in the cup but not enough to spill over. We were both against the headboard watching Zootopia with our shoulders pressed together like we did this all the time.

I stole a peek at Sabrina from the corner of my eye. The sun hit the left side of her face. I was the cause of the awkward sipping of tea and watching of a cartoon movie to avoid talking. Maybe kissing her would cut the tension.

No.

What the fuck?

But I really wanted to.

The movie was halfway over, and I was still forcing my hands to stay down, clutching my jeans, so they didn't wander and refusing to let my lips go anywhere near hers. Maybe . . . I should let myself do it? Realistically, what were the chances of feeling the same light-hearted, dreamy and fairy-tale worthy kiss again? The likelihood that I'd imagined it after the fact was nearing ninety-nine percent.

But maybe there was something there. Would that be so bad?

I had to kiss her again.

And suddenly I was removing the laptop from between us, turning her head by the cheek and pressing my lips against hers.

Then reality crashed down with fireworks shooting off behind my eyelids, and immediately I let go of her face, and looked straight head, blinking rapidly.

"Couldn't resist me?" she said knowingly.

" . . . Sabrina."

It was her turn to turn my head so she could shut me up and crushed her lips against mine. Any hesitation, any wondering, any doubt about the magical sensation that came from kissing her was obliterated. She cupped my cheek and ran her other hand through my hair, turning my head slowly as she changed our positions so I was flat on the bed and she was straddling me.

We took a breather, and her lips were swollen, and I couldn't help but trace my thumb across them.

She leaned down and gave me a lasting kiss before descending to my neck, and that's when a brain blast came through.

"Sabrina." I laughed as she nuzzled her nose against my neck before she sat up and peered down at me.

"Third time's the charm."

"Is this really a good idea?"

"I like kissing you. You like kissing me." She said it so easily that heat crept up my neck. "You're cute when you're embarrassed."

"I'm serious. You didn't hear what Anna said to me earlier."

"And what did my wise sister say?"

"Right now, well, not right now." My hands were on her hips, and she was still straddling me with her hair swaying purposely back and forth. "We've been getting along. Kind of. It took us years to get to this point. What if we . . . What if it ends badly? Last time it didn't hurt our friendship with Anna, but what if this time there's no coming back?"

Sabrina closed her eyes and nodded. "Let's keep it light and breezy."

My eyes rolled at the Brooklyn Nine-Nine reference. "Jake and Amy are married now, Sabrina."

"Fine, Samantha. But what if we . . . have all the benefits without all the complications? And when we're done . . . we're done. No harm, no foul. We go back to normal."

It was the only solution that made any sense. "Fine."

"Fine?"

"But what about prom?"

"What about it? You mean Parker? She and I are not together, Sam. You were there. We're pretending. It's all for the crown And this, you and me? It's our businesses. Other than that, nothing needs to change. No one needs to know."

"Okay."

"What about Anna?"

"Well . . . if we're going with this plan . . . she can find out when it's over. That way, it doesn't affect her at all."

Sabrina locked our pinkies. "Deal."

I shook our hands, cementing the promise. "Deal."

It was the first time after kissing someone that I didn't run away.

That was progress.