Amy and Lauren ride out of Dallas, share some fears, some laughs, and make a new friend. Sort of.
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The field trip starts on a bus headed toward Dallas.
Amy spends most of the first hour or so sitting as stiffly as humanly possible, her phone clutched in one hand, her camera bag in the other. Lauren watches her out of the corner of her eye, afraid to even speak for fear her sister will snap like a rubber band.
She thinks, for just a moment or two, of telling Amy about Reagan and Karma hiding behind the tree. But when she clears her throat to speak and Amy’s head snaps around, her eyes wide and trembling, Lauren thinks twice.
That little secret can stay hers for now.
Who says she can’t be empathetic?
She watches Amy for a few more minutes and she has to admit - not that she’d ever say it out loud - that she’s starting to worry. She’s never seen Amy like this, not even the morning after Karma found out about her and Liam. That day, Amy was scared, terrified, worried beyond measure.
This is something else entirely.
This is panic. And Lauren knows panic.
She fishes her phone out of her purse, tapping the screen until her messages app comes up but then she freezes.
Who? Who the hell can she text?
Farrah? Yeah, that’s a good plan. Hey, mom. I was just wondering. Has Amy ever had panic attacks? You know, freezing and freaking and totally losing her shit?
There’s be a squad car and an ambulance chasing them down within minutes.
So that’s a no to Farrah and that means a no to her father too, because divorce or no divorce, Lauren knows telling Bruce is telling Farrah and there’s that squad car again.
No Farrah, no Bruce, no Reagan because that kind of defeats the point of Amy leaving, and no Shane because (like Bruce) telling Shane is telling… well… everyone.
So that leaves….
No.
Just… no.
Lauren would rather handle this on her own. Hell, she’d rather call the squad cars and the men in the white coats herself than call Karma.
She puts the phone away and decides to start slow, to see if maybe she can get Amy to release the death grip on her own phone. Lauren finds a pack of gum in her purse and holds it out to Amy, silently offering her something else to exercise her nerves on.
The plan works perfectly (like there was ever a doubt) and Amy sets the phone down on the seat between them, curling and uncurling her fingers to get the feeling back. She takes the offered gum and folds a stick into her mouth.
She chews for about three seconds before she looks over at Lauren, her mouth curled into an expression the tiny blonde can only describe as a cross between pain and ‘oh dear God, what did I just put in my mouth?’
“What. The. Fuck. Is. This?” Amy asks, each word stressed by another (painfully slow) chew.
Lauren glances down at the pack. It’s sparsely labelled in something that looks like black Sharpie, so obviously homemade. “Boysenblueacaiberry,” she reads. “Lisbeth gave it to me. I think she got it from the…”
Lauren tails off but Amy doesn’t need her to finish. No one who lives in Austin or goes to Hester would need her to finish that sentence. She carefully spits the gum back into the wrapper and folds it up.
“Sorry,” Lauren says.
“It’s cool.” Amy shudders and flicks her tongue against her lips, trying to kill the taste. “I’ve had Good Kar… stuff from the truck before.” If Lauren notices the way Amy can’t even say the (her) name, she doesn’t comment. “That actually tasted better than some of the things I’ve ingested from the Ashcrofts over the years.”
Lauren laughs a little, mostly to cover her relief that Amy’s somewhat back to the land of the living. She watches as her sister’s hand drifts over her phone but then closes, settling down on top of it rather than picking it up.
“They’ll call,” Lauren says. “Or text. Or email. Or snapchat. Or… what’s the digital equivalent of a homing pigeon?”
Amy laughs and it isn’t full and it isn’t solid or even very real but it’s a start. “I know… they… will,” she says.
And by they, she totally means Kar… not Reagan. Amy knows her ex and she knows that no matter how much she might want to (and Amy’s pretty sure that's a lot) she won’t reach out. Reagan knows what this trip means to Amy, she knows that getting over Kar… her… isn’t the only thing Amy’s got to do.
Reagan knows that’s not the only heartbreak Amy’s had lately. And she knows that, depending on the day (or the hour or the minute), it might not even be the worst one. Because at least Kar… she’s single. She doesn’t have a Nicole. Amy hasn’t been moved on from, hasn’t been replaced in her life.
Yet.
“I know they will,” Amy says again, still meaning ‘not Reagan’. “I’m just not sure I want them to.”
Lauren nods. She knows the feeling. She’s spent the last few days alternating between hoping every buzz of her phone is Theo calling and hoping just as much that it isn’t.
“On the one hand,” Amy says, “I really don’t want them to. I mean that’s what this whole trip is for. To get away from them.”
“Not away,” Lauren corrects. “Over.”
Amy glances down at the phone on the seat, her fingers tracing the edges. “There’s a difference?”
Lauren nods. “Away means nothing without over,” she says. “Away means.. away. It’s like hiding. And you’ve done that before.”
“Reagan wasn’t hiding,” Amy says, her tone sharp and defensive. “I don’t care what Shane says about me burying what I felt for Kar…” she pauses and stares straight ahead, taking in the Beef behind the wheel and the Axe-man in the front seat, his groupie girl with the green hair tucked into his side. “I loved Reagan.”
“I never said you didn’t,” Lauren says. “And loved?”
Amy shrugs cause even she can’t explain how it is she loves both of them at once, but she does. “Love. Loved. Will always…” She shrugs again. “It’s a work in progress.”
Lauren nods again because she sort of gets that too, as much as she doesn’t want to. “I didn’t mean to say you hid with Reagan,” she says. “But you hid. A lot. Before you confessed in that ill advised toast. After the wedding. Even if you hadn’t had the whole Liam thing to deal with, you still would’ve hid and pretended you were over it. Over her.”
“I wouldn’t -”
Lauren holds up a hand. “You gave Liam to her for her birthday. You asked Reagan out because you needed to do something for you to try and move on. To stop hiding. And then you kept Karma a secret from Reagan for weeks. Need I go on?”
Amy turns and looks at her, confusion all over her face, confusion that slowly shifts to surprise and a smile. “You were watching,” she says. “You were paying attention. To me.”
It’s Lauren’s turn to shrug. “I’m an 'A’ student without having to try,” she says. “My best friends most scintillating conversational topic is knitting and my first boyfriend in Austin had the IQ of that fern Farrah keeps in the kitchen.” She smiles back. “Turns out that for all my bitching, Amy Raudenfeld was a much more educational class than anything at Hester.”
“Life advice from the sexually confused step-sister 101?”
Lauren nods. “Interesting class,” she says. “With some potentially awesome field trips.”
An hour and a half past Dallas, the conversation, such as it was, about Reagan and the … other one… has grown tiresome for them both.
(And yes, Lauren’s noticed it now and no, she’s not saying anything because so what it Amy can’t say… her… name. At least she only had one, unlike some two-faced, two-named narcs with overly ambitious career goals.)
(She thinks Amy’s earned a bit of a right to not be over it just yet.)
(They both have.)
A trip that’s supposed to be getting them over the things and people they’ve left behind should probably start to focus on other things.
Like the people they haven't left behind.
“I don’t like her,” Amy says, snapping a twenty-five minute and thirty-mile silent streak.
Lauren glances around the bus, trying to see which 'her’ Amy’s got in mind, silently hoping it’s neither of the two overly hisptered up girls in the seat two spots in front of them. One looks like she could bench press them both and the other was reading an actual book.
Lauren knows she’s eventually going to need someone to talk to other than Amy and she’s pretty sure the Beef and the Green Goblin up front ain’t gonna cut it.
“Which one?” she whispers, fear of being bench pressed out weighing her usual sense of 'I don’t give a fuck’.
Amy nods toward the front. “That one, the one in front with Dillon. Little miss green hair.”
Lauren follows Amy’s nod and spots the two behind the driver, the Beef. “That’s Dillon?” she asks.
Amy nods again. “I heard someone calling him 'The King’ and he gets the prime real estate up front. Seems all diva-ish lead singer type to me.”
Lauren can’t argue. “That’s Dillon,” she says again and there’s clearly some tone in her voice, because Amy turns to her, the tiniest of smiles on her face.
“Really?” she asks.
Lauren huffs and looks away. “What?” she snaps. “From a purely aesthetic viewpoint, he’s a good looking guy.” She looks back to the front. “Athletic. Like he works out, but mostly on stage. Not a gym rat pumping iron all the time. He enjoys what he does and it shows. He’s toned and defined but he’s not all all cut and veiny and what the hell are you laughing at?”
Amy puts a hand over her mouth to cover the giggles. “Nothing,” she says. “Just sometimes you are so straight.”
Lauren glares at her until the giggles stop (though she suspects she’s going to hear the phrase 'cut and veiny’ at least once a day for the next few months.) “Like you weren’t checking out green bean up there.”
“What?” Amy asks. “No. Ew.”
Lauren arches a challenging brow.
“I just said I don’t like her,” Amy says. “She’s trying too hard. Like when Reagan wanted to seem all cool and hip, she didn’t have to go all crazy with her hair.”
“Purple. Red. Blue,” Lauren ticks them off on her fingers. “Sorry, turquoise.”
Mic dropped.
Amy ignores her. “She’s trying to be all rocker girl,” she says. “Like Hayley Williams.”
“Yeah,” Lauren agrees. “Or like Halsey.”
Amy nods and then… “Wait,” she says. “What’s a Halsey?”
Lauren closes her eyes, expecting a total silence to fall over the bus and every eye to look their way. She’s sure bench press and bookworm heard and she half expects the Beef to slam on the brakes and make them walk home.
“Amy?” she asks when, after a moment it becomes clear they’re safe, “are you sure you're… well… some kind of queer?”
Amy looks at her, confused. “Yeah.”
Lauren nods. “And you’ve heard of the Internet, right? Big thing. Lots of places to go, lots of weird people you would never talk to in real life, but they posted a gif of that show you love, so now they’re your new bestie?”
“Yes, Lauren,” Amy says. “I’ve heard of tumblr.”
“And you still don’t know…” the blanks space on Amy’s face (so not the Tay Tay kind) answers the question before Lauren even finishes. “Give me your phone,” she says.
“Why?”
Lauren glares. “Because I have both of them on speed dial and I’m not afraid to use it.”
Amy hands over the phone. She’s sure Lauren’s bluffing.
Just not sure enough.
Lauren takes the phone and accesses Amy’s Spotify. She searches and finds Halsey, saving Badlands to the phone and handing it back.
“I expect a full review of that by tomorrow,” she says. “And if that review isn’t good? You're wrong.”
Amy scans the track listing and the album cover and the little bio picture and the bigger background one. She glances back up at green machine who has, remarkably, untangled herself from Dillon and is chatting with the two hipster girls. She can see why Lauren made the Hasley connection.
“I still thinks she’s more Hayley,” she says.
Lauren looks up. “Hair says Hayley. Body says Halsey.” She tilts her head slightly and arches a brow again. “Booty says Kendrick.”
Amy almost chokes on air. “You sure you’re not some kind of queer.”
Lauren smiles but never looks her way. “LGBTQIA, bitch,” she says. “Look it up.”
Four tracks into Badlands (which Amy begrudgingly likes, though she thinks Elle King is better and early Ani DiFranco, which Reagan turned her onto, is more her jam), Amy tugs her headphones from her ears and turns to Lauren.
“I’m scared.”
Lauren lifts her head from the cool glass of the window and looks at her. “I knew that since before Dallas,” she says.
“No,” Amy says, “not about that. Not about them.” She frowns, unsure how the hell to say this without sounding like a baby. “I’ve never…”
She pauses, hemming and hawing and wringing her hands in her lap.
“Never what?” Lauren asks. “Never been to Spain where it rains on the plains? Never seen a man naked and not had the urge to wash your eyes with bleach? Never left home?”
She doesn’t miss - can't miss - the way Amy’s eyes flicker in her direction on the last one.
“Seriously?”
Amy nods. “Mom and step-fucker number three tried to take me on their honeymoon,” she says, “and they had to buy me a plane ticket and send me back to Austin cause I was freaking out. I had to stay with the Ashcrofts for a week.”
“But what about the Alamo? You said you and Kar… your class went there.”
(Now she’s got Lauren doing it.)
Amy stares at the seat, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. “I had… friends… with me. And Mrs. Ashcroft was one of the parents that went and I’m pretty sure that smoothie she gave me had Benadryl in it. Or Xanax.”
Even then, Lauren thinks, the Ashcrofts were into the pharmaceuticals.
“Amy,” she says, concern lacing her voice. “We’re leaving Texas in about an hour. Maybe less.”
“I know,” Amy says, holding up her phone. “GPS alerts.” She shakes her head. “It’s not even that, really,” she says. “I mean, you’re here and unlike back then, going back isn’t an option.”
“Then what is it?” Lauren asks.
“It’s all of this,” Amy says. “I’m doing something I’ve never done. With people I’ve never met and without…”
She tips her head back against the seat and sighs. She knew this would happen. She expected it and yet, somehow, it’s still surprising her.
“Half the reason I’ve ever been good at anything was because I had someone right there who never believed I was bad at anything. Not even the yo-yo.” She balls her hands into fists in her lap. “I’ve never filmed so much as a kid’s birthday party. What if I suck?”
“Well, if you suck,” the voice comes from the seat next to them and both girls spin in that direction. “Then we’ll just have to make you walk home. Probably from Ohio, I’d guess. Maybe Maryland. Which is farther, you think?”
They both stare - in a mix of confusion and annoyance - at the green haired girl who has somehow interjected herself into their conversation. Amy is mostly confused, like why the hell is she talking to them. Lauren, on the other hand…
“Um… not sure, but was anyone talking to you?”
“Nope,” Greenie shakes her head. “But I generally find that isn’t much of an impediment if I don’t let it be.” She smiles and Amy gets the feeling that usually gets her what she wants (and she can kinda see why…) “Hi,” she says, holding out a hand, “I’m -”
“Leaving?” Lauren suggests. “Butting the hell out? Skedaddling? Vamoosing? Packing it up and moving it along?”
Greenie smiles again and Amy can’t help but notice how perfect her teeth are, even the slightly crooked one
(and oh, you have to be kidding me)
and then she’s talking again. “You must be camera girl’s sidekick. Laura, right?”
Amy shuts her eyes in preparation for the storm (and cause staring at that many teeth, all white and clean and shiny is starting to hurt).
“It's Lauren,” Lauren snaps. “And if anyone around here is the sidekick, it's her,” she says, jabbing a finger into Amy’s back. “At least I know who Halsey is.”
There’s a gasp from the nearby seats and Amy knows she’s saying 'cut and veiny’ at least twice a day for the next three months.
Maybe longer.
“You don’t know Halsey?” Greenie asks and the look on her face makes Amy feel like she just kicked a puppy or ran over grandma’s toes with the car.
“I didn’t,” she says, shooting Lauren as fierce a glare as she can. “I do now.” She holds up her phone, the Badlands tracklist still on the screen.
“And the verdict?” Greenie asks.
Amy considers lying but she’s done enough of that the last few months to last her a lifetime, so truth it is. “Good,” she says and there’s a palpable sense of relief on the bus, but then…"Not Elle King good or even Demi Lovato good, really, but…"
Elle, she might have gotten away with. But Demi…
Oh, Amy.
Greenie leans her head out, looking past Amy. “You’ve got a point there, Laura. She’s definitely the sidekick. You’re gonna have to play mama bear for this one. You know, keep an eye on her, protect her from us nasty rock-n-rollers.”
Lauren’s eyes flare at the 'Laura’ but she does kinda feel like the mama bear, so… “Whatever,” she says. “Now, if you don’t mind, this? This is an 'A’ and 'B” conversation, so -“
“You want me to 'C’ my way out?” Greenie asks, a thin layer of disappointment in her voice, as if she expected better of Laura.
Lauren.
“I was going to say maybe you should just find your way back up front and groupie your ass off with Dillon,” Lauren says, “but sure, let’s go with your version.”
“Dillon?” Greenie asks, cocking her head to one side and Amy notices the small tattoo trailing along the back of her neck.
Lauren nods. “Tall guy,” she says. “Nice… I mean healthy… arms. Got a guitar on his lap but I’m sure he’d make room for you. I’m guessing he’s done that a lot.”
Greenie laughs. “He has,” she says. “Since we were kids. You mean King, right?” she asks nodding in the direction of 'not cut and veiny’.
“That's The King, baby,” he hollers back from his seat.
“You’re the only one who adds 'The’ to it, Ryan,” Greenie hollers back. “We don’t all share your unhealthy Elvis obsession.” She turns back to Amy. “He had a pompadour all through tenth grade. It was sad, really.”
“Wait…” Amy says. “Ryan?”
Greenie nods. “Ryan King. Lead guitarist and founding member of the Pussy Explosion and yes, he did come up with that name on his own.”
“Like Dillholes is so much better,” Lauren snarks.
“Nope,” Greenie says. “But it will get us booked in more clubs and yeah, we know it sucks, but it’s a work in progress, you know?”
“But… wait…” Amy’s a broken record. “Ryan,” she says again. “So if he’s…Ryan… then who’s Dill…”
She trails off and Greenie can see the light bulb going on and she can’t helps smiling both rows of those perfect (if slightly crooked) teeth.
“I’m going to kill her,” Amy says. “I’m going to kill Reagan.”
Lauren looks at her, totally lost. “Why?”
“Oh, I think I know, Mama Bear,” Greenie says. “She didn’t tell you, did she, Shrimp Girl?”
Kill. She’s going to kill her. Slowly.
Greenie holds out a hand, again. “Hi,” she says. “I’m Dillon. Welcome aboard.”