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It wasn’t Lauren.
It wasn’t her car, actually, the one Amy heard in the drive. And that meant she didn’t hear a key in the lock or footsteps in the hall and all that meant that it wasn’t Lauren coming in, excited and happy and relieved to see Amy there, in her room and her bed instead of across the hall with that other her.
Which left Amy sitting there, alone in the dark, for what seemed like forever.
It wasn't really forever (in the end it wasn’t even like twenty minutes) but it seemed so much longer. It seemed like forever, at least to Amy, what with Reagan’s voice still echoing in her ears and that look on Karma’s face still playing over and over again before her eyes and what with the feel of Lauren’s bed - so familiar and yet so different and new and yet so right (and just a little dirty) - underneath her. It felt like days or weeks, like she was waiting on the end of time and it just refused to fucking get there, and Amy tensed at every sound, flinched at every noise, damn near jumped out of her skin at every creak and moan of the house.
Not a one of which was actually Lauren.
It didn’t happen all at once, it didn’t even happen right away, but slowly (and so surely) that all got to be a bit too much. The anticipation turned to fear (what if she’d been in an accident?) and the nerves turned to panic (what if Amy was too late?) and the worry turned to hands clutching at Lauren’s duvet as Amy tried to get control of her breathing, tried to steady it before it went and took on a life of its own, before it got to be too much for the rest of her and Lauren - when she finally came home - ended up finding Amy passed out in her bed, hyperventilated right into unconsciousness.
That would not be good.
And it wasn’t like that was the only way for this to all go ‘not good’ (or not well or whatever) and seeing as how there were so many not goods, Amy didn’t really see a need to add another one to the list, so she took slow, deep breaths and counted to five and shut her eyes against the dark (and wondered why she hadn’t thought to turn on the damn light) and tried to focus, tried to steer her mind to what she was going to do when Lauren walked in, what she was going to say.
Amy tried - for once in her life - to not let herself get caught up in the moment, to not just react and to think and plan and actually be ready.
Yeah. Like that ever had a chance.
It might have, maybe, possibly (no, it fucking wouldn’t have) if that hadn’t been the moment, if that hadn’t been the instant when those creaks and groans of the house were - very clearly - not just creaks or groans but steps. Footsteps, in the hall, outside the door, tearing through the silence of the house and kickstarting the thwump-thwump-thwump of Amy’s racing heart in her ears. It was shock, she thought, that did it. It was just so sudden, the slamming realization that now was now and that now was here and oh… fuck… she had no plan and she had no clue what she was going to do and definitely no idea what she was going to say cause every word she knew had just fled her brain on a supersonic flight to fucking nowhere. It was all happening so fast.
And that was all just so much bullshit.
None of this was happening fast. None of it was quick and none of it was a shock, not if she really thought about it. If Amy did that, if she let herself replay it all in her head, she knew the truth. Nothing - not one single moment of… them… not since that first maybe accidental but not even close to a mistake first kiss - had been sudden. All of it, everything since that moment, had been building and building and building, scaffolding up and up on itself, sneaking up on her and slowly burrowing its way into her life and her bed and her heart and now…
Now it was here. And all Amy could think was that she wished she’d had more time.
Amy found herself wishing Lauren had stayed out later (really, that Lauren had never gone in the first place, but…) and that maybe she’d had the night to sleep on it (like she would have slept a fucking wink) just so she could make sure she knew exactly what she wanted to say because she didn’t want to say even one thing wrong (though it seemed like she probably already had) (and that most of those wrongs involved the word - the name - of the girl still sitting across the hall.)
Or, maybe, Amy thought, more likely, it wasn’t the things she'd said that were wrong.
It was the ones she hadn’t.
Amy heard those steps in the hall and she tensed - her fingers crushing the duvet - and she felt her heart go a-racing from the shock.
Or maybe, she thought, more likely (and yes, she was sensing a pattern) it wasn’t the shock that was doing it. Maybe, more likely, her heart was reacting to the girl and not to the sound. Maybe her heart hadn’t skipped a beat in fear, maybe it had just sped up in anticipation, the way it always did when she saw Lauren, when she saw her coming down the hall or brushing her teeth in the morning or whenever the tiny blonde snuck into her room in the morning for a quick kiss that never ended up being quick (or just one.)
Or maybe, Amy thought, her heart was actually slowing, it was calming and finding some peace and relief in knowing that Lauren was finally home and whatever reasons she’d had for taking so long to get there didn’t really matter anymore cause Lauren was home and Lauren was safe and now Amy could get her heart back under control and back to normal or - really - whatever the hell passed for normal now because Amy had finally realized that when it came to Lauren and her heart, there wasn’t a normal anymore and she had no control over that - or it - at all.
And now, thanks to Reagan, Amy had realized something else.
She probably should have told Lauren that.
She was about to get her chance.
It wasn’t Lauren.
The door creaked open and Amy had to blink against the sudden light - the flashes and flickers from her own room - that split the dark and haloed their way around the figure in the door like she was some sort of… angel.
A Karma shaped angel.
Well… fuck.
Someone, Amy decided - God or fate or the universe or all of the fucking above - had a truly sick sick sick sense of humor. Or just hated her.
Or, you know, both.
It wasn’t Lauren coming in, it was… the other one… and it killed Amy, at least a little, to think of Karma like that, but it killed her - like a lot - to even think of Karma at all right then and right there and if she hadn’t been panicked before, Amy was sure she was now, sure that yes, the night was indeed full of terrors, the kind it seemed there was no help for, the kind nothing could stand against.
Her hottie DJ couldn’t and a summer apart couldn’t and even the might of Liam Booker’s magic peen couldn’t.
Amy suddenly understood exactly what Lauren was so scared of. And she didn’t blame her in the slightest.
“Amy?” Karma asked, blinking her eyes to adjust, trying to spot the blonde somewhere out there in the dark. “Are you there?”
Of course she was there. She was always there.
Amy knew she shouldn’t have been surprised that it wasn’t Lauren (she hadn’t heard a car or a key) or that it was Karma because… well… of course it was. It had always been Karma. It had been Karma for Reagan and it had been Karma for every girl Amy had met or kissed or even talked to over the summer. But those weren’t the problem.
The problem was - always was - that it was always Karma for Amy.
“Yeah,” Amy said, wishing she hadn’t. “I’m here.”
She was sitting in the dark, but everything was suddenly so… light… for Amy. So clear. She saw it all just as Lauren did. It had always been Karma, it was Karma, it was always going to be her. Karma was why they kissed - that first time - and Karma was why Amy had outed them to everyone and Karma was why Amy said ‘mine’ and Karma was why Amy had promised 'you run, I chase’ because Amy just couldn’t do or think or feel on her own. It was all just…
Karma.
It wasn’t, of course, it wasn’t her at all. Not for Amy.
Another thing she probably should have told Lauren.
“It is true?” Karma asked - whispered, like she was afraid to say it out loud - and even that soft, her voice carried in the silence of the house and Amy almost told her not to shout.
Amy didn’t answer her. She didn’t move and she didn’t speak but she did wonder if, maybe, if she didn’t do much of anything, if she didn’t even so much as breathe, if (like magic) (like some real Harry Potter level shit and not that David Blaine crap) she could just vanish, if she could just fade away into the dark, leaving Karma there just talking to herself.
She had to admit, it wasn’t the worst thought, vanishing before Lauren got back and saw Karma there - the truck in the drive and her shoes by the door and Karma herself, half in and half out of Amy’s room and, really, was there ever a more obvious metaphor - and she had to watch the equally inevitable shut down, watch the way Lauren’s eyes would slowly die right there in front of her, watch her girlfriend fold in on herself and…
“She’d be rude,” Amy whispered. “She’d be rude and she’d be mean and sarcastic and sassy and snippy and cut us both off at the knees.”
“What?” Karma asked, the whisper gone.
“Lauren,” Amy said, trying to get her fingers to relax, to release the duvet and the tension, but it wasn’t working. “If she saw you here and she thought… she’d go mean.”
Karma took a step into the room, the door shutting softly behind her and if it hadn’t been so dark she might have noticed the small scootch Amy made further away on the bed. “It’s Lauren we’re talking about,” she said. “She's always mean.”
“Not to me,” Amy said. Not anymore, she thought.
She was never quite sure when that happened, when it changed, but at some point Lauren had stopped being… Lauren. At least around her, at least when it was them. Amy had seen it, a little, had watched it happen long before the kiss.
At first it was just Lauren not tuning her out, Lauren actually listening. And that was one thing when it was because Amy was trying, because Amy trying was most often trying to talk about her, about how she was dealing with the Theo breakup (just fine, thanks) or her moment in the sun as the Savior of Hester (not nearly as much fun as the movies make it out to be.)
And when Amy’s texts and calls and Skypes over the summer were all for her (and none for Karma cause that would have kinda defeated the point) and it slowly became both of them trying and Lauren wasn’t just listening but she was talking and she was nice, it was impossible for Amy not to see it.
Or, if she was being honest, to fall for it. Hard.
“Yeah, well,” Karma said, “she's still like that. You saw how she made Brandi cry in gym class last week.”
And Brandi had spent most of the morning making snide comments about Narcs and people not being able to see people for who they really are and how some people were so desperate for love they’d do anything. Or be anything.
If Lauren hadn’t cut her with words, Amy might have just cut her.
“Maybe she’s nice to you,” Karma said, stressing the 'maybe’ just a little more than Amy was comfortable with. “But she’s still a bitch to other people.”
And that was just it, wasn’t it? Somewhere, somehow, sometime, Amy had stopped being other people. Even before the kiss and certainly after it (and, without a doubt by the time Lauren had run crying from Reagan’s apartment) Amy was anything but other.
“Unless… maybe… except as in… 'other' half.” Amy mumbled, her thoughts jumbling and stumbling and bumbling their way out of her mouth and she’d half forgotten Karma was even there.
But she was.
“What?” Karma asked. “Other half? As in… Lauren? As in yours?”
It wasn’t the words that got Amy’s attention, it was the tone, it was the sound, it was the way Karma’s voice knifed its way through the dark, the anger and the pain and the anger and the denial (and did she mention the anger?) that dripped off her voice like rain off a roof.
“Lauren is not your other half, Amy,” Karma snapped. She took three more steps into the room, putting herself front and fucking center, right where Amy would have been looking if she’d been looking anywhere but down at her hands. “I don’t know what the two of you are, but it’s not that.”
Because that was them and that had always been them and that would always be them.
“You’re right,” Amy said and she could hear the exhale of relief from her best friend. “Lauren isn’t my other half. That makes her sound… incomplete. Like she’s something less without me and there’s nothing… less… about her.”
Karma glared (not that Amy could see) (or was looking) into the dark. That wasn’t what she'd meant Not at all. Lauren wasn’t Amy’s other half cause Lauren couldn’t be Amy’s other half cause that job was already taken.
“You’re doing it again,” Karma said, not that Amy had the first fucking clue what it was. “This is Reagan all over again.”
That got Amy’s attention which, usually, was a good thing for Karma.
If she could have seen Amy’s face in the dark, she might have known. This?
Not usually.
“Reagan?” Amy asked, half intrigued, half confused, and already all annoyed (and about three-quarters pissed.)
“Yes,” Karma said. She took a half step toward the bed, but something (sixth sense, intuition, the tone of Amy’s voice forcing a slow but long overdue realization to start sinking in) made her think better of it. “You were just like this with Reagan,” she said. “Jumping in with both feet and gung fucking ho and not thinking about how much you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know?” Amy’s hands twitched around the duvet. Later - much much much later - she’d actually be grateful to Karma for, at least, easing her nerves.
Karma nodded, the gesture just barely visible. “You two were so different and so wrong for each other in the end, but you didn’t know…” She took another halting step. “Did you even know her last name?”
The duvet dropped from Amy’s hands as they balled into fists in her lap. “And you’re telling me I don’t know Lauren? Is that it?”
“What I’m saying,” Karma said, “is that you’re going in blind. You’re not thinking clearly, you’re just so… so…”
“So what, Karma?” Amy asked, those fists pressing hard against her thighs. “I’m so what?”
“Desperate.”
The word fell from Karma’s lips before she had a chance to stop it, before she could realize that even if she was right (which she wasn’t) and even if she had a point (which she didn’t) that was probably not the best way to put it.
It wasn’t.
It so wasn’t.
“Desperate?” Amy asked, stressing the ’t’ at the end, practically spitting it out.
“Not like… well…” Karma realized the hole she’d dug herself and that the only way out that might work was straight on through. “Yes,” she said. “Desperate. You’re so desperate to get over me, again, and so desperate to prove it and so desperate to find someone that you’re latching onto the first thing that comes along.” She took those last couple steps and - intuition be damned - sat on the bed next to Amy. “That’s what Lauren is, Amy,” Karma said. “Not your other half or the love of your life or your soulmate. She’s just the first available option. That’s what she is for you and you are for her and I’m sorry to say it like that but you’re in too deep and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
Amy sat there. Still and silent.
“It took you a long time to get over Reagan,” Karma said. “And we both know how long it’s taken you to… well… we know.” She laid a gentle hand atop Amy’s, trying not to be concerned at the tight tight tight fist her best friend was clenching. “I don’t want you to end up spending months trying to get over someone who’s never really even been under you.”
There was a moment - an evil, mean, nasty, Lauren at her worst moment - when Amy considered telling Karma (in great detail) exactly how under her Lauren had been. But instead…
“It did take me a long time to get over Reagan,” Amy said. “She was my first.” She felt Karma’s hand tense against hers. “And you’re right, it would take me months to get over Lauren. Maybe longer. Maybe never.”
Amy reached over and gently lifted Karma’s hand from hers, dropping it back in the other girl’s lap.
“But,” Amy said. “I can tell you this. I am, without a doubt, without any question or reservation or exception, one thousand percent over you.”
She stood, the sudden shift in the mattress toppling Karma over onto her back.
“Amy,” she said, “wait -”
“Waiting,” Amy said, “at least for you, is the last fucking thing I’m going to be doing.” She moved across the room, knowing it perfectly even in the dark, and swung open Lauren’s door. “It’s late, Karma,” she said. “And Lauren is going to be here soon and she and I have a lot to talk about.”
“Amy,” Karma tried again.
“I said it's late,” Amy snapped. “It’s late and I’m tired… tired of this. I wasn’t ready with Reagan and I wasn’t ready last summer but…” She gripped the doorknob tightly, surprised she wasn’t leaving finger grooves in the metal. “I’m tired of letting this be what everything in my life is about and it shouldn’t be because it isn’t what my life is about.”
Karma stood, a rising shadow. “And she is?”
Amy shook her head, wondering how she had never noticed it before, how she had never really seen how all or nothing Karma always was.
“She,” Amy said. “Is a part of it. A big part, a huge part, as big a part as anyone.”
She couldn’t see it, in the dark, but Amy could imagine the way Karma paled at that, the way that thought killed her.
“You think you’re in love with her, don’t you?”
“I don't think about how I feel, Karma,” Amy replied, trying to soften her tone, trying to keep things from going even further off the rails than they already had. “I know. But I’m not going to talk about that with you.”
“Why not?” Karma asked, her voice small and hurt and the words tasted just a touch bitter on her tongue. “We used to talk about everything.”
“And maybe we still can,” Amy said. “But if I’m going to say that, it’s not for you. It’s for her and it’s for me and maybe once upon a time everything that was for me was for us too but…” Amy sighed. She just wanted Karma to go and Lauren to come and for this all to be done. “But it’s not once upon a time anymore, Karma. And you?”
Karma crossed the room, coming to a stop right in front of Amy, just inside - still - the door. “Me what?” she whispered, her voice dropping as Amy slowly started to close the door, ushering her out into the dark hall. She heard Amy’s last words through the door. Through Lauren’s door.
“You’re not my happily ever after anymore.”