They meet in the third grade. Peridot, with temper tantrums and glasses that aren't ever the right prescription, Lapis, with scraped knees and denim overall dresses with grass stains because she’s reckless and rambunctious. Lapis punches her in the arm because she wants Peridot’s lunch money, but Peridot’s lip quivers and hot tears run down before she can stop them. Lapis sputters out an apology and Peridot offers her half of her sandwich. They share food for the rest of the year.
That summer, Peridot belatedly learns to ride a bike and Lapis laughs time after time as she limps to the curb with bruises and hello-kitty bandages.
In the fourth grade, they have an argument. Peridot can't even remember what it's about, but she knows she's overreacted. Face red and tears pinprickling the corners of her eyes as she shouts something rude and shoves Lapis away, hotheadedness crowding out all rationality. Lapis calls her stupid and they don't talk for a week. She doesn't remember who apologizes first, either, but she knows she cries when they make up. She always cries, splotchy face wet under ice-cube spectacles.
Lapis doesn't spend much time with her that summer. She visits family in Afghanistan and Peridot feels lonelier than she ever has. She goes to church with her widow mother and infant sister, eats vanilla ice cream cones that melt down her fingers too fast for her to lick up and stares out at the sunny bay. She’s going to be a pirate someday with Lapis’ help, she reckons.
Fifth grade is uneventful, but a girl transfers to their school and Lapis doesn't like her. Peridot, by extension, decides that she doesn't like the girl either. She’s rude and uptight and her name is Pearl. Peridot’s mother lets her have her first sleepover during winter break at Lapis’ house and they spend the whole night doing things that she’s never done before. They make s'mores that stick to her fingers and face no matter how she goes about eating them, and Lapis eats all of her marshmallows scorched to blackness. They play Monopoly until Lapis gets bored and decides to throw fake slips of money all over the room and paint the game pieces with blue nail polish.
Peridot declares that Lapis is her best friend that summer, and she receives a kiss on the cheek in response. An elated feeling bubbles up inside her and she can't stop tripping over her words for the entire rest of the day.
In sixth grade, Lapis gets sent to detention for the first time. One too many paper airplanes directed at her math teacher’s bald head. She blows bubbles with her gum on the walk home with Peridot, who stayed after school pretending to do homework so that they could spend more time together. Lapis hugs her more often, lands more gentle kisses on her pale cheeks, sends winks her way more often. Peridot is flustered, always, for reasons she can't understand.
“Do you like any boys?” her mother asks one night in June. At first Peridot doesn't understand, because her mother knows she’s friends with little Jamie and Lars, what did she mean by “like” them? But things click into place and she feels sick. She says that no, she doesn't like any boys, and her mother doesn't notice the stress on the last word.
In seventh grade, they’re transferred into middle school together. They don't get the same homeroom teacher, but they do get the same science teacher and Lapis gets D’s the entire year because the only thing she cares about it making fun of the teacher’s lopsided face and memorizing the features in Peridot’s face when she pinches her lips shut and tries to stifle her laughter.
They find a haven in the woods that summer, build a fort with spare plywood and net from Lapis’ aunt’s fishing boat. They lounge in the hammocks they string up between the trees all day, Lapis dozing off next to Peridot while the latter reads book upon book and ignores the flutter in her heart when she glances at Lapis, sun-kissed, freckled face blissful in the July afternoons with the sounds of cicadas buzzing in the air and the rush of a creek somewhere far off.
In eighth grade, Lapis complains about not knowing how to kiss properly. Talks about wanting to kiss Tommy Burrows and Peridot pretends that she isn't jealous until her devious mind pulls up a perfect plot. “You can practice on me,” she mumbles, and Lapis does just that. It’s awkward and foreign, but it feels like the most perfect thing in the world to Peridot. Lapis never does end up kissing Tommy Burrows, much to Peridot’s relief.
Her mother teaches her what a homosexual is that summer, tries to drill into her head the sinful nature of same sex lovers, but Peridot isn't listening. The only thing she can think is that there’s a name for the feelings that well up in her chest whenever Lapis winks at her or their hands brush in the hallways or when Lapis tightens her arms around Peridot and snores ever so softly in their fort in the woods.
Lapis gets caught vandalizing, spray-painting modernist art on the side of a building during their Freshman year of highschool. There's a hefty fine that her mother has to pay, and Lapis isn't allowed to leave the house that year, but she doesn't listen. She sneaks into Peridot’s house when the sun goes down and they talk until Lapis’ eyelids droop. Peridot realizes that the feeling in her chest isn't ever going away as she wakes Lapis at three AM and tells her she has to go home before school starts.
Lapis dyes all her hair a deep blue and Peridot can only stare, all too enraptured in Lapis’ magic. She buys more spray-paint and paints illegal murals all over the town, but doesn't get caught again. Peridot is always a little too eager to see them, and Lapis is always a little too eager to show her. Lapis meets Jasper, a wrestler and a boxer and a delinquent. Peridot watches them kiss for the first time, and for once in her life she holds back the tears when they threaten to come forth.
Their Sophomore year, Lapis changes. The bags around her eyes grow deeper and darker and Jasper is always covered in nasty bruises. From wrestling or something entirely unforgivable, Peridot doesn't want to know. Lapis’ aunt drowns somewhere in the Atlantic ocean and Peridot watches her light a cigarette for the first time, watches her bring it to her mouth and cough on the acrid smoke as they swing their legs off Lapis’ apartment building. The height is all too dizzying for Peridot to stomach, but she bears it so that she can stare off into the city lights in the dead of night with her best friend at her side. Lapis cries, for the first time in their friendship, and presses her lips against Peridot’s. The taste of salty skin and tobacco linger on her consciousness for the rest of the night, rest of the week, rest of the month.
Lapis wears fishnets with runs and combat boots in the middle of July, and Peridot wears fraying khaki cargo shorts that are a bit too big for her and ratty sneakers from two years ago. Jasper corners her in the cereal section of Wal-Mart and punches her so hard that her glasses break. She finds out that Lapis left her next time they meet, and she kisses Peridot senseless. Lapis gets a broken down pick-up truck for less than a thousand dollars that summer, and she drives Peridot anywhere and everywhere. She eventually throws all her cigarettes away and Peridot tells her that she's proud, and that seems enough to get her through the shaking cravings.
Their Junior year, Lapis kisses her every chance she can get. It's easy to get away from families that don't approve with Lapis’ truck. Lapis gets detention perpetually and Peridot gets smacked by her mother when she brings home a report card with a C+ in English. Lapis throws rocks at her window until she slides it open and slips into the darkness. Lapis drives them to the top of the mountains overlooking the city and they sit beneath whirring windmills in the bed of her truck, fingers twined together and happiness fluttering in both of their ribcages like little finches.
She revels in the taste of Lapis’ tongue in early May and Lapis revels in the taste of Peridot in late June, sweaty bodies pressed up against the threadbare upholstery in Lapis’ truck. They stop going to their fort in the woods, but it's okay because they've got so many other hideouts. Lapis dyes her hair a darker blue and Peridot spends too much time running her hands through it, but neither of them mind.
Her mother discovers the true nature of their friendship during her last year of highschool when Peridot stomps down the stairs in a dapper tuxedo for prom and Lapis rings the doorbell in a dress with too many sequins. It shines like everything she's ever wanted, like midday naps in fraying fishing net hammocks and cartoon character bandages over scraped knees and elbows. She kisses Lapis unabashedly and her mother stands at the end of the hallway, mouth agape and face drained of color. Her mother doesn't speak to her much after that, but she doesn't care. She’s the class valedictorian, she's got scholarships to any and every college she could care to go to, and she has Lapis.
She’s accepted into a college far from her home state, and unfortunately far from Lapis. Engineering and programming are what she aims for, and Lapis cries for the second time when her flight is announced in the airport. Her mother isn't there, but her younger sister gathers in for a hug too. They skype and call and text and though she's lonely, she feels hope.
Lapis visits on breaks and sometimes Peridot flies back to their hometown, stays with her mother who still won't speak with her. The years go quick because it feels like she's simply waiting for another chance to see Lapis between their little rendezvous. It's rather surreal when she accepts her degree, boards the plane once more to fly home, hopefully for the last time. The entire time she flies her hands are restless and her left breast pocket heavy as lead with a small ring. She doesn't present it until a month later, however, with a warbly voice and shaking fingers in a half decent italian restaurant. Lapis doesn't even bother saying yes, just stands and fists her hands in Peridot’s collar to pull her into a fervent kiss. People gasp and she spills her water as Lapis jerks her forward, but all Peridot can feel is relief.
There's pain in her chest when she slicks down her wild blonde hair and tugs on the sleeves of her expensive black suit. Her mother’s still missing from the audience, but her sister is there at least, along with a few aunts and uncles. They marry on a beach, and Lapis can't stop saying the word wife. Lapis says that she wants a dog, so Peridot brings home a yipping shiba inu puppy with a green leash one day and they name him Vegetables. Lapis cries tears of joy then, with the ball of fluff licking at her cheeks and Peridot at her side.
She gets a job engineering planes and Lapis makes jokes about marrying rich, so Peridot kisses the quips off her lips. They move far from their close-minded little hometown to a white house on the beach. Peridot gets a call from her sister one humid, lazy afternoon with cardboard boxes still filling their house, her mother arrested under charges of being a former crime boss. No tears spill out from under her ice-cube glasses as she sighs. She can't find it in her soul to feel sorry for the woman. Lapis pulls her to her feet and leads her outside before she can grab her shoes and they dance to an imaginary song with the waves at their ankles and the sunset fading behind them.