freshman year of high school
Everyone assumes, when the situation in its entirety comes to light, that it began when Lauren was young. People presume that something so deep-seeded must have been planted early. This is not the truth.
Truth is the aim of belief, and people's opinions are darts pinning to the wall around the target.
It starts the first day of high school. It is the most panicked and terrifying day of Lauren's life. The swarms of people going every which way in each hallway makes her head spin, the weight of unfamiliar voices lay heavy on her shoulders, her feet dragging and nose pointing to the floor like anxiety and claustrophobia are two anvils in her pocket, pulling her down, down, down.
It's unnatural. Lauren feels the wrongness of it jabbing into her side like an insistent elbow, reminding her that she is the smartest person probably in the whole school, and that she intimated whole cafeterias full of middle schoolers with just her eyes before she came here. But with each burst of laughter that comes from an unknown mouth and each different patterned floor Lauren has to stare at every forty minutes, her train of thought derails into irrelevance. Her palms sweat. Her mouth goes dry. Her breathing goes ragged and uneven. She wants to cry, because she suddenly hates herself, but she hates who she isn't even more. She hates the fact that she can't just fucking pick her head up and look at the teacher or anyone in the eye, no matter how badly she wants to.
It's the first time Lauren has ever felt this way. (And of course it's not the last. There would be no story if it were the last. There are no first-and-last stories in the world worth telling.)
Softball practice is the one thing that Lauren picks her head up for. Her backpack filled with untouched notebooks and pencils that went unborrowed the entire day falls off her shoulders, the anvils slipping out of her pockets as she changes into her uniform and ties her hair into a ponytail. Lauren sets her jaw, assesses the girls changing around her calculatedly, counting the seconds she allows herself to stare as she goes. She swallows. She breathes her first breath of the day.
Her second is the giddy moment when her bat cracks against softball for the first time in what feels like an infinity. Whatever grey matter had stuck to her skin from school falls off her as she sprints towards third base, green and brown blurring as she slides, and Lauren feels alive.
She makes the team.
She immediately latches on to the girl next to her when she reads her name on the list hanging outside of the band room. She doesn't even think about it, because she's squealing with excitement and jumping up and down crazily, but the girl wraps her in her arms and shouts out the most obnoxious "Aaaaahhhhhh!" Lauren's ever heard. She doesn't even care, her heart is so happy.
It doesn't take much more than that for them to become best friends. Which, technically, makes less than zero sense, because Lauren doesn't make friends. She knows people, on an acquaintance level, like an oh-yeah-you-were-so-and-so-from-so-and-so, I-sort-of-remember-you-but-not-really, please-don't-be-insulted-that-I-don't-really-care-about-what-you're-saying. But Lauren pulls back from her arms and the girl says, "I'm Keana! Why don't I know you?" so Lauren smiles so widely she thinks her face might break in half.
"Lauren. And that is a super good question."
*
It goes like this:
Lauren does this thing where she doesn't really know who she is or how she feels about herself until she leaves the classroom and enters the softball field. She somehow aces all her classes despite refusing to even so much as make eye contact with people, and she does everything on-field and most things off-field with Keana, who turns out to be really cool. She dresses really stylishly and listens to awesome music, never mind the fact that she's one of the best players on the team. She's best at bat, like Lauren, and they have a sort-of competition about it, but it's friendly and stupid and it feels so good Lauren wonders why she hasn't had a best friend before.
But things, no matter how sunny they can be, still are kind of shitty.
Specifically when the drill team has their first routine practice during their third softball practice, and an army of girls marches onto the field, all red and white and black like warriors with pom-poms as weapons. At first it's weird but funny, the way the team starts to lose focus as the girls begin their routine, runs slowing into jogs and outfielders not paying any attention to the softballs hurdling towards them. Lauren stays zoned in, taunting Keana for her inability to look away until eventually she lets the grip on her bat go slack and sneaks a quick glance over her shoulder at the girls.
It's a mistake. Like, devastatingly so.
Lauren expects something lame, like a dozen of them trying to stack themselves into a human pyramid, or twirling batons around in their clumsy hands until someone drops theirs and messes everyone else up. Instead, somehow, she finds her eyes widening at the sight of an entire line of girls doing high kicks, exposing their sparkly red leotards under their skirts with each movement. And the leotards, they're tight--like, if they were skin color, they could totally pass as being naked.
It feels like the first day of school, heavy and panicked, mouth dry, hands damp, choking on dead air. She can't look away. It's fucking--completely--what the fuck. Like, what the fuck.
"Jauregui?" Keana calls from the pitcher's mound, and Lauren's neck snaps up in response. She feels the warmth of blush creeping up her face even before she sees Keana smirking, but the smirk just makes it worse. Her tongue turns to sandpaper at the same time her heart drops out of her butt. "You alright there?"
"I'm fine." Lauren croaks, feeling anything but. She tightens her grip on the bat, shakes her head in an attempt to loosen the tightness of her thoughts. They're strangling her brain. "Let's go."
Keana hasn't moved though, hasn't fixed the look on her face. She cocks her head, lips stretching wider. "I don't know, Lo. You look pretty--ehem--bothered."
Lauren's mouth falls open, eyes narrow. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Keana rolls her eyes, smirk cracking into a smile. "C'mon, Lo. Don't play dumb." When all Lauren offers in response is the same confused expression, Keana sighs, slightly exasperated. "I mean," she says, ticking her head in the direction of the drill team, "I get it. Their legs are nice. It's oh-kay."
Something snaps in Lauren. A something she didn't even know she had. "Excuse me?" She gasps, lips curling into a snarl. Her hands are so sweaty she doesn't know how she's still holding onto the bat, her mind races. Walls that don't exist close in around her. "Are you implying that I'm some sort of lesbian?"
Keana visibly flinches. "Woah," she says, raising her hands slowly. "Relax. I'm not implying anything."
The pounding in Lauren's ears drowns out even her own voice. "Well, you better not be. Because I don't know who you think I am, but I'm not gay. Don't ever even, like, dare to think that."
An almost sad frown pulls at Keana's face. "Okay, Lauren." She says, nodding. "It's cool, alright? Let's just--play ball."
But Lauren's heart is still beating too fast.
Keana pitches, and Lauren hits the ball so hard she thinks she feels the bat crack somewhere so deep inside she can't even check to be sure.
*
Three softball/drill team practices later, each with Lauren refusing to look even once away from the pitcher's mound or at the bases as she runs them, Lauren is frantically shoving notebooks that spilled out of her book bag back in it when a soft hand touches her shoulder and she jumps.
"What the hell?" She bites, teeth on edge, and spins around, finding herself face to face with one of the prettiest girls she's ever seen. The girl's eyes are wide, shocked, and she holds out a calculator that Lauren recognizes as her own.
"Sorry," the girl says, pursing her lips. "I thought you might miss this."
Lauren still isn't breathing right. She wishes she could snatch the calculator out of the girl's hand and run away without looking back. "Thanks," Lauren says, slowly extending her hand, unsure of herself.
"I'm Normani, by the way." The girl says, a small smile on her face as she presses the calculator into Lauren's hand. "And you're really good. At softball, I mean."
"Thank you. I'm Lauren."
Normani smiles once more before shrugging her shoulders, already starting to turn. "No problem, Lauren. See you around."
Lauren shoves her calculator in her bag and marches away, half to find Keana and half because she's trying really hard to not watch Normani's skirt move as she walks away.
*
She starts to realize that she has a friend group.
They're mostly outside of class, which is still a war zone, but it's new and nice. Lauren has Keana first, as her primary and therefore best friend. Keana has her group, too; she hangs out a lot with Alexa and Lucy and Vero, and they're really cool. But they don't have Normani, who Lauren becomes really good friends with, and finds it easier not to look at her butt when they're walking next to each other and talking in the hallways rather than Normani ignoring her completely and walking right in front of her.
So it's good, and it's easy, and Lauren gets so wrapped up in trying to be the best softball player ever in preparation for the season to start that she doesn't have time to brace herself for what's coming.
*
The first game, it doesn't happen.
Lauren doesn't play. Keana does, and she gets to be at bat, which she rubs in Lauren's face whenever she gets the chance. This puts Lauren in a sour mood, so when the girls do their chants, she only weakly joins in. It sucks. And Keana makes a home run, so it's even worse. But it's the best game she's going to have.
The second game is when it happens.
She gets to be at bat at the third inning, and she's so excited she's sort of scared she'll shit herself. Keana flashes her a thumbs up from left field and Normani starts a chant for her with the drill team. Alexa, Lucy, and Vero scream like banshees from the bleachers, waving their arms around to get Lauren's attention. She's so caught up in how much she loves them all that she doesn't even swing at the first pitch.
Shock jolts through Lauren the same time the first whoops of laughter come from the crowd. She feels the panic creeping up her throat like bile, the way she starts to lose control of her breathing. Lauren shakes her head, straightening her shoulders and lifting the bat back up over her shoulder.
This time, she hits.
She's running so fast she almost doesn't hear the whistling of screams in her ears, and it sort of feels like a dream. It's not until she slides to second base and her brain slows down enough to process the sounds that she realizes they're chanting something. The beginning of the word is all she catches, and she wonders for a split second why they're chanting for Diana when she's not even on the field, but she ignores it and stands up and jogs back to her bat. Keana seems to be flagging her down, trying to tell her something, but Lauren pretends she doesn't see her. Her stomach is churning and she doesn't know why.
The third game, it happens again.
Lauren isn't playing, but Keana is, and she's winding up her arm on the pitcher's mound when the rest of the team off the field starts their chant for her. It's probably one of the best ones they came up with, so Lauren sticks her head out of the cage to make faces at Keana while she joins in on the chant. That's when it comes, like the first insurmountable wave of a tsunami.
It sounds like they're calling for Diana again, which makes a little sense because she's at bat this time, but the harder Lauren listens, it becomes apparent that they're saying something else. Her blood runs cold the second it clicks in her head, and her first instinct is to vomit. Then run.
"Dyke! Dyke! Dyke! Dyke!"
It feels like an out of body experience. Lauren immediately reels back, gasping for air. Her vision blurs. The shouts don't stop.
Amaris, a girl Lauren barely knows, grabs her by the elbow as she stumbles backwards. "Are you alright?" She asks, bewildered as Lauren's chest heaves, but Lauren yanks her arm away and collapses onto one of the benches. The words shake the connections in her brain, thoughts collapsing like bridges she never should have trusted.
"Dyke! Dyke! Dyke!"
Amaris turns her head away from Lauren, frowning in confusion. "What the hell?" She asks. "Mya, what are they saying?"
Mya twists her face into one that Lauren assumes Mya thinks is sympathetic. "I think it's for Jauregui."
Amaris shoots Lauren a glance over her shoulder, eyes narrowed. Lauren sees it out of her peripheral vision; she's focused on the lines on the palms of her hands, the way the cracks shake like Haitian sidewalks. She feels like a natural disaster. "Didn't they do this last game? God, people are so stupid."
Mya shrugs. "I'm just glad it isn't me."
A scowl crosses Amaris' face, just for a second. "Don't be a bitch, My. What if it was you?"
Mya doesn't answer, because she's too busy lacing her cleats up tighter in preparation for her position next inning. Lauren wonders what if it was anyone else. If they would be drowning silently, choking on panic, squinting their eyes towards the sun in an attempt to burn their tears away.
After the game, she refuses the girl's offers to go to the Rita's around the corner for Normani's house and instead goes home and throws up.
Something else happens between the third and fourth game. When Lauren is done retching her internal organs out and slumps into the bathroom tiles, hot cheek presses against the floor, her mother opens the door slowly and stares at her with concerned, albeit shocked eyes. "Mija?" She asks, grip rigid on the doorknob.
Lauren blinks back tears. Anger and disgust with herself bubbles up inside her like the vomit still burning the inside of her throat. "What does dyke mean?" She says, voice forced and choked.
Clara frowns. "It's a very bad word." She says, slowly, considering something. "Do we need to talk?"
Lauren picks herself up with her clammy hands, arms shaking, and bites her lip. "No." She says. "Can I stay home tomorrow? I feel sick."
The fourth game is a week later, and Lauren hasn't stopped feeling like she's just thrown up.
She feels dread weighing heavy in her stomach when the coach informs her she's first to bat. She braces all her bones, teeth rigid and too self-aware in her mouth as she takes sharp steps up to the plate, head bowed as she sticks and unsticks her cleats in the ground, trying to concentrate only on the sound of her teeth grinding. It doesn't work. The hollers are like thunder, and she jumps as soon as they first start, "Dyke! Dyke! Dyke!"
Her bat immediately slips out of her hands, and the wind carries the laughter straight through her eardrums into her stomach. She almost doubles over from the twist of her gut.
"Jauregui? More like Jauregay!"
"Shut the fuck up!" Someone shouts back, and Lauren sort of thinks it's Alexa, and she sort of imagines her and Vero and Lucy all glaring at whoever said it, Vero with one fist raised and Alexa snarling. She doesn't know, though--hot tears in her eyes make it impossible to see anything.
"Dyke! Dyke! Jauregui is a dyke!"
Lauren fleetingly wonders why the pitcher hasn't thrown the ball yet, and then realizes that the girl is too busy stifling a laugh with her mitt. She doesn't know if she wants to scream, "I'm not a fucking lesbo freak!" or cry out, "Please stop."
She decides without consciously deciding to look over her shoulder at Keana, back at the benches in the cage. She's already looking back, frowning deeply but just standing there doing nothing, and Lauren mouths through the tears, Why are they doing this? Keana just shakes her head once, eyes almost pleading, almost apologizing. Lauren turns away, and her gaze falls on Normani, who's looking at her the same way, curled red ribbons framing her face as she brings her shoulders up to her ears in a half-shrug that she gives up on halfway, waiting too long and finally just letting the tension go slowly, defeated.
Lauren doesn't swing once.
When the game ends after what feels like a thousand years, Lauren stumbles out of the cage in a daze, Keana, Normani, Lucy, Vero, and Alexa all chasing after her. She wobbles on her feet, head spinning. It feels like the first day of school, trying to make sense of the pattern of her feet as she walks, trying to stay breathing, trying not to let her knees buckle under the weight of her body plus her panic. And God, there's so much panic. It feels like an elephant giving birth between her ribs, cracking them open from the inside. Except the elephant is her heart, pushing out a new heart, one that pulses out a fresh surge of liquid fear with each beat. She doesn't make it very far before she trips, knees scraping the sidewalk as she falls and doesn't even try to get back up.
"Lauren, oh my God," Normani says, immediately reaching out for Lauren. Keana and Alexa try to pull her up by her armpits, but Lauren is crying so hard they can barely even lay their hands on her.
"I'm--not--a fucking dyke." Lauren gasps, shoving three sets of hands off of her as she scrambles back, words nearly unintelligible as she gasps for breath that escapes her over and over. "I am not a lesbian! I--am not--a freak."
She curls her knees to her chest, trying to keep the elephants in, trying to keep her heart caged, so no one else knows. Sob after sob tears through her, and the other girls watch, horrified and helpless, as she begins fisting her hands in her hair and yanking, mentally counting one for each time someone hurled the word dyke at her in each past game.
"It's okay," Lucy tries. "Lauren, please, stop crying. We--oh my God, please--it's okay. No one here is going to judge you."
Normani drops to her knees by Lauren's side, pulls her hands away from her head. "What they said doesn't matter."
Lauren looks up at Normani, eyes flashing. "It does matter, Normani, it was a lie. Because I'm not a fucking dyke. I'm not a dyke, I'm not lesbian, I'm not gay, whatever the fuck you want to call it, I'm not! It does matter, because they're liars, and they're lying about me."
Normani frowns, looking down, and Lauren turns her face to glare at Keana. "And, Keana, what the fuck was that back on the field?"
All eyes turn to Keana, who immediately flushes and narrows her eyes. "What?"
Lauren feels something ugly and dark rising up inside her, like tar, like an all-powerful wave of deep black ocean surging onto sand and drowning anything anyone ever thought was safe. "Did you do this to me? No one says anything else about the other girls on the team--not even you. So why me, huh? What have I ever done?"
Keana has no words, Lauren's mouth is moving too fast, and everyone sort of starts to back away, because Lauren is on fire and it's too easy to get burned. "Because I find it weird that after drill team started and you accused me of liking girls, everyone else starts thinking the same thing. I find that super fucking weird, because I'm not gay, but you thought that I was and then everyone else did, too." Lauren stands up, hands stinging where the sidewalk skinned them, gets in Keana's face. "So did you say something, Keana? Did you open your big fat mouth and tell everyone you thought I was a dyke?"
It's like Lauren just slapped Keana in the face. "Are you kidding me?" Keana gasps, reeling. Normani starts to come between them, hands raised in neutrality, but Keana pushes her to the side and snarls. "You've got to be fucking joking, Jauregui. As if I would ever--how could you even--oh my God. Of course I didn't say you were gay! Of course I didn't start a rumor like that! Shit like this happens, Lauren, because people are stupid and bored and they hate people who are different. It doesn't matter if you really are or not--it happens. Don't try to blame me when I'm your fucking best friend."
Lauren bites her lip, trying to keep it from wobbling. She wipes her dirty, bloody hands across her face in a backwards attempt to clean it of tears. "But it didn't just happen to anyone, Keana. It's happening to me. And I'm--Jesus Christ--I'm not gay."
She starts to say more, but all her words curl on her tongue when the vomit makes its way up her throat and she doubles over the curb, Vero holding her hair back while Normani and Lucy keep her steady, all aware that Lauren's very foundation is cracking to the core.
There is no fifth game for Lauren.
When in practice she stops throwing up (in theory she never does, in theory her throat is always burning with bile she can't get out for the life of her), she breaks away from the girls and walks home alone, slowly, shoes heavy with dread.
By the time her key finally clicks in the door, it's full-blown panic in the house.
Clara whips the door open from the inside, frazzled and red faced. "Oh my God, finally," she says, pulling Lauren in by her shoulders and wrapping her in a hug. She pulls away and is opening her mouth to undoubtedly announce to everyone else that Lauren is home but Lauren stops her, covering her mouth with her hand. Which, momentarily forgotten, is still caked with dirt and blood and probably sticky with tears.
"Please, mom, don't," Lauren pleads, removing her hand instantly, already feeling the tears pricking her eyes. Alarm spreads over Clara's face.
"Lauren? Are you okay?" She asks, grabbing Lauren by the wrist, eyes widening at the sight of her palms. She takes in Lauren's teary face and crumpled expression and pulls her back in against her chest. "Mija, talk to me. What happened?"
She doesn't mean to start crying, honestly. But her mother smells like the perfume she's worn for as long as Lauren can remember and pinto beans that she's probably been cooking out of nervousness, waiting for Lauren to come home, and the next thing she processes is the wetness of her mother's shirt and how it's from her tears. "Mom," she says, and Clara holds her tighter.
It takes a while for Lauren to let go and start speaking. The first thing she says is, "Please don't be mad," because she's never even heard her family talk about a gay person before, never mind had to tell her mother that everyone at her school chants the word dyke whenever she steps onto the field. Clara frowns.
"Just say it." She says, and Lauren takes a deep breath, bracing herself like she has been for what feels like forever, at this point.
"Everyone at school is calling me gay."
Lauren doesn't know what she expects. But she doesn't expect her heart to clench when her mother's face drops, lips parting in shock. She doesn't expect the urge to take her words back when her mother's lips curl, disgusted.
"Lauren." Clara says. She crosses her arms, looks like she chooses her words carefully. "Did you do anything to provoke this?"
Tugging at the hem of her softball uniform, Lauren averts her eyes and shakes her head. "No, Ma. I didn't do anything."
Clara cocks her head, staring at the way Lauren refuses to look back. "Because if you did, you can tell me."
Lauren lifts her head slowly, and blinks. Her heart claws up into her throat, pounding too fast. "Really?"
"Of course." Clara says, lips tightly pursed but curving up at the corners. "You're my daughter. I'd get you the help you need."
Lauren almost chokes. "What?"
Clara's smile twists into a frown. "Being gay isn't, like, normal, mija. That's why I'm saying, if you are curious or anything, or even if it's just a thing you're feeling right now, I can help you. We have resources."
Lauren half steps back, feet unsure. "Mom. I'm not gay."
"It could be a phase," Clara shrugs.
"I'm not gay. The kids at school call me a dyke for no reason. I'm not gay." Lauren almost wants to turn the words into things she can hold in her hand, like bricks, so she can press them into her mother's palm, factual, irrefutable. Or better yet, hurl them at anyone who says different.
"Then why are they saying it?" Clara has started to turn her back, glancing over her shoulder suspiciously at her daughter.
"I don't know!" Lauren shouts, momentarily forgetting herself. Her hands are shaking. She takes a deep breath, tries to stay calm as she trails behind her mother. "I don't know. But it's a lie and it makes me feel uncomfortable. I don't want to play softball anymore."
Clara stops in her tracks, one foot on the kitchen tile and one sunken into the thick living room carpet. "You love it, though. If it's a lie then why does it bother you so much?"
Lauren could scream. She wants to scream. She wants to write in big black letters on her forehead "I'M NOT FUCKING GAY" so everyone can shut the fuck up for once. "Because!" Lauren cries, throwing her hands up in frustration. "It's wrong! It's wrong because I'm not a freaking dyke and everyone is lying, and if this is going to keep happening, then I don't want to have anything to do with it anymore. Please, Ma, just call coach and tell him I quit. That's all I'm asking. I'm not gay."
Clara turns to face her, looks at the cuts on Lauren's palms and the fresh tears blooming in her eyes, face surprisingly neutral. "Fine." She says, crossing her arms. "I'll do it tomorrow. Now go clean your hands up, and when you come back here put gloves on and help me with this meal. And I don't want to hear any more of this gay-dyke talk, you understand me? Hurry up, go."
Lauren doesn't know if relief is supposed to feel this way.
*
Normani calls the house phone that night after dinner, and when Lauren's mom picks up, she sort of narrows her eyes suspiciously and makes a point to stand right next to Lauren as she speaks.
"Hey, Laur," Normani says, nervously, "I just wanted to check in on you. Sorry if I, like, upset your mom or something."
Lauren glances at Clara out of the corner of her eye. "Everything's fine," she says, hopes Normani gets the message. "No worries. I'm quitting the team."
Normani doesn't seem too surprised. "Yeah, I figured. I just--I'm sorry, I guess?" she says. "I know how much you love it."
"It's whatever." Lauren says, looking down at her feet. "Hey, listen, I'm really glad you actually called and everything, but I sort of have to go."
"Oh," Normani says, sounding a little disappointed. "That's alright. Feel, like, better. Okay, Lauren? I mean it. Take it easy over the weekend. Love you."
She doesn't dare say it back. "Yeah. Bye." Lauren says, and hangs up the phone.
*
Lauren's mom does call Coach Melendez, and tells him off for allowing the students to use such provocative and inappropriate language during a game. She thinks it polluted the mind of her child and exposed her to evil aspects of the world that she had previously been oblivious to. Lauren doesn't really want to think about what that specifically means, and instead does more extra credit in her free time than any teacher could dream of grading, and tries not the miss the way her heart would skip it's next beat when her bat connected with the softball.
The first day back, Vero and Alexa walk in front of her like bodyguards, practically growling at anyone who so much as steps in their direction. Normani and Lucy stand at each side, less aggressive but just as protective, and for the first few periods it's nice to have a distraction from the usual claustrophobia that she gets whenever she's in the hallway. But when lunch rolls around and Alexa is still shooting daggers at anyone who looks at Lauren as she digs into her salad, it starts to get old. Because she's not a victim. All anyone did was call her a few names, all of which were entirely untrue, so everyone being so defensive about it is just stupid. It's just plain stupid.
And to make matters worse, Keana seems to be avoiding her. Lauren's best friend, avoiding her. It blinks like a neon sign above Keana's head when she sits at a different table with the rest of the team, back turned to Lauren: I'm Avoiding My Best Friend for No Fucking Reason. Lauren rolls her eyes and chews through a tomato before turning to Normani and asking what Keana's problem is.
Normani eyes sort of widen, and she pauses to swallow her mouthful before answering calculatedly, "Maybe she's still hurt by the things you said to her on Friday? You know, that is, if you didn't apologize afterwards."
Lauren frowns and looks down, because that makes sense. The (totally imaginary) blinking sign rearranges it's letters, spells out: I'm Waiting for My Best Friend to Apologize to Me for Being a Huge Asshole.
She shoots Normani a look and picks up her tray, marching across the cafeteria towards where Keana is sitting, sandwiched between Mya and Amaris. Maybe her ears are hyper sensitive now, but she can't help but pick up whispers of her name, murmurs of the Friday before, of the names she was called and the way she reacted. Lauren shakes her head slightly, physically trying to fix her mental issues, and shifts her tray into one hand to tap Keana on the shoulder.
It's like she already knows who it is. Keana lifts up her right hand, holding out her pointer finger to the table as she turns to face Lauren mid-sentence. Her eyes stare up at her curiously, like they've never met before. "Yes?"
Lauren narrows her eyes. "Are you, like, okay?" She says. She doesn't even know what she means.
Keana's face twists, sort of amused. "Never been better. You?"
"I'm not playing games, Keana. Can we talk?" Lauren bites out, too aware of all the eyes on her, other tables turning to stare as her voice gets higher pitched, her words clipped. She grips her tray, grateful for the feeling of something other than the walls closing in on every side.
Keana smirks and raises an eyebrow, eyes cold. Lauren wonders where she knows this girl from; not from class when she kicks Lauren's desk chair as she walks past her in the aisle, or when she slings a friendly arm around Lauren's shoulder in the hallway. Not from when she smears cherry ice onto Lauren's nose when they're sitting on the curb in front of Rita's, hip to hip in the middle with Normani and Lucy and Vero and Alexa farther out on either side, hip to hip in the middle because they're primary and therefore best friends, Lauren's first and last.
(She doesn't know the first-and-last rule yet. She doesn't know that if one line exists, it is every line, because it is a continuation of all lines before it and after it, and therefore infinite. She doesn't know that if she has one best friend, even just one, she has an unimaginable and immeasurable amount more.) Lauren doesn't know her at all, but Keana keeps smirking anyway.
"We're talking right now, aren't we?" She says. She sounds so condescending, Lauren could throw up.
Lauren bites her lip. "Did I do something wrong?" She asks, dropping her voice to a whisper, trying to get people to turn away from them.
Keana rolls her eyes slightly. "I don't know, did you?" She asks, voice flat, louder than before, like she's calling people to pay attention to them. Lauren wants to drop to her knees and beg her to stop. When Lauren has nothing to say, mouth moving but no sound coming out, Keana sighs annoyedly and twists around in her seat to glare at Lauren like she's ruining her life. "Listen, Lauren. I know that you're upset that coach told you you should quit the team or whatever," she pauses, so quickly if you blinked you'd miss it, to glance at around the cafeteria out of the corner of her eye, "but you really need to let it go. I don't know why, you're like, obsessed with me, but it's not healthy. It's not, like, normal. I'm trying to have lunch with my friends. Now, please," she says, smiling a sweet, cruel smile that doesn't reach her eyes, "build yourself a bridge and get the fuck over it."
Then, just like that, she turns back around in her seat and continues like nothing happened.
Lauren doesn't think about how Keana's voice was so loud she could have passed as a Broadway singer belting out a number. She doesn't think about how the whole softball team is laughing, at something Keana said either before or after she turned back around. She doesn't think about how it sounds like Alexa has already jumped up from their table and started yelling over the buzz of the cafeteria. She doesn't think about anything else but how badly she needs to get out of there.
She runs to bathroom, locks herself in the handicapped stall, and cries.
*
It takes a while, with the constant shifts of Let's-Busy-Lauren that Normani, Vero, Lucy, and Alexa play, avoiding Keana at all costs, intentionally drowning herself in homework and extra credit and studying for tests that are months away, for Lauren to recognize what's happening to her.
She's losing herself.
It feels like she wears a mask everywhere she goes. At school, she's Lauren Don't-Talk-to-Me-I'm-Shy-and-Pathetic-and-NOT-GAY Jauregui. With her friends, she's Lauren Stop-Treating-Me-Like-a-Baby-or-a-Victim-Because-I'm-NOT-As-Well-As-NOT-GAY Jauregui. At home, she's Lauren Perfect-NOT-GAY-Straight-A-Honor-Roll-NOT-GAY-Daughter-Who-Is-NOT-GAY Jauregui.
She doesn't remember the last time she felt like plain Lauren, just Lauren, except for when she was practicing softball before the season started, before the drill team did high kicks on the sidelines and before Keana accused her of liking girls and lit a stick of dynamite in her that she didn't even know she had. And it fucking sucks. On a lot of levels. For a lot of different reasons.
All of said reasons are sort of applicable to why she should go to Keaton Stromberg's party this Saturday.
At least, that's what Normani tells her.
"It'll be fun," Normani insists, wiggling her eyebrows as she carves a mountain of coconut ice onto her plastic spoon. She's still in her drill team outfit, the red and white ribbons in her hair matching the Rita's sign behind her head. Lucy and Vero are behind her, arguing about which new flavor they should each try, annoying Alexa, who is unfortunately stuck behind them and has to wait even though she already knows what she wants. Lauren knows how it goes with her eyes closed. She sighs. Maybe the pattern is getting to her a little bit.
"You just want me to be your wing-woman so you can hook up with one of his friends." Lauren says.
Normani gasps dramatically, pointing her spoon in Lauren's face. "How dare you! For your information, I don't need a wing woman to get with Arin. I want you to come. You need to come."
Lauren rolls her eyes. She watches Normani start with the puppy eyes for a second, and then caves. "Fine. Whatever. I'll go."
Normani starts squealing the same time Lucy and Vero appear next to them, swirled icies in their cups. "Go where?" Vero asks, smiling with her spoon in her mouth.
Back at the counter, waiting for her (as always) grape ice, Alexa shouts grumpily, "To hell!" She's scowling so deeply and they're so delirious from heat that they all break into giggles, falling all over each other and dripping ice everywhere.
And even though Lauren ruins her favorite white shirt, she still finds a way to be excited about Keaton Stromberg's party.
*
Three nights later, dressed in skin tight black jeans Normani forced her to wear and hoop earrings she nabbed from Alexa, Lauren stands in Keaton Stromberg's kitchen between Lucy and Vero and wonders why the hell she's here.
"Why are we here?" She drawls, watching Normani flirt shamelessly with Arin over by the speakers. She pulls his snapback off his head and tugs it onto her own, smiling widely when he reaches for her wrist to take it back and their hands brush. Lauren feels the fruit punch Keaton served rising back up in her throat. Gross.
Lucy knocks her shoulder against Lauren's, grinning. "Oh, come on, Lo. This is fun. You remember what fun is, don't you?"
Lauren rolls her eyes, takes another gulp of her punch. "Shut up. I'm bored."
Vero takes the plastic cup out of Lauren's hand and tilts it and her head back, then slams the empty cup on the counter behind her. "Then let's go un-bore you. There's gotta be a cute boy here, somewhere."
Lucy perks up at that. "Oooh, do you think Wesley will want to dance with me? He looks so cute tonight. Have you seen his hair?"
"You can do better than Wes," Lauren frowns, disapproving. "I say we stay here and eat all these Cheetos."
"You're being pathetic," Vero laughs, pulling Lauren back by the shoulders when she starts to turn, reaching for a bag of Cheetos on the counter behind them. "Come on, these boys are cute and willing to dance! Just one song, Lo. Pleeeeease?"
She juts out her bottom lip, pouty, the inside pink in stark contrast from the kiddy purple lipstick she put on back at Normani's house, and Lauren sighs. "Fine. God. Just one song."
"Yay!" Vero smiles, throwing an arm around Lauren's shoulder. Lucy wraps her arm around Lauren's waist, then, and that's how the three of them stumble into the living room where about two dozen of their classmates and Keaton's sophomore friends are dancing, two out of three grinning ear to ear.
They don't let go of each other for a while, sillily bouncing around all tangled in each other's arms and laughing at how stupid they must look until a light tap on Lauren's shoulder breaks them apart, Lauren turning and dislodging her torso from their weird dance triangle.
Keaton Stromberg is staring Lauren in the face, hand still raised from when his fingers brushed her shoulder. He smiles. "Hey."
Lauren's never really had a poker face, honestly, but it become painfully apparent that she needs one when her face immediately scrunches up in confusion at the sight of him. "Hi?" She asks. Keaton keeps smiling, undeterred.
"Hey. Do you want something to drink?"
By now Vero and Lucy have abandoned her, giggling loudly as they break away from Lauren and disappear in the crowd of other people in the middle of the living room. Lauren tries not to sigh. "Thanks, but I'm good." She says.
Keaton's eyes shine as he knocks his elbow against hers. "Aw, come on. Just one drink? I'll go get it for you?"
He's nice, Lauren thinks. He still hasn't stopped looking at her, but it's not the worst thing in the world. "Okay." She says. She even smiles.
Maybe this is why Keaton takes her hand and pulls her away from the living room, palm clammy where it's clasped awkwardly around her fingers. And sure, he's guiding her to the kitchen to get her a drink, but it's the first time she's "held hands" with a boy, and it's--different? It's something.
He lets go of her hand to open the door of the fridge, smile a lot less nice under the fluorescent lights of the kitchen. She smiles back anyway. And when he offers her a can of beer--yes, beer--she takes it and cracks it open without thinking about it.
"Tell me what you think," he says, watching as Lauren takes her first gulp, eyes gleaming. And, well, it tastes fucking gross. Like regret, or something. She forces herself to swallow.
Lauren winces, hopes it looks like a smile. "Pretty good." She says. Keaton laughs a little, then lifts his hand, and Lauren flinches away from it without thinking. He doesn't notice.
"You don't have to lie. It's--what do you call it--an acquired taste."
Lauren laughs, face burning slightly with embarrassment. "Oh. Well, it was my first time trying it."
Keaton grins. "Really? My dad let me have a sip of his beer on my thirteenth birthday. But he doesn't let me, like, seriously drink."
"Is this his beer?" Lauren asks, suddenly fearful of the can in her hand.
Keaton shrugs. "Yeah. But it's no biggie."
"Are you sure?"
An even wider smile stretches across Keaton's face, and then he bites his lip, pushes his hand through his hair. "Well, he's definitely going to miss it. But it's worth it." He looks at Lauren like he means more than he's saying, and then he takes the can out of her hand and takes a sip.
Lauren is about to awkwardly motion back towards the living room and say something along the lines, "Well, thanks for the alcohol and all, but I sort of need to get back to my friends now," when Keaton puts down the beer can and does the lip-biting, hair-pushing thing again. "Actually, there's something I want you to see. Wanna come?" He says, hand extended.
She pauses to think. Because, like, there are a lot of things happening right now. She's just had her first sip of beer, and even though it was only one sip, she feels sort of funny. And she'd be going alone with Keaton to God knows where, Keaton, who's a sophomore while she's only a freshman, who knows this house because it's his and could very easily be leading her to a torture chamber or something. That would be bad. Not like watery-old-yogurt bad, but bad-bad.
But Lauren also looks at Keaton while she's thinking, which is sort of a misstep. Because he is odd, but in an older-boy, only slightly displacing sort of way. His smile is sweet, and his hair is nice and curly-ish and smells like the kid watermelon shampoo Lauren used when she was younger. He's so close she can actually smell it. And he's not pressuring her, just gently and politely offering his hand to show her something, and, "Okay. Sure."
He takes her hand and then down the hall, past three doors and then to the left, to his room. The lights are off, but the window is open, so moonlight shines off of the posters on his walls and illuminates his face funnily. Keaton shuts the door behind him and Lauren thinks she hears the lock click. She worries her bottom lip between her teeth. "What did you want to show me?" She whispers, wonders why the hell she's whispering.
Keaton shrugs. "Nothing, really. I just wanted to kiss you."
"Oh," Lauren says, and then he takes half a step forward and kisses her.
It's not her first kiss. It's not even her second. The first went to Miguel in the third grade on Halloween, a few weeks before they moved. He gave Lauren all of his Snickers because he knew they were favorite, even though they were his favorite too, and then he kissed her sweetly on the lips and told her he would miss her when she moved. The second was her sort-of boyfriend, Paul. They were eleven, and Paul thought they were dating when they weren't, so one day after school while they were parting ways, Paul turning to the right and Lauren to the left, Paul grabbed her by the face and kissed her square on the mouth. Neither were particularly bad, even though the aftermath with Paul was significantly awkward. She just didn't really feel anything.
It's not really that way now. Keaton is urgent, hooking his thumbs through her belt loops and pulling her flush against him. Lauren accidentally opens her mouth as she gasps into his, and he takes this opportunity to stick his tongue in her mouth. She is stricken by how much it feels like a really fat worm, slimy and frantic as it wriggles against her own. She's completely overwhelmed, and she can't breathe because Keaton's nose is smushing her nostrils shut, and she feels it. The urge to pull back.
Their lips part with a wet pop, and Lauren cringes at the sound of it. Keaton's fingers go slack, still looped on her waistband. He frowns, eyebrows furrowed. She almost feels bad for him. "Sorry," she says, trying to catch her breath, trying to make sense of the way her body is screaming to run away.
"So it's true?" Keaton asks, sounding almost betrayed. "What everyone's been saying--you're gay?"
Lauren nearly shoves him off of her. "Oh my God." She says, face flushing with anger and unreasonable embarrassment. "No. Jesus Christ, I'm not gay. Why does everyone fucking think that?"
Keaton narrows his eyes. "Why won't you kiss me, then?" His hands fall off her hips, he takes a step back.
Her heart starts pounding, louder than the muffled music coming from the living room. "I don't--" Lauren says. "That was my first kiss."
The tension suddenly falls off of Keaton, and it almost looks like he feels a bit sorry. "Oh." He says. He bites his lip, starting to look uncomfortable. "Um, well, was it okay? I'm sorry."
"It was okay." Lauren says slowly, considering her words. "You don't have anything to be sorry for."
Keaton smiles shyly. "So, can I--?"
Lauren narrows her eyes. "Can you what?"
He sighs, like she is the most exasperating person in the world, and then takes her in by the hips again at the same time he presses their mouths together. It's even worse than the last time.
She kisses back.
*
School only carries on for about a month more, which means Lauren only has to suffer through Normani and Arin being the most grossly lovey-dovey couple for three weeks. She's happy for them, really, but only on a theoretical level. Because being forced to deal with Normani's absence from the lunch table twice a week, or worse, being forced to deal with Arin sitting at their table and being the most sickeningly sweet, doe-eyed boyfriend in the world, gets really old really fast. So it's a blessing that before Lauren knows it, the school year is wrapping up and she will mercifully not see NormaniandArin again for three whole months.
One more month of school, though, also means one more month of dodging both Keaton and Keana in hallways and in class (Lauren wonders if the universe is playing some cruel joke on her by giving them practically the same name), because after the second and then third kiss in Keaton's room at his stupid, stupid house party, he asks Lauren if she wants to see a movie sometime at her locker the Monday after. She tries pushing the word yes out of her mouth but she thinks it would come out in the form of vomit, so she shakes her head, slams her locker shut and practically runs to homeroom without looking back. Keaton is nothing if not persistent, though, and ruthlessly wedges himself in any gap of time Lauren doesn't have her guard up, or isn't looking over her shoulder, ready to run at a moment's notice.
But eventually he gives up, and a week before school ends Lauren is rushing to World Civ and accidentally shoves past him on the stairs, and in the middle of her panicking internally because he's totally going to ask her out again, he nods curtly at her once and continues down the stairs past her.
She almost turns around and calls him back, she's so confused.
But she also wouldn't even dream of doing it, because for what she thinks is the first time in human history, being ignored is the best feeling ever.
So things go back to normal even while Lauren spends a good chunk of her time trying to ignore the echoes of giggles that trail behind her wherever she goes like a shadow, and when the softball team has one huge final game that the entire school is strongly advised to attend (which is code for you better show up because if you don't we'll fail you), Lucy suggests that they skip it and sneak off campus to go to Rita's, and then, obviously, go to Normani's house--because it's closest--and have a sleepover. So they do.
They paint each other's nails even though they have no clue what they're doing and when they can't find anything good on Netflix, they play Disney princess movies and sing along to all the songs. And during that really weird scene in Aladdin when Princess Jasmine is being super creepily sexy with Jafaar and everyone starts to giggle uncomfortably, Normani hides her blushing face in Lauren's hair and Lauren leans into her touch, and for a second she doesn't wish Keana were there beside her, hip to hip in the middle like she always used to be.
And then she sort of realizes that when Normani is around, she doesn't miss Kea a at all. She tries to explain this to Normani when they're alone in the kitchen making popcorn, Vero, Alexa, and Lucy finding another movie to play in the living room, how she's probably the most important person Lauren knows, but it clumsily comes out, "You're my best friend, Mani."
Normani freezes, hands stilling over the buttons of the microwave, and smiles at her. "Thanks, Lo." she says, a happy lilt to her voice, "You're mine, too."
So yeah, it's pretty good.
It's good even up to the last day of school, Lauren hugging everyone in her homeroom class (except Keana, but that's sort of a given) and even planting a kiss on Normani's cheek when someone offers to take a picture of them, with Vero leaning her head on Lauren's cheek and Lucy smiling with her arm around Lauren's waist. She forgets what it feels like to be afraid of hallways and picks her head up in a classroom for the first time in what feels like her entire life, and it's so good.
It's so good she laughs with her four best friends the whole walk home, singing Disney songs that haven't left their heads since the Friday before, and even when she goes home and shouts, "Love you guys!" to the backs of the figures of Normani, Lucy, Alexa, and Vero once she's back in her house and her mother frowns with narrowed eyes, disapproving as she shuts the front door in the middle of Lauren's sentence, Lauren doesn't feel a sense of dread. She's too happy. She's too hopeful. She skips up the stairs to her bedroom and turns on a Paramore song and dances with too much enthusiasm. Because she thinks the worst is behind her. What could go wrong? She thinks.
(Lauren doesn't know that the fabric of the universe is a repeating pattern, that the thread doesn't run out and instead weaves itself over and over, changing its shape and color but never its texture.) She doesn't have a clue.