Plastics

Courtney really wasn’t sure what she was doing here.

Well, no, that was a lie. She knew exactly how she had found herself standing directly outside of apartment 4C, left index finger tapping nervously against her leg as she fought to convince herself to just knock already. ‘Who cares if she’s taken,’ Courtney mused to herself. ‘She was right about meeting people being hard, and you need friends.’ Especially after-

‘Don’t think about it.’

She hoped she wasn’t too early. She hoped she wasn’t too late. The woman had said “for dinner” but in her experience that was a gap of anywhere 5 o'clock and 8, and it’s not like the woman and Courtney had thought to exchange phone numbers.

‘Just fucking knock!’ she screamed at herself, and she did just that, arm snapping up to rap once and then a second time against the apartment door’s peeling paint.

The door opened …

…and Courtney found herself gazing into dark brown eyes framed by metal. Black hair shot through with strips of blue and red hung loosely down her back, freed of the ponytail which it’d been confined to when Courtney last saw it over a year before.

“Brooke?” Courtney couldn’t believe it. “Brooke Scott?”

“Wagner,” Brooke answered flatly. Her eyes swept over her. “You know, when Lauren told me I wouldn’t believe who lived in the building with us I wasn’t expecting you.”

‘Lauren. So that’s her name.’ Courtney couldn’t remember there being a Lauren at Blackwell, but it’s not like she memorized the entire yearbook.

“She mentioned a girlfriend but I didn’t realize it was someone I knew,” Courtney offered.

A smile flickered across Brooke’s face at that. “She is one to forget the details like that. Come on in.”

The basic layout of the apartment was identical to her own, one floor down and two rooms over. A long and narrow room with a kitchenette in one corner next to a door leading to the apartment’s bathroom. Where in her own apartment the floor was kept open, here a curtain hung across the room dividing in two, presumably to separate the ‘bedroom’ from the living area. She wondered if that meant they had guests often.

The half Courtney stood in contained the aforementioned kitchen, but also contained a couch facing an ancient box shaped television. No less than three retro game systems circled the ground around it, with two wood bookcases stacked full of vintage games and VHS tapes with only the occasional DVD or Blu-ray among them. Movie posters - among them, one for some old black and white film titled Metropolis and another for an animated film of the same name - dotted the walls.

“If Lauren says that the original is better, tell her she’s wrong.” Brooke’s voice cut through Courtney’s wandering mind. She turned her attention that way then followed Brooke’s gaze to the pair of posters.

“Uh, sure? I’m not sure I’ve seen either.”

Brooke smiled, and it was a real smile, not the veneer of awkward politeness she’d been greeting Courtney with so far. “We’ll need to fix that then. For now, though, just have a seat. I was just about to help Lauren with her meds. She’s being a baby about it.”

‘Meds?’ She didn’t ask about it, instead nodding and sitting down on the edge of the couch, eyes returning to the bookcase and running through the titles there. It was mostly stuff she’d never heard of, older sci-fi and horror, though a handful of the animated movies stood out to her as stuff she’d watched with Victoria back at Blackwell. Anime. In fact, Metropolis might have been one of the films her wayward friend had shown her back then after all.

A pang, of sadness and remorse and a craving for when it was simpler, when it was just the three of them against Blackwell, before Chloe Price and before Victoria left and everything started to fall apart-

“Hey, sorry,” Lauren’s voice called, and Courtney forced herself to unclench her fingers. “We weren’t sure when to expect you.”

“We can reschedule if it’s a bad time,” Courtney volunteered, but Brooke shook her head from her spot behind Lauren.

“It’s alright, really,” she said. “We were just going to order a pizza, if that’s good with you.” At Courtney’s nod, “What toppings? And can I get you a drink? We have Coke, water, orange juice and beer.”

As soon as the food was ordered, Lauren passed Courtney a beer then grabbed a metal folding chair from its space against a wall and flipped it open, dropping into it. “So,” she began. “Should we talk? Or watch a movie?”

“Talk, then movie when the food’s here,” Brooke voted, and Courtney agreed. She didn’t have a TV of her own, not having much time to watch one with school and preferring to just watch YouTube on her laptop when she did need something. It would be nice to watch a movie.

“So, Courtney,” Brooke sat on the couch on Courtney’s side, putting her directly between Brooke and Lauren. “It really is a surprise to see you. We didn’t expect to end up in an apartment with someone else from Blackwell.”

“Nether did I,” Courtney admitted. She paused to pop her can and take a ship. “Though I’m sorry to say I really don’t remember Lauren.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Lauren brushed her off. “I’m really not the same person I was back then anyway.” Back then. Like anyone could really change that much in less than two years.

Then again…

As if she had read Courtney’s thoughts and knew exactly what she didn’t want to think about, Brooke looked over at her. “So, Courtney, is Taylor here too? You two used to be inseparable after Victoria Chase left.”

And there went Courtney’s mood for the evening.

Actually, you know what? No. She wasn’t going to let it stop her from making friends. She finished the can in one go then sat it down on the small coffee table in front of the couch. 

“Taylor and I aren’t together anymore,” she answered, and that was that. Brooke and Lauren shared a glance and looked like they wanted to ask more, but neither did. “Actually,” Courtney continued, suddenly upset and not wanting to be. “Speaking of ex’s, whatever happened to yours Brooke? Last I saw you were dating Warren Graham.” A flinch, on both Lauren and Brooke’s part, and suddenly Courtney felt bad. “That bad huh?”

“You could say he’s not in my life anymore,” Brooke stated flatly. Lauren snorted, and Brooke’s flat expression morphed into a grin. “Good riddance to be honest. Girls are much better.” Lauren nodded in apparent agreement.

Courtney couldn’t help but agree as well “Hell yeah we are. You know, the dweeb asked me out once? Out of the blue. Oh, it was well before the two of you got together,” Courtney reassured Brooke, completely missing the look Brooke shot at her taller girlfriend. Lauren just shrugged. “Of course, the guy at least knew how to take a no. Soon as he found out I wasn’t interested in guys, he wandered off. Which is more than I can say about some other people.”

That got their attention. “Someone is hassling you?” Brooke asked, and Courtney shrugged. 

“Some ‘dudebro’ who thinks that women only kiss each other to attract men. Works near me. Takes no to mean ‘try again.’” She waved off their concerned looks. “It’s fine. I gave him a pretty good tearing-into last time. Hopefully it will stick.”

“Where do you work?”

“Pacific Place Shopping Center. In the Dillards there. It isn’t much, but it pays the bills while I work on my degree.” Most of them anyway. She hadn’t eaten that day, save for a bit of toast.

Maybe that beer had been a bad idea.

“Could I get some water?” she asked, and Brooke nodded, retreating to the kitchen to fetch a bottle for her. Courtney guzzled the first third of it. That was better. “Thank you.”

“What are you going to school for?”  Lauren asked curiously. “Brooke and I are going for Robotics and Chemical Engineering respectively.”

“Fashion.” She hoped they didn't have any comments about that. She knew a lot of people saw fashion as a bit of a joke, and it might not have been as fancy as Robots and Chemical Engineering, but it was what she was good at. “I’m gonna be a fashion designer.”

To her surprise and delight though, they both just nodded. “That’s cool,” Brooke offered. It sounded like she even meant it. The excited grin on Lauren’s face showed she at least actually did.

“That’s awesome, Courtney.” Lauren just continued to grin. “You can’t make clothing without understanding material, and you can’t make material without-” she stood back, arms spread in a gesture of presentation, “-chemistry.”

Courtney hadn’t thought about that like that. She actually was taking an Introduction to Materials course . She said so. “What kind of courses are you two taking right now?

“Oh, my favorite has got to be Health and Environmental Impacts of Manufacturing Processes. We’re learning all about how manufacturing can have effects on the environment and even on our own health. Carcinogens, microplastics, global warming. Scary stuff out there.”

“I’m mostly just doing the hard science of it, though I am taking an ethics class as well. AI can be scary stuff too,” Brooke added to the conversation. 

“It’s probably a good thing they make you learn ethics stuff early,” Courtney pointed out. “Even I’m taking one. How to Not Run a Sweatshop.” They stared at her, and she cracked a grin. “Actually the class is called “Ethical Business Sourcing,” but that’s basically what it’s been so far.”

The doorbell rang, and Brooke hopped to her feet. As soon as she had the door open and was distracted getting the pizza, Lauren leaned in “If Brooke ever says the anime adaptation of Metropolis is better, tell her she’s wrong, will you?”

Courtney gave a dismissive glance. “Really? Personally I prefer it to the original.”

Lauren gaped at her, then sank back into her metal seat with a groan. Courtney turned away to hide her grin, just in time to see Brooke setting the food out on the table. “Food time, Laur’, put a movie on.”

“Anything sound good?” Lauren offered Courtney, gesturing toward the stacks of movies. She ran her gaze along the shelves one last time, looking for something that stood-

“My best friend and I used to watch this one all the time when we were kids,” Victoria explained. “I never made it to the end though.”

“Best friend?” Taylor queried. 

Victoria jerked and shot the two of them an uneasy smile. “From when I was younger.”

Victoria didn’t like talking about when she was younger. “Sounds good, V,” Courtney answered instead, and the trio sat down to put the film on.

“This one,” Courtney pointed. Lauren glanced at it and grinned.

“Blade Runner it is.”