#i do think there ARE good resources but they are few and far between
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irusanw4 · 18 hours ago
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This made me curious so I decided to try and map them all to different pairs! I'll try to explain my logic too :] In no particular order!:
Stubborn - Determination/Stubbornness This one's a given. Take a single look at any chapter he's in, honestly. Adversary is the biggest display of this, though, since he won't even waver for death until it becomes 100% clear you're losing ground with each death.
Hero - Compassion/Naivety Hero's basically always trying to do the right thing, but even he knows he's gullible [Chapter 2: the Razor]. An easy one!
Opportunist - Resourcefulness/Opportunism I was torn between a few of them but this one had the best description ["A character is adept at finding solutions but is also quick to exploit situations for personal gain"]. Oppy's basically always sucking up to whoever he thinks will give him power [Chapter 3: the Wraith] and he isn't stupid. He waits to reveal his plan until the Witch trusts you specifically because he deems you a bad liar [although I can't think of a single instance in which this is backed up by gameplay, personally].
Smitten - Optimism/Denial Burned Grey. Thorn. Moment of Clarity. Optimism and denial fit him perfectly.
Contrarian - Humor/Inappropriateness Stranger of course shows this dichotomy of his well, but also how he acts in No Way Out and the way you get him in the Arms Race fit this REALLY well.
Cold - Resilience/Emotional Detatchment Cold added that to the list himself I just know it /silly. Anyways, Moment of Clarity if you want a good example
Paranoid - Honesty/Bluntness This one feels a bit more like a stretch than the others so far? But he openly admits to not trusting the Narrator [Chapter 3: the Apotheosis] [Chapter 2: the Nightmare] and calls out Hero for being bad at running a body [Chapter 2: the Nightmare].
Skeptic - Strategic/Calculative Sorry Skeptic lovers, I don't have a specific thing to cite here I just went off vibes for him. I like him a lot he just doesn't make a ton of sense to me </3
Hunted - Patience/Passivity Passivity doesn't fit him insanely well but one could argue he doesn't take the action of slaying Den when "needed". Idk, Hunted's an odd one. I like him but he also confuses me a bit, and he just doesn't fit any of these amazingly well
Cheated - Wisdom/Cynicism This guy is so cynicism. I just don't encounter him often enough to have many scenes to point to, but the entirety of Cage and especially the moment where he thinks she'll drop you jump out at me.
Broken - Loyalty/Blind Obedience Tower and Apotheosis for loyalty/blind obedience towards the Princess, Adversarial Fury for loyalty towards the player :]
Ok that's all of the voices. Scuttles away.
20 Compelling Positive-Negative Trait Pairs
Here are 20 positive and negative trait pairs that can create compelling character dynamics in storytelling:
1. Bravery - Recklessness: A character is courageous in the face of danger but often takes unnecessary risks.
2. Intelligence - Arrogance: A character is exceptionally smart but looks down on others.
3. Compassion - Naivety: A character is deeply caring but easily deceived due to their trusting nature.
4. Determination - Stubbornness: A character is persistent in their goals but unwilling to adapt or compromise.
5. Charisma - Manipulativeness: A character is charming and persuasive but often uses these traits to exploit others.
6. Resourcefulness - Opportunism: A character is adept at finding solutions but is also quick to exploit situations for personal gain.
7. Loyalty - Blind Obedience: A character is fiercely loyal but follows orders without question, even when they're wrong.
8. Optimism - Denial: A character remains hopeful in difficult times but often ignores harsh realities.
9. Humor - Inappropriateness: A character lightens the mood with jokes but often crosses the line with their humor.
10. Generosity - Lack of Boundaries: A character is giving and selfless but often neglects their own needs and well-being.
11. Patience - Passivity: A character is calm and tolerant but sometimes fails to take action when needed.
12. Wisdom - Cynicism: A character has deep understanding and insight but is often pessimistic about the world.
13. Confidence - Overconfidence: A character believes in their abilities but sometimes underestimates challenges.
14. Honesty - Bluntness: A character is truthful and straightforward but often insensitive in their delivery.
15. Self-discipline - Rigidity: A character maintains strong control over their actions but is inflexible and resistant to change.
16. Adventurousness - Impulsiveness: A character loves exploring and trying new things but often acts without thinking.
17. Empathy - Overwhelm: A character deeply understands and feels others' emotions but can become overwhelmed by them.
18. Ambition - Ruthlessness: A character is driven to achieve great things but willing to do anything, even unethical, to succeed.
19. Resilience - Emotional Detachment: A character can endure hardships without breaking but often seems emotionally distant.
20. Strategic - Calculative: A character excels at planning and foresight but can be cold and overly pragmatic in their decisions.
These pairs create complex, multi-dimensional characters that can drive rich, dynamic storytelling.
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ghostcrows · 1 year ago
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the way people talk about and view mental illness has always been under this veil of sympathy and understanding but really when that energy is most needed it all just vanishes. we have 200 more specific terms for certain symptoms and 2000 more videos on how to stop procrastinating and how to deal with rejection sensitive dysphoria and 50000 new videos on how it's In Your Brain and it's Hereditary and it's Homemade by your Primary Caregivers but people still dont really ...get it. they just dont. the resources available are so hollow. its empty promises. suicide hotline that just gets you insta-detained. therapist you talk in circles with for a third of your income per session. housing program with a wait list that only gets longer. this insistence that you build up a support system with no support. this quietly depleting time frame you have (or feel you have, this very real pressure) in which to get your shit together before you're just another sad statistic. always having to wait until you're at the brink of complete self destruction to get help, and by then. how much damage is already done
it's all just casting shadows on the wall
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bucketbueckers · 1 month ago
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COME AROUND
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pairing: paige bueckers x fem!reader content: language, kinda angsty (but with a happy ending because above all else, i am my own target audience), friends to lovers to exes to lovers, too many gatsby references, teenage awkardness, hopkins!p, sexuality, generational fumble from paige, mental health, slight injury, painfully long
wc: 27.0k synopsis: You were always a little tender-hearted. That’s why your friends told you to stay far, far away from Paige Bueckers. You tried, you honestly did – but Paige was magnetic, and she loved you, and you were just a little too weak to say no. Eventually, you’d have to come to terms with the realization that the both of you were growing up far too fast and that there were many lessons still left to be learned, although you never thought that moment of reckoning would come in the fashion that it did. Despite losing your way over the years, the beautiful thing about life is that you always find your way back home. notes: kinda funny that i thought this was gonna be like 5-6k words long...lol sike 😍 last night's game actually killed me but what do i actually know about basketball. i just work here. this fic came to me in a fever dream and was not planned out at all, is poorly proof-read, and at the end of the day i dont actually know if its good or not cause im sick of reading it. also. please let me know how we feel about the sexuality/process of coming out. i tried to make it as authentic as possible (i did NOT feel like writing homophobia, paige and reader got enough shit going on in this one shot) but lowkey...idk how it works. crazy lore drop but when i realized i liked girls i said "ok" and went on with my day and then eventually got outed to my family so like..oh well. i think that's it though but as always let me know what y'all think and pls pls enjoy 🫶
tags: @unadulteratedcyclepaper @avvwritesstufff @surferandskater5
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You were always a little tender hearted — or so you’ve been told. Your heart lives perpetually on your sleeve, bared, bleeding, beating persistently regardless of the way it breaks under the slightest pressure. You’re a patchwork of criss-crossing bandages, an amalgamation of stitches and sutures; nevertheless, you still find the bravery to love and open up your heart in spite of it all. You wouldn’t say that you let people walk all over you. You’re outspoken and proud of it, opinionated and driven. In the same breath, you’re sensitive and trusting – perhaps to a fault, but that’s just who you are.
You don’t think this is a character flaw. Yes, you get hurt, but that’s inevitable. You like to think that if people like you stopped putting love and compassion into the world, then it would all go to shit eventually. You like to think that there is someone out there who will see your effort for what it is and care enough to protect your heart as if it were their own. Platonically, romantically, you didn’t particularly mind – you wanted to forge genuine connections with people. You wanted to love in whatever form that came to be. So, yes. You get hurt. Yes, it would be easier for you to not care so much at all, but if people gave up so quickly, then how would we grow? How can we expect to glean something from the world if it was a depleted resource?
Hopkins, Minnesota, was a quaint little city, but it was where you grew up. Elementary and middle school was… well, elementary and middle school. You learned a lot about yourself, about others, and made a few close friends that have stuck by you for years. Then high school came around and things shifted. Your classmates were confusing mixtures of self-absorbed and altruistic, trying too hard to be one thing or the other, and it was this strange imbalance between finding who you’re supposed to be versus staying true to what you’ve known. It’s that weird thing called growing up, and sure, everyone does it – in a literal sense as they grow older physically, but also as they change their minds and learn new things about the world and themselves, although growing up in high school is just so daunting. It’s like you’re supposed to have all of the right answers, right now, which is scary because you don’t even have the right answers for algebra yet you’re supposed to make life-altering decisions about the person you are?
You digress, though. Freshman year is decent. You get into a steady rhythm, join a couple of clubs that will look good on college applications, and you make a few new friends, ones that feel a little more like you despite the ones you’ve been holding onto since kindergarten. Sophomore year is full of changes, yet again.
But junior year? They weren’t lying when they said it would be the hardest year of high school. You were taking a few AP classes and a dual enrollment class or two to round it out, but despite that, junior year comes with a lot more internal realizations. You weren’t a sports person by any means, but Paige Bueckers soon became a name you were intimately familiar with. She’d led her team pretty far into the playoffs during sophomore year although they ultimately fell short. There was something about her that was magnetic and you wanted to know more, see more. She was a freshman phenom, a generational player.
And when you mention this to your friends, trying to screw up the courage to attend one of the Hopkins girls’ games, you’re adamant that this new shift has nothing to do with the six foot, blonde guard with whom you share a fourth period AP Lit class with. Sure, Paige is ridiculously pretty (even though you’re 100% straight), charming, and she has a way of drawing everyone in. You’d just like to be her friend and that’s all there is to it. You don’t stare at her as your literature teacher rambles on about whatever classic book you’re reading – you don’t remember if it’s To Kill a Mockingbird or The Great Gatsby, but as long as Paige is sitting one row in front and two chairs to the right of you, there probably isn’t a chance that you’ll find it in you to care.
Then, around late October, it’s time for group projects and you’re just hoping you’re not paired with someone who doesn’t want to do the work. When your teacher rattles off your name, pausing once to glance at the rest of the roster, and calling out Paige as your partner, you aren’t entirely sure if this is something you want to celebrate or dread. You look up from your open book, The Great Gatsby, although you’ve read this dozens of times already, and you find that Paige is already turning back to look at you. Her face is a mix of easygoing confidence and gentle kindness all wrapped up in a radiant smile that makes your heart drop out of your ass.
Your classmates shuffle around and she slides into the desk seat next to yours, her knees bumping awkwardly on the sides, but she hardly pays it any mind as she introduces herself to you, as if she isn’t the most famous seventeen-year-old you’ve ever sat next to. You figure that her introduction is more out of humility than anything else. It’s probably daunting to be her, intimidating to bear the weight of countless expectations on shoulders that are barely broad enough to fill out her jersey. You give her your name and she repeats it back to you slowly, testing the pronunciation on her tongue, and grinning when you nod, ignoring the blush that creeps up on your neck.
“A’ight,” Paige says, rubbing her hands together in a way that looks corny as hell, but you can’t help but be amused by it, “What do you think?”
The prompt on the board is simple – by AP Lit standards, at least. Explain the symbolism of the green light. Common interpretations think of the light as a representation of Gatsby’s love for Daisy, the American Dream, or money. Do you believe any of these interpretations (or an interpretation of your own) reflect the themes of the story and Gatsby, or do you believe the narrator, Nick Carraway, has unreliably pushed his own thoughts and interpretations onto Gatsby? How does the green light tie into the broader themes of Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship? Your project must be in the form of a PowerPoint presentation…
You stop reading as the rest of the prompt goes into the rubric. “You first,” you tell Paige, smiling when she huffs dramatically.
“I think it’s supposed to represent Gatsby’s feelings for Daisy,” Paige states. “I mean, it’s constant, like Gatsby’s been in love with Daisy for years. Even before he went off to war. And he’s always starin’ at it at night. I do think Nick is putting his own thoughts into it. Like, by sayin’ Gatsby believes in the ‘orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.’ I’on even know what that means.” You can’t help but laugh at this, drawing a grin from Paige. “But you know what I mean, right? He fell in love with this girl before he went off to war, years pass and he’s alive but she’s married to another dude and he’s rich and lonely and I guess he’s close to her, but they ain’t really that close – I feel like that light just, you know, reminds him that she’s there.” Paige’s voice gets quieter the more she rambles, and when she catches the soft attentiveness in your features, she scratches the back of her neck, shy.
You smile at her. “You know, I wouldn’t have expected that kind of analysis from you,” you admit.
“Bro, what?” she exclaims, choking on a laugh as you dissolve into giggles. “I see how it is. It’s ‘cause I’m supposed to be a dumb jock, right?”
You roll your eyes, your cheeks hurting from the strength of your smile. “No. I mean, like what you said about the light reminding him that she’s there. I always thought I was the only one who interpreted it that way, too.” Paige’s gaze softens as she takes in your explanation. “I feel like Gatsby is trapped in two different times – the past, where he loved her, and the present, where he still loves her but can’t have her. The light simultaneously reminds him of what he’s lost but also what he could have, you know?” Paige nods, encouraging you to go on. “There’s a distance between them, literally, but I think Gatsby feels like Daisy is still within reach. That his dreams are still within reach. I don’t think he realizes he’s chasing a dream from five years ago, or that Daisy eventually moves on as Nick watches Daisy fall in and out of love with Gatsby.”
“That is…really depressing,” Paige says, which makes you laugh again, but the way she’s gazing at you makes you feel as though she’s seeing you in a different light.
You shrug a shoulder, trying to not think too hard about the way her blue eyes sparkle. “I cried over this book a couple of times. I’m kind of a professional now.”
“Now that’s somethin’ I’d expect from you,” Paige teases.
“Okay, jerk!” you gasp indignantly. “You don’t even know me. What makes you so sure of that?”
Paige hums, pretending to think about something, but her expression is undeniably smug. “Call it intuition. How about you let me get to know you and I’ll let you know if it’s true?”
Oh. You were definitely not expecting that one. Your heart thrums a little at the implication, but it softens ever so slightly because you can clearly make out the earnestness reflected in her eyes, the realization that despite the grandeur and the fame and the talent beyond her years, Paige is still human.
“Well,” you say in a manner that you hope is supposed to be coy, “we’re stuck together now for this project. Getting to know me is a little inevitable.”
“Oh, it’s like that?” Paige asks, her lips tugging into a teasing smirk, one that makes you feel exasperated – in a good way. “And what happens after the project? You still gonna let me hang around and annoy you?”
You can’t help but laugh a little, hating the way your pulse races, although you ignore it. “We’ll see if I still like you by then,” you say, which makes her smirk turn into a smile that’s a little more tender, less cocky.
“I can work with that,” she promises. And with that, the both of you start outlining your project. Paige throws in a comment here and there that makes you laugh, keeping the mood light as you work. At the end of the period, you punch your number into her phone, dutifully ignoring the grin on her face and the blush on yours. She texts you immediately after just to be sure, but she texts you during your next class to complain about how boring her history teacher is, too. Conversation comes easy with Paige. It’s like she just knows – knows you – and you’re not sure if that should scare you or excite you. Despite not knowing why your budding friendship with Paige feels so different, you just know that it feels right, and that was good enough for you.
Your last class of the day is a study hall and you’re sitting at a table in the back with two of your friends, Mack and Serena. You can all but feel the mood shift when you recount your day. The mere mention of Paige is enough for your friends to jump on the defensive.
“You need to stay away from her,” Mack says, her tone serious. You frown, glancing at Serena for some help, but she only shifts uncomfortably, finding her online work a lot more appealing than this conversation. “Paige is someone who’s gonna break your heart, okay?”
“It’s not even like that–”
“It doesn’t have to be like that,” Mack states firmly. “It wasn’t like that when Izy left, was it?”
Despite yourself, your expression sours, and Mack reclines as though she’s made her point. You suppose she has. Izy was your best friend. The two of you were attached at the hip since kindergarten, but in freshman year, she found a new group of friends. She had a lot more in common with them than she did with you – or so it seemed – and she didn’t necessarily cut you off, but it probably would have been easier if she did. The two of you talked sparingly, plans always seemed to fall through, and the loss of that friendship hurt just as much as a break up would.
“Or ‘he-who-shall-not-be-named,’” Serena adds unhelpfully, because all it does is twist your heart again. He who shall not be named, or more colloquially known as Logan, was your first boyfriend. Granted, you only dated him for about three months in the eighth grade, but the break up turned your world upside down. He was your first something. That wasn’t anything to scoff at and he wasn’t kind in the aftermath, so it’s not really your fault for feeling impossibly upset about it. Maybe there was just something about you that made it difficult for people to want to stick around, but maybe there was something about you that managed to pick wrong every time.
“Those are different,” you argue. You can’t help the way your voice wavers, and you feel angry at yourself all over again for getting upset about this. “I was friends with Izy for ten years and Logan was my first boyfriend. They meant something to me.”
“Sure,” Mack concedes. “But you felt a lot for them. Watching you work through that heartbreak…” She shakes her head. “I don’t want you to get hurt. You’ve been hurt by a lot of ignorant people, and, yeah, you always get back up at the end of the day, but I know it weighs on you.” Mack pauses, finding her thoughts as you stare imploringly at her. “People talk, you know. Paige talks to a lot of people. She’s not the type of person to stay in one place. You know as soon as she gets an offer, she’s leaving Minnesota and she’s not gonna look back. She’s destined for something a little greater than Hopkins.”
You swallow thickly, Mack’s words hitting you harder than she probably intended. Part of you knows that she’s right. Paige is only a junior but she’s a top prospect coming out of high school. She’s going to go to a great college for basketball. UConn, South Carolina, Notre Dame – one of the dynasties. You’re sure she’d get an offer to stay home and attend the University of Minnesota, but you also know that she’s worth a lot more than Minnesota. The other part of you, the part more connected to that bleeding heart of yours, doesn’t want to listen to Mack. It holds out hope that you wouldn’t be just another part of Paige’s past – maybe you could be part of her future.
Mack glances up at you again, studying your expression, and she softens. “Hey,” she says, gathering your attention. “I’m not gonna make a choice for you. If you wanna be her friend…go for it. I just want you to be careful who you show your heart to. Some people take it for granted.”
You nod carefully, appreciative of the way she looks out for you, and the two of you return to your work. Only moments later, your phone buzzes on the table. A notification from Paige lights up on your screen, then two, and you smile despite yourself and open your messages. You text her back, already pushing your conversation with Mack and Serena to the back of your mind, and you hardly notice their concerned glances as you respond.
Your project isn’t due until mid-December, the Friday before winter break, but you and Paige spend nearly every other day together when she doesn’t have practice. It’s a steady rhythm for the two of you: sitting through your literature class together, exchanging teasing glances and text messages when your teacher isn’t looking, complaining about the other classes you don’t share with each other, and finding yourselves at one or the other’s house to work on your project or simply enjoy each other’s company. You’ll admit that the two of you don’t get much work done most days, instead filling the time with pointless conversations about nothing but mean everything. Hours with Paige feels like mere minutes and you don’t part until a parent texts about dinner and you have to go your separate ways.
She invites you out to one of her games. It’s on a Friday night, and at first, you want to decline, hearing Mack’s words swirl through your brain once more. People talk, you know. Paige talks to a lot of people. She’s not the type of person to stay in one place. You don’t want to have to share Paige’s attention, which is a realization that shocks you to your core. It’s dangerously possessive and honestly, it flusters you a little. You’d never been so territorial over a friend’s time like you have been with Paige. Perhaps territorial isn’t even the right word. You have no claim over Paige, nor does she have any claim over you. You don’t like girls and you don’t like her in that way, even if that disjointed flutter in your chest makes you wonder otherwise. You don’t.
Paige seems to read your expression perfectly. That’s a new thing, too. You have been friends for less than a month, although it feels like you’ve known her forever. You know her favorite color, the women she grew up idolizing, the larger-than-life dreams that you know she’s going to make come true because Paige is nothing if not a girl who works hard and believes in herself. You know the messier parts of Paige, her parent’s divorce, her unyielding faith, and the uncharacteristically insecure “I like girls. Does that change anything with us?” that she’d whispered over the phone one night (your heart had raced and you felt warmth creep up your cheeks; you didn’t know what that meant, but you wholeheartedly meant it when you promised her that it wouldn’t change anything).
“You won’t even know I’m there,” you say to Paige, referring back to the game, and her brows furrow in a stupefied confusion. “Are you, like, aware of how many people go to your games?”
Paige rolls her eyes, but the action lacks any real heat as a smile spreads across her face, slow and insufferable in that way only Paige is capable of. “If you’re in the stands, I’m not gonna care about anyone else,” she promises, which makes your heart skip a beat. “I want you there.”
You didn’t really need much convincing after that, so on Friday night, you find yourself in the student section. You’re not even sure who the Royals are playing – probably a district rival – but the one thing you’re sure of is that Paige oozes with confidence, an easy grin on her face as she warms up on the court. She’s chatting with one of her teammates, although her eyes scan the gym imperceptibly. Then, her eyes are sliding across your figure, taking in your – her – Hopkins basketball hoodie that she forced you to wear, showcasing her last name and her number on the back of it, and her grin softens as she waves at you.
That night, Paige plays like she has a point to prove. She’s unguardable from the three-point line, demanding in the paint like she’s prime Lebron James, and she slices through the other teams defense seamlessly as she makes near impossible passes to her wide open teammates. Paige is full of energy, a searing combination of adrenaline and pure love for the game, but the trait that truly captures your attention is the unfiltered cockiness. Off the court, Paige is humble, although you’re still trying to figure out if that’s truly who she is or if it’s her protecting herself from all of the eyes that are on her constantly. But on the court? Paige plays like she’s the best player in the state (which she is) and she plays like she knows she’s the best player in the state (she knows she is). The only word that comes to mind is menace. Paige isn’t a dick, but when she sinks a three, she throws up three fingers as she back pedals for defense. When she landed an impossible buzzer beater to send off the first half, she’d glanced down at her arm, tapping on her wrist as if she were wearing a watch. Then, late in the third quarter, when she stole the ball from an opposing player and took it across the court for the easiest layup of her life and stole the ball again when the other team was trying to inbound it (she scored on that one, too), her celebration was directed at you. She pointed at you in the crowd, a grin on her face and pride in her eyes, and you couldn’t help but laugh at her, shaking your head as the warmth spread through your body.
Seeing Paige play in person is like seeing her in a different light, and honestly, you feel like you know her a little better now. You feel more drawn to her. She offers to walk you home after the game. At first, you want to decline. She just played out of her mind and lead her team to a blowout win against whoever the fuck and your mom is just a call away. Paige insists, reminding you that your houses really aren’t that far apart, and you suppose you can’t really argue against that one.
She keeps you entertained the entire walk back, cracking jokes and recounting some of her favorite plays from the game, and when her knuckles brush against yours as she rambles, you find that you really don’t mind that spark of electricity that runs up your spine at the contact. She tests the waters, pressing closer and closer until finally, she links her pinky with yours under the streetlight; you smile at her, something that’s simultaneously soft and welcoming and laced with the sudden realization about yourself that you’d been putting off the entire time you’d known Paige. You liked her. She glances over at you, mid sentence with a content smile on her face. When she registers the fact that you’ve been staring at her, she stutters, fumbling over her words, and you can’t help your laughter as she blushes bright pink.
It should probably scare you a lot more than it does. Liking a girl is scary and daunting but liking Paige, your best friend, feels like something new entirely. You remember Mack’s words again. People talk, you know. Paige talks to a lot of people. She’s not the type of person to stay in one place. As quickly as they’d popped into your brain, you push them to the back of your mind. Mack doesn’t know Paige like you. That much you’re sure of. And if you get hurt in the process of trying to live and experience things for the first time and giving your heart out to someone, then so be it; you were used to it by now, but the gentleness of Paige’s gaze under the moonlight feels like she’s promising that she wouldn’t hurt you.
The two of you pause at your doorstep. You can hear the gentle thrum of crickets, the drag of the wind across grass and leaves. Paige stands tall over you, her expression soft as she gazes down at you with what seems like a flicker of hope – for what, you’re not sure. The air between you feels charged, electric, like you’re opposite ends of a magnet and it’s only a matter of time before you fall into each other entirely.
“So,” she murmurs, cocking a wry smile at you. The usual sharp edges of her confidence has rounded out, enveloping you both in a sort of tenderness that makes your heart ache in the most confusing and best way possible.
“So,” you agree, drawing a quiet huff of laughter from Paige, who runs the flat of her palm across her jaw, contemplative. You give her the space to find her words – she’s done the same for you many times; she was usually the talker between the two of you, but you’ve come to find that she’s an amazing listener, too. A beat passes and she doesn’t say anything, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth, and that’s when you decide to step in. “You played great tonight,” you admit.
Paige blinks, as if she’d forgotten all about the basketball game she spent your entire walk home rambling about. Her brows relax, her smile turning bashful, and you can clearly see the humble pride in her eyes, illuminated by porchlight. “You were there,” she says. “Had to show out.” You roll your eyes fondly, your heart thundering in your chest. “Does this mean you’ll come to more of my games?”
You pause, pretending to think about it, but you’re sure the smile on your face gives you away as you respond, “Maybe. I’ll think about it.” Paige sighs, playfully exasperated, and you give in easily. “I’ll be there. I had to make sure you were actually good at this basketball thing.”
“My biggest cheerleader,” she mumbles dryly. The sheer excitement and relief on her face betrays her words and her tone and you can’t help but laugh.
“Thanks for walking me home,” you say. Your voice is hardly a whisper, but it seems to echo in this little bubble of space that the two of you have created.
“I – yeah, I mean, of course,” Paige stammers. She clears her throat, exhaling a long, deep breath, and you’re certain the fondness shows on your face as you stare at her. Paige quirks a smile, slightly embarrassed. “Stop laughing at me!”
“I’m not!” you exclaim, laughing for real now, which just makes Paige dissolve into laughter of her own. Soon enough, your giggles die down, and you’re both staring at each other with soft, captured smiles. The awkwardness of the moment melts away into something lighter; briefly, you wonder if she’d been standing this close the entire time – you can feel the warmth of her body as she stands mere inches away from you. “Goodnight, Paige.”
“Goodnight,” she whispers, but she doesn’t move, and neither do you. You don’t shy away when her fingers tentatively brush across your waist, her body eclipsing yours, and the both of you are slowly inching towards each other, breaths mingling when your front door bursts open and your little brother pops his head out with a shout of your name. You and Paige scramble away from each other, feeling like you’ve been caught red-handed.
“Get inside!” you hiss at your little brother, not awaiting his response as you push him back inside, closing the door and leaning against it. Part of you feels like crawling into a hole and never coming out of it. Your gaze returns to Paige, who’s staring at you with a mix of amusement, embarrassment, and a whole lot of affection. You sigh, feeling both resigned and like you’d been cheated out of something, and you press your forehead into the door to curb the awkwardness. “Sorry,” you say, knowing full well why you’re apologizing but also understanding that acknowledging the need to apologize is the same as acknowledging the fact that you and Paige were about to do something that would drastically change the course of your friendship.
“S’okay,” Paige says earnestly. You lift your head to meet her gaze, hoping that she’s not just saying it to make you feel better about yourself, but you find nothing but honesty in her features. Her hand brushes against yours once more, a gentle smile on her face. “I’ll text you when I’m home, yeah?”
You nod, exhaling again, mustering up a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes due to the overwhelming embarrassment. “Yeah. Night, Paige.”
“Goodnight,” she says again, her expression soft, and this time, she does leave, her hands buried in her pockets. You swear she glances back at you but it’s too dark to tell for sure. Tentatively, you make your way inside, unwilling to meet your brother’s eyes. It’s not until you’re getting changed for bed that you realize you’re still wearing the hoodie she’d given to you.
You pull it off slowly, carefully, like it’s a prized possession. To you, it may as well be. After what transpired on your front porch only moments ago – or what almost transpired on your front porch, the fact that you’re in possession of her hoodie feels strangely intimate to you. It feels right, too, which is probably more concerning, but you don’t have time to dwell on it as your phone lights up with a message from Paige, then another one. Both texts are simple with the first one reading “Home” and the second one bidding you one last goodnight with a heart emoji. You respond in kind, and when your eyes find her hoodie again, you can’t help the fond, lingering smile that spreads across your face.
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You and Paige don’t talk about the almost-kiss on your front porch the morning after. You don’t talk about it the day after that, or on Monday morning when she meets you in the parking lot at school. In fact, the both of you pretend like it didn’t happen at all. It doesn’t surprise you in the slightest. You start to wonder if it even happened at all – if it wasn’t for your brain conjuring images of Paige so close to you, her hand splayed on your waist, you would be sure that you had imagined it.
So, while the two of you don’t talk about it, you do a lot of thinking about it, probably enough for the both of you. You have a lot of new things to consider, such as the fact you almost kissed your best friend (and the fact that you wanted to kiss your best friend), the fact that you have feelings for your best friend, and the fact that you have feelings for your best friend who is a girl. There’s nothing wrong with girls liking girls. That wasn’t your concern. The situation as a whole is just new and unexpected and you don’t have a lot of the answers you’ve been searching for – like do you even like like girls or do you just like like Paige? Do you only like girls or do you like boys, too? You and Logan were thirteen. You’re not much older now, but at that age, it’s difficult to determine if you actually liked anyone in a sense that wasn’t completely platonic or if you were just trying to pretend that you did so you could fit in with everyone else.
You’re fine with the sexuality crisis – for now. You have bigger things to worry about, like being attracted to your best friend. You were no expert by any means, but you were smart enough to know that having feelings for your best friend was generally a pretty terrible idea. For starters, you’re not even sure if Paige likes you back. You’re sure that she’d be cool enough to remain your friend after rejecting you, but you’re not sure if you’d be able to handle the embarrassment of going from friends to extremely awkward friends. On the other hand, there is a chance she wouldn’t want to associate with you, either. The one thing you’re certain of is that you could not handle losing Paige – as a friend or otherwise. In essence, you’re stuck in between a rock and a hard place.
The more that you think about your predicament, the more you realize. A week later, you’re overthinking yours and Paige’s most recent hangout. You’d gone over to her house to “work on the project,” but that had actually turned into Paige flopping onto her bed dramatically and complaining about being sore from practice. Somehow, that meant she wouldn’t be able to contribute, and somehow, that meant the two of you would just have to binge the entire High School Musical series. You spent hours curled into Paige’s side on her bed, her hand tracing patterns onto your shoulder as the movie played on, but you didn’t really pay any mind to Travis or Danielle or whoever the main characters were. Paige was intoxicating, casual in the way she held you, and you sat through the entire movie keenly aware of the way her body pressed into yours and the scent of her cologne on her neck – but you’re getting off track. A new fear about your situation has manifested and despite Paige being the one initially worried that her liking girls would make things uncomfortable for the two of you, you’re now the one wondering if your sexuality is a reason for discomfort.
You worry that you’re the one taking advantage of your friendship. Are you overstepping friendship boundaries just because you’re incredibly close with Paige, or is there a subconscious belief that just because Paige likes girls, too, that means you can invade her personal space like they don’t matter? You worry that you’re making her uncomfortable and she’s just too polite to say anything about it. However, you also understand the fact that just because Paige likes girls doesn’t mean she likes you. That’s simultaneously a source of relief and dread. Relief because honestly, nothing has to change between the two of you. Dread because as time goes on, your feelings for Paige only get stronger, and you’d really like it if she liked you, too.
You decide to put your impending mental breakdown on the back burner. You have actual problems to worry about now, such as the due date of your project that’s quickly closing in. Your literature teacher was usually pretty lenient, but the project was still worth a huge chunk of your grade and you’re sure Paige would kill you herself if receiving a bad score on the project meant she wouldn’t be academically eligible to play basketball. The two of you make a conscious effort to lock in during the last week of the project, a little crunched for time as you’d spent so much of your “project time” talking for hours and watching movies. Granted, Paige ends up shouldering a lot more of the work as time passes on although you do your best to help out in between daydreams about her hand on your waist again.
On Thursday, the night before the project is due and two days before winter break, things seem to reach their tipping point.
You and Paige are basically finished with the project – you were proofreading and scanning your PowerPoint for academic content and ensuring your sentences made any bit of sense. Paige was pressed into your side, “quality checking the designs” as she’d said, but you just thought she was full of shit. She’s unnaturally quiet as the two of you work, until she shifts, her legs stretching out next to yours. “Think the only thing this project’s taught me is that this book is depressing as shit,” she says to you once you click over to the slide titled Gatsby and Daisy: Doomed by Time.
You hum, glancing over at her. She’s swamped in an oversized hoodie but looks impossibly comfortable as she reclines on your bed. “Alright,” you say, “I’ll bite. Why?”
She flips onto her side, explaining, “Literally everything was working against them. Time, society, people. Gatsby and Daisy were the epitome of right person, wrong time and there was nothin’ they could do to, like, get around that, you know? He went off to war, she got married, and he missed his shot ‘cause time keeps movin’. Daisy chose stability over love – Tom’s rich and can provide for her. But Gatsby was rich too. I’on get it.”
“Well,” you murmur, “wealth is not usually a good replacement for actual love.”
“You don’t think Gatsby loved Daisy?”
“I’m not saying he doesn’t love her. I’m saying he doesn’t love the version of Daisy that actually exists,” you explain. Paige gazes at you, a furrow in her brow like she’s realizing something new — about you, about herself, you can’t be sure. “He’s so obsessed with this idealized version of her from way back when and he just doesn’t understand that’s not really who she is anymore. I feel like that’s kinda the point of the green light, too.” As you think about your next words, your voice drops to a near whisper, your throat tightening with a sudden, unrestrained emotion that you can’t quite keep at bay. You meet her eyes, your stare unwavering, hoping that she can read between the lines. “Physically, the light is far away, right? It’s out of reach. But also – it’s a light. It’s impossible to hold. It’s a lesson about the impossibility of desire, that some dreams cost too much.”
Paige is quiet for a few beats, her eyes searching yours. You have always been intentional with your words. That was one of the things she knew to be true about you. Now, she seems to fully recognize your words for what they are — a confession for what you’re otherwise too afraid to say out loud. You’ve given her an out. She could sit here and wax poetic about the same topics and themes you’ve been debating over the last two months, about whether or not Gatsby truly loved Daisy, if the feelings Daisy had for Gatsby were worth giving up her life of comfort and peace, if Gatsby were worth it. Her hand brushes your waist again, her fingertips light against the skin of your navel where your sweatshirt has ridden up, and the jolt of electricity that courses through your veins reminds you of just how risky this whole thing was. You’ve all but given Paige your heart on a silver platter, perhaps too foolish or naive in the way you always search for more, more, more. Maybe you’re asking her for too much. You know she’s leaving Hopkins the first chance she gets. All of that is pushed to the back of your mind when her gaze traces your figure. 
Finally, she speaks. “I don’t think it’s too far away,” she says, understanding exactly what you were trying to say. “Not for you.” Her words ease the tension in your shoulders, her thumb brushing against your skin reassuringly. Her voice is firm, full of conviction, like she’s never been more sure of anything else before. She pauses, your eyes locked together, and her features soften ever so slightly. “Not for us.”
You quirk a small, relieved smile, relishing in the way Paige’s face relaxes, too. “You don’t think it’s impossible?” You don’t say the quiet part out loud – the “You don’t think we’re impossible?”
But Paige knows you. You’ve given more to her  than you’ve ever given to anyone in the past, friend or otherwise, and she doesn’t hesitate. “No.” Her hand settles fully on your waist now, squeezing you gently. “And even if it was… you’re worth it.” She smiles softly, her expression vulnerable and trusting despite the fact that she’s opening herself up to get hurt, too. You’re beginning to realize that the chance of getting hurt is just a risk everyone takes.
You can’t help the entire way your face softens at her confession. You realize that subconsciously, she’d said the very words you’d been hoping to hear for some time now although you never had the vocabulary to tell yourself that – that you never had the vocabulary to tell her that. But you watch the way she studies you, the way she swallows her nerves, and you begin to understand that maybe she doesn’t have the vocabulary, either, but she’s trying her best regardless. This is something that the both of you are doing for the first time; granted, you had one previous relationship, but this new thing between you and Paige feels a whole lot different. She’s the first person you think you actually consciously had feelings for, the first girl, and despite your relief and excitement, that reminder is enough to make you clam up.
You clear your throat, shifting slightly, and you pull your laptop between the two of you. “Well, we should probably get this finished,” you say with the grace of an elephant tromping through weeds. You click over to the next slide. “Does this look fine to you?”
Paige goes oddly silent, her brows furrowing in confusion and disbelief. “Uh, what?” she says.
“I said does this–”
“No, I heard you,” Paige interrupts. When you don’t meet her eyes, she sighs, exasperated, and closes the lid on your laptop, pushing it to the foot of your bed despite your protests. Then, her hand is sliding around your waist again, resting on the small of your back and pulling you onto your side so you come face to face. Your mouth clamps shut; the heat of Paige’s gaze feels like it’s enough to pick you apart, to melt you entirely, and you know well enough by now that you’re not getting out of this conversation without explaining yourself to her. “Why’d you freak out?” Paige’s voice softens, tinged with an anxious embarrassment as she adds, “I thought we — did I say too much? Do you not…?”
Instantly, you feel guilt all over. You didn’t realize how bad the situation sounded before now, with you changing the topic uncomfortably after Paige basically told you she liked you. “No, I—” You falter, your words failing you, but Paige stares at you with a hopeful patience. “I’ve never… done this before,” you confess. “You’re the first girl I’ve ever liked.”
Realization dawns on Paige’s face. “Oh,” she says, a mixture of relief and understanding lacing her tone.��
“Yeah,” you agree, a vulnerable smile quirking on your lips. “It’s new. A little scary. I really like you but I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“S’okay,” Paige murmurs. Her hand finds yours. “I really like you, too. We can figure it out together.” Her breath catches, eyes widening just a bit. “I mean, if that’s somethin’ you’d want. No pressure.”
You laugh, eyes twinkling as Paige’s cheeks flush pink. “You’re cute when you’re flustered,” you tease her. 
Paige huffs, flopping dramatically onto her other side and putting her back to you. “Goodbye!” 
You can’t stop the smile from spreading across your cheeks but you do stop laughing. You reach out, resting your hand tentatively over her bicep as you hook your chin over her shoulder. “Hey, come on,” you say. “I can’t be the only one who has to be vulnerable.” You can nearly visualize Paige’s eye roll, but she does shift again, meeting your eyes. “I’d like that. Figuring this out with you, I mean.”
Her eyes light up, a slow smile dragging across her face. You don’t even think she’s consciously aware of how happy she looks. “You’re for real?”
You shake your head, laughing under your breath. “Yes, Paige, I’m for real.”
“Good,” she states, beaming.
“Now can we finish our project?”
Paige groans dramatically, rolling over again until she’s sprawled out over you. She hitches one of her obnoxiously long legs across yours, looping an arm around your waist and making herself at home like she’s done this hundreds of times. You can’t stop the flutter in your chest, smiling despite yourself. “Do we gotta?”
“Do you gotta pass AP Lit?” you retort. 
That prompts a sigh from Paige, who untangles herself from you to reach for the laptop she’d pushed haphazardly to the foot of the bed. You miss her warmth immediately, but she’s not gone for long before she’s leaning back against your headboard, your thighs pressed together. She doesn’t make any move to turn it back on, her eyes finding yours instead. You look at her curiously.
“I just want you to know I’m serious about this,” she says honestly, taking you by surprise. “About us.” You soften. “I know a lot of people have hurt you. I’on wanna be one of them. You’re my best friend, you know? I care about you. So…let’s take this slow for now, lemme know how you’re feelin’, yeah?”
You nod, smiling gently and she gives your hand a gentle squeeze. “Same goes for you,” you say, leaning into her a little. She presses herself into your body, her chin brushing against your temple as she nods her head. 
“Promise,” she murmurs. 
And with that vow lingering in the air, the two of you share private, almost starstruck grins and get back to work. Once you finally call it quits fifteen minutes later and you submit your project, Paige is all too content to push your laptop to the side again as she wraps an arm around you fully and begins her scroll through Netflix despite the fact that you know the two of you will be watching High School Musical sooner rather than later. You grin to yourself when she does eventually put it on, not fighting the way your cheeks burn when she absentmindedly plays with your fingers or the way your heart races when she shifts to get comfortable, your legs tangling together. 
As you watch the movie, Paige’s words circulate on repeat in your brain. A lot of people have hurt you. I don’t want to be one of them. You know better than anyone that getting hurt is just another part of life. Despite yourself, you can’t help but believe her, confident that no matter what, your heart will be safe in her hands. You don’t think much of Mack’s warning, of Paige’s celebrity, of just how young the two of you are to be making these kinds of promises. You’re not thinking of the future at all. Your happiness clouds your judgement, and whether you realize it or not, you and Paige are operating on borrowed time. 
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Things with Paige are great. Scratch that, they’re nothing short of amazing. The two of you spend the entirety of winter break attached at the hip, splitting your time between your house where you drink copious amounts of hot chocolate and binge silly Christmas movies and her house where you and Drew, her little brother, gang up on her in snowball fights. She whines about the fact it’s two on one, but you point out the fact she’s got an arm like a quarterback and it’s only fair. She only really understands what you mean by that when she launches a snowball at you hard enough to bruise your side, which cuts your snow day short. Paige apologizes profusely, much to your amusement, and she insists on “nursing you back to health” which, in retrospect, seems to have been a clever ploy to get you away from her family and into her arms in the comfort of her room — not that you really needed much convincing for that. 
Sometimes, your days are spent in the park, when Paige gets too restless being inside and wants to play basketball. The two of you shovel away enough snow to reveal the three point line and you rebound for Paige as she shoots. She only manages to get a couple of shots in before her hands get too cold and she starts complaining that the only way to warm them back up is if you’ll hold them. You oblige, you always do, endlessly endeared by her (mostly because you can always spot her gloves hanging out of her back pocket).
The park becomes a place of comfort for the two of you. It’s late December in Minnesota so you almost always have the park to yourselves. You’re able to talk freely without either of your annoying little brothers constantly barging in or worrying about your parents catching you. Paige is out to her family and the Bueckers support her wholeheartedly. You’re not out to your parents yet. You know they wouldn’t particularly mind, either; if anything, they’d probably just implement a really strict open door policy, but it’s still all really new to you. You like Paige. A lot. You fall for her more and more everyday. She’s goofy, sweet (even when she’s teasing you or getting on your nerves), confident, and she always knows how to make you laugh. She’s attentive and she listens. Liking Paige is something you’ve accepted, but you can’t help but be scared of the fact that you don’t really know anything about yourself. 
You can’t figure out if you like girls or if you just like Paige. You can’t look at anyone that’s not her and before her, you’d never even looked twice at another girl. Sure, you always averted your eyes when you passed Victoria’s Secret in the mall and you were really obsessed with Shego from Kim Possible and Starfire from Teen Titans, which could mean nothing. You can’t figure out if you like boys, either, if Logan was a one time thing or if you’d just confused yourself because you wanted to fit in. You don’t know if you’re a lesbian, or if you’re bisexual, something in between or nothing at all. You should be fine with knowing that you like Paige. People always say you don’t have to label it, but labeling means that you know and that it’s real and you can’t help but think that because you don’t know what you’re doing, that you’re doing it wrong or you’re just faking it all.
So you don’t tell your parents. You’re still trying to make sense of it all and you tell Paige as much, honestly a little fearful of her rejection. Part of you feels like you’re leading her on because you can’t give her a straight (no pun intended) answer.
“You don’t gotta have it figured out right now,” she tells you a few days after Christmas. The two of you are back in the park, savoring the peace in the emptiness as you sit side by side on the swings, swaying gently.
You groan a little. “I hate when people say that,” you respond. “I feel like I should know.”
Her eyes find you, warm and patient despite the chill and the fact you’ve been going back and forth on this for days now with you stressing out and Paige being endlessly reassuring about it. “Maybe you do know and you just can’t, like, put it into words?” she offers, drawing your attention. “Sexuality is a spectrum. It doesn’t have to be difficult. You don’t gotta look back on your life for evidence to prove it or whatever. Just be you.”
You fall silent, her words hitting home, and you hate the fact that you’ve been losing your mind over this and all it really took to find some clarity was a conversation with Paige on a swing. Maybe she was right. She usually is about things like this. But you can’t help but feel like you’re missing something. You were the type of person who needed a reason or an explanation for everything. 
“I don’t wanna hurt you,” you rush out, barely registering the raise of Paige’s eyebrows. “I know we said slow. I can do that. But I really like you, like really really like you, and that’s all I’m certain of. I don’t know everything else and I feel like I should because you know everything else—”
“I don’t,” she interrupts, but you keep rambling.
“—but I like you. You’re sweet and you’re kind and you understand me when I don’t understand myself. You always make me feel secure and I hate that this is so confusing!”
Her gloved hand slides into your hoodie pocket. Her fingers tangle with yours, calming a tremor you hadn’t realized you were harboring. She murmurs your name, pulling your gaze to hers, and she squeezes your hand. “Breathe,” she instructs. You do, calming the incessant thrum of your heart. “There we go.” When you’re feeling a little more stable, she continues. “You’re overthinking it.”
“I don’t wanna mess up with you,” you confess, feeling a weight lift off your shoulders when it’s out.
“You won’t,” she promises. “We agreed we’d figure it out, remember? And even if you do mess up, it’s not gonna change how I feel about you. I like you, like really really like you.” This makes you laugh, your breath steaming in the air. “That’s what matters. You like me. I like you. You don’t need to explain why you feel a way and you can’t fake how you feel. I know you.” The expression on Paige’s face is unbelievably fond and you can’t help yourself when you smile, your cheeks heating up. “See?” Paige says with a grin, poking your cheek. “Can’t fake that blush, ma.”
“You’re impossible,” you huff, pushing her hand away, unable to curb your grin. But your rejection does little to stop Paige. Her hands find your sides, tickling you, and you immediately begin squirming in the midst of your giggles. “Paige! You are so annoying—!”
You lose your balance on the swing and you fall off, tumbling safely to the bed of snow beneath you with a slight oof sound. Paige follows you down, the both of you smiling as you try to catch your breaths. She wipes a tear off your cheek that had slipped out in your fits of laughter and it’s only then that you register your position. She’s straddling you, the beanie on her head lopsided from your scuffle, but the joy on her face is radiant despite the blush on her cheeks — whether it’s from the cold or her feelings for you, you don’t know, and when her hand lingers on her cheek, her expression softening, you find that you don’t care. “Paige,” you murmur. You feel your heart slamming against your ribcage, but for different reasons now. 
“Can I kiss you?” she blurts. Judging by the way her face contorts, it seems that she hadn’t expected to say that out loud, but you’re nodding, hands reaching up to grip the collar of her coat and you bring her down to your level. 
When your lips meet, you feel warm all over, like you’re not laying in the snow with Paige’s legs bracketing your thighs. It’s tentative, uncoordinated, and it’s clear that neither of you really know what you’re doing, but it’s your first kiss and it’s with Paige and it’s nothing short of perfect. Your lips move against hers slowly, her hands gentle on your cheeks. Your grip on her coat loosens, wrapping around her neck and pulling her a little closer to you. Her nose brushes against yours and you gasp from the chill of it, which causes her to sigh against you. You’re not really sure who’s leading, but for once, your brain is blissfully quiet; your heart pounds, feeling nothing but a nervous excitement and unfiltered adoration.
You break away for air. Your breaths mingle, clouds of steam fogging between you two and Paige grins down at you, her expression full of fondness and something electric that makes you want to drag her back down again. So you do, your hands a little more insistent this time, and she responds eagerly. Despite the intensity, Paige is unbelievably gentle and each and every press of her lips against yours is sweet. And it’s corny, but your brain feels a little clearer after having Paige’s lips on yours, like you no longer have to search for answers. Like she’s the answer.
She pulls away, her forehead against yours, and you press a gentle kiss to her cheek. Her eyes open slowly, a blush and a smile simultaneously appearing on her face in response. “What was that for?” she asks.
You smile, shrugging a little in response. “It felt right,” you respond, which only seems to make her smile grow. “Someone once told me I don’t always have to have an explanation.”
Paige huffs out a quiet laugh, her eyes crinkling in amusement and fondness. “They sound really smart,” she jokes. 
Your hand finds her cheek, your thumb stroking her dimple. “She is,” you say seriously. Paige’s expression softens, leaning into your touch. “She’s the best person I know.”
“I bet she thinks the same about you,” Paige whispers. 
Despite yourself, you grin, connecting your lips again. The chill nips at your cheeks but the weight of Paige on top of you grounds you, her warmth stabilizing and comforting, and you know in your heart that you’re doing something right.
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New Year’s comes and goes and before you know it, school is starting back up in January. Between you and Paige, a lot of things stay the same. She still drives you to school in the morning, often stopping by Dunkin’ and buying you your favorite coffee. On days she doesn’t have practice, she’ll either drive you home or take you to her place where you either work on homework together (although you don’t get much done, most of the time) or binge television together. Paige has you invested in Grey’s Anatomy now, but the two of you have promised to not watch it without the other.
On the other hand, some things do change. Paige walks you to all of your classes now, even when hers aren’t anywhere near yours. Arguing with her was useless, so you learned to suck it up. She kisses you in the empty hallways, something chaste and sweet and sneaky that leaves you wanting more – that was a new thing. Before her, you never realized how nice kissing can be. You’re sure it’s mostly because you’re super into her regardless, but there’s also something about the casual intimacy that you fall for each and every time. She’s gentle and considerate and you’re just so hopelessly attracted to her that you really should have known that kissing her for the first time would alter your brain chemistry. For now, the two of you are content to appreciate the peace and the privacy that you have. Neither of you tell your friends or your family, though you’re sure Mack and Serena are starting to have their suspicions. They’ve asked you a few times, and while you’re not a very good liar, they seem to accept your rejections as they are and they don’t push any further.
Although you do have one, teensy-tiny problem. Paige hasn’t asked you to be her girlfriend yet. You’re not sure how you’re supposed to feel about that, but there is a lingering nervousness and you’re a little hesitant to ask her about it without sounding obsessive or clingy or insecure. In mid-December, you established that you liked each other, although neither of you really did much about that until you kissed in late-December after Christmas. Did kissing her mean the two of you were dating now? Since then, the two of you have kissed a lot. It reminds you of the scene from Glee where Brittany says, ‘Sex isn’t dating. If it was, Santana and I would be dating,’ and granted, while having sex and just kissing are two different things, you’re starting to feel a little worried by the fact that you and Paige are conventionally girlfriends but not technically.
You convince yourself that maybe you and Paige were just being mature about it. High school relationships have almost redefined what dating actually means. You can’t just ask someone to be your boyfriend or girlfriend and then start the ‘dating period’ per se. You should probably do the ‘dating period’ first and then make it official once you’ve figured out if you’re compatible. You and Paige, however, have been friends for a little over three months, been in this weird ‘dating’ phase for a little less than one month of that time, and by now you’re pretty certain that you and Paige are very compatible. She’s your best friend. But you really want to make it official with her. You’re just not sure how or if she’s on the same page yet.
Making it official with Paige also means making it official to your parents. That thought doesn’t intimidate you as much as it used to. You’re a lot more comfortable in your sexuality now. You’re pretty much head over heels for Paige, you like girls, and you couldn’t care less about boys. Whether that makes you a lesbian or Paige-sexual as Paige had cracked herself up calling it is a discussion for another day. You’re secure in the fact that Paige’s parents aren’t going to care, that your parents won’t mind, either, and that your classmates are worried more about themselves than whoever you of all people are dating. Being out just means you don’t have to stress about sneaking around or if someone’s going to walk into the girl’s bathroom when you’re making out with Paige. Not that you make out with Paige in the girl’s bathroom, because that would just be kind of insane. But hypothetically if you were making out with Paige in the girl’s bathroom, then you wouldn’t have to be scared of getting caught by a classmate. Hypothetically.
The first Friday night home game after winter break is one that you were looking forward to. You knew the Royals were playing a weaker team, so you were excited to see Paige show out, especially after getting to witness first-hand a lot of the effort she’d put into honing her skills over the break. She gave you a ride to school, forced you into her hoodie (yes, the one with her jersey number and her last name on the back and yes, you didn’t really need to be convinced, but you really liked the warmth of her hands on your skin as she helped you into it), and kissed you over the center console of her stepmom’s SUV. It was enough to short circuit your brain. You didn’t need to see her expression to know the reaction she’d elicited from you had made her incredibly smug, but you could visualize it all the same as she made her way to the locker room with her duffle bag slung over her shoulder. Paige Bueckers was going to be the death of you. That much you were sure of.
She’s pure electricity that night. You knew the game was going to be a blowout, but this was next level. If you weren’t so distracted by Paige and the way she was slicing through their defense, you would probably feel bad for the other team. She was putting up insane numbers – 15 points in the first quarter alone, six assists – but she was doing her thing on defense, too. She was clamping the offense, forcing their shots to bounce harmlessly off the rim, and late in the second quarter, she even had a clean block that ricocheted off of the offense and awarded the Royals with the ball. You couldn’t keep your eyes off of her. Judging by the glances she’d shoot your way anytime they’d line up for free throws, you’re positive that she knew of your evident distraction, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to be ashamed by it. Watching Paige play was a source of pride for you. She was so good at it and she works so hard everyday to show up and show out. It honestly makes you a little emotional in a good way. You’re just proud of her, of her successes. You admire her dedication and her love for the spot, the care she puts in day in and day out to be the best.
Once the game ends, you make your way out of the crowded gym and out to her mom’s SUV, starting the ignition and settling into the passenger seat. You knew that Paige would have a long line of people to greet and that she was adamant about showering before getting anywhere near you after a game. As much as you would love to see her and hang out right after, the both of you knew that you wouldn’t be able to get in a word edgewise. This arrangement, however, did have its positives. The two of you cherished the time you got to spend alone without dozens of eyes on you and you appreciated being able to speak freely. You pull out your phone, scrolling through social media as you wait for Paige.
She doesn’t keep you waiting too long. You spot her walking your direction, bag slung over her shoulder again and her hair thrown up in a loose bun. She’s illuminated by the streetlight but you know well enough by now that the glow on her face is from the sweetness of the win. You smile, your heart thrumming a kind of anticipation that only Paige has ever been able to draw from you. She opens the driver’s side door, sliding in with a happy grin, and tosses her bag into the backseat before she’s leaning over the center console with a murmured greeting, planting an easy kiss on your cheek. You don’t fight the heat on your cheeks, your smile growing bigger when her hand finds yours.
“Good game, superstar,” you tease, relishing in the bashful smile that overtakes her face.
“Thank you,” she says. She gives your hand a gentle squeeze, her eyes finding yours. “There was a pretty girl in the stands. I had to show out for her.”
“Oh?” you ask, feigning curiosity. “Where is she? Not just anyone captures the Paige Bueckers’s eye.”
Paige grins at you again, mischievous and wicked and fond all at the same time. “She’s right where she needs to be,” she retorts, which makes your smile soften into something more tender. “You’re right, though. She’s not just anyone. She’s kind, and funny, and smart, and she’s got this heart of gold. And she’s got this smile that makes you weak in the knees and she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met.”
“Get a grip,” you say, trying to regain your dignity and trying to ignore the blush on your cheeks to the best of your ability. Judging by the way Paige’s smile turns smug, you don’t think it’s working. “You know I like you. You don’t have to woo me.”
“I do,” Paige insists, finally giving you a moment of reprieve when she puts the vehicle in drive and begins making her way out of the parking lot. Once the two of you became friendly and you started showing up to more of her games, a trip out to Dairy Queen became your post-game tradition. She’d buy the two of you a blizzard and she’d park in a quiet, empty lot while you chatted for what felt like minutes but would quickly turn into hours. You know the night’s only over when your spoon hits the bottom of your cup and Paige starts losing her filter. Now, it’s something that you look forward to. “Gotta keep you on your toes. Romance is lifelong, baby. You don’t stop once you got the girl.”
You can’t stop your sudden laughter, amused by her antics. “You got the girl?”
She shoots you an indignant look. “Don’t play. You know I got it like that. I’m all romantical and shit.”
“Total lady killer,” you deadpan. “I’m swooning.”
“You will be,” she agrees. “You make fun of me now but you keep on comin’ back. You just can’t resist Paige Buckets.”
“Maybe I just feel bad for you.” Paige huffs at this, but a smile is quirking on her face. “And nobody calls you Paige Buckets.”
“I do,” she retorts. “Which makes it real. I think therefore I am. That’s Shakespeare.”
“It’s not – you know what? Sure,” you snort, knowing full well that the two of you will sit here for hours arguing about it. “Don’t quit basketball.”
Paige smirks at you as she pulls into the Dairy Queen drive-thru. “Never,” she affirms, only looking away from you when the speaker crackles to life. Paige rattles off your orders (knowing yours by heart, which doesn’t make you feel a little soft) and pulls forward when requested. You make light small talk while you wait for your ice creams and Paige pays – as always; you’d tried once and she confiscated your card until she dropped you off at your house. Then she’s driving off in search of the parking lot you always chill at, her ice cream in the cup holder, her hands firmly on the wheel and eyes on the road. You feed her bites of yours when she stops at red lights, the sheer domesticity of it all feeling so right.
When the vehicle is safely in park, she moves the seat back a few inches, stretching out her legs as one of her playlists echoes through the speakers, a mix of The Weeknd, Brent Faiyaz, and Bryson Tiller. The energy in the car, mellowed out and calmer, still sparks with a sort of electricity that always encompasses you and Paige. Her smiles feel a little looser, more purposeful, and her eyes linger on your face when she looks at you. You talk about everything and nothing, recounting the game and Paige’s insane plays, the homework you’ve neglected to make the most of this time with her, and the date she was taking you on tomorrow night. You’re both nearing the bottoms of your cups, spoons scraping against plastic, and with a soft smile, she offers you the last bite of hers. Her thumb swipes at your bottom lip to clean a bit of ice cream that had run astray. It makes your heart beat a little faster. Paige always had this uncanny ability to make you nervous, to make all of your neurons fire at the same time. You came to the realization long ago that you were hopelessly attracted to her, but it’s times like these that remind you of just how magnetic she is.
The two of you have been here for over an hour now. A glance at the clock tells you that it’s nearing midnight. It always surprises you how easy it is to pass time with Paige. You know that it’s time for the both of you to start making your way home, but Paige doesn’t make any move to shift the car into gear, and you honestly don’t want the moment to end either. You also know that Paige is reaching the end of her sensibilities, her laughs a little brighter and delirious, her fingers restless in how they twist the ring on your thumb.
“You okay?” you ask her, wondering if there’s something that’s keeping her here, if she needs you to drive home or if there’s something else weighing on her. She meets your eyes, a tender smile on her face, her expression soft and sleepy and enamored.
“I’m perfect,” she whispers. “Can we just…sit here a little longer?” The last part is even quieter, if that was at all possible, and you nod. Her fingers tangle with yours fully. And then she starts rambling. “‘M really glad Mr. Mattson partnered us up for that project,” she admits. “It brought me to you. I’on know if I woulda had the courage to talk to you otherwise.”
You giggle, a little in disbelief. “You, nervous?” you repeat. “No way.”
Paige nods emphatically, completely serious. “Yes way. You’re…you’re beautiful, you know that? Like scary beautiful. Like make a girl get super rich during Prohibition, build a mansion, and yearn for you from afar beautiful.”
She grins at you as you roll your eyes. “You are so full of it.”
“And yet,” she murmurs, her thumb rubbing soothing circles across your knuckles, “you put up with me, anyway.” You nod, conceding, and she continues. “Point is, you kinda make me nervous. In a good way. I just… I feel like I need to impress you and do right by you. Guess what I’m tryin’ to say is you make me be the best version of myself. And I, you know, I really like doing this with you.”
You smile softly and squeeze her hand. “I like doing this with you, too,” you admit, drawing a smile from Paige.
Then, she’s shifting in her seat, angling her body towards yours, and her face is pensive, like she’s debating with herself internally. You almost ask her if she’s okay but her next words steal the very breath from your lungs. “Will you be my girlfriend?” she says, and your jaw drops slightly, unsure if you’ve even heard her correctly. Then, she’s sighing, clearing her throat and trying again. “I mean, can I be your girlfriend?” The clarification does little to calm the thumping of your heart. The words get stuck in your throat, emotions swirling through you. Excitement. Relief. Anticipation. An overwhelming amount of affection. Paige seems to mistake your stunned silence for rejection because she starts rambling again. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I had this whole thing planned out and it was supposed to be really romantic. I was gonna ask you at dinner tomorrow, like I already called the restaurant and I was gonna get you a slice of cheesecake because you hate the other kind of cake and it was gonna have the, you know, the question on it and I wrote you a letter ‘cause I can’t talk around you, and–”
You curl your fingers in the fabric of her hoodie and you pull her across the center console,  shutting her up with a kiss. She relaxes instantly, melting into your embrace as her hands find your hips, trying to minimize the space between your bodies. She breaks away, huffing because the center console is in her fucking way, and before you know it, she’s lifting you by your waist and drops you on her lap, kissing you again with a different kind of urgency that’s equal parts relief, gratitude, and so much unrestrained fondness. You wrap your arms around her neck, trying to angle your kiss so you can regain some control because her pace and intensity is honestly making you a little dizzy.
When you run out of air, you plant both of your hands on her chest, pulling away from her with considerable difficulty. You have to stop yourself from kissing her again because you know you’re not going to get another word out. You lean back, smiling when you take in the unmistakable shine in her eyes, the dopey grin on her lips. Your noses brush when you finally respond with a simple, “Yes.”
“Yeah?” she repeats, her arms looping around your waist to hold you a little closer to her body. She looks up at you, her happiness evident, and you can’t stop yourself from leaning in to plant one more lingering kiss to her mouth, humming an affirmative. “Knew you’d say yes. I’m irresistible.”
You pull away from her to laugh in disbelief. “Okay, I see how you’re forgetting the whole ‘I wrote you a letter ‘cause I can’t talk around you’ business. Which, by the way, I wanna see, but you’re so lucky you’re cute because you’re kind of a loser.”
“Loser?” she exclaims, indignant. “Nah, that’s actually crazy!”
“No! Like, you’re this badass athlete and you just dropped like 40 points–”
“43,” she cuts in.
“–40 points tonight and you’re over here nervous about asking me to be your girlfriend–”
“I wanted it to be perfect! It was gonna be perfect but you looked so pretty and I couldn’t wait!”
“Babe,” you say, laughing under your breath, your expression fond as you cup her cheeks, drawing her eyes up to yours. “It’s perfect because it’s us, okay? Us, cramped in your mom’s Honda Pilot, our half melted Dairy Queen and your freaky ass R&B.”
“S’not freaky,” she huffs, but you don’t pay her any mind.
“This was perfect,” you reiterate, your voice softening. Paige exhales under you, taking your words to heart. “Being with you is perfect. But is the cheesecake still on the table for tomorrow?”
“Of course,” Paige says, a furrow in her brow. “Just pretend to be surprised when it comes out.” You hum against her again, kissing her cheek, and she squeezes your waist a little, her voice suddenly a lot more nervous. “Uh, what does this mean for us? I mean…like our parents?”
You’re surprised by how calm you are by the question. You play with the stray hairs at the back of her neck, shrugging an unbothered shoulder. “You wanna tell them?” you ask her.
“I wanna do what you want,” she deflects.
“I want you to answer my question,” you retort.
Paige rolls her eyes, amused. “I would…like to be out. With them, at least. I’on wanna hide forever…but I know this is still kinda new for you. And we don’t have to do nothin’ serious at school, either. Seriously. Whatever you want.” Her hands are warm as they slip under your – her – hoodie, and the touch makes you feel more grounded.
“We can tell them tomorrow?” you offer, hesitant, but when Paige’s face lights up, you know you’ve made the right choice. “As for school, I think I wanna enjoy this while it’s still ours, you know? Just us. I wouldn’t mind being public eventually but I do mind the attention. I guess what I mean is we can be out but I don’t want everyone in our business.”
“Private, not a secret?” she asks, and you nod, relieved because she understands exactly what you were trying to say. “That works for me. And we can tell our parents tomorrow before we go out? Together?”
“Together,” you confirm, a smile lighting up your features.
She leans in to kiss you again, her own smile growing against your lips. Her nose brushes yours when she draws back enough to speak. “Just want you,” she promises. “Nothing else matters to me. Other people, the internet, nothing. Just lemme know how you’re feeling and we’ll handle it, okay?”
“Promise,” you swear. Paige grins at you again, drawing you in for a hug. You sit there in her arms for a while before you find your way back to the passenger seat and she drives the two of you back home.
She bids you a goodnight in the car, pressing one last lingering kiss to your lips before you stand on your porch to unlock the door. She doesn’t drive off until you’re safely inside. When you’re finally in your room, you don’t take the hoodie off, comforted by Paige’s scent encompassing you, and you fall asleep with an unshakable happiness in your heart and a smile on your face.
(The next day, you and Paige tell your parents, officially. You start with the Bueckers’ first and it goes as well as you were expecting. You and your girlfriend sat them down, explaining, we’re dating and we’re very happy. Moe gave the two of you comforting smiles, but Bob cleared his throat and admitted, “Uh…yeah, we saw you kiss on the Ring doorbell.” You wanted to crawl into a hole and die, to be honest, but Moe and Bob pulled the both of you into hugs and promised that as long as you and Paige were safe and happy, then they were happy for you.
Then, it was time for your family, and you were a little nervous. Granted, they had no idea that you liked girls, let alone would date one. Their reaction was basically the same as the Bueckers’, informing you that they had their suspicions since you and Paige were glued at the hip and that your little brother told them that he was pretty sure he almost saw the two of you kiss almost a month and a half ago. That was objectively worse than the Bueckers’ catching you on the ring doorbell. You were correct in assuming they’d make you keep your door open when Paige is over. And judging by the slightly horrified expression on Paige’s face when your dad finishes talking to her in private, you’re pretty sure he gave her the shovel talk of the century.
And, just so it’s absolutely clear, the date that Paige takes you on that evening is the best date you’ve ever been on – so far. She brings you flowers, pulls your chair out for you, and enchants you all night long with easy conversation. When the waitress brings out your slice of cheesecake with Will you be my girlfriend? written in strawberry puree, you sell your surprise and performance so well that the waitress brings out a second slice, chocolate flavored just for Paige. You’re sure that the night couldn’t get any better, but before she drops you off at home, she reads that damn letter to you and you can’t stop the happy tears. She kisses you goodnight, her expression adoring, and you know that you have the best girlfriend in the world.)
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The rest of junior year passes in a blur. You’re the happiest you’ve been in your entire life, your grades are phenomenal, and Paige leads her team to a blowout state championship win. As if that wasn’t electrifying enough, she signed with the University of Connecticut the week after the tournament ended on April 19th. Your girlfriend was officially a Husky and would bleed blue for her college career. You couldn’t help but be overwhelmingly proud of her – playing for UConn has been her life goal, hoping to cement her name as one of the greats next to Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Maya Moore. While you couldn’t get into UConn with as much ease as she did, UConn would be the first school you submitted your application for once October rolled around. You weren’t sure who was more excited – you or Paige – at the prospect of going to college together, but what you did know was that you couldn’t wait to cheer her on as she took the world by storm.
With the harder parts of the school year long gone, the time for prom came around in late April. Paige secured your tickets as soon as they went on sale and was dead set on making it the best night of your life. She prom-posed to you with what was possibly the cheesiest sign in the world: it was decorated with lopsided basketballs (although you appreciated the fact that Paige made her sign completely homemade) and read ‘Together, we’re a slam dunk. Take a shot at prom with me?’ and there was no way in hell you’d ever say no to something like that. It took you less than four hours to find the perfect dress, although you spent a week with Paige travelling from mall to boutique to find the perfect thing for her to wear. Dress shopping with Paige proved to be a difficult task, especially for someone who seemed to hate dresses as much as she did. When you suggested she just wear a pair of jeans and a nice shirt, she nearly lost her mind in the middle of the store.
“What kind of date wears jeans and a shirt to prom?” she’d exclaimed, rifling through the dress racks, beginning to ramble. “No, ‘cause that actually pisses me off. Like, you see all these girls walkin’ around in these pretty dresses, make up done to the nines, and their boyfriends can’t even be bothered to iron their shirts?”
“I want you to be comfortable,” you said to her. “What you’re wearing won’t matter to me. You know that.”
She huffed, pulling a black dress off the rack and holding it to her torso, glancing in the mirror with a pensive expression. “It matters to me. I can’t be caught dead next to you lookin’ like an idiot.”
“Well…” you trailed off, much to her chagrin, and she pouted at you dramatically as you laughed. “Get that one,” you advised. “It won’t be super tight on you so you’ll have some breathing room. And I like the way your arms will look in it.” When she tried it on, you walked in on her in the dressing room flexing in the mirror, and, well, you were right.
With the dress debacle out of the way, that meant you had to consider other factors, like your matching corsages and dinner beforehand. Those were slightly less intimidating decisions to make. Paige knew next to nothing about flowers and her only demand was “they have to look nice,” so you found the corsages. You weren’t paying for dinner and Paige knew your likes and dislikes like the back of her hand, so she handled the reservations and promised she wouldn’t dirty Moe’s SUV if the two of you could borrow it for the night. All that was left was prom itself and considering it would be your first and you don’t get another junior prom, you were incredibly excited for it.
Dinner was nice – it would have been hard to fuck up since Paige chose a restaurant she knew you liked and it was hard to not enjoy your time with her anyhow. She serenaded you as she drove, belting Keyshia Cole’s Love like she was a contestant on The Voice. And, sure, it was incredibly off-key and her voice cracked during the vocal flips on “I found,” but you couldn’t help your endearment for her. Making you laugh was one of the things she was a master at. You arrived at the school in good spirits, turned in your tickets without an issue, and entered the gym with high hopes.
The music is thumping, echoing throughout the gym. You can feel the bass in the floor and your body almost immediately vibrates from the noise. Paige curses lightly under her breath, her hand finding yours with a wince, and she glances at you curiously, a simple you okay? visible in her eyes. You nod and she leads you over to the drink table where she gives the two-liter soda bottle a cursory sniff before pouring it in a red solo cup for you. You remember hearing that last year’s prom got cancelled early because someone spiked the punch bowl, which is why they shifted to pouring directly from plastic bottles, but you could never be too sure and you appreciated Paige for her protectiveness.
As you drink, you take in the decorations. The student council was tasked with setting everything up – deciding on the theme, ordering the decorations, putting them up. As you glance around the packed gym, your eyes taking in the streamers and the lights (you pretend that you don’t notice a section of lights that have already been ripped down), you determine that you really can’t tell what the prom theme is supposed to be. A girl and her date pass by you in a 20s flapper dress and a wrinkled button up with Timbs, of all shoes; then you’re passed by a girl wearing polka dots and her date in a graphic t-shirt. You’re getting a lot of mixed signals right now.
“Wanna dance?” Paige asks you and you nod, throwing your cup away, allowing your girlfriend to lead you to an emptier section of the gym. For a while, you’re not really sure what’s playing until the bass drop is over and you realize it’s some remixed version of Zedd’s Clarity. You glance around, watching people dance. There’s a group of students towards the front of the gym near the DJ stand jumping up and down like it’s a mosh pit. There’s another section of people bobbing their heads and moving stiffly. To your right, there’s a group swaying, their phones raised as they capture the moment.
“This is not what I thought prom would be,” you comment off-handedly to Paige, who’s halfheartedly shimmying. 
She shrugs a shoulder, reaching out for your hands with a smile and pulling you closer to her, making sure to leave room for Jesus, as she’d once joked. “We can make our own fun,” she yells over the thump of the music. She drags you into an awkward, uncoordinated and off-rhythm shimmy-dance-shake thing, but her smile is infectious enough that you’re throwing all caution to the wind as you allow her to lead you. You laugh along with her for the remainder of the song before you’re joined by a few of her teammates and their dates. Paige introduces you and together, the small group of you dance to a few more songs. You take a few group photos in varying poses, then find some snacks, and you burn another half hour dancing before the pain in your feet gets to be too much and the music starts giving you a headache.
You don’t want to be a buzzkill, but you have to admit that prom is a weird mix of overwhelming and lackluster. It’s a lot better with friends, though; the short period of time you spent with Paige’s teammates was invigorating but there’s just not a lot to do that’s not eating, dancing, taking photos, or watching people try to dance. You intertwine your fingers with Paige’s, drawing her attention and whispering in her ear about needing air. She nods, leading you towards the door and snagging another drink for you on the way out. The cool breeze and the peace does wonders for you.
“I’on wanna ruin your night,” Paige begins, a little sheepish, “but was this kinda…”
“Lame?” you supply, watching the relief spread across Paige’s face.
“Yeah,” she agrees. You offer her a sip of the soda and she takes it gratefully, holding onto the cup for you as you toe off your heels, lowering yourself to the sidewalk and taking a seat. You stretch out your legs, sighing when the pressure in your feet is alleviated. “Wanna get Dairy Queen after this?”
You groan, leaning your head onto hers as she wraps an arm around your shoulders. “Like you even have to ask,” you murmur, appreciative of the peace. Paige chuckles, her thumb rubbing against your shoulder. The two of you sit there for a while soaking it all in before the music inside dies down. You can hear the echo of the DJ as he tells everyone to partner up for the slow dance. Paige sets your cup on the ground, removing her arm and standing up. You glance at her as she extends her hand for you to take.
“May I have this dance?” she asks, and you laugh, unable to say no. You allow her to pull you to your feet as the opening notes of Taylor Swift’s Crazier bleed through the gym walls. She navigates you both to the grass, your feet bare against the cool ground, and she wraps her arms around your waist as yours go around her neck.
I'd never gone with the wind, just let it flow
Let it take me where it wants to go
The two of you sway, the sound of chirping crickets serving as the perfect background to the gentle hum of the music through the walls. Her hands are warm on your side, her chin pressed to the top of your head, your face cradled gently against her chest. If you were being honest, this is probably the most content you’ve been since dinner – being alone with Paige has a way of cheering you up.
I was trying to fly, but I couldn't find wings
But you came along and you changed everything
Paige starts humming the lyrics, the vibrations of her voice soothing you as you follow her lead. Your fingers smooth some of the flyaway strands at the back of her neck, hands mapping the expanse of her toned shoulders, content to just feel her and relish in this tender, unexpecting intimacy.
You lift my feet off the ground
You spin me around
You make me crazier, crazier
It’s then that you’re hit with a gentle realization, the lyrics resonating with you. You and Paige have been together for close to four months at this point, although it feels closer to five months since you admitted your feelings to her back in late December. Every day since then has been full of nothing but pure enjoyment, a whole lot of care, and some of the best times of your life. Paige has this way of always making you smile, even when the day gets hard, this way of making you feel so appreciated and cared for. You’re young and you really weren’t expecting her to come into your life the way she did, but you really can’t deny this overflow of emotion that you feel when she’s around. You know exactly why you feel this way.
You lift your head off her chest, your hands resting on the tops of her shoulders as you pull back far enough to look her in the eye. She gazes at you curiously, her thumbs rubbing soothing circles against your hips, and you can’t help your smile as you kiss her tenderly. She responds, pulling you flush against her, and you know that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.
“What was that for?” she whispers, an enamored little grin on her face, cheeks bright with a blush.
You don’t hesitate. “I just love you,” you confess.
You expect her to freeze up. You expect her jaw to go slack, to ask you to repeat what you said. Love wasn’t something you should just drop so casually – the both of you knew that. But Paige’s smile only grows, a lone dimple popping out as her eyes shine under the streetlight. She cups your cheeks in her hands and leans down to kiss you again. It’s soft, barely-there brushes that you can still feel in your heart; her lips ask you a simple question that you can’t help but answer. You lean into it, into the love that has built between the two of you over the months you’ve been together and the months you’ll be together in the future, into the shared promise of I’m yours.
“I love you,” Paige whispers, punctuating her words with a squeeze. “So much.”
You smile against her lips, letting her pull you back in. The music fades into nothing, your focus entirely on Paige, on the way her lips move against yours, the way her hands cradle your face, the way she loves you. You’ve given your heart over to her completely and she cherishes it like it’s her own. Sometimes, there are things you’re just born knowing, and right now, you know that everything in your life has led you to being here now, to being Paige’s. You couldn’t think of anything better than that.
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SENIOR YEAR – 2019-2020
Senior year is the beginning of the end.
You and Paige spend summer break attached at the hip, but not overbearingly so. You’d gotten a part-time job mostly to make some extra money and to make your resume look a little better, so you were occupied by that four days a week. Paige, on the other hand, was spending extra time in the gym and running drills with private trainers and coaches. She was committed to one of the best colleges in the country for basketball – summer was not the time to be slacking off. It was the time for her to get better, stronger, faster; if you wanted to celebrate with the best, you had to be the best, and Paige turned that pressure into motivation.
Above all else, you still made time for each other, even when she was exhausted from practicing and you wanted to crawl into a hole and die because food service sucks (seriously, you were a cashier – what makes people think you of all people fucked up their food? Your job was to hit buttons and ask if they wanted fries with that). At the heart of it, you and Paige were each other’s remedies. You were a source of peace, comfort, and relaxation. Honestly, much of the time the two of you shared over the summer was spent napping, but you weren’t going to complain. You were busy and she was busy and you’d take whatever you could get, even if that meant being the big spoon every other night.
Things weren’t harder by any means. They weren’t any easier, but they were just different. You had to get used to managing your time, learn how to effectively maintain a relationship when the only time you really get to see each other is once or twice a week (and when Paige is snoring for most of it). You’d argue that this is just making the two of you stronger. The two of you would only be busier in college. Now is the time for growing up and realizing that you couldn’t reasonably spend every waking moment together, as much as you would like to. You were fine, Paige was fine, the two of you communicated, and you were very happy.
Well, there was one slight issue.
Following Paige’s commitment, your Instagram messages and comments had been blowing up. It started small. There were joking comments (or so you’d hoped) with messages of ‘You better not distract Paige next season!’ and their variations. It all ramped up from there. Trolls accusing you of only dating Paige because she’d become a millionaire once she’s in college, accusing you of keeping her out of the gym. Someone even said that UConn wouldn’t win a national championship anytime soon considering their starting point guard would be too busy playing the part of a doting girlfriend.
You won’t lie. All of the comments and the messages were really heavy. Here you were, barely 18 and you had crazy fans of varying age levels all in your business and saying awful things. There were comments you wouldn’t even dream of repeating. You talked to Paige about it and she’d held you as you cried. It was less of the content, but it was more about the spam and the constant onslaught and the amount of people tearing you down for no good reason. Paige posted on her socials requesting for people to leave you alone. While there was an outcry of support from the kinder folk, you’d somehow gotten even more harassment in your messages. You eventually caved and privated all of your accounts, scrubbing the nasty comments and trying to go about your life.
The damage had already been done.
Senior year was supposed to be your best year thus far, yet everything was bleak. It was nowhere close to the academic rigor of your junior year, but you were taking a few more dual enrollment classes and a lone AP, which means you were spending a lot more of your time studying so your grades wouldn’t slip. You ended up having to drop one of your clubs, too. You were less upset about that one considering it wasn’t doing a lot for you anyways. The fact that everything started piling up and you had to make all of these ultimatums was weighing on you.
Paige was incredibly busy, too. Coming off of a championship win from the year before, her coach was determined to get them back there again this year. Practices were longer, more grueling, and as if those weren’t enough, Paige was spending more time in the gym alone to get shots in and run drills, like she had something to prove. Maybe she did. She needed to show that she wasn’t an overrated high school player, that Geno Auriemma didn’t make a mistake in recruiting her. She needed to prove that she has what it takes to go from a high school championship contending team to a collegiate championship contending team. Combined with her own classwork, she was running out of time to devote to you, so the two of you were honestly just stuck.
The time you did get to spend with one another never felt like it was enough. You tried your best to fit in dates that had nothing to do with school or basketball, just the two of you. You loved each other. You would go through worse things than this, and you were dedicated to making it work, damn it. You communicated – or tried to, at least. You could tell Paige was under a lot of pressure, you knew her well enough by now. Anytime you brought it up, she’d always say that she’s just tired or that she needs to lock in because the pressure is only going to increase when she’s in college. You tried to help, but you just didn’t know how, and you were terrified of pushing her too far. She didn’t need you to be this clingy, obsessed girlfriend who can’t function without her, and maybe you were worried about becoming too much, too. It’s just a hard pill to swallow when you go from being all over each other in junior year to whatever the fuck this is now. You have to remind yourself that you and Paige need the space to be your own people. You’re changing, she’s changing, and you can’t hold onto a past version of her – if you force her to be something she’s not, you’ll just lose her, and that’s not something you can stomach. So you take her word for it, letting her be her own person, even if it feels like you’re still losing a battle you could never have won in the first place.
Growing up is hard, isn’t it? 
And it’s weird – because it’s not like everything is bad. There’s a lot of good times, too. Paige still drives you home after her games, making sure to stop at Dairy Queen, making sure to fit in some time at that parking lot just to chat with you. Sometimes it gets a little heavy when she’s a few hours past delirious and her kisses become a little more insistent, sloppier against your skin and you both have to remember to chill out because your first time is not about to be in the backseat of her stepmom’s Honda Pilot. She still smiles at you like you’re her everything, because you are. It’s hard, but she moves mountains to make time for you, even if that just means spending the night at your house and in your arms and you do nothing but sleep because you’re both just exhausted from life.
You still wear her hoodie, the one with her number and her name on the back and the one that’s starting to smell like the perfect blend of the two of you. You leave your clothes at her house and she leaves hers at yours. You and Paige integrate so seamlessly into each other’s lives that the slow-forming rift between the two of you is unexpected when it eventually cracks, sending the two of you tumbling into a bottomless chasm. Somehow, you miss it entirely — the fractures, the shifting of tectonic plates. Maybe the hard truth is you don’t miss it at all, but you ignore it in hopes that you can patch up the lacerations. 
But that rift doesn’t actualize for another few months, for for now — you’re fine. Unknowing of what’s ahead of you, too busy and too in love to focus on anything but the present. 
The holidays are a much needed reprieve. Thanksgiving and Christmas back to back means your classwork finally lessens and Paige isn’t spending every waking moment in the gym. That doesn’t mean that she didn’t try to spend every waking moment in the gym, though. On the very first day of Thanksgiving break, you could feel her shifting around in your bed at an hour that was definitely not appropriate. She was apologetic for waking you up and said that she just wanted to get some shots in before the local rec teams took over the courts. You weren’t having any of it. Half-asleep, you’d dragged her back into bed with you, climbing on top of her and resting your head on her chest, murmuring nonsense about missing her. The details are fuzzy, but you do remember waking up some hours later after the sun finally rose and Paige was still in bed with you, her arms wrapped tight around your waist.
Spending so much uninterrupted time over break reminded you why you fell in love with Paige in the first place. It wasn’t like you were starved of reminders while you were both in school – she texted you good morning (although this was anywhere from 5-6am) and she texted you good night (anywhere from 12-1am); the knowledge that you were the first and the last thing on her mind made your heart race. She walked you to and from your classes, carried your bag for you, but it was that time outside of school that you were truly missing with her.
When you brush your teeth together in the morning, she flicks water at you teasingly and wipes the foam off your lip when you miss a spot. She’ll sit atop the counter and watch as you do your skincare or your makeup with an enamored look on her face. Most days, she allows you to do her mascara or apply some new skin cream on her face, although the latter usually ends with Paige whining about how it burns and you reminding her that just means it’s working. You spend time with each other’s family, you go on dates, open presents at each other’s house, and a few days after Christmas, she takes you back to the park where you’d shared your first kiss. It’s not your one year anniversary since Paige was, ugh, a gentlewoman and “courted” you (well, as well as high schoolers can “court”) prior to making it official, but it’s close enough for you. The realization that you’ve shared your life with Paige for a year fills you with an indescribable emotion and all you really know is you can’t wait to share more and more years with her.
After New Year’s, everything shifts again. You get busy with school and Paige locks back in for basketball. Her team has been undefeated the entire year and they’re on the right track to make it back to the championship, which seems to ignite a fire under her. She spends her time in the gym, practicing and practicing and practicing. You can tell it’s wearing on her. Her texts become sparse and you often find yourself making your way to the gym at night just so you can drive her home. When you ask why she’s burning herself out like this, her response is always a variation of I need to be better or We’re so close – I can’t let the team down but you know her. You know she’s not telling you the complete truth and that kills you.
What had you done so wrong that Paige doesn’t trust you with her feelings anymore? What had you done so wrong that you’ve forced her into locking herself in the gym until her fingers bleed and her feet blister? Perhaps if you were a little more online, you’d understand why. Between the trolls and your mass amounts of homework, you hardly had the time for Instagram. You don’t see the comments under Paige’s posts, claiming you’d just be a distraction in college. You don’t see the comments arguing that Paige’s uncharacteristic performance in a recent game is your fault.
It’s in mid-February that you grow tired of the overthinking and the ache that’s made its home in your chest. It’s nearing midnight but you can’t sleep. You’ve been staring at Paige’s location on the Find My map for nearly four hours now – she’s been on the court ever since practice ended. You tried to give her space. You didn’t want to be overbearing. You know that she’s under pressure but God you just wanted her to confide in you, to feel more like a girlfriend rather than an afterthought. So, you slide on a pair of shoes, tucking your keys into your pocket and you begin the quick walk to the park.
You hear the rhythmic bouncing of the ball before you see Paige. You hear the dribble, the swish of the net, the clang of the rim. The basketball rolls towards you and you pick it up, coming face to face with Paige, whose face is a picture of surprise.
“Hey,” she says softly. You pause to take in her appearance. She’s dressed in a pair of athletic shoes, ball shorts and a loose tank top. She’s soaked in sweat, her hair sticking to her forehead and her eyes a wild mix of exhaustion and pure determination. Your heart constricts in your chest. Why is she doing this to herself? “What are you doing here?”
“It’s late,” you say, quirking an unamused smile. “Almost midnight. Couldn’t really sleep without knowing if my girlfriend was alive or not.”
She stares at you like she’s trying to read your expression. A slow wave of realization rolls over her and she sucks in a deep breath, knowing she’s in trouble. “I’m okay,” she says but you know she’s not. “Just–”
“‘Just trying to get some shots up,’” you interrupt. “‘Just wanna be prepared for the championship.’” Paige’s jaw ticks and she runs a frustrated hand across her jaw. You soften a little, knowing that you’re not the only one with shit going on. That consideration would get you in trouble one day, but you don’t really care right now. “Can we talk? Please?”
“I need to–”
“Paige,” you breathe out, your voice firm despite the way it cracks. You feel the tears prick at your eyes and you can’t help but feel frustrated at yourself for getting emotional. “Please stop running away from me,” you beg.
She looks like she’s about to argue again, although she thinks better of it, nodding her head and taking a seat on the bench where her bag rests. You sit next to hear, placing the basketball on the other side of you. Paige is silent, her hands folded together and her brows drawn in. You speak first. “I’m worried about you.” That draws her attention, confusion and guilt and hurt lining her expression, but you swallow, continuing. “I hardly see you outside of school and you spend every waking moment with a ball in your hand. I know you think that you need to work harder or train harder, but it’s killing you, Paige. You say you’re fine and I wanna believe that but we’ve been dating for a year now. I know you better than that. This is wearing you down and I just don’t understand why you can’t be honest with me about why you’re doing this to yourself.”
The distant chirp of the crickets is all you can hear. Then, she heaves a shuddering sigh. “I’m not good enough for this,” she confesses in a murmur. “That’s what everyone says. I’m overrated. That Coach Auriemma shoulda recruited someone else – someone better, faster, stronger, taller. Basketball is my future but lately it just feels like that’s another thing I have to prove to people who watch me from behind a screen. There’s so many people relying on me, watching me, investing in me and I can’t – I can’t let them down. I can’t lose. I am so fucking afraid of losing that I forget how to win.”
“Paige,” you whisper, your hand reaching out to hold hers. She intertwines your fingers so tightly that it hurts your hand. You don’t care. “You are so much more than what people have to say about you, okay? Isn’t that what you told me?”
She huffs, something akin to amusement, but there’s no enjoyment in her expression. “You didn’t sign up for that,” she retorts. “They were hurting you ‘cause of me.”
“No one signs up to be an online punching bag,” you state. “Least of all you. You don’t deserve that.” She shakes her head, disbelieving. You lean into her, trying to ground her, and she shivers against you. “You know it’s not true, right? There is no one better, or stronger, or faster than you. Maybe taller, but I love you the way you are.” That’s enough to draw a real laugh from her and you squeeze her hand. “Listen to me. Geno didn’t recruit you because of your strength or your speed or whatever else. Geno recruited you because he knew you had the heart of a Husky and because he knew you had what it takes. And – I know it’s hard, but sometimes you’re going to lose. What’s important is picking yourself up afterward and doing it all over again. Win or lose, you’re always gonna have me. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, you know that?”
“I do,” she murmurs. “And I’d do the same for you.” Her words sound more like a grave realization more than a reassurance, but you don’t catch it. You don’t notice the solemn look on her face, the way she looks like she’s coming to terms with something difficult. You don’t notice the determination that reads something like I’m going to win another state championship this year and prove everyone wrong.
“Come home?” you plead. Paige nods slowly, collecting her gear almost robotically, but she presses a kiss to your lips and all you feel an overwhelming amount of relief. Everything will be okay, you tell yourself. This was just a small bump in the road.
Wishful thinking.
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Paige’s state championship gets cancelled due to a global pandemic.
She’d been in such high spirits, excited at the prospect of competing, of taking home the trophy one more time before she went off for college. In March, everything shut down. You were out of school for what you believed to be an extended spring break, but the rest of the year was cancelled entirely. The state championship game was quick to follow. You weren’t expecting Paige to take the news as bad as she did.
Your texts go unanswered, again. You know she’s stuck in her house, which was always a recipe for disaster for her. Paige gets too restless, too impatient, always itching to be moving. You let a day go by of radio silence. Two days. By the third, you’re beginning to lose your mind. You simply weren’t built for online education and your little brother makes focusing impossible. On the fourth day, you send another message to Paige, which ultimately gets left on read.
You show up to her house, tired of being iced out like this, of being treated like you’re something disposable when Paige is upset. Bob lets you in, grinning, and you wave at Drew as you walk upstairs, your footsteps echoing like your heartbeat in your ribcage. You knock on Paige’s door, not getting a response, but you walk in anyways.
Her room is a mess. Clothes are strewn about, one of her comforters lying on the ground. You nearly trip over a loose basketball but your eyes lock on her – lying in bed with an almost catatonic expression on her face. Maybe the aftermath is your fault. It doesn’t take a genius to know that Paige wasn’t in the best headspace. While you were her girlfriend, showing up to her room invited while she’s spiraling would make her meltdown make sense. The ensuing argument is a blur.
Paige is frantic, her hands gesturing wildly as she chokes back sobs, exclaiming confessions of “I’m nothing without that championship,” or “I can’t handle this anymore.” It’s the first time you’ve actually been a little fearful – not of her, but for her. You knew the pressure was getting to her and you just let her deal with it instead of intervening. You were too scared to upset her and now the both of you are paying the price of your insecurity.
You tried to comfort her, but it was like something shifted. She told you to go home. That you were too much right now and that it’s obvious at this point that you’re only going to get hurt if you stay with me. You were willing to ignore her words even if they were like knives to your heart, but what truly destroyed was how she flinched away from your touch like it was burning oil. Go home, she’d said again. I don’t need you here. I can’t keep hurting you like this.
Maybe showing up in the first place was a mistake, but so was leaving her. You walked back to your house with tears in your eyes, wondering how you fucked up so bad.
The next day, Paige shows up at your doorstep with flowers. You couldn’t ignore the hurt in your heart and you didn’t want to forgive her so easily, but it was hard to stay upset with her. No matter how mad you were, you were still in love with her. She apologized, describing how the championship cancellation and the lockdown and the pressure was making her go insane. She acknowledged those wrongs didn’t make a right and she’d spend the rest of her life making it up to you. You didn’t want to fight, or argue, or hurt anymore, so you wrapped her in your arms as the both of you cried. You had a lengthy conversation full of more apologies, and foolishly, you’d thought the worst of it was over. It wouldn’t come until much later.
Miraculously, you still have graduation that month although everyone has to wear masks and you have to sit five feet apart on the football field. You and Paige graduate with honors, you take photos, and your combined families have a huge dinner at the Bueckers’s household. That evening, right before you say grace, your phone lights up with an email from the UConn admissions team.
You got in.
As your families cheer, your eyes are too full of tears to notice the expression of pure dread on Paige's face as you throw your arms around her neck. It feels like everything is finally going your way. You and Paige would be going to college together. It would be easier – it has to be. You didn’t really care about what anyone had to say about the two of you. You had Paige and that was enough for you.
You go to bed that night blissfully and ignorantly happy. Two weeks pass and that’s finally when the worst happens.
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You feel your phone’s vibration before you hear its ringtone.
Groggily, you open your eyes, hands blindly fumbling through your sheets and under your pillow as you try to locate your device. At first, you think it’s your alarm waking you up for class, but remembering the fact that you’ve just graduated two weeks ago hits you like a sack of bricks. There will be no more morning alarms, not until you’re in Storrs, Connecticut and starting the fall semester. You also realize it’s far too dark outside to be morning, so the ringing of your phone can only mean one thing.
“Hello?” you answer without looking at the caller ID, knowing that it was Paige on the other end. You couldn’t think of anyone who would call you at 1:55 in the morning. The fact that Paige is calling you at 1:55 in the morning, however, is a cause for concern. She had an early flight around 8am – summer practices and conditioning were already starting up for the Huskies, as well as other freshman athlete orientations.
“Hey,” Paige says. Her voice is quiet on the other end of the line, tight and weak like she’s fighting to stay composed. Immediately, your heartbeat picks up, fearing for the worst. “I’m at your front door. Can I – can you come down please? I need to talk to you.”
“I’m on my way,” you respond, already throwing your blanket off of your legs and leaving your room. “Are you okay?”
Paige is oddly silent for a few beats. Your socked feet thump lightly against the stairs as you make your way down, your pulse racing like you’d just ran a marathon. Her name falls from your lips in a murmur and she heaves a shuddering sigh from the other end of the phone. “Please,” she begs, “just come outside.”
“Okay,” you promise, and the line goes dead as you unlock your front door, opening it to reveal Paige standing on your front porch. She’s wearing a pair of sweatpants and crocs like she’d made the last minute decision to show up to your house. Her shirt is rumpled, the UConn logo emblazoned on it – one she’d gotten from her official visit however long ago. Her hair is disheveled, too, pulled up into a loose ponytail with loose strands at the front. And her face. You’ve never seen Paige look so miserable before, but what truly shocks you is the guilt clouding her eyes, the frown on her lips. “Hey.” Your voice is quiet, opening the door wide enough for her to come in. Paige merely shakes her head, her hand finding your wrist as she guides you onto the front porch. The door clicks shut behind the two of you. “What’s going on?”
Under the porchlight, her features come into focus. Her expression is downcast, eyes red as if she’d been crying, shoulders high and tense with some monumental weight bearing down on them. You know she has a lot going on – the two of you have talked about as much. She was the number one high school recruit and she’s been committed to one of, if not the best college for women’s basketball. There’s a lot of pressure on her to live up to those expectations, to be the best in the game. You also know Paige hasn’t been the same since the beginning of the year, but she’d assured you that it was just exhaustion and the need to lock in. When you come face to face with her, you’re wracked with a near insurmountable quantity of guilt – why hadn’t you tried harder to get her to open up?
“I’m sorry,” is what Paige says. Your heart slams against your ribcage as your mind conjures up thousands of reasons why Paige could be apologizing to you at two in the fucking morning. “I know this timing is super fucked up and this is such a shitty thing to do to but I can’t get on that plane later and not –” Paige’s words trail off, the sound getting stuck in her throat.
You blink, feeling the unmistakable burn of tears in your eyes, the tightness in your chest. Part of you knows exactly where this is going, but the other part of you refuses to consider it. “Not what, Paige?”
Her hands fidget nervously with the hem of her shirt. She throws her head back, suddenly finding the roof of your porch very interesting as she takes a deep breath. “I don’t –” her voice cracks before finally, she meets your eyes, guilt and dread and something that looks strangely like atonement filling her irises. “I don’t think we’re gonna work out,” she says. Your heart all but drops out of your ass and onto the ground, but she keeps rambling in that Paige-esque way that you’ve spent months falling in love with. “We’re not gonna work out in college. I have basketball, and you – you have so many great things ahead of you. You have dreams and aspirations and I can’t…I can’t let you lose sight of those if you stay with me. I love you, so much, but we’re just gonna keep hurting each other if we keep trying to mend something that’s just gonna keep on breaking.”
You can hear your heartbeat in your ears. Something ugly twists in your gut, something that feels like a painful mix of despair, desperation, and a deep-rooted anger you’d never realized you’d been harboring. You weren’t an angry person. Sensitive, sure. You were understanding and kind. Never angry. “Why do you get to decide that?” you manage, your voice rough with emotion. Your voice rises in pitch as you continue. “Why do you get to decide that we can’t be fixed? What–”
“We’ve been tryin’ to fix this for months,” Paige points out hoarsely, her throat bobbing as she swallows.
“Because you’re not trying!” you exclaim, arms flying out. Paige flinches, but you don’t stop. “You just – you keep pulling away from me and I don’t know why but I can’t do this on my own, Paige. And when I ask you always say you’re just tired or you’re just busy but I know you. I know you and I know that you weren’t giving us your all and I still trusted you because fuck, I just wanted you! I would never make you choose between me or basketball but I’d like to at least be considered once in a while.”
“It’s not like that,” Paige argues. “I’ve done nothing but consider you–”
“Bullshit.”
Her face falls. “See?” she murmurs, laughing a little despite the hurt in her expression. “We’d never work out in college. We can’t even do this right.”
You seethe. “Because you’re trying to break up with me when we can fix this.”
“I’m trying to break up with you because I can’t fucking protect you!” Paige cries. Her words hit you like a truck and you clamp your mouth shut as she wipes her eyes. “Is that what you wanted to hear? I can’t protect you when we’re both at UConn. Do you even know what they’re saying online? They’re saying I can’t hoop because I’m too busy playing house with my girlfriend. They’re saying that her girlfriend is trying to leech off of her success, that you’re ruining my life, that my girlfriend needs to leave me alone. Everyday I’ve worked harder to get stronger, faster, better, just so there wouldn’t be anything about me they could use to hurt you but they always find something to say. I can’t protect you from that when you’re with me. I can’t let them ruin your life because you love me. You have so much ahead of you and they’ll tear you down. I can’t bear that.”
“I don’t need you to protect me,” you say, but even you know that’s a lie. You take in the look on Paige’s face, the commiseration, the resolution. Your anger melts away into sheer desperation when you begin to fully realize the gravity of your situation. It feels like your entire life is slipping from your fingertips and you’re running out of time to do something about it. “Paige…” You hate the way she flinches at her name.
“Please,” she begs again. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. Just let me do this for us and we can both try to be happy.”
You don’t mention how there won’t be an us if you let her walk away now, but you do step forward, your fingers curling into the fabric of her shirt as you plead, “Don’t do this to us.” A tear slips down your cheek and Paige shudders as she wipes it away with the pad of her thumb, an inexplicable amount of guilt in her eyes. “We can fix this, okay? I swear. I promise you won’t even know I’m there. I won’t say anything and I’ll watch your games online – whatever it takes, I’ll do it, Paige; just don’t fucking do this to us.”
She murmurs your name, her face falling as she brushes your hair out of your face, but you’re shaking your head, pressing on. “Just give us some time. Please. We can work this out. I don’t want anything but you. And…and – last year, you said nothing else mattered, right? What everyone else thought, what the media thought. We can be private again, whatever you want, I’ll do it.”
“I can’t ask that of you,” she whispers, voice broken. “You don’t deserve to be hidden away. I can’t do that to you. It’ll kill us before we even got a chance otherwise.”
Your lip wobbles as you say, “You’re killing us now, Paige.”
She nods, a tear of her own falling, and she wipes it away before you can even raise your hand. “I know. But at least it’s on our terms and not theirs.” You shake your head, fingers tightening in her shirt, and Paige crumbles. She wraps her arms around your shoulders, pulling her into your chest as your body heaves with sobs, your tears soaking her shirt. You can hear the tremble in her voice as she fights for her composure. “I’m sorry. Being with me will just hurt you more. I can’t put you through that,” she chokes out. “I’m sorry that I made you feel like you were the only one trying. I thought it would change things but it didn’t. I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t save us.”
The irony makes you ache – Paige killing you just to save you. Deep down, you know she’s right. Your social media have been private for months now, but there’s nothing you wouldn’t do just so you could keep Paige. But right now? All you’re truly able to process is the heartbreak, the way the criss-crossing bandages fall off, the way the stitches and the sutures come undone, revealing a festering, open wound that after all this time, you’ve never been able to repair. No matter what, it always comes back to this – your heart on the ground, stomped out and bleeding and ruined. You just never thought Paige would be the one to crush it under her heel.
You’re tender-hearted. You always have been.  That’s why your friends told you to stay far, far away from Paige. You tried, you honestly did – but Paige is magnetic, and she loves you, and you were just a little too weak to say no. Now you’re faced with the ugly realization that maybe you should have listened, that when they told you ‘She’s leaving Minnesota and she’s not going to look back’, they were right. Despite it all, you’re naive enough to say that you’d go through with it all over again. You love Paige. You would give up a lot of things in the world if only you could keep her, but her decision is made and it’s time for you to make yours.
That’s why you forgive her. You sniffle, trying your best to compose yourself as her hand rubs soothing, apologetic circles on your back. “It’s okay,” you manage, your voice impossibly soft and broken down.
“It’s not,” Paige murmurs, her voice cracking.
“It will have to be.” You feel her nod at that, her arms tightening a little, like she’s trying to savor this last moment with you before it’s gone forever. You do, too, pressing your head against her chest, listening to the rhythmic thump of her heart that you’ve spent hours memorizing the cadence of. You’ve spent so many months of your life learning everything there was to know about Paige Bueckers – her favorite color, her dreams, the parts of her that she keeps hidden. You wish you didn’t know what she looked like when she was walking away but you should have known that you and her were doomed by time from the very beginning.
You don’t want to let her go. Eventually, you have to, and looking at her face makes you want to cry and beg all over again. Her hands find your cheeks as she kisses you one last time. You can taste the salt on her lips, hear her shuddering breath, feel her forehead as it presses against yours gently. You know this kiss is more of a goodbye than it is a gesture of affection. That’s enough to make the ache in your chest return tenfold.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers again. It doesn’t do anything to fix what’s broken. “I’m so sorry. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” you promise. You hate those words because you know they’re true – Paige has just broken your heart on your front doorstep and despite it all, you still love her and you always will.
She releases you, her hands trailing down your arms, trying to commit you to memory. Then, her hands leave your skin entirely and she takes a step back. “Guess this is goodbye.”
You bury your hands in your pockets, knowing that if you don’t do something with them, you’ll try fighting for her again. “Guess it is.”
She stares at you for a long while before nodding, her final goodbye a soft murmur under her breath. You watch her go as she walks down the sidewalk, her figure illuminated by the streetlights. It feels strangely like reaching for a light, something you’ll never be able to physically grasp. It’s like watching your entire future crumble in the blink of an eye, like reminding yourself that some dreams are too costly and that sometimes, desire is impossible. Right person, wrong time.
Your lip trembles as you walk back inside, locking the door behind you. When you turn to head back upstairs and go back to bed, hoping that this is all some kind of fucked up fever dream, you find your mother waiting for you, worry etched on her face. That’s when you crumble again, sagging into her confused arms and sobbing.
“She’s gone,” you manage to get out in between heaving sobs. Your mom understands instantly, hushing you and smoothing out your hair, rocking you back and forth as you cry. You’ve hurt a lot, but never like this. You want this terrible feeling to go away but you know this is a loss that’s going to stick with you for a while.
Later that night, when you’re sure you’ve cried all you could, you lie in bed bundled in Paige’s hoodie despite the heat. On the UConn application portal, you only hesitate a little bit before you click on the Cancel Enrollment button. Then, you navigate over to the University of Minnesota application portal, hesitating a lot longer before clicking on the Confirm Enrollment button. You power your phone off entirely, unwilling to spend the night staring at the picture of you and Paige on your home screen. All you feel is a devastating emptiness and this time, you’re fully on your own now and there’s no one else to help you pick up the pieces.
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FRESHMAN & SOPHOMORE YEAR – 2020-2022
To no one’s surprise, you absolutely hate the University of Minnesota. There were a lot of reasons why it wasn’t your first choice. The program it offered for your degree wasn’t the greatest. You hated the dorms. You hated campus life, too. UConn had a lot of things that UMN didn’t. A better sports scene, better programs, your ex-girlfriend who you’re still hung up on, everything. You knew you’d be just as miserable at UConn if you’d gone there, too. Paige was everywhere. The freshman phenom who could truly do it all. The work she’d put into becoming better had paid off and it led to her having an electrifying first season.
Even though your heart ached, you couldn’t help but be proud of her. She was doing everything she said she was gonna do. She’s breaking records and making a name for herself – you’d just wished you could be there for it.
It’s almost pathetic how you’re unable to get over her. You stay off of social media but the knowledge that she’s just one text message away fucks with your brain more than you’d like to admit. It reminds you all too much of Gatsby and Daisy and that stupid project the two of you partnered for in AP Lit, only you’re some weird inverted version of them. Paige is the one with the riches, the grandeur, the mansion, yet she’s the one with the green light on the dock. You spend hours gazing out and hoping that she’s looking back at you, too. You’re the one who wishes you could go back into the past where you were still together, even though Gatsby’s story taught you that you’re only yearning for something that doesn’t exist anymore. You’re Gatsby, unable to move on, unable to fully come to terms with the fact that your dream wasn’t truly attainable, that you desired for too much and you couldn’t reach it.
There’s a scary thought in the back of your head that sounds like you just weren’t worth it. Gatsby’s story also taught you that Daisy’s feelings for Gatsby weren’t worth losing her social status, her life of comfort. Were you not worth it? You would have gone to hell and stayed if only to keep Paige, but perhaps that’s just something you need to work on.
So, you do. You find yourself a therapist in Minneapolis. You’ve been unhappy for a while now, but it’s also become increasingly obvious that you need to work on setting boundaries and unlearning emotional attachments that have done nothing but hurt you. You fall in love (romantically or platonically) far too quick, too easily, and you’re too forgiving. You were told from the start that you should be taking care of your heart and you suppose it’s better late than never.
Your therapist is an older lady who has seen some shit and been through some shit. She’s blunt and honest and exactly what you need. She tells you that you can protect yourself and still give to the world, to others. She also tells you that if you’re so unhappy at UMN that you should probably transfer. You put that piece of advice on the backburner because you’ve barely been here for a semester. Maybe you’ll have more fun and make new friends come spring. Maybe everything will turn around if you give yourself the chance to grow and be happy without constantly looking over your shoulder, hoping to see familiar blue eyes and that teasing smile you’ve all but memorized.
(Spoiler: you don’t.)
The spring semester of your freshman year rolls around and you’re honestly burned out. Your first semester was rough and you had a straight C average, which was quite the culture shock after being a straight A student throughout highschool. You try to show up to all of your classes, but registering for an 8am was honestly the worst decision of your life. You miss a few, your grades remain horribly consistent (more C’s!), and you can’t hold onto anymore friends, not for lack of trying. Your clubs fall through and nothing feels right about UMN. Sure, you’re close to home and you visit your parents twice a month, but UMN isn’t home at all. You know that there’s a piece of you in Connecticut somewhere.
Therapy is helping a lot, though. Fixing yourself emotionally is really taxing, but you’re making progress, and that’s good enough for now. Although it takes a couple of weeks, you manage to make a friend in one of your classes and you study together often. Her name is Krista. She’s a pre-med biology major and quite possibly the smartest person you’ve met in your semester and a half at UMN. She introduces you to some of her friends, too – an assortment of med-school hopefuls and the lone English major. Slowly but surely, UMN doesn’t feel as lonely and your grades start improving.
Eventually, the heartbreak starts to ache a little less. Seeing Paige’s picture plastered everywhere doesn’t hurt as much. You tune in for some of the UConn games during March Madness to cheer her on. It will probably take you a long time to be fully over Paige, but you’re at least mostly over the hurt. You reach out to a couple of your mutual friends just to see how she’s doing. Maybe you’ll regret that decision one day. Maybe not. Hearing that she’s doing okay settles your heart some. That turns into weekly check-ins. It’s something.
You and Paige were friends for a long time before you made it official. You’re not mourning the loss of a relationship, but you’re mourning your best friend, too. Nobody ever told you how devastating it was to go from sharing everything with someone to watching their life in pictures. Part of you wonders if she’s doing the same as you, if she even thinks about you like that, if she thinks about you at all or if she regrets the decision she’d made.
Your first year at UMN is nothing special. There’s a nagging voice in the back of your head that urges you to transfer. If you’re not fully happy after a year, then you’re not going to be happy this year. You think about the friends you’ve made – Krista and the others. Something about them just isn’t right. You may never have the vocabulary to explain it, but no matter how nice and welcoming they are, you still feel like an outsider looking in. Things aren’t all that bad, you tell yourself. Your grades are better and honestly, maybe this is just life. You aren’t always going to have a bunch of best friends. So, you decide to stay at UMN.
(How many bad decisions can one person possibly make before you start getting concerned?)
Sophomore year isn’t any better. It doesn’t suck, but you’re still unhappy. You’re surviving, not living. You start going home every weekend rather than the twice a month schedule you’d originally planned on. Being back in Hopkins reminds you of simpler times. It reminds you of late night Dairy Queen runs, of chatting in an empty parking lot, of that time Paige accidentally honked the horn in her stepmom’s SUV when she tried to pull you onto her lap. Hopkins reminds you of your junior prom, where you and Paige slow danced to Taylor Swift outside the gym, where you told her that you loved her for the first time and she told you that she did, too. Hopkins reminds you of happiness.
In December that year, your mutual friend — Amaya Battle — informs you that Paige fractured her tibial plateau and tore her lateral meniscus. None of that sounded good, but you felt like shit once Krista explained what that all meant. That injury would bench Paige for a couple of months. Despite the time, you still knew Paige well enough to know that she’s not happy about that. You open a long abandoned text thread with her, your last message reading happy birthday! and hers reading Thank you, and begin to draft out a new message. Saying that you’re sorry doesn’t feel like enough, but anything else feels like too much. You settle on simply expressing your condolences and you let her know that you’re praying for her. You’re not surprised when you don’t receive anything more than another “Thank you” in return.
Spring semester is long and uneventful. You still tune in for some of Paige’s games, but once finals are said and done and you’re not feeling any differently, you know that it’s time to move on. You apply as a transfer student for UConn.
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JUNIOR YEAR – 2022-2023
You get accepted into UConn. Reading the Welcome to UConn Nation email feels as good as it did the first time you opened it surrounded by your family. It feels like coming home all over again. The break in between semesters feels painfully short and far too long at the same time, but before you know it, you’re moving into your dorm on campus, laughing along with your new roommate Livya like you’ve been friends forever. She helps you get settled in. Then she shows you around campus, pointing out all of the best study spots and the best dining halls. You meet up with a couple of her friends for lunch and it’s like everything just clicks. You know in your heart that this is where you’re supposed to be.
The news, however, comes to you in the form of an ESPN headline rather than a text from your mutual friend. Paige had torn her ACL nearly a week ago playing a game of pick up. Your heart was caught in your throat. You couldn’t help but feel terrible for Paige. This was supposed to be her healthy season back after her previous injury in December, but here she is on the bench again, healing from an injury she didn’t deserve to get. You feel the strangest sense of deja vu when you message Paige again, extending your condolences, but what you’re not expecting is the phone call from her that comes a few seconds later.
It rings once and all you can do is stare at it, jaw on the ground. On the second ring, your thumb hovers over the answer button. And on the third ring, you commit to it, bringing your phone to your ear. Your heart nearly beats out of your chest as you greet Paige. “Hey.”
Her voice is soft when she responds. “Hey.” It’s a little rough around the edges, mature, but there’s a lingering tenseness to it like she’s trying to keep herself together.
“Wasn’t expecting you to call,” you admit.
“Me neither,” she agrees.
You sit in silence for a few moments before you shift, clearing your throat. There’s so many things you want to say to her, but you know this moment is too fragile, too new. You know you’re not talking to the same girl you once knew. She’s changed. She’s older and she’s wiser and she knows what she wants now. You don’t know how to say what you want to say, although it’s evident that Paige is a little lost, too. “How, um…how are you?” you say finally.
The noise she makes on the other line sounds a little amused. “Well,” she murmurs. “At least it’s not both knees, right?”
You can’t help the choked laugh that draws from you. “God,” you say. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have laughed at that.”
“Nah, s’okay,” she promises. You can hear the slight smile in her voice. “I missed that.”
Your heart thumps against your ribcage. “Missed what?” you ask, but you know what she means.
“Your laugh,” she confirms. “Still the same as it once was.”
You hum. “We’re not the same,” you say softly. “We’ve grown up.”
“Have we?” she asks. You swallow. “We’re older. Learned a lot. Doesn’t mean we’ve changed. Just evolved.”
“Is that not the same thing?”
“Pikachu evolves into Raichu but he’s still Pikachu, isn’t he?”
Despite yourself, you grin. “And you’re still an idiot.”
That makes her laugh. “C’mon,” she drawls. “I got a bum knee and you’re making fun of me?”
“Some things never change.”
“They don’t,” Paige agrees. “Heard you transferred to UConn?”
“I did. UMN wasn’t right for me. It didn’t feel like home.”
“It does here?”
You don’t hesitate when you respond. “Yeah. It does.”
The line falls silent again. You can hear the sound of Paige breathing on the other end. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says finally. Your grin melts into something a little more tender. “Do you wanna come to my dorm? We can catch up.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“Probably not,” she concedes. “But I’m injured and I just spent two years missin’ you and I wanna see you.”
You should feel embarrassed at how little it takes to convince you. Before you realize the words coming out of your mouth, you’re saying, “Send me the address.” She does. Paige’s dorm isn’t too far away from yours. “I’ll be there in ten.”
When you do arrive, the girl who answers the door is not Paige. It’s Azzi Fudd. She knows you by name, offering you a gentle smile and pointing you down the hall to where Paige’s room is. You thank her, your heart caught in your throat, and you make your way through the apartment. You knock and you enter.
Paige glances up immediately as you walk in, her face softening immediately. She’s sprawled out across her bed, her knee secured in a heavy brace and propped up in a pillow. She’s wearing a loose pair of shorts and a long-sleeved UConn shirt. The first thing you notice is how different she is. Her time on the court and in the gym has treated her well. Her shoulders fill out her sweatshirt, muscles taut against the fabric. She’s bulked up and she scraped her old ponytail for a slick back bun, although the ‘slick back’ part is messy, strands flying haphazardly. Her eyes are disarmingly blue, not like that’s changed from the last time you saw her, and her smile is just as you remember. It’s enough to soften you instantly.
“Hey,” she says as you close the door behind you.
“Hi, P,” you murmur. Her face shifts, taking you in, and you know she’s cataloging everything that’s different about you, too. You wear your hair in a new style and the way you carry yourself is unlike the way you carried yourself in high school. It’s not confidence, it’s surety, more you. Behind the curiosity, you can see the lingering guilt, the realization that she broke your heart two years ago yet you still dropped everything to come and see her because she’s injured. You glance around the room, breaking your eye contact, scanning the basketball posters, album covers, and pictures of her and her teammates strewn about. Her comforter is purple, which makes you smile. Some things truly never change. “Nice room.” As soon as the words leave your mouth, you fight a wince because of how awkward it sounds.
“Clean, right?” she jokes, drawing a short laugh from you – you’d always teased her for being messy, often having to motivate her to pick up her room. Her dorm is clean, but obviously lived-in as evidenced by the jacket slung over the arm of a gaming chair and a water bottle or two on the nightstand and the desk. “Nice hoodie.”
It’s only then that you glance down and your face flushes when you realize what you’re wearing. HOPKINS is emblazoned on the front, the number 1 below it. You don’t need to turn it around to know you have BUECKERS stitched on the back. Your eyes find her face again, noting that she’s not upset about it. She’s a little amused, if anything, although there’s something softer in her expression. You shrug a little. “Wasn’t brave enough to get rid of it.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” Her voice is a soft murmur. You meet her eyes, sharing a soft smile. Then, she clears her throat, shifting, and she nods to the spot next to her. “Come talk?” she requests.
You open your mouth, ready to decline. You know that if you fell into these patterns with Paige again, then you’d truly never get over her. Part of you wonders if you want to get over her in the first place, but you know you can’t put yourself through this again if she’s not in it for the long haul. “I don’t think–”
“Please?” she asks softly, her voice catching in her throat. “I just…don’t wanna be alone right now.”
You’re moving before she even finishes her sentence. She moves the blankets for you as you kick off your shoes, sliding in next to her like it’s second nature. When you do, you’re enveloped by her, the scent of her cologne, her body wash, that same brand of shampoo she’s been using since she was seventeen. You can feel the warmth of her body so close to yours and your breath hitches. You can hear the stutter in her breathing, too, and for a moment, you wonder if she’s missed you in the way you’ve missed her. Her fingers twitch like she’s fighting the urge to hold you, like she’s reminding herself she doesn’t really have that right anymore.
“So…” she starts. “Why’d you transfer? Really?”
You sigh. “I couldn’t really find my place at UMN. I struggled in my classes for a while and I had so much trouble making friends. I found a group, but it always felt like I was a plus one. My psychologist and my parents told me to transfer. Even Drew told me to transfer.”
She cracks a small, surprised smile. “You talk to Drew?”
“Our parents still talk, you know,” you say, nudging her, listening to her laughter. “Plus, Drew and my brother are like best friends.” You pause for a moment, twisting the ring on your finger, and hesitantly, you admit, “Drew told me I should transfer to UConn specifically. For you.”
“For me?” Her voice is pitched, her expression unreadable, and you nod.
“Yeah. He said we were happier before the break up.”
Paige chuckles, rolling her eyes. “He’s such a little shit.”
“I wonder where he gets it from?” At that, Paige half-heartedly shoves you, but there’s no force or malice behind it as you laugh. “But I didn’t transfer for you.”
“Of course not.” Her expression betrays her feigned nonchalance, like she thinks you’re full of shit.
“I didn’t!”
“Okay,” she says insufferably and you shake your head. “I, uh…I’m sorry for how I ended things.”
Your smile drops instantly, features softening. “Paige,” you murmur, but she ignores your words entirely. 
“I’ve thought about it for two years,” she admits, “and every day I wish I could go back in time and undo it. I thought I was protecting you but all I did was hurt us both. In the end, it didn’t even change shit. That’s the fucked up part.” She scoffs a little. “And here we are. I broke your heart yet you text me on my birthday, reach out when I injure myself, drop everything to come see me ‘cause my knee’s fucked? Why?”
You swallow thickly, not really needing to think about your response. “It’s you,” you whisper. You hear her breath catch, see the tears welling up in her eyes again. It’s always gonna be you, is the part that goes unsaid, but you wonder if Paige understands it all the same. “I would watch your games sometimes,” you confess. Paige makes a noise that sounds like it’s in between a sigh and a whimper, like hearing you speak is hurting her. You continue anyways, needing to get it off of your chest. “I’d watch your games and I’d cheer you on and wonder what it would be like if you didn’t change your mind, if I was sitting courtside like we’d always talked about. I’d probably be wearing this fucking hoodie or maybe you’d give me some of your UConn gear. Every week, I would talk to Amaya Battle just to ask how you were, and –” Paige interrupts you with a soft whisper of your name, but you shake your head, feeling the long restrained tears drop. “I missed you and all I wanted was you. You were so close yet so far – impossible and out of reach.”
“Not impossible,” she says firmly, her voice rough with tears. Instantly, you’re transported back nearly four years ago when she’d uttered words not too dissimilar. I don’t think it’s out of reach. Not for you. Not for us. “Never impossible. Not you, not me, not us.”
A tear slips down your cheek and she wipes it away. The brush of her finger against your skin, no matter how small, is pure electricity in your veins and you’re breathless for an entirely different reason now. “Aren’t we?” you ask, your eyes on hers. They’re alarmingly blue, brightened by the pool of tears that’s found home in them. You can’t help the way your feelings come rushing back. You were always going to be in love with Paige Bueckers. That’s not a feeling that goes away overnight or even two years after breaking up with her. She’s ruined you for anyone else and you can’t even be mad about it. “We’re different. You’re different.”
“Not different,” she argues, desperation lacing her tone as she squeezes your hands in between her own. “Evolved. I’m still me.”
“That’s the scary part,” you say. It’s scary because you know you’ll never be able to say no to her. You love her too much for that, and deep down, you also there’s nothing more right than you and her.
“It doesn’t have to be.” Her thumb finds your cheek again, clearing the wetness, and your lip trembles when you look at her.  Paige’s expression is unguarded, a clear promise reflected in her eyes. If this all went to shit, you wouldn’t have the energy or the resources to pick your heart up again, but what are you if not brave despite the ache? What if it’s different this time, if you and Paige have grown, not changed, and you’re better for each other? You know better now than to make those same mistakes. You know Paige well enough to know she means what she says. So maybe you’re a fool, or you’re naive, or too trusting for your own good, but you can’t help but believe Paige. “A lot of people have hurt you. I was one of them,” she continues, uncomfortably vulnerable as she swallows. “I will never forgive myself for that but somehow, you did. Whatever it takes, I’ll prove to you that you didn’t make the wrong choice like I did. Give me time and the chance and I’ll show you. I swear.”
Your heart knows your decision long before your brain has made it. That’s just how you work. You nod at her, watching utter relief and gratitude seep through her features, and honestly, when you look back at it, you’re not completely sure who leans in first. But what you do know is that you’re tangling your fingers in her sweatshirt, pulling her impossibly close as you initiate the kiss, something intense and deep and desperate and everything you’ve been wishing for over the past two years. You know it’s a bad idea, doing this out of order, yet you can’t bring yourself to care because Paige shudders against your lips, her hands finding your hips and dragging you impossibly closer. You’re cautious of her knee, trying to minimize the amount of space between your bodies, and you loop your arms around her neck when you pull away to trail your lips down her jaw, the column of her throat. She tilts her head back, granting you more space, and you don’t sober up until you feel one of her tears fall against your cheek.
You pull away from her immediately, feeling as though you’d been submerged in an ice bath. Paige must not register that she’s crying because she chases after you with a noise of dissatisfaction, her hands pressing into your sides. You push her away gently, smiling despite yourself, brushing her tears away with your knuckle. “Maybe we should, um… not make out when we’re crying and emotional?” you suggest.
Paige clears her throat, leaning away from you with great difficulty. “Yeah,” she agrees quickly. “Probably for the best.” You can’t help the huff of laughter that escapes from your mouth. Paige’s lips quirk up, a flicker of hope in her eyes. “We’re okay?” she asks, a little hesitant.
“We will be,” you assure her, not missing the way her face lights up. “But we should probably…”
“Slow down?” Paige finishes.
You nod. “Yeah. Be friends first. We have a lot to catch up on.”
“I can work with that,” she murmurs, her words a direct echo of the first promise she’d ever made to you.
You smile, your heart feeling lighter than it has in years. You breathe a little easier knowing that you’re still you and Paige is still Paige – you’re not the same, but you’re something a little better, more improved, and you have the knowledge to take better care of each other’s hearts this time around. You and Paige have grown up and matured. You lost your way for a while but as you lay in bed next to her like no time has passed at all, you know somewhere deep inside of your body that this is where you’re truly meant to be.
(You and Paige do commit to slow. You know each other like the back of your hands and the love is still there, but you’re determined to do this right this time. So, you keep things friendly, strengthening the connection between the two of you – she introduces you to her teammates, helps you study while she’s out for the season. In turn, you help her with her rehab and you motivate her on the days that feel more bleak.
When the both of you go back home for Thanksgiving break, both of your families are ecstatic to see that you’re “back together” and you don’t think anyone believes the two of you when you say you’re just taking it slow for now. Your little brothers tease you, your dads share knowing glances, and your mothers smile like they know exactly where this is going.
However, when the two of you return to Minnesota for winter break, Paige takes you to the park that the two of you used to spend your time at, leading you to the swings. You talk about anything and everything and nothing, content to just enjoy the moment, but when Paige asks you to be her girlfriend officially – again, but second time’s the charm, right? – you truly have no choice but to say no, kissing her gently as the Minnesotan snow falls around the two of you.
You’re home now.)
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searchingforserendipity25 · 2 months ago
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exorcising my list of unwritten conclave concepts from a few weeks ago i haven't written much since, in case the list is all there ends up coming out of it or anyone wants to welcome any of them into a good home:
cardinal lawrence and sister agnes won each other’s respect and trust during ratzinger’s papacy (liberals who leak church scandals to the justice system and the press stick together). everyone lowkey thinks they are having an affair. they are not, but they do keep sneaking into corners to gossip during the conclave. leaning fully into the reading of sister agnes as the late pope’s intelligence expert. incredibly jaded vatican spy. aldo is not jealous. benitez finds lawrence with the yellow canary eating from his hand and going back to his side after short flights, and has a number of franciscan emotions about it. the whole thing would ideally be about their friendship, different views and thoughts on power, what it looks like, what it ought to look like. responsibility, and doubt. also: how horrible it is the only non smokers in an european workplace.
(does this change anything materially? possibly the adeyemi and trembley situation is revealed much sooner with lawrence and sister agnes working together earlier and sharing intel, which in its turn makes him seem more competent and aggressive in taking down competitors, ergo more votes, ergo more influence? maybe bellini supports him more overtly earlier idk.) 
cardinal lawrence is dead. as a matter of fact, cardinal lawrence has been dead for a few days after the pope dies; unlike the pope, he keeps coming back to do his job. the curia covers up his death, because the dean of the college of cardinals is a ghost who apparently hated his job enough that is it his very literal purgatory is both hard to explain, and bad for the press. the fate of his unliving soul is very much at risk when steering the conclave, which is, uh, fun. cardinal tedesco's vape smoke now strongly smells of sulfur to him, which is probably not satanic in origin but then again might be. people keep voting on him and their belief in him corresponds directly to how much he can interact with the world, which is a very straightforward way to test one’s moral limits and otherwise a great torment. the one silver lining is that he can walk through walls and scoop out corrupt dealing easily, and no one can really tell he is dead. well, barely anyone. cardinal benítez and his ability to walk easily between the liminal spaces and certainties of the world is an outlier, and should not be counted.
dean lawrence keeps getting kidnapped, poisoned, blackmailed and otherwise threatened. this is an unfortunate if occasional part of being the vatican’s manager of two increasingly liberal and unorthodox papacies. it is considerably less fine and unfortunately far too normal for innocent xiv, who has a non-zero number of experiences with friends being kidnapped, poisoned, blackmailed and otherwise threatened. 
bellini/lawrence full on established relationship nonsense. as in, they have been together for thirty years and counting. conclave rewrite?? 
innocent xiv’s phone messages get leaked. innocent xiv’s phone messages consist of selfies with turtles sent to various friends and family, a good deal of memes in the santa marta groupchat, and daily jokes, complaints and affectionate messages to dean lawrence. the media has thoughts. aldo bellini, newly in charge of the papal media strategy, also has thoughts. and prayers.
a glimpse at all the people that Did vote for benítez from the start, and how much his work is or is not known outside the hermetic sphere of the vatican. he's kind of famous in religious activist circle probably! he has fans! he has a wide network of people he regularly approaches for information, resources, mutual aid and donations to his clinics and dioceses! he keeps dropping insane facts about horrifying personal experiences with unnerving serenity!
vincent benítez soft doms cardinal lawrence into taking a rest during the conclave. this incidents turns into a habit and gains new dimensions, as per the forthcoming changes in job status
pope john has an ongoing crisis of faith and also a gigantic imposter's syndrome. unrelatedly, pope john would really really really rather vincent benítez did not die in kabul and/or cause a diplomatic disaster. how convenient, then, that he is now a benevolent religious dictator who can arrange (read: wholesale invent) a number of postings and duties only benítez can accomplish. if anyone ask, this is a long-delayed move on part o the church to develop a deeper connection to on-the-ground aid organization. this can’t possibly last forever, though, can it? 
friar lawrence has shed all politics and chosen an abbey who keeps a vow of silence. friar lawrence is genuinely having a lovely time of things in his little abbey post canon. for like, uh, two months? friar lawrence keeps accidentally gaining more and more influence. manager-guy who cannot not manage. six months in he’s in charge of shelters and social associations. one year on, and he’d be archbishop again, if he were not aggressively trying to clamber down the church hierarchical rung. his friend, innocent xiv, who went from being a non-entity to one of the most famous men in the world, is sympathetic but also thinks this is very very funny. epistolary fic?? email epistolary? there is a little cat in a friar's habit and this is the most important part.
possibly related: cardinal lawrence comes back from his enforced sabbatical in a peaceful retreat freckled, healthier and smiling. people have thoughts on this, and emotions also. 
turtle pov of benitez/lawrence. literally: turtle pov. is the turtle an angel?? unclear if the turtle is an angel.
cardinal tedesco must die au.
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drdemonprince · 11 days ago
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do you see this tendency of people to believe telepathy is real (re: TTT / the commenters on your substack essay) as at all connected to like, how widespread belief in astrology is, and people talking about being witches and doing magic and casting spells, and other similar very woo stuff? it seems like a lot of people are very invested in what i would see as being Fake Shit, obviously some of which is much more harmful than others, and they don’t seem to understand that this thing they expect everyone around them to also believe is true is actually like a supernatural belief or whatever that other people should not be expected to also believe in
I think the cultural and ideological pathways of some of these things can be fairly different. We should be very precise about the mechanisms through which the extreme conspiratorial ideological capture happens and how and why it does.
On the one hand, there is a clear throughline connecting a variety of types of "Conspiritualist" thinking that radicalizes people -- parents who cannot cope with their kids' Autism initially invest their hopes in special gluten-free allergen-free diets, then have Reiki performed on them, then shell out thousands of dollars for dubious untested supplements, then become antivaxxers and claim their children have telepathy and vote for Robert F Kennedy Junior. These beliefs progress in intensity and remove from reality, and they're linked usually to organizations or spiritual leaders who profit off of people and move them forward along the radicalization pipeline.
Similarly, there's a spiritualist/reactionary ideological pipeline that begins with being deeply fatphobic and obsessed about fitness and clean eating that morphs into regular enemas, eating nothing but raw meat, taking Joe Rogan supplements, eschewing all medicine, and voting for conservatives.
Those ideological pathways are quite different from the ones followed by a queer witchy type who initially got into tarot or pendulum-reading as a conscious fuck-you to the homophobic Christianity that they were raised with. I do not see the degree of radicalization happening there that you see with the right-wing conspiritualists and I think it's somewhat messy to conflate the two.
If a person gets into astrology as an queer-dating icebreaker or takes a spellcasting class at the local witchy bookstore, it progresses to, what? Buying too many decorative crystals? Maybe refusing to have a Virgo as roommate? There's biased, unscientific thinking happening here but there simply isn't a massive industry in place devoted to capturing this group, isolating them, leeching them of huge sums of money, and moving them further down an ideologically extremist pipeline.
Of course both communities share interests at times -- astrology, alternative medicine, white person pagan bullshit -- but I think we should be really precise about exactly what's going on here because it's not the case that the bulk of the damage is being done comes from people having a silly hobby or believing something untrue. (Most humans do to some extent). There is a significant difference between owning a few spiritually elevated good-luck items on the one hand, and becoming completely isolated from anyone who believes differently from yourself, eschewing all medical care and educational resources for you and your family, depending upon predatory hucksters and joining hate movements on the other.
There are spiritualist/woo woo communities that capture individuals and move them further along the pipeline of far-right radicalization but picking up a Chani Nicholas book or a steven universe tarot deck is just not gonna lead to that.
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childrenofcain-if · 3 months ago
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Yeah, as accomplished and impressive as the mc is, the mc is far from a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Literally, the scene with V where they try to cook? I cringed when I heard their plans for it (but trying new things is crucial to being good at them). Not to mention other scenes just showing the unbalanced lifestyle (I found Elias asking if the mc had their credit cards to be particularly hilarious) and things they lack. It's not like the mc reaches and touches an extracurricular, and whoops, Bam, Magnus Carlson!
They've also suffered not insignificantly (I can't possibly imagine losing a parent at that young of an age, let alone one you're close to.) And that nosebleed thing must've been a hell of a scare. Also - your reflection looking like that (as in non human or supernatural) would be terrifying. My life isn't notably bad, certainly not all sunshine and rainbows, but if I was offered to become mc and go through all that they will or even all that they have?
Yeah, I think I'll pass. I also think some of it might be people thinking the mc is completely effortless - which I have no idea where they got that - but it's evident while they aren't average in intelligence, they busted their ass off even if they try to play it laidback style. They got the best tutors in the world from a very young age - but that also meant they were using those resources constantly and studying. Not to mention, I think somewhere it's mentioned how mc's time was basically entirely split between studying, extracurriculars, and volunteering.
They're not a god. Just a mortal who had very fortunate resources who worked very, very hard with those resources. Hell, take a normal person with mid resources and have them use that schedule of studying, extracurriculars, and volunteering, and I'd bet they would turn out pretty damn accomplished/impressive too, even if they're not as good as the mc. It's what Richard Feymann said - you can get a normal person to understand quantum physics. They just have to study it well, hard, and for a while.
Yeah, the mc is rich and have quite the privilege, but that doesn't mean they didn't work hard for it and also lost some things in the trade off (mc might know how to cook if they weren't studying "all" the time and took the time to learn, for example)
Mc kind of reminds me of what's referred to as a glass cannon - exceptionally good at one or a few things, but at the severe (and probably unworthy) detriment of being very bad at others. Does mc even know what FAFSA is?
Also, the literal fatal flaw? An actual list? And mc can be as stupid (wisdom stat, not intelligence) and just party all the time.
If anons were going to pick on a character for being "too perfect" then M almost makes more sense. 10 languages, God knows how many instruments, in a good position in HoS, is probably crushing all of their classes, and is majoring in philosophy which can get wildly difficult now and again before toning back down (Nietzche, Kant, and Hegel, probably). Oh, they're also an RA. They to me seem more insane than mc does, even a mc who is designed to be crazy like vocal lessons, two sports, robotics, and debate club, with no burnout. And yet, they are perfectly flawed.
The mc just worked exceptionally hard, is clever, and had literally the best possible resources to get the most bang for their (or rather, Elias's) buck. I think about anyone would - at least - do very well in academia and extracirriculars if they had the best tutors in the world training them in those respective areas from a very young age.
this.
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hellsite-proteins · 12 days ago
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also, do you know any other fun proteins where the amino acids react with eachother to form a new chemical? like residues 65-67 in GFP cyclysing to form the chromophore?
to start, i had a bit of a hard time finding the right search terms for this question, and a lot of what i found is more focused on synthetic or enzymatic methods used in labs, rather than lists of natural examples. if anything is wrong or missing as always pls lmk! i rambled a lot so that info is going to get hidden under the cut, but here is the tl;dr of three relevant PTMs
one takeaway I had from trying to find things is just how unique GFP actually is! it has been important enough for studying biological systems that its discovery was awarded the nobel prize in 2008, and a lot of incredible chemistry went into modifying its structure to make other fluorescent proteins in different colours. this is important if you want to look at more than one thing by fluorescent microscopy, and was done by altering residues around the chromophore to influence its protonation state/pKa through the local environment.
disulphide bonds:
so many proteins: insulin. RNAse A. chymotrypsin. etc.
isopeptide bonds:
the collagen-binding domain of S. aureus Cna and probably several bacterial pili have intramolecular isopeptide bonds
Vibrio cholerae, which causes cholera, makes isopeptide bonds to cross-link actin in its host
there are more examples of isopeptide bonds on wiki
biaryl ethers:
a lot of these are not made by ribosomes, and it looks like all of them are fairly small and funky looking peptides, but i think that has to count at least a little bit. here are a couple:
patellamide A
telomestatin (the wiki page on this one is so short and as far as i could tell, we aren't even sure yet if this is made by ribosomes or not so i'm really pushing things here on what counts)
letter sequence in this ask matching protein-coding amino acids:
alsdyknwanytherfnprteinswheretheaminacidsreactwitheachthertfrmanewchemicallikeresidesinGFPcyclysingtfrmthechrmphre
protein guy analysis:
for all the time i spent on this post, the protein itself is kind of underwhelming. its a shorter one with three alpha helices and a small, two strand antiparallel beta sheet, with some loops in between. this could be a real peptide, or it could just be the confused ramblings of an algorithm trying to make shapes out of an input. the confidence score is pretty low, so as usual my bet would be on the latter option, but who knows? maybe this could stably exist in real life? dream big and all that
predicted protein structure:
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the main keyword i was using was 'protein cyclization', so i'm sure i missed a lot, and most of what i found is focused more on synthetic methods, but i was still able to get some good information.
this first article here gives a nice overview of protein cyclization, and a lot of different and super neat ways it can be done. if anyone wants me to give a more detailed breakdown of this article i would be happy to, since i'm not sure how clear it is to people without much of an organic chemistry background.
this next article gives an overview of post translational modifications, and also looks like a good resource with a lot of information. there are so many different PTMs out there, so if you'd like me to discuss one in particular a little more, let me know as well.
this gave me a few specific PTMs to find examples of.
the first and most obvious is disulphide bonds, which are what you are describing, but far less unique, so i also want to give some other examples
another example is isopeptide bonds, which are formed between an amine and carboxyl group just like a regular peptide bond, except that these amine and/or carboxyl groups are part of the side chain, not the peptide backbone
and finally, i found biaryl ethers, which i had never actually heard of before, and are only made by microbes and scientists, and are interesting for pharmaceuticals
there are more examples that involve cyclization with the backbone, and other types of PTMs beyond cyclization, but i've already spent too long on this, so if you want something more specific then you have to ask for it
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wheelie-sick · 17 days ago
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Happy rare disease day!
-> let's talk about lupus 💜🦋
lupus is sometimes referred to as "the most common rare disease" because it sits right on the line of the definition of rare. regardless, it's definitely true that people with lupus are hard to come by. we're lucky to have thriving online communities on some platforms (not Tumblr, RIP) but offline communities and support groups are few and far between.
lupus is an autoimmune connective tissue disorder named after... wolves, for some reason? there's a lot of debate over why someone several centuries ago decided wolves would represent us well.
there are several types of lupus but the most common is systemic lupus erythematous (SLE), when people are referring to lupus they are almost always referring to this type of lupus. this is the type of lupus I have and the type I know most about so this is the type I'll be discussing in this post.
The basics
lupus is an autoimmune disease that attacks all tissues in your body. yes, all. it can go after any form of soft tissue and even includes your brain and parts of your bones within its reach. this makes lupus a very hard to pin down disease because it can look like anything. I've heard it referred to as "the great imitator" which I think is an excellent title.
with that said, some targets are more common than others.
The symptoms
like the previous section implied there are thousands of presentations of lupus. just about everything has been recorded in association with lupus. my best friend once joked "I bet lupus doesn't cause gangrene" but a case study disagrees.
The lupus foundation of America has excellent resources on some of the most common effects on different body systems. they are by no means comprehensive but they give a good gist of symptoms
some of the key symptoms:
fatigue
joint pain & swelling, arthritis
severe, persistent headaches that don't respond narcotic analgesics
fevers
sensitivity to UV light (UV triggers symptoms)
the butterfly rash (a red, painless rash across your cheeks and the bridge of your nose- sometimes your chin as well)
hair loss
mouth ulcers (typically with a white ring around them)
Raynaud's phenomenon
-> having these symptoms does not automatically mean you have lupus. please do more research before self diagnosing 🙏 if you think you have lupus I would strongly recommend seeing a doctor ASAP! lupus can go from fine to dead in a matter of minutes. <-
Death by lupus
lupus survival odds have increased substantially in the last 20 years but the disease remains incredibly dangerous- particularly to those of us with severe or refractory (non/under responsive to treatment) versions of it. the younger someone develops lupus, the more likely they are to have a severe presentation of the disease.
in particular, children with the disease (under 10) have very low survival odds.
lupus can kill in an almost infinite number of ways. lupus is capable of killing quickly with blood clots, strokes, pulmonary embolisms, heart attacks, and much more. lupus is also capable of killing slowly through lupus nephritis.
lupus nephritis is present in about 40% of people with lupus. lupus nephritis is a kidney disease causing kidney inflammation. it is highly destructive and often leads people to kidney dialysis, kidney transplant, and death by kidney failure. developing lupus nephritis drops your survival rates significantly.
Treatment
lupus is treatable for most people! the most common treatments include immunosuppressants, steroids, and anti-malarials.
many, if not most, people with lupus are immunocompromised. (which is why it's always good to wear a mask)
while refractory lupus does exist, most people with it are able to get their disease under control.
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thebibliosphere · 8 months ago
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Hello there - I had a question which I think(?) you might be able to help with. Or at least point me in the direction of more information.
I have a few chronic illnesses and disabilities and as such there's many gremlins I deal with. One thing that crops up a lot are comorbidities between my conditions.
I'm trying to be more vigilant with regards to my health - as a child there were many, many missed opportunities to get my symptoms seen to by a doctor (all squandered due to my parents nor believing me about my symptoms).
Anyway, I wanted to ask about MCAS and if you know it's possible to have it but not realise it?
I've had a few incidents like this, but mostly forgot them or ignored them. But yesterday I ate some basil from my windowsill plant and I had what can only be described as an allergic reaction. I'm not allergic to any foods (as far as I know) but I've eaten from this exact plant before and been fine. I have mint growing next to it which I also ate and it caused the same reaction. Again, I've eaten from this exact plant before. It was like my mouth was burning or stinging and the leaves felt, spicy? In my mouth. I'm not sure how to describe it but I hope you know what I mean. Today I ate from the exact same plants and had no reaction whatsoever.
I've definitely had similar things happen before- but events like yesterday are few and far between. But utterly confounding when they do happen. I have urticaria (diagnosed since age 18) which I suspect is relevant, somehow.
I'm starting to wonder if a lot of my symptoms I've written off have actually been MCAS. But I'm not sure. Do you have any advice around talking to a doctor about this or if I have a leg to stand on so to speak?
Sending my best wishes!
Hey friend, sorry to hear you've been dealing with some neglect.
And considering MCAS was only really recognized as a condition in the last 15 years, it's absolutely possible to have it and not know until symptoms get worse. I was experiencing anaphylactoid reactions my whole childhood, but because I tested negative on IgE tests (I still do), it was dismissed as anxiety right up until I hit my 30s and I experienced my first episode of full-blown idiopathic anaphylaxis.
(Note: anaphylaxis is not a requirement for diagnosis, and not everyone experiences it.)
You should discuss your inconsistent allergies with your doctor or allergist. I would also advise pursuing allergen testing, as new allergens can develop at any time, even if you don't have mast cell instability.
If you suspect some form of mast cell instability may be the root cause of your issues, I'd suggest checking out The Mast Cell Disease Society. (Their website is in the process of being updated, still. But they have good resources there.)
Their signs and symptoms (and triggers) page has recently been updated and is fairly concise:
If any of that rings a bell, it might be worth bringing up with your allergist, but fair warning, not everyone is receptive to the idea of mast cell disorders outside of mastocytosis. (And even then some doctors gaslight their patients to hell and back.)
If you do find yourself in this situation, try joining a couple of support groups to see if there are any MCAS aware doctors in your area, or alternatively, try the TMS physician finder tool:
Sorry if it seems like I'm just throwing a lot of links at you, but they are very useful links and I'm not at my best right now to explain things.
I hope this is helpful and if I missed something, please let me know.
I wish you luck in remedying your chronic health issues <3
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cameoliob · 3 months ago
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what are your headcanons for kallus and jovan? how did they get together? who fell first and whose heart broke first? do they still hate each other when kallus joins the rebellion or do they simply act like the pettiest bitches towards each other? enquiring minds want to know
ANON THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME AN EXCUSE TO TALK ABOUT THIS IVE BEEN WAAIITTTIINNNGG
Before I get into this I have to legally preface that 1. I’m a Kallus from the lower levels truther + I operate off the assumption that he does not have any family and that plays a decent role in what's going on 2. We dont know alot about Jovans personality so I lowkey just go off vibes but in my brain, teenage him is starry-eyed, a little naive, but SO kind. Older him is a little bit of a douche (not terrible, just the kind of guy that you have to scoff at whenever they talk too much). 
Okay I have a whole headcannoned timeline so im gonna lay this out for u
It's 19 BBY, the empire just started enlisting and all the rich Coruscanti kids are FIGHTING for a chance to go to the academy because “wow that sounds so much more fun than regular university.” Jovan is a part of this demographic. 
So you’ve got this whole class of rich kids doing rich kid things, and Jovan is having a great time; it’s the fourth week of school, he’s found his friend group, he gets along great with his bunk mates, everything is fantastic.
Except theres just this one… fucking guy…
This guy is in, like, half of Jovans classes and Jovan just can’t stop thinking about him because where in stars name did this skinny, scrappy, snappy, kid with a gnarly side eye come from???? Why is he so sickly looking???? And so mean????
And Jovan’s always been a curious guy, he wants to figure out what this guy’s deal is so he, of course, takes it upon himself to befriend this Edward Cullen looking ass dude. Easier said than done; Jovan finds out very quickly that Kallus does not trust easily and it takes at least three weeks of Jovan forcing his friendship on him (inviting him to sit with him in the mess hall, offering to help with assignments, sitting next to him in class, ect.) for Kallus to hold a full conversation with him. 
From there, though, it gets easier. Turns out that Kallus is, quite possibly, the coolest guy Jovan has ever met. He doesn't gaf about what people think about him, he’s gotten into fist fights before (real ones, not sparring!), he fucking parties, he fucks, he can hotwire a speeder, he’s so naturally smart, and cunning, and resourceful– Jovan is completely entranced by this guy. 
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^^^(completely entranced by this guy.. I never said Jovan had good taste)
In the meantime, Jovan helps Kallus out with some of the pre-req classes needed for their first year, because as cool as he is, Kallus is not good at physics. 
By the end of their first year at the Academy, Jovan and Kallus become very close. It’s that kind of friendship between guys that, if you saw it from an outsider's perspective, you’d be like, “oh… are they..?? Do they..????? What???” but tbh they don't even think about it because they’re too busy being stupid
Now, the imps do NOT like taking days off, BUUUUT all those rich families donating to the academy do, so I imagine that– at least in the first few years of the empire– the academy had a short, 3 or so week long summer break. 
So we get to break, and Kallus is like “oh wait, I don’t have anywhere to go over break, guess I’ll just rough it out on the streets for a few weeks ig. Nothing new tbh.” And Jovan is like, “What???? No???? You’re not doing that????” and Jovan invites Kallus to tag along on his family vacation (idk where they go, maybe like Naboo or smth, I didn't think that far). Kallus obviously accepts. 
So they go on this vacation, and Jovan is thinking to himself, Waiiiiiittttt a minute………. I actually have wanted him so bad for like 3 months. Maybe it was a bad idea to invite him, like I’m gonna blow my cover fuckuckufckufcjukcf.  But he’s like not trying to do anything about it because he’s all nervous. But THEN, last week of vacation Kallus is like. “I actually think that you should let me kiss u on the mouth.” and Jovan is like “okay bbg say less.” (Jovan fell first if that wasn’t clear)
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(This situation is about to get ALOT gayer)^^^
AND THEN THE BREAKUP
They graduated the academy a year prior, Kallus has been doing his ISB training, Jovan has been doing whatever tf you do to become a lieutenant. They’ve been together for four-ish years atp. 
Kallus is SO locked in with his ISB training. Like he was a dedicated student before (he was top of his class for a reason), but this is borderline obsession. He’s never home, always working, always tired, ect ect. In the meantime, Jovan is climbing the ranks and he is lowkey kind of power tripping over it. He’s getting kind of entitled, a little passive aggressive, and is not really putting effort in tbh.
So Jovan is all annoyed because Kallus is always at work and he literally just wants to hang out with his boyfriend. Tbh, he thinks that Kallus is getting way too ambitious way too quickly.
And Kallus is all annoyed because Jovan isn’t giving him any good reasons to leave work, in fact, Jovan has been grating his nerves lately because he doesn’t do anything. Jovan isn’t ambitious enough. 
The resentment is BUIILLLDDDIINNNGGG
The night they break up is FUCKING CRAZY, OKAY
Jovan picks a fight because he fucking feels like it and Kallus is not having ANY OF IT. Huge blowout fight ensues; Jovan says something classist or something, Kallus calls him an “entitled, prissy twat,” Jovan tells Kallus with the “you wouldn’t have even graduated without my help,” Kallus fuckinf kicks the wall or something, Jovan starts yelling about the drywall, Kallus is like “okay, fuck you AND your goddamn drywall,” and JUST LEAVES
The next day Jovan comms Kallus like “bbg pleapelaleapsleapsleaplsea I messed up im sorry plzplzpzpzlpzlzpzlzp” and Kallus ignores the hell out of him. 
Kallus is pissed because tbh if things just went better, he honest-to-god would have married that man, but noOOOooOOooO, Jovan had to be STUPID
AND THEN SIXTEEN YEARS LATER KALLUS ARRESTS THAT HO and he is SOOOO HAPPY ABOUT IT
But then Jovan shows up in the rebellion and Kallus is so annoyed. 
Because for 1. He is kind of prissy and self important and most people would agree with that 2. No way they ended up in the same place after 18 years, that is so bs, and 3. It’s so awkward that Jovan has all of this info about who Kallus was growing up, and the life he lived before going into the ISB– in fact, he probably knows more than anyone in the Ghost crew just because he was there– and that is so mortifying
Jovan is so stoked
Because for 1. Kallus did all that work in the ISB only to end up a rebel anyways and that is hilarious 2. He has so much mildly embarrassing material about him in his back pocket. But tbh it’s kind of bittersweet for him because Kallus is his One that got away (He was planning on going RING SHOPPING, and then he got BROKEN UP WITH, what the FUCK) and he always reasoned with it by thinking that Kallus was irrevocably changed by the empire, and the Kallus he fell in love with wasn’t going to come back. BUT THEN IT TURNS OUT THAT HE IS BACK– yeah, he’s got a beard now, and he pretends to be all serious, but he’s the same snarky, cunning, side eyeing idiot that he fell for. And he knows he can't have him because that train has LEFT THE STATION
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^^(This art is old so its a little jank but shhhhhhhhh, its the vibes that matter)
So he obviously deals with this by selling embarrassing pictures of Kallus from their academy years to Sabine, because that’s probably the best revenge he’s going to get.
Kallus is obviously over him, and has been for a LONG time, he just doesn't like Jovans personality, and Jovan kinda wants Kallus back but apparently that's not an option so they do end up creating a dynamic where they are so petty to each other when they get the chance. (Which is not often because the rebellion is big and if they can avoid each other, they will.)
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skeletonh0e · 4 days ago
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Darling, just start the Chase
Description: You unfortunately go into heat, dealing with that alone is unpleasant but your pheromones trigger each of their own respective heats. Four of the most deadly men in the multi verse are desperate to compete for the right of mate, can you escape or will the boys kill each other trying to get to you? A/N: Extremely self indulgent that's been rumbling around in my brain for a bit, had to write it out. There will be multiple parts, rest assured. Fem Reader with AFAB anatomy, x Killer Sans, Horror Sans, Nightmare Sans & Dust Sans. Everything is consensual (though not safe or sane), but it's a heat fic with the typical elements of dub con/cnc, lost of control, possessive behavior, etc. Reader is a monster, species is vague, kinda went the route of them having an implied romance with all four Sanses going on already but it kind of left all up to interpretation regarding the exact history with each Sans. I did my best to spell check and beta read but it's probably still messy, sworry
MINORS DNI
You're up early, really early. The sun hadn't even properly risen yet, your body felt flush and the moment you went to simply sit up, your nearly groaned as something extremely sensitive coursed through your sex. It didn't quite click yet, you've woke up horny before but as you got onto your feet properly you feel the sheer dampness in between your legs.
Then you remembered the time of month and the year.
Fuck.
This was not the ideal time for this, far from it, your heat cycle was never a pleasant time. You always rode it out alone for better or worse, the thing about it was that once you really got going on it you just couldn't stop. And it tended to go on for a week at best, only cutting short if you managed to get yourself properly knocked up within a few days. Having a kid was one thing but going deep into a craze of non stop week sounded nice at first but it'd leave you tired after the fact as well as throw all current ones out the window.
That couldn't happen you had plans, that's not even mentioning you promised to meet with Nightmares Crew, fuck, those stupid toxic assholes
You nearly whine, flashes of their faces coursing through you and images of being pinned underneath him. Fuck, your insides clench and your can't help but wonder how fucking ruined your underwear is. Your pussy is so fucking ready for this, that instictinual part to be claimed, fucked, breed good and proper. You cringe a bit, it's hard to tell how much that idea naturally appeals to you and how much of it is hormones going crazy. It's probably just both when you get down to it.
No, you cannot see any of them like this. That's not even mentioning how they might react to this news, you could trust Nightmare and Axe to be mature, maybe Dust, but Killer? You're already dreading the thought.
You'll make up some excuse, for now...? You gotta take care of this, wasn't there some medicine that helped with the severity of these? You should get on looking into that. Quickly, your force your feet to your closet, picking out....whatever. It was a pretty boring set of clothes, but it gave you some much needed layers to your sensitive body. More skin covered the better.
The moment you have your bedroom though, there's someone in the hallway. Someone you just decided you were going to try to avoid right now,
"Dust...." you breathe out in clear surprise.
He's leaning against the wall, face completely covered though from his posture it didn't seem like he was looking at anything in particular, he doesn't respond at first but slowly turns to look at you, "good mornin' sleeping beauty"
"I think I'm the one that should be saying that to you....you've been up longer," not that you minded too much, though him visiting was one thing him doing so while you were asleep? That was new, "Do you...uh, need something?"
"boss ordered me and the others to escort you today somethin' happened and he wants look outs on all our resources" he's not telling you everything.
You frown trying to put the pieces together....something was concerning enough for Nightmare to send all his goons to look after you? You'll need to get onto that but, "Where are the others?" you ask, trying once again to ignore your clit throbbing at the idea of the other two here
"on their way here soon I imagine I got here early," he stops leaning on the nearby wall, taking a step closer to you, "seems like a good thing I did"
There was something....strange in how he was looking at you, a brief flash of his multi colored eyes and you felt like prey under the gaze of a far large more dangerous animal, it triggers your instincts to run away but you resist. "Guessin' there's no point in telling ole' Mare that I'm fine for today?"
"cut the shit," his tone was unusually blunt, "I can smell that"
You frown again, about to ask him to elaborate but he motions to your hips, taking another step closer and you take a step back.
"don't think boss knows, would have come to get you himself otherwise, but i'm glad for it I get you all to myself," he presses forward and you're slowly being backed up before you know it.
Your mind is racing, arousal surging through you as you're both scared as hell yet impossibly aroused by the scene unfolding before you. He's already figured out you're in heat? You wanted to hope you had been at least a little subtle but your back is pushed against the wall and loud thuds ring out against both sides of your head. His hands tightly planted on both sides of you as you're face to face with him.
You can even make out a decent chunk of his face from his hood, that's saying something.
"Back off," you hiss out, but he doesn't even falter.
"do you actually want me to?"
You don't respond back instantly, your expression clearly mirroring the flurry of conflicted emotions. You know you want this, need this, but you also know once this starts it's not going to stop. That's not even accounting for other factors like how you liked Dust but you've never gone as far as to sleep with him or even any of them before.
Your lack of immediate response was confirmation enough, as his hands are then placed on your shoulders, an alarming amount of force added just to keep you pinned and in place. Another factor that was added to this already intense situation getting tenser but his forcefulness turned you on even more. You can call it you being a freak or pure instinct but it's there
"you like making us work for it? you like knowing your struggling gets us off?" his voice is nearly a growl, the sound rendering your mind blank enough you don't think about what the implications of 'us' means here, "i'm not much better honestly keeping you here, holding you down, not lettin' you escape, it does something for me"
You're starting to question where all this aggression is coming from, not that Dust was ever gentle in the sense but less violent than Axe or Killer. However his hips grind against your own and you can feel how fucking hard he is through both of your clothes. Heat shoots through your core, further empathized as you manage to fully smell him.
He's in heat too.
You're still tightly pinned underneath him, Dust goes to lean down to bite your jugular, it wasn't extremely painful but it was firm, definitely felt, definitely leaving a mark and the mewl you make in response to it is nearly embarrassing as his hands go to grope at your body, hurtedly burying themselves underneath the several layers of clothes.
How can he be in heat? How? There ain't no way you two both happened to have perfectly synched cycles unless you were truly unfortunately unlucky, did...did you do this to him? Fuck, does it even matter? His smell is making you further messy and needy and your smell is fueling his growing aggression, it's so fucking tantalizing
"Dust," you grasp out, his hips continuing to rut against yours desperate for some frition.
Fuck, what would the others say? They were coming soon weren't they? Is this how it's going to be? The other two walking in on each other dry dumping like horny teenagers trying to hide from their respective parents?
He certainly doesn't seem to care, if you probably asked he'd probably like the idea of fucking you right in front of them. Once again it's hard to tell where these are natural desires you're both having or just getting pushed on by the pheromone filled heat.
"god fucking damn," clearly getting frustrated with all the clothes in-between you two, his hands curl into tight balls clutching your attire clearly about to rip the fabric off you, "inside. i need inside you now."
Was this happening? He was going to rip off your clothes then mate you here probably in front of his other coworkers once they arrive? And how bad was it that at this rate you'd happily let him? Even if resisting would have encouraged him more.
"Dus-" you were going to rasp out his name again, parts of your shirt already torn and the chill of the room hits you, but the scene is quickly stopped as in a blur of red and black, Dust was kicked off you.
Literally. Kicked. And flung across the room.
"You fucking slut," Killer arrived, clearly less than amused by the sight before you. His annoyance at Dust, not you, "You know damn well boss has a soft spot for this bitch, if he finds out you were trying to put your dick in her, he'd be pissed as all hell, especially if I let you."
Dust didn't respond as he got back onto his feet, glaring daggers at the other. Killer already dawning his knife as if expecting a fight already. "And if I'm getting his trouble it's because I put my dick in her, capiche?"
"fuck off" was the only reply that Dust barked back with,
Killer actually looked disappointed, "C'mon your comebacks are usually better than that, don't tell me that-" he froze, smelling something and that's when he turned to look at you. Something...changing in his expression, one that made your stomach twist.
Okay, clearly you and Dust weren't the only one being affected by your heat. Is this going to be the case with Axe too? Nightmare even? That odd mix of both fear and arousal shot through you again, unfortunately Dust and Killer took note of this.
"Oh ho, maybe I was wrong, does Boss know she's all like this?" he took a step forward, you were worried you were about to be pinned for a second time but Dust immediately stands in his way, the two glare at each other but you take the opportunity to shuffle to the other side of the room to gain some much needed distance.
Your pussy was going crazy with want, there were now two other monsters both in heat here and the desperation of your state was starting to show. Mentally you were cursing yourself, at this rate you're starting to think you might as well give up on your plans for the week, the universe was clearly conspiring against you in the best worst way possible.
"I see what's going on here, you were trying to keep her all to yourself? If Boss sent us all to take care of her, we should share shouldn't we?" Killer hummed, though honestly it didn't seem like he actually believed Nightmare sent them out for this reason alone. But it's clear that he wasn't willing to back down and let Dust have you either.
Your eyes scanned the area, you knew your own home like the back of your hand though you weren't aware of how familiar the boys were with your universe in particular. How far could you actually get?
The hooded skeleton let out a huff, "you won't share, I won't share, Axe ain't gonna fucking share either, you know that."
"he's right on that part," the gruff voice startled you as you turned around to see Axe looming off in the shadows, he's....salivating....okay the heat is affecting him too. Fuck, you have not one not two but three lust filled unhinged skeletons in your house, your thighs desperately clenched together.
God dammit....
"H-hey guys, don't I get a say in this?" your voice comes out a bit strained, "I don't want to be with any of you."
That's a lie, it's a bold face lie, the boys can all smell how it's a lie. But you don't want to just give in to it, not yet at least.
"you wouldn't be smellin' that good if that was really the case," Axe informed, his gaze inherently predatory as the others also stalked forward.
"I think she just wants us to chase her? Don't you? She loves being a tease after all," Killer laughed, "Or maybe she wants to see which one of us can successfully hunt her down."
"you both seem to be forgetting that I got here first," Dust added on.
"This isn't dibs, you don't win the game by being first," Killer chuckled, "It's a matter of who gets to her and who keeps her, she's already planning to run away. And when she runs from you she'll run right into my arms."
What is even happening? God, things are escalating, how long can you outrun any of them? They all have shortcuts, maybe Axe uses them far less than the other two but they still have them and how far can you get from three dangerous killers. You feel like easy prey in a growing impossible situation. Maybe you should just summon Nightmare to have him call off his lackies, but that's assuming he wouldn't be affected by his heat.
But honestly even if he wasn't there's no guarantee he might insert himself as a player in this game, despite what he claims he could be just as immature and petty as his underlings.
"You all couldn't even manage to catch me if you tried," you hissed out, playing along for now. If you actually did manage to escape them, then good, you could continue the rest of this week out mostly according to plan. If not well....it took everything in your will power to stop your legs from trembling.
Worst ways to spend a week you guessed.
"so it is a challenge then," Axe hummed, an sinister sounding chuckle erupting from him, "you might wanna be careful with those words, unlike these two i actually have experience tracking down prey and with that scent you won't get far"
"You underestimate me," Killer cooed, Dust pointedly saying nothing. "Let's be a little fair to her, hows about a five...maybe ten minute head start?"
Neither of them interjected, guessed that was agreed upon. Only ten minutes? How much ground could you cover in that time? Does it matter when it doesn't even seem like they're willing to negotiate on that?
"Clock starts now rabbit," Killer informed, pointing to his non-existent watch.
You took a deep breath, this was definitely happening. "Catch me if you can, boys." was the only response you could properly huff out, before immediately turning to book it out the back door. Not before hearing Killer smugly shout out,
"Nine minutes left!"
Silence lingered in the room among the three Sans as they allowed you to at least gain some ground, Dust being the one to break it with a realization.
"boss isn't gonna be happy about this," the one thing Killer was right about.
"What? You gonna snitch?" Killer asked, his tone making it clear that he was against the very idea of this getting back to their boss in any form. "If he finds out, worst case scenario we're all punished for it....best case scenario he joins in on our game."
"you mean he'll cheat," Axe informed tactfully, "already don't trust you on that front,"
"What?" Killer huffed, clearly offended, "I would never!"
"you would," Dust snarled, "so here's the deal, any of us start playing unfairly then we call boss, got it?"
Killer and Axe shared a look, no one wanted Nightmare involved. They were all under his thumb in some form or another and his "soft spot" for you was fairly well known at this point, he'd just steal you away before any of them could come close.
Silently they just both nodded.
"how much time does she have left?" Axe asked, eyes scanning to the door you left open in your haste.
Killer's smirk widened, "Five minutes."
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rxzennia · 5 months ago
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echoes from afar
– tales of the voracity pathstrider
✎𓂃 your friends… they call for you. this was from a few version updates ago, but i've been mad busy and unmotivated these days… :( lore with a sprinkle of aventurine. a very, very tiny sprinkle. so i thought i could get this up last week. i am a clown. also, samsung's one ui 6 is so ugly (edit: i got used to the ugly ui. still doesn't quite like it, though. but i got used to it enough to tolerate it). 
→ part ii (wip? deciding. lmk if a sequel sounds cool.)
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you didn't think you'd hear your own species ever again. oroboros is somewhere in the universe, qlipoth was probably keeping them out of where civilizations are, and the rest are all either dead or scattered. but here you are, hearing distant screeches from a star system lightyears away from yours, the sound slowly getting closer, closer, closer.
the war between aeons seems inevitable now that you've walked the land amongst mortals, seen their strife, and tasted the ever-so-familiar touch of entwining paths heralding the conflict. the longer you spend living, masquerading as someone who will someday die, you see the violent undercurrents under every calm ocean, as if everything is running on a countdown.
of course, you will never truly understand any of that; time has never been a limited resource for you.
you can almost hear the screeches of your own kin right by your ear
but you know, clear as day, that there's only you on the balcony right now
you're alone on the balcony of aventurine's bedroom, your boss snoring away comfortably cuddled up to his cats
you haven't been able to sleep for a while
not since you've heard the first cry of a leviathan in literally ages
leviathans seldom communicate with one another, so why would they suddenly reach out now?
and you were fairly certain that oroboros is the only other one left
well, the only one that's still actively doing who-knows-what somewhere, anyways
either what you're hearing is the lingering cries of those who are already gone
or you're delusional and you're hallucinating
aventurine doesn't seem to notice your absence, probably because of his abundance of things to cuddle with apart from your person. a good thing, you suppose, because your chronically stressed boss needs his beauty sleep.
you don't intend to drag anyone into your worries. it's nothing you can't handle alone – or, rather, it's not something mortals can handle, even with an organization as robust as the ipc. your existence, your true descent of a dusk leviathan, your connection to the aeon of voracity, none of which are burdens your companions should bear. 
it's these quiet moments when your kin raises their voices and sing in your ears
no, scrap that poetic shit, more like screech in your ears
they recognize prey, they recognize a hunting ground, a free-for-all
it's only natural, you suppose, lest predators start to devour each other in hunger
they're trying to locate you, the sound echoing, bouncing back, as they seek out food
"i'd strongly advise against doing that," you mumble, patting your scarf idly, as if you can't be bothered to care
they're not too far from where your true form slumbers, it seems, and it's easier than a cakewalk to force them into submission
and yet, you cannot locate them
you have their general location, but you can't pinpoint their exact coordinates
you try again, and again, until you come to a realization
they're dead a long time ago; there is nothing for you to find
their wails echo into nothingness, a void that is even more empty than oroboros's stomach
by the time you realize the purpose of these ancient cries, your true form is already stirring from its slumber. in all its majesty, its maw parting to split heaven and hell, until it swallows the carcasses of your kin, until it slithers through the stars, seeking out its next meal.
for the first time in the entire two thousand amber eras of your "existence", you feel hungry. famished, even, and it is a strange feeling.
have you gotten too accustomed to the mundane?
have you been domesticated?
quite some good questions, actually
how long has it been since you've actually allowed yourself the pleasure of devouring planets?
far too long
but it's wrong to eat civilizations
it's wrong to put an end to so many histories and futures because you were feeling peckish
it doesn't even actually "fill" you, so that's just triple the wrong
well, by the textbook definition of wrong, anyways
you don't really understand, but you know the general consensus of "eating people bad"
but your stomach yearns for the familiar feeling of life in its void
you turn around to take a peek at the peacefully sleeping man in the bed, safely tucked away in the blankets
a perfect prey right there, defenseless and unsuspecting
it would be so easy to just gobble him up without anyone noticing
and you could slip away just as easily
your entire profile is fabricated – you can always just make another "you" elsewhere 
but you find yourself extremely reluctant to even wake your extension coiled around the oddly-shaped cats
you find the trust that mortals impart upon you a gift of most intrigue
it is such a fragile, precious thing, and yet they offer it to you freely
especially this man who you serve as an assistant…
aventurine. 
it isn't even his real name, but you find yourself mouthing the syllables again and again. this man who is bestowed the title of a gemstone, wielding the power of the amber lord who strives to protect mortals from your kind like you're some sort of eldritch horror, yet also the one who has you wrapped around his finger.
and you're one of the select few he holds close to his heart. against all odds, he had let you into his heart, see his wounds and scars, and trusts you with all of them. he might act the way he does, but you know how delicate he is underneath all that bravado.
out of curiosity, you try to move the leviathan amongst the pile of limbs, sheets, and felines
as you expected, it doesn't want to answer
it seems that your body doesn't want to act on any malicious intents
you really did get domesticated… 
oh, aeons, it'll come back and bite you in the ass someday, won't it?
even if you have no qualms about eating anything that's not intelligent 
like monsters and stuff
but still
you shouldn't have developed aversion to devouring entire persons
it is what it is, you suppose
but holy fuck, those screeches from galaxies away just would not stop
"fucking oroboros, shut the hell up already," you groan, pulling up your scarf to muffle your complaints, "i'm not eating anyone here."
if there was someone behind all this pestering, you definitely would've gone and beaten them up. but. but. there's no one behind this. none that you can think of.
unless it really is oroboros themselves, which you'll have an even bigger problem on your hands. you really hope it isn't.
the noises clear up into words, whispering into your ears
consume. devour. feed. destroy. 
cast them into the void. let them be your sustenance. take their power as your own.
you are a predator. why are you among prey?
they are many but fragile. why do you still hesitate?
no.
no, they are not fragile.
they are not prey.
they are not sustenance.
do not speak of them as if they are nothing but food.
what do you know of the people inhabiting the countless planets in the cosmos?
what do you know of the storms they have weathered?
humanity is stronger than you would ever know.
tonight will be a long night, it seems. you can only hope that this doesn't manifest as some sort of personality disorder. come morning, these thoughts will go away as your mind becomes occupied with work.
there are four system hours until then. 
a leviathan like you, a monster of the cosmos… 
shut up. shut up. shut up. shut up. shut up.
be quiet already.
wish as you may, they will continue to torment you.
why? because they seek answers.
how long will you keep wearing the skin of sheep?
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butchspace · 2 years ago
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I guess I kind of just use this account for PSAs now, and this has been on my mind a lot lately.
I figured out that I have OCD a few years ago, and recently I’ve seen a lot of bad advice around dealing with intrusive thoughts and obsessions.
There’s that post that goes around occasionally about “taking pictures of your oven knobs before you leave” or other things I’ve seen that say to “make a weird face when you lock your door.” THESE ARE COMPULSIONS. If you have/suspect you have OCD or you often struggle with things like that, please do not follow this advice. Instead, try to accept your intrusive thoughts and move on, not argue with them. Over time, they will get easier and easier to deal with. Ruminating, stressing, or arguing with them just makes them worse in the long run.
If you think you might have OCD and want to seek a specialist, the IOCDF’s home page has a lot of resources under the “find help” tab, including a locator.
I’m going to put the rest under a read-more because I’m going to talk a bit more in depth about intrusive thoughts and compulsions. This mostly because good OCD info is so sparse on line, and I’ve spent many hours compulsively researching OCD lmao.
Content warning:
discussion of unreality/doubting one’s own perception
discussion of specific compulsions
I’m not going to push this point too hard or shame anyone who doesn’t want to follow it, because OCD doesn’t really just go away. It’s a constant struggle. I give in to compulsions regularly, even though I am medicated and have seen a specialist to learn actual coping skills. It’s hard to resist sometimes and you don’t always have the energy, the awareness, or the power to ignore them. You do what you have to do to get through your day. The main difference is that the right medication and the right therapist make it easier to stay out of the spiral and to leave a spiral when you’re in one. They still happen. You still kind of have to play everything by ear.
Similarly, it is super fucking hard to get help or even get diagnosed. No regular therapist actually knows what the fuck it looks like, and specialists are few and far between and often don’t take insurance. It’s not fair or easy or necessarily productive to try and do exposure response prevention on yourself. Your “good coping skills” can even turn into an obsession or compulsion, where you’re constantly worried about what is an intrusive thought and what is not, or if you’re responding to them properly.
What I want to do is try to give at least some useful advice to people who are struggling with intrusive thoughts.
The best way to respond to them is not at all. This is especially true with OCD, because the response to them is sort of the root of this disorder. Sometimes, it’s recommended that with depression or anxiety you challenge your thoughts. In OCD, it’s the opposite. Challenging them can so easily lead you down a compulsion spiral. (More about that cycle from a professional.)
Compulsions can be entirely mental, but I’ll use a common behavioral one to look at how engaging with compulsions can go:
You start by taking a picture of the your stove knobs to make sure they’re all off. That works for a few hours or days, but then you start wondering if the knob is ever-so-slightly in the “on” position. You wonder if the picture proves they’re off enough. You forget to take the picture at all, and have to go back in to check anyways. You check your phone a few times before leaving to ensure that the picture is still there. You take several pictures because you can’t tell if you actually took any at all. You start to wonder if you can even trust what you see before your very eyes. What if you’re just imagining that the knobs are set to off? What if you’re just imagining the whole picture to begin with? The picture allows you to engage with your checking compulsion throughout the day, strengthening the connection between the intrusive thought and the urgency to do something about it. That means it gets worse. That means you find new ways to doubt your perception or your memory or whatever.
It can eventually get really bad. It’s hard and awful to try and deal with this on your own, but sometimes you have to.
It’s so shit. It’s so fucking shit how long many people suffer with mental illness without even knowing what’s going on. I didn’t know that my constant, overwhelming guilt over almost everything I’d ever thought or said or done or maybe did and couldn’t remember was the result of a disorder. It was so freeing to realize there was actually something that might help me, and I could learn to just live with myself and my weird ass thoughts that don’t necessarily mean anything at all. It’s so shit that OCD-awareness is so low among therapists. I was never going to get diagnosed until I found an OCD SPECIALIST (bold, italicized, all caps. Don’t trust people on psychology today who just put OCD in the list of what they treat.) and went over the Y-BOCS with her. It’s all so shit that several therapists I came to with textbook examples of OCD either ignored me or didn’t have the tools to help. I told one of them I “didn’t feel connected to reality” and he kind just went 🤷.
I just want everyone who is in that/a similar situation to at least have this information available to them.
If you want to learn more, these blogs from Sheppard Pratt were the best discussion of OCD I found online that really described what I was going through. They’re written by licensed therapists, several (all?) of whom live with OCD. They’re very healing to read if this is something you’re struggling with, or something you think you might be struggling with, and great in general if you want to learn more about OCD.
Whatever’s going on, OCD or not, have some grace with yourself. Take a few minutes today and do something kind for yourself, even just think one nice thing about yourself. You’re doing the best you can.
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mercurial-thrills · 2 months ago
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I've been taking writing seriously for eight years. Here are eight lessons I've learned.
*Buckle up, this is going to be a long one*
As I squinted at my phone in the darkness, I stared at my Calendar. Blocks of red and pink were blocked into my schedule: do schoolwork, take a quick break, attend an online co-op class, sign up for a school workshop, finally read the first chapter of that thick textbook I bought.
Then, I looked above it all, the day of significance in magenta.
"Anniversary of Secrets." September 9th. The day I chose to take writing seriously. Between unfinished stories on loose-leaf paper, and untitled documents of characters on my desktop, writing had only been a spur-of-the-moment activity.
But then, September 9th came along. From visions of girls riding dragons and comments of classmates writing their own stories, I realized I could be like them. I could take writing as seriously as they did, spending more time on my stories than fixated on my favourite series.
In fact, writing became a fixation of my own. Over these eight years, I have watched countless videos, read a few books, and wrote hopefully around a couple hundred thousand words. As well, I have amassed a fair amount of writing advice. Here are eight of the lessons I learned over the years.
Lesson #1: Outline First, Write Later.
Ideas popped into my head like a game of whack-a-mole. They popped in and out whenever they pleased. I dreamed of cat-eared superheroes, of zodiac themed dystopias, of strange, American-style Isekais before I knew what that word meant.
My attempts to outline the story were inflated by my urge to write it. By the time I started writing my first official project, I decided to write the outline and FINISH the outline before jumping into the story.
Lesson #2: Embrace Diversity
If you've been on the Internet in literature or writing related circles, it's hard to avoid the topic of diversity, and for a good reason. Diverse situations and characters create new perspectives for readers and writers alike.
I learned to embrace diversity through a video made by Jenna Moreci:
After watching this, I thought more about my character's racial and ethnic backgrounds. Along with that, my characters became much more queer, and far more neurodivergent than I could've fathomed back in the day. Their backstories and family situations are more diverse as well: some of them were in foster care. Others came from big families.
The most important thing is to not do this offensively, and honour every culture you come across that's different than yours. Thankfully, there are plenty of resources online, such as Writing With Color(https://www.tumblr.com/writingwithcolor).
Lesson #3: Take Inspiration From Your Favourite Things.
My first story, Secrets, took direct inspiration from the books Harry Potter, Bone, Percy Jackson, Masterminds, and Eragon, respectively. But my second big project became a result of my Voltron obsession (which, assuming you're reading this on Tumblr, I'm sure you're familiar with).
The story formed as a space opera with alien planets I invented myself, and a human species who evolved to conditions on Kepler-22b. I'm not going to deny that I drew inspiration from the "Leakira and the Defenders Of Tomorrow" AU. Though this project is now its own being, I cannot deny where its origins came from.
Lesson #4: Do NaNoWriMo. Seriously.
First of all, I'd suggest staying away from the actual site. There have been numerous controversies, including demonstrating support of AI for creative works, and predatory behaviour on its forums. That doesn't mean we cannot still participate in writing a novel within a month.
Doing an unaffiliated one-month writing challenge will likely not help you get better at writing. Quality over quantity, after all. However, it will help to create a writing habit, and force you to think of unorthodox situations where you could write words… like, on the bus, in a bathroom stall, or in a waiting room.
Lesson #5: This is not going to be a career. Not for a while.
I was a 17-year-old, frothing at the mouth, obsessed with what my hands could produce at the click of keys. I wanted this to be my career. Badly.
However, college loomed around the corner, and I could not fathom spending so much money to learn creative writing in university, when it would have so little pay-off later down the line. Plus, I knew the field was a competitive one, and boy, I was not ready to compete.
If you want writing to become a career one day, go for it. Work hard on your writing. Focus on it like a bird focuses on looking for its worm. Keep in mind, however, whether the pay-off will be worth it for you.
For example, if you are willing to compete and set yourself apart, it would be beneficial to study English, Creative Writing, or Journalism at a university. You could become a copyeditor, a journalist, or a teacher, with some extra learning. However, what if becoming an author feels unstable? You could consider a career in a transferrable field such as office administration, library technician, marketing, psychology, or accounting.
Lesson #6: Fanfiction is good.
When I got into the game Terraria, I spent many hours traversing the right side of my world and building cube-shaped houses, and far too many hours before I thought I was powerful enough to fight the Eye Of Cthulhu. That aside, I started writing fanfiction inspired by the franchise.
Surely, there’s not much canon material regarding the NPCs whose names change when they get killed. So, I made my own. I elaborated on characters that had pre-existing relationships and made up my own where there weren’t any. It was a brilliant practice in writing when none of my other ideas seemed appealing.
I have since finished said fanfiction, but I still write about certain fandoms from time to time. It helps to have an outlet for creative ideas that would not fit your other stories.
Lesson #7: Don’t Fear The Critiquer
Reading my works aloud startled me to the bone. Thankfully, my friend clarified that this writing club gave good critique on his own worldbuilding. So, I showed up, and oh, am I ever so thankful I showed up, because it has, quite literally, changed the way I see writing.
Reading out my writing to others has made me better at sharing, and at accepting critique. I received a lot of praise, and I also realized a lot of mistakes. Most of all, I learned not to fear what people thought of what I wrote: chances are they’d like at least part of it.
Lesson #8: Every little bit counts.
After many years of taking it slow, life started to get busy again. Life became more cluttered, and I fought to balance my classes with any extracurriculars I may have had, with therapy appointments and going to the doctor’s to sort out health shenanigans, with the full time summer job I had, and with nurturing my relationships.
If you had a hard time reading that sentence, that’s what my life has been like for the past year or so. Busy, cluttered, hard to organize, but still manageable in small chunks. This is what writing while busy should look like. Little bits and pieces of writing, whether it be in a chapter or short stories.
The Big Conclusion
Plot twist: These eight lessons I learned were relevant to each of my eight years spent learning the craft. I spent them embracing the craft, learning to make good settings, and understanding how to create interesting plots. At the same time, I have yet to self-publish any fiction other than a short story.
Still, I’m happy with the progress I’ve made in these past 8 years. It’s been a long journey, but with every year, I learn so much more.
If you’re looking for where to start, this is where you should: whether it’s writing down that random idea that’s been sitting in your head, or scribbling down a drabble about the rain outside, just take one first step.
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cursed-40k-thoughts · 7 months ago
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One thing I've been wondering, is there any angle of degredation to the custodes?
What I mean is pretty much every faction in 40K is reduced/fallen from grace to some degree (SMs dwindling, inquisition used to be malcadors secret service, knights spread out and going crazy etc) but the custodes seem to be the exception
Now granted I'm generalising here since there's factions like the guard who suck but always kinda have, but custodes it hits me cus of the whole perfection and being the emperor's special boys/girls/other etc angle
I know in old lore their thing was just laying about the imperial palace but now they've been retconned to actually going out and doing things, have they degraded at all or are they still as perfect as they were pre-Heresy?
As great as genetically engineered demigods for a space fascist can be anyway
They weren't retconned into going out and doing things; they are now going out and doing things, because the Imperial Palace nearly falling during the Cicatrix Maledictum event booted them up the ass.
The ultimate flaw (and weakness) of the Custodes is that they're individuals serving the Emperor. Not the Imperium, the Emperor. Everything they do is articulated around serving his vision and protecting him as individuals. Obviously, there are plenty of strengths (and good narrative aspects) to being individually-minded and built around collaborative interaction, but it also utterly fucked them when the Emperor fell. In the wake of his dead, these physically perfected demigods spent 10,000 years sitting and moping. They maintained Terra (kind of) but largely stopped paying close attention to literally anything else, instead ruminating on their failure and engaging in "default" behaviour. Frankly, many of them still don't give a shit about humanity or the Imperium and think it's all just fucked until the Emperor shows up again.
Their "degradation", as you say, is that they're no longer adequately informed about the state of the Imperium, and the specifics of the Imperium, and how to optimally apply themselves, because the Emperor's absence made them all Bigly Sad.
You might think "that doesn't seem like a very impactful flaw" and you'd be right! Let me tell you a secret, though; none of them are. Not a single faction's. Flaws are only allowed to be as meaningful as the writing allows without interfering with the "everything can fight everything else" angle that funnels directly into the tabletop game.
Space Marines are dwindling, except they're not. Imperial Knights are few and far between, except they're not. The Militarum are strapped for resources, except they're not.
Always refer back to the Warhammer Fantasy rule when it comes to understanding logistics in 40k; There are as many elves as the plot demands.
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autism levels, few “often get wrong” points need highlight again
[transcript: autism levels, few “often get wrong” points need highlight again]
^ masterpost by birdofmay for more basic stuff no able explain rn, like “what are levels” ��how determine levels”
autism levels about how much support you need for autism specific symptoms—specifically, two autism criteria, social communication & restrictive repetitive.
not how much you feel like you struggle
levels compare you to all autistics. not allistic neurotypical nondisabled people.
level 1 mean “need support.” level 1 can struggle. unsupported burnt out level 1 can struggle a lot. unfortunately level 1 can be miserable in life.
not able finish school, not able drive, not able keep job, need help cant live independent—none of that automatic level 2 & 3. none of that automatic mean not level 1. know many people who level 1 who all that. level 2&3 people tend more common be those thing because autism symptoms cause very big struggle. but autism levels not actual about any of that.
autism levels is DSM 5 thing. country no use DSM 5 not get levels. countries use DSM 5, sometimes doctor still not assign levels, because that doctor don’t use levels, or level 1 & just leave out write.
autism level is official diagnosis thing. different from self diagnosing autism itself (which for lsn/level 1/etc have many resources about what it like, community, and like. not life risky), autism level really not same and not recommend self diagnose, to put nicely. because it about amount official support need, & limited info about level 2/3 (yes, even if look like many of us on tumblr, still very few), and because that most people never actual met entire autism spectrum met actual level 3 in person not to mention enough to be good sample size, so most have understanding of autism & autism levels that heavily lean to level 1, wrongly think any struggle w autism mean level 2 or 3. put in plainly, most you all don’t know don’t see enough about higher levels to actual label correctly (this actual include level 2/3 people—although yes personal experience, but that one experience).
many level 2 & 3 diagnose as that because we need the official support. for not die, for physical survive, and/or for basic quality of life. it not fun little label to collect to call self unfortunately
also, i say a lot of level 2/3 i abbreviate put them together because online autism community not often include both. but level 2 & 3 can be quite different quite far not “basic same thing”
autism level describe general average symptom & support needed
autism level can change over entire life, like born level 3 but adult now & level 2 or even 1(rare), or born level 1 & now adult level 2.
autism levels cannot change over hours days or short term in general. cannot “level 1 good day & level 3 bad day.” not even “last (few) month level 3 this (few) month level 1.”
autism levels not same as functioning labels. although can be use in same ableist way people use functioning labels. but fault is ableism. (remind that some people do self ID as low functioning after their diagnose and that okay)
autism level is not perfect and need improve
autism level important & needed especially for many of us who need many support or our autism symptom very big or struggle communicate.
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