#Also technically I watched it for the first time sometime after yesterday's lie but didn't get really into it until after kings tide | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fakingitfanfiction · 7 years

Text

Her Latest Flame Chapter 17: A Few More Days (aka Be The Ball)

Previous Chapters

Day One

It's technically Day Two, since they spent the whole day - yesterday - together, after Amy fled or escaped or ran or whatever, but all they did was drink beer and sit on Reagan’s couch - very very separately - watching one bad movie after another and they didn’t even talk, like at all so, really, that hardly counts as a day.

So, this is Day One. Day One A.A.

After Amy, not the other AA though, in all fairness, that AA might be appropriate, what with the amount they had to drink on Not-Day-One and what they’ve already had today, on the real Day One, even though it’s the second one, like it’s the second sunrise and the second day noon and it’s closing in quick on the second night noon (t-minus an hour and counting) and Regan’s head hurts and where was she?

Oh… right.

Day One

On this Day One, they talk.

Or, rather, Sophie talks and Reagan listens. And, by ‘talk’ she really means 'rants’ cause young miss Sophie’s already put away her half of today’s (Day One’s) six pack (the first one) and she’s halfway through Reagan’s half, or at least Reagan thinks that’s right cause, well, she might have started on her half of the second one - the second of the like four they bought - but, really, that’s too many fractions and too much math and so here’s the skinny…

They’re both a bit drunk.

Or, you know, at least halfway there and Reagan knows that she’s only like halfway sober from yesterday (Day One that wasn’t) and so Sophie’s probably still sorta halfway shitfaced and half is more than enough to turn talk into rant and far more than enough for that whole 'listen’ thing to mean… well… it still means listen. It’s listen as much and as well as she can while the silent movie of her walking away from Amy - of leaving her sitting there with ice on her face and blood on her lip - plays over and over in Reagan’s mind.

Over. And over. And over. And over. And there could be about a thousand more 'over’s here and it would still be only a teeny-tiny, like supa tiny, like ridiculously tiny (like Liam tiny) (or so she's heard) fraction - fucking math, again - of the number of times that little scene has played inside her head.

Reagan hasn’t seen a movie this many times since Titanic.

(She likes 'draw me like your French girls’ and yes, she would so draw Kate Winslet, probably so much better than Leo ever did and no, she didn’t buy the DVD just for that scene.)

(There’s the one where the dude bounces off the propellor too.)

(Don’t judge.)

So Sophie talks and Reagan sorta listens and really, that’s OK cause, honestly, after the first hour or so, it’s pretty much the same package, just in different wrapping. And it goes a little (or a lot) something like this:

“I can’t believe she would do this.”

It all - every word - boils down to that, even if the phrasing changes slightly or there’s sometimes a 'fucking’ tossed in (and a 'motherfucking bullshit’ once) but, in a nutshell (Amy hates nuts) (in more ways than one) (and Reagan really needs to stop relating everything to Amy) that is what Sophie says, several times punctuating the words with some sort of aggressive and more than a little bit angry gesture for emphasis (read: a punch to the air or a smack and it’s not the sort of smack Reagan usually likes though she can tell Sophie would be good at that though probably not as good as Amy was and oh, for fuck’s sake) and, really, Reagan can only hope that her coffee table or her wall or her, you know, her, doesn’t end up going the way of Amy’s face.

“I. Cannot. Believe. She. Would do this.”

See? Slightly different. A remix if you will. Next verse, same as the first.

She’s not sure if it’s because she’s drunk or if it’s cause she’s not drunk enough, but Reagan’s getting a bit… confused. She knows the 'she’ is Amy - for her, every 'she’ is Amy - but it’s not altogether clear what ’this' is. After all, there are options.

Option One: This = Reagan and, by 'do this’, Sophie is saying she can’t believe Amy would do her.

Reagan suspects - probably rightly - that option one is also option wrong. Mostly because she’s quite sure Sophie (and most anyone else who knows Amy) (or her) would have no difficulty at all believing Amy could and would and did do her.

Also, she’s a bit foggy on the details now (not enough sleep) (far too many beers) (walking away from Amy memory overload) but she’s pretty sure that she, not Amy, did most of the doing.

Not that Sophie would know that. But still…

Option Two: This = Lying to Sophie about doing Reagan.

Again, Reagan thinks that’s probably not it, either. After all, Amy didn't technically lie. Which, when you think about it, is the one near constant in Amy’s life since the moment she agreed to fake it with Karma.

She never technically lies.

But, really, Reagan knows, Amy didn’t lie, not technically or otherwise. No, she didn’t tell Sophie about it, but the first time she saw her - post coitus - Sophie dragged her to the diner and talked her ear off and then, before Amy could find the courage to speak up, Reagan was just… there and, really, Amy could be forgiven for not saying anything just then, amidst that shock and the shock of finding herself in the middle of Sophie’s exceptionally well laid plan.

It was, she had to admit, a good plan. Like, seriously, Karma could take fucking lessons. (And why, oh why, did that name have to pop to mind again?)

And then, even after the shocks wore off, it was only like two, three minutes and then there was the punching and, again, Amy could be forgiven for not saying anything then.

It was too late, anyway. And there was the whole fist in the face thing. That tends to make people a bit reticent.

And, side note?

Coitus? Reticent? Since when did three Corona’s turn her into a fucking Webster’s?

Anyway… blamable or culpable (she should play Scrabble when she’s drunk) or whatever Amy might or might not be, Reagan’s pretty sure that Sophie’s not talking about the lying - or the not lying - at least not by itself. So, maybe it's…

Option Three: This = Amy walking away or, more likely, driving away, probably in her mom’s car. Because she didn’t have hers and, even more because who else could come to pick her up?

Lauren’s not in town and Shane is… well… who the fuck knows where Shane is and, really, Reagan only barely remembers him anyway and that only leaves Farrah.

Well… technically.

Cause there is the, you know, obvious answer. But 'obvious’ - and no, she’s not even thinking the name again - is in New Orleans and that would seem to be a touch too far away for a good getaway driver.

At least, Reagan thinks 'obvious’ is in New Orleans, she’s not really sure, she’s only going by what Amy might have mentioned that day (you know the one) during a brief hydration break.

And that’s all she wants to think about that.

But she does think - and probably rightly, again - that option three is no more the right option than one or two (or, most likely, four or five or six) because if that is what she means, then all it does is highlight how little Sophie really knows about Amy.

Amy, running? Who wouldn’t believe that?

“I just can't believe that she would -”

And here we go again, except it’s been one too many beers and like five or six or all too many versions of this one particular number and, sadly, it doesn’t have a good beat and Reagan just can’t dance to it. But what she can do is cut Sophie off mid-thought, cause she’s grown tired of guessing and so tired of options and, well, just fucking tired. “Amy didn’t do anything,” Reagan says and, if she were just slightly less slightly drunk, she’d probably know better than to say that or, at least, be smart enough to be regretting saying that already. “I mean, she did, but it’s not like she did any of it alone.”

Sophie stares at her as she stands - slowly - and reaches out a hand to grab the counter and steady herself. Reagan wobbles and Sophie starts like she’s going to help, but then…

She doesn’t.

Color Reagan surprised.

“She… Amy slept with me,” Reagan says and oh, it’s going to take more than one hand to keep her up much longer, but maybe she can at least finish what she’s saying, like she really even knows where that’s going. “Amy kept it a secret with me. She smashed your heart and crushed your friendship and probably broke every one of those rules you two have,” she says. “But she did it all with me.”

Sophie’s not moving and she’s not talking and Reagan’s not entirely sure she’s even breathing, and she’s even less sure what the hell to do about any of that or if there is anything to be done about any of that and even if she weren’t drunk and tired (and still thinking of the wrong damn woman) she’s not sure that would be any different.

“I know what you did,” Sophie finally says, and it’s all Reagan can do not to sigh in relief at the end of the silence. “I’m well fucking aware of what you did.” She turns on her heel - rather gracefully for someone as tipsy as she is - and heads toward the bedroom, and now Reagan’s just lost, cause the door, the one she expected Sophie to storm out of, drunk or not, is the other way. Sophie pauses just before the bedroom, her hand resting against the wall and if she only knew what Reagan did with Amy pressed against that wall…

(When she’s not quite so drunk, Reagan's really gonna hate herself.)

“I also know what you didn’t do.” Sophie’s words are whispers.

“And what was that?”

Sophie glances back over her shoulder and God, if Reagan thought she’d seen pain in Amy's eye after that punch…

“You didn't leave,” she says, disappearing into the darkened room, and now it's her doing the leaving, as in leaving Reagan to sink slowly to the floor, her back pressed against the base of the counter cause her legs just don’t work and yeah, maybe she’ll just sleep right here.

So, she thinks, guess it was option three.

Day Two

She doesn’t sleep by the counter.

That’s not to say she doesn’t stay there, cause she does - for a long while, like past midnight and beyond (hence the day two) - and not just cause her legs won’t cooperate and actually lift her up.

The soft, muted sounds of crying - Sophie apparently doesn’t do anything loud, and no, Reagan isn’t considering the implications of that, at all - coming from the bedroom might have something to do with it, too. And, by something, she means like everything. And yes, she’s well aware that that does make her, at the absolute least, a shitty host - don’t leave your guest crying alone has got to be rule A-number one in the host handbook - but then again, Reagan doesn’t remember actually inviting Sophie to come over or to stay or to share her bed.

Not that they're sharing, mind you. Sharing might be too strong a term, what with Sophie being in the bed and Reagan being out here - still - and, if she’s being honest, her own bed is pretty much the last place she really wants to be right now. See, there’s a few too many memories and they’re all a bit too fresh and, more than anything, it’s got the wrong person in it.

And that’s the killer, that’s the thing that’s got her leaning against the counter and not really thinking about moving any time soon. The place she wants to be is actually less a place and more a person and the fact that, even now, even after everything, Amy is still where she wants to be?

Count that as one more really good reason to stay out of her bed. And to drink more. If she could, you know, get up.

So, as much as the idea of another drink tempts her, Reagan stays right there and doesn't that just feel like the story of her fucking life? (And, to be clear, her non fucking one too.) Staying right there. Sometimes, she thinks, she’s stayed too long, too stuck in one particular moment, and she knows exactly which one. She sees it every time she closes her eyes and, far too often, even when she doesn’t.

It’s a simple moment, one she thought was all too clear, all to cut and fucking dried when it, you know, happened. A moment all about different places in lives and maybe never getting over someone and a goodbye kiss and it was all so much bullshit - every reason she had - and she was so sure that every one of them just screamed 'I’m scared’ and 'I don't really want this’ at the top of its lungs, but, apparently, she was the only one who heard that.

Or, maybe, the only one who wanted to.

That moment has stayed with her no matter how hard she’s tried to shake it though, really, she hasn’t tried all that hard. It’s one thing to say you want to forget, one thing to pay it lip service and say all the right things. It’s a whole other thing to actually mean it, to actually be ready to forget and, for so very long, that moment was the only thing she had left of Amy.

Yeah, there was the other one, the 'it’s Karma, isn’t it’ moment but, really, can you blame her if she forgot that one like five seconds after it happened? Losing that one took her no time at all, but that other moment… it just proves the funny thing about time.

It never really works the way you want it to.

Want proof? It’s hanging right there on Reagan’s wall, just to the side of the bedroom door. It’s a clock, a big one, with hands the size of one of those racks of ribs Amy loved at that BBQ joint in Dallas they went to. (So, you know, huge.) It’s one of the very few things she kept from her old place, maybe the only one she actually wanted to, even if she’s got no real idea why. The first time Sophie saw it, she spent like half an hour just staring at the damn thing, a habit that Reagan could identify with.

“It makes me feel like I’m in school,” Sophie said. “So big and round and those hands… they just move so slowly, like all the clocks did back in high school, hanging up on the wall, totally teasing the shit out of you, making the end of the day seemed like it would never come.”

Reagan remembers smiling, not just at how closely Sophie’s thoughts on the clock mirrored her own, or at the way the blonde spent the next hour or so glancing back at it, taking quick peeks over one shoulder whenever she thought Reagan wasn’t looking. (And no, Reagan’s so very not remembering how hard it was that night not to look at Sophie.) It was all in the way the younger woman had said it - 'back in high school’ - like that was such a long time ago, maybe even in a galaxy far, far away and not like it was just, you know, last year. Reagan had heard plenty of college girls trying to sound older and wiser, putting on airs about being all done with that high school crap.

Sophie was the only one she ever actually believed.

Now, it’s not Sophie she’s looking at, it’s that clock. Reagan watches as it ticks and it tocks and no, it doesn’t actually make any noise, and yes, those hands do move slowly, so very slowly that they almost seem to be standing still (and we’re back to that), frozen in a moment (and that too) and she’s amazed, every time, when she blinks and discovers that five or ten or twenty minutes have passed.

It’s 12:45 or so (she can’t tell for sure, but Reagan thinks the hand has moved a bit past the nine) before she actually moves. If she were counting, it would be Day Three, technically - if she doesn’t count Day One - and, really, there’s little she wishes for more than to stop thinking about everything in her life in 'technically’ terms or to be able to stop wondering what counts and what doesn’t.

Did telling Sophie she was ready to forget count as some sort of commitment? Did kissing her and making it very clear she wanted to do that (and a few other things) a whole lot more count as leading her on? Did sleeping (like they slept) with Amy count as cheating?

Maybe. Probably. And no. Technically.

Like technically is any sort of comfort - cold or otherwise - to Sophie. Or to any of them.

Maybe someday, Reagan hopes, she’ll be able to think like that, to see things simply and easily and not wonder about the complications and the catastrophes and if she’s going to need to be able to parse every word and and every action like she’s testifying before Congress. She can see a day like that, out there, in the distance. But the clock ticking off the days and nights between then and now?

Turtle fucking slow.

She hauls herself up slowly, not clock slowly, but not a whole lot faster and that, she knows, is a function of the booze still bubbling through her bloodstream and, even more, of the fact that she doesn't want to move. Moving means… well… trouble. Moving means going and going means forward and that’s never been a direction Reagan’s found to work all that well for her. It’s safe here, in her little corner, pressed up against the counter. Nothing behind her but wood (fake wood, but it still fucking counts) and she likes that, likes the sense of all the other shit walled off, blockaded away where it can’t hurt her.

It’s quiet here too (Sophie’s finally gone silent) and, best of all, she’s alone and, let’s face it, that's for the best.

Reagan does well alone. Other people, they’re the ones that fuck it all up. Especially the blondes.

But she can’t stay here forever. She knows that because she’s tried. Sooner or later, Reagan knows, life decides it’s had just about enough of you and your moments and it comes along, a playground bully, pushing you ahead, whether you like it or not. It’s better, she’s come to think, if you at least try to go with the flow. And, if the flow happens to push her forward and across the living room and into her bed?

(The one with the wrong person in it.)

Well… at least she can sleep a little. Maybe. And it’ll all look better in the morning. Maybe.

And maybe, she knows, is about the best she’s gonna get.

Sophie’s asleep.

At least Reagan thinks she is. Yes, they’ve spent the night together before and, even if it’s only halfway through the night now - still closer to midnight than daylight, but just barely - they’re doing that again, but that’s still only twice (or is it three and oh, how can she not remember?) and that’s just not enough.

Not enough to know the difference between slow and steady cause asleep breaths and slow and steady cause laying there, awake, overthinking and trying desperately not to think and trying - even more desperately - to seem asleep cause seeming asleep makes it easier for the other person to believe (or pretend) (much more likely to be the latter than the former) that you’re asleep and that means no talking (no more talking) (not like they did a lot of that today anyway, but in this case, less is definitely more) and if all that made you tired just hearing it?

Imagine Reagan thinking it.

Which, really, she isn’t. Oh sure, it crosses her mind, it drifts in on the current of Sophie’s breath but then it drifts right back out again, just as fast. And really, that’s just so much more bullshit, which seems to be Reagan’s specialty lately (self deluding bullshit, to be precise) cause it just doesn't drift out.

It gets pushed.

It gets pushed aside and pushed out and - in the case of the more stubborn thoughts, like the one about how it feels to have Sophie, or parts of her anyway, pressed up against her as they 'sleep’ - run over, just like every other thought she has or tries to have or even considers having that isn’t a thought of the one thing (person) she’s trying (and failing) not to think of (and yes, it’s Amy, like you didn’t know) and, really, Reagan’s not surprised. She hasn’t stopped thinking of her for more than like a day (if, you know, your calendar defines a day as something closer to an hour) (or half of one) (or, you know, one-sixtieth of one and yes, that’s a minute if you’re math challenged, like Amy, and see?)

(thinking of her again)

(took all of thirty seconds that time)

Sometimes, Reagan thinks a bit of Amy rubbed off on her. That, somehow, a bit of the pinball wizard way the blonde’s brain works must have soaked into her. Like osmosis.

Or, you know, syphilis.

Yes, she’s reached that point.

She used to be level headed. She used to be calm and cool and collected and, you know, sane and she remembers - vaguely - when those were all things Amy was attracted to, things nobody else in her life quite had.

Except maybe Lauren. Sometimes. When she wasn’t flinging chicken cutlets at people or outing herself or, as rumor had it, hooking up with Liam fucking Booker.

(And by rumor, Reagan totally means things she heard, not stuff she might have found through a Facebook stalk or two cause calm and cool and collected - and sane - didn’t do that sort of thing.)

(Riiiiiight.)

But now, here she is, in her bed with a beautiful woman who, despite every single reason in the world not to, still somehow wants her (and no, Sophie hasn't said it, but Reagan’s not so drunk or so drunk on Amy that she can't tell) yet her mind keeps spinning back to the other woman, the one who - despite every single reason in the world to - doesn’t want her.

That’s the thing about pinball. You can be aces at it, you can know every angle and hip check against the machine and be a fucking geometry whiz (which is so not her)but, in the end?

You’re at the mercy of the ball.

And there’s something Reagan never imagined anyone would say about her. Like ever.

But it’s true. And right now her ball (oh, she’s gonna need a new metaphor) keeps bouncing and spinning and ricocheting in one direction, no matter how hard she tries to make it not, no matter how much she pushes back.

Where did Amy go?

(Does where even matter? She went.)

Is she OK?

(She's Amy. Of course, she’s OK. She's always OK.)

How’s her eye? How’s her heart? Is this it? Is this the end?

(Black.) (Also black.) (If it isn’t, it should be.) (Yes, the 'end’ needs to be emphasized and not just for dramatic purposes, but they’ve 'ended’ before and we all saw how those worked out, now didn’t we?)

Reagan knows she should stop. She knows thinking about Amy leads her nowhere good. She knows that all she’s doing - all she's been doing - to Sophie what she did to Heather - minus the frequent fights and the even more frequent make-up sex when both of them were thinking about someone else - and she knows that isn’t fair. Not top Sophie and not to her.

But see, knowing it’s wrong and that she should stop is a far fucking cry from actually doing it and, no matter how much she wants to do it - to stop thinking, to stop thinking about Amy, to just be here and be with someone who wants her, even if it’s the wrong person - Reagan just…

She can’t.

She can’t sleep. She can't fake sleep. She can’t just lay here, staring at the ceiling and thinking of Amy - in all the various ways she does - all night long. So, since she can’t do any of that, she does what any reasonable person would.

She pulls an Amy.

Reagan’s out the door and into the hall and halfway to the stairs before she even thinks about it, before she even considers what it is she’s doing or where it is she’s going. She’s down the stairs and out the front door and into the parking lot even as the thought - and oh, it’s properly insane, so that makes it just perfect - even has a chance to get pushed out of her mind.

And that’s how she finds herself behind the wheel and on her phone before she has a chance to second guess and let’s be real, OK? A second or a third or a hundred and third guess wouldn’t be enough cause if she’s crazy enough to think of this in the first place?

She’s crazy enough to do it.

“Hey,” Reagan says into the phone and that’s right about where the insanity runs out and the 'oh fuck what am I doing’ kicks in, but she’s already answered so it’s too fucking late for any second guesses now. “It’s me,” she says, like that’s not the most obvious fucking thing ever. “I know it’s late and this is probably crazy and I know… I just know, OK? But I need…”

She trails off, glancing back up at the window of her apartment, ignoring (as best she can) the light that’s just flickered to life behind the shade.

“I need a friend,” she says and that might be the most truthful thing she’s said to her in like forever. “We were that once, weren’t we?”

There’s a pause and then there’s a breath on the other end of the line - slow and steady and not faking a fucking thing - followed by a 'yes’ and an 'I’ll be there in ten’ and Reagan doesn’t have to ask where 'there’ is and she nods, even if she can’t fucking see, clicking the phone off even as she starts her truck.

It’s half past something, in the middle of the night, the hour of the fucking wolf, day fucking something or other, one more sunrise and sunset of the same damn movie.

And it’s high time, Reagan thinks, someone changed the script.

#faking it #faking it fanfiction #reamy #oc #submission #secret-monkey #secretmonkey #Her Latest Flame

2 notes · View notes