LaGuardia was confusing.

For as long as Becks had lived outside of the city, she had called LaGuardia her rat hole. Because it was a rat hole, but it was also the best airport in the New York Tristate Area by a mile. JFK was bad, Newark was far, and Westchester was too bougie to exist. She preferred the rat hole that was—for the most part—decently accessible to Manhattan.

They’d been reworking LaGuardia for years now. She’d had to deal with it every time she’d flown back for Thanksgiving and Pesach. But this was the first time that she stepped off the plane and it felt like she was in an actual nice airport and not an airport that she’d seen no fewer than eight rats and fourteen pigeons in over the years.

You can do it.

Can I?

Yes.

The texts were from her best friend, Socks. Or rather, Peter Sokowski, whom she’d known since her first week of freshman year. She called him Socks because Becks and Socks had a ring to it.

Show them what you’re made of, was Socks’ next text and Becks sighed.

That was why she was doing this, right? Showing them—showing herself—that she was more than she’d been in high school? That she’d turned into a pretty dang cool and confident adult? Someone who was proud of herself? Who’d gone to therapy and now knew that it was ok if she took up space?

The trouble was that every time she got off a plane in New York City, regression hit hard. She wasn’t Becks or Ms. K, she was Becca Kaplan, and she was short, fat, and had boring brown hair that neither curled nor lay flat, it just sort of puffed.

And this time, Becks was going to her high school reunion.

She wanted to melt into the ground and cease to exist.

It was pretty much how she’d felt through all of high school.

 

~*~

 

Once she got in the taxi, it took just under thirty minutes to get from LaGuardia to her stepmother’s house on Park Avenue. The doorman helped her out of the cab with a grin.

“Welcome home, Becca,” he said.

“Thanks, Antonio.”

His square black mustache was getting a bit salt-and-pepper. Which she supposed only made sense because she was coming back for her ten-year, and Antonio had worked the door and front desk since she moved into this apartment with her stepmother and stepsisters just after Dad died. The lamplight of the lobby glowed a gentle gold as she rolled her suitcase towards the elevator, then pressed six. She took a long, slow breath.

You should be grateful. It was the mantra of years spent in the smallest bedroom—the one that, once upon a time, a maid would have occupied. I’m giving you a roof over your head. You don’t have anywhere else to go. Would you really prefer the foster system?

The elevator door opened and Becks rang the doorbell. She heard barking on the other side and the moment the door opened, a tiny, fluffy white dog was bouncing up at her, its tail wagging in unparalleled excitement.

“Snowball, no! Down. Sit!” she heard from the depths of the apartment, but neither Snowball nor Becks cared.

Becks knelt down to let the dog sniff her, then lick her hand, then jump up and lick her face. She giggled.

“You shouldn’t encourage her.”

She looked up. Her stepmother was standing over her.

Gloria Katz had kept her first husband’s name, the same name that graced her daughters, Sarah and Naomi. Once, drunk at her college Hillel, Becks had joked that her stepmother had a taste for Cohanim.

Gloria stared down at Becks, more specifically at Becks’ blue ombre. “What did you do to your hair?” she demanded, her brown eyes wide.

Becks resisted rolling her eyes. You dye yours too. There was no way that Gloria’s hair was as deep a brown today as it had been when Becks had attended her wedding all those years before. But Gloria’s was brown, so that was acceptable.

“They let you do that at school?” Gloria continued before Becks could respond, “What do the children say?”

Becks tried to smile more than grimace. “They changed the policy. It’s a bit of a hippy school.”

Gloria made a huffing sound. “Blue hair,” she muttered under her breath.

Becks lugged herself to her feet, then pulled her suitcase inside. Snowball followed her excitedly as she made her way through the kitchen to her old bedroom.

The bed was made, but it was also covered in laundry that had yet to be folded.

“Martina couldn’t make it in today,” Gloria said. “She must not have finished.”

“It’s fine, I can do it,” Becks said.

Gloria left her without another word.

Becks’ phone buzzed.

How’s the wicked stepmother?

I’m folding her laundry.

You’re shitting me.

She took a picture, sent it to Socks, then sighed, and began to fold.

She was about halfway through matching socks together when she heard voices from the kitchen, the sing-songing of a continuing conversation. “I didn’t even think they were coming.”

“Apparently, they are.”

“Damn. That’ll be something.”

“Have you watched it?”

A snort. “No. I keep meaning to but like… really? Triceracops?”

“Sam says it’s really funny.”

“Sam’s got weird taste in movies.”

Becks went still.

The voices belonged to her stepsisters, and she should go out and greet them, ask them superficial questions about their lives, then go back to folding.

If she understood their conversation properly, it meant that Angel Gonzales was coming to the reunion.

She and Angel hadn’t been close, though Becks hadn’t had good friends in their class to begin with. She’d never shared any classes with Angel, but they’d always had a biting sense of humor and a taste for the irreverent that made them the darling of every English and Drama teacher they’d ever had. They’d self-produced a film earlier that year that had become almost instantly a cult-classic: an hour-long movie called Triceracops that made you feel a like you were high on shrooms while watching it (or at least, that’s what Becks assumed, never having done shrooms) but somehow you came out of it with the clear message of fuck the police and also the world is too hilarious to take seriously. Becks had watched it because she’d seen Angel’s Facebook post, then had made her roommate, two of her colleagues, and Socks watch it too.

Facebook was the only way she’d kept up with Angel’s life since Bateson. They didn’t post much, but when they did, it was always interesting. Becks remembered a long one from Freshman Year of college on National Coming Out Day; a few years later, that same day had yielded that they went by Angel now and exclusively used they/them pronouns. Everything they posted was warm, and hopeful, and funny. Where for the most part her classmates’ Facebook posts made Becks feel low and alienated, Angel’s always felt welcoming—like they cared about everyone, and that everyone included Becks.

“Have you seen it, Becks?”

She turned around.

Her bedroom door was open, and from this angle, she could definitely see Naomi, short and slim with her dark curly hair in tight braids, mixing something on the counter. Probably some sort of powdered sports drink. Naomi worked out obsessively.

Naomi was watching her.

“Welcome home, Becks,” Becks said to her. Naomi rolled her eyes.

“Safe flight?” Sarah asked from the other side of the kitchen where Becks couldn’t see her.

“Uneventful,” Becks replied. She put the socks she was pairing down and went out into the kitchen, leaning against the corner of the kitchen island, opposite Sarah. Her other stepsister had cropped her curly hair short in a pixie cut that Becks would never have expected of her ten years ago. It would have looked too dykey for her then, but it flattered her. “Angel’s coming?”

“They just RSVP’d to my evite,” Sarah said, pointing to her phone on the kitchen counter. “You didn’t. Are you coming?”

“I didn’t realize I had to respond, given that we’re hosting it here,” Becks said. Her stepsisters were doing what they’d done all through high school: hosting the after party. After graduation, after prom, after any play they’d been in, there was an after party here. Gloria had never cared if people had gotten drunk in her home, claiming a European perspective of “I’d rather you drink here where I can supervise, than drink secretly. And also twenty-one is a puritanical age to restrict drinking to.” Becks had always hidden in her room for those parties back in the day. She had spent the past week strategizing with Socks how to extricate herself from this one if it was as painful as those had been.

Naomi turned around, rolling her eyes. “Oh, come on. You never attend parties even when we host. Are you coming?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there for a bit,” Becks replied evenly. “I doubt I’ll be up late, though.”

“Of course not,” Naomi muttered.

Becks did her best to ignore her. She turned to Sarah. “How’s Duke?”

And Sarah leapt into a long monologue about how exhausting med school was, but how she wouldn’t trade it for a second, and how she was stressed that Match Day would send her long distance from Sam, but they’d work through it, they were thinking about getting married.

By the time Becks slipped back into her bedroom, it was somehow past eleven.

And she still had laundry to fold.

~*~

 

Becks was up at six.

Six eastern, five central.

Her body had not adjusted for the time zone, just like it didn’t adjust for weekends. Working in a school meant that you had to be there by seven, and if you had to be there by seven, you were up between five and six. At the latest.

She stretched, arching her back and pushing her hands up against the wall above her, making a long squeaking noise. It was a single bed, and she felt cramped in it. She hadn’t slept in a single bed since college. She’d gotten a queen-sized one when she’d moved in with Marie, and had kept it after they broke up. She was used to being a starfish.

Becks got up, dressed, and then reviewed the schedule for the day. There would be information sessions about new school initiatives, tours of the facilities they’d renovated in the past few years, a lunch, a keynote address, a cocktail hour, and then more talks tomorrow. The school was small, and hosted reunions in five-year batches all together at once, rather than having one specifically for each graduating class, which meant there’d be women of all ages prowling the school and reliving their time there today. The first event would start at nine, which meant that Becks had time to go for a walk beforehand.

By the time she was back from a stroll around the reservoir, Naomi was awake.

“Are you going to anything this morning?” Becks asked her.

“No,” she replied. “I’ll show up at lunch. I think that’s when most of the people are planning to get there.”

That hadn’t occurred to Becks. If it had, she would have flown in early this morning, taken a shower, and then gone to the school. The last thing she particularly wanted to do, though, was spend time in the apartment with Naomi and Sarah, so she said, “I’m going to the tour, I think. I’ll see you there.”

The Bateson School for Girls had been founded in the eighteen hundreds. It was tucked away in that half-mile stretch of the Upper East Side where East End Avenue ran its course, right by the water. When she’d been there, it had been cramped, and small—too many students and teachers in a building that hadn’t been designed for its current capacity needs. Sometime after Becks had gone to college, they’d added four floors to the top of the building, bringing eight stories up to twelve—huge, modern, wide-windowed floors that contrasted with the old brick building below.

From the moment Becks stepped inside, everything was as different as it was the same. The yellow walls were painted a slightly different shade, the student art that greeted visitors in the lobby wasn’t what Becks had seen every day when she’d been a student, but it could have been. A K-12 school, she saw little girls in navy tunics that barely came up to her waist trotting towards the library, holding books in their arms, and she also saw teenagers in jeans and t-shirts staring at their smartphones as they waited for the elevators off to the side of the lobby.

It was amazing how you could suddenly feel like you were sixteen again, and the walls were closing in. She wasn’t Ms. Kaplan, wasn’t someone who could be a peer to the teacher who was sitting on a couch next to a student, going over what looked like an essay, sipping coffee from a paper cup. She was Becca. Short and fat and gay, and wishing people didn’t know that last bit at all, but not being able to do anything about it.

“Becca?”

She turned. Two polished-looking women were standing to the side of the lobby. She recognized them at once: Sophia Chiu, as slim and willowy as she had been when she’d dominated the volleyball courts once upon a time, and Kate Bass, shorter, blonde, and broad shouldered.

“Hi,” she said, her voice a little higher than she wanted it to be. It was that high-pitched voice that made her feel most like she was young, and afraid. Ms. K spoke brassily, low, loud, and would broker no attempt on her students’ part to sway her.

“How’s it been!” Sophia held out her arm for an awkward hug that Kate echoed. “Where are Sarah and Naomi?”

Becks swallowed. “They’re coming,” she said carefully. “I think they were planning on showing up around lunch.”

Sophia and Kate nodded and hummed.

And didn’t know what to say to her.

Because of course they didn’t. Becks had always held her cards very close to her chest when she’d been young. Her stepsisters had always been at the heart of everything, which meant that Becks never felt like she could take up any space. Yes, she had found friends in other graduating classes, but she had never felt as though she could be open about them to anyone in her class. Becks, Sarah, and Naomi had started at Bateson in kindergarten, the year before Becks’ dad had died. They had always been a trio, as far as the class was concerned. Sarah and Naomi were the gregarious, popular ones, and Becca was the fat, shy one. Everyone loved Naomi and Sarah. Everyone assumed that Becks did too, because if Becks ever so much as hinted anything bad about them, it wouldn’t just be Naomi and Sarah she had to deal with—it would be Gloria too.

And she never wanted to deal with Gloria.

It was only after Becks’ bubbe had died when she’d been in college that she’d realized the youthful foolishness of it. Bubbe would have raised hell if she’d known how miserable her only grandchild was. Maybe Becks could have lived with her instead. But she’d been convinced that that wasn’t a possibility, had been convinced that even trying to make it one would make Gloria punish her, would cause Naomi and Sarah to make school even worse for her than it already was, would make her Dad’s ghost ashamed of her because the last thing he’d said to her as that heart monitor beeped its final stutters was, Love them, Becca. Love them, and they’ll love you.

She tried not to be bitter about that. He couldn’t have known.

It wasn’t Sophia’s or Kate’s fault that they didn’t know any of this, of course. But that wasn’t going to change, not when the first words out of their mouths were questions about her stepsisters.

She stuck with them through the morning. As far as she could tell, they were the only ones from their class who had arrived just yet, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to do what she’d done at sixteen and go it alone. It was as they descended down two floors below ground to the assembly hall for lunch when her phone buzzed with a text from Socks.

How’s it going?

She was amazed she had service down here. She remembered helping out on tech weekends for plays back when she had a flip phone and it was impossible to get any bars at all. Now she had three. Alums from other years were chatting happily all around her, drinking the sparkling water the school was providing. She was glad they were there, even if she didn’t know them. There had been fewer than fifty girls in Becks’ graduating class. It would feel empty if it was just them.

Regression is terrible.

You’re great. Don’t forget it.

She didn’t feel great, though.

She felt…

Like she was intruding.

Even as more of her classmates began to show up, she felt like she shouldn’t be there. Oh, they were all nice to her. They smiled and asked her about her life, appropriately curious that she’d stayed in Saint Louis for ten years—none of them had ever been!—and had no desire to return to the East Coast. The problem was: they all seemed to know one another more. They’d all clearly kept in closer touch with one another than just the odd Facebook status. Becks imagined group chats that no one had thought to add her to, that no one had wanted to add her to, which made her fiddle with the hem of her skirt.

It would be, she knew, the sort of day she barely remembered. Adrenaline would be too high, and the visuals would blur with every day she’d spent in this building for school. The Assembly Hall was painted the same mustard yellow. Bathrooms, hallways, stairwells had been renovated and repainted, but one afternoon wouldn’t be enough to overpower thirteen years here. She tagged along with some of her classmates as they went up to the new top floors of the school, then out onto the boardwalk that overlooked the East River, then sat in the lobby, waiting until the four o’clock cocktail hour.

Becks had never been one to drink to get drunk. That wasn’t her MO. It might have come from Naomi and Sarah, always off to party and coming home past midnight, waking her up as they banged around the kitchen for water. She didn’t want to be like them, and it had stuck. Don’t define yourself in opposition to them, Socks had told her once.

I don’t. I just don’t want to get drunk.

But she wanted to get drunk right now. Really, genuinely drunk. Numb the pain sort of drunk, the kind of drunk she’d let herself imagine in high school and then had buried her head in her pillow because she’d sat through health classes every year since sixth grade. She knew she was more susceptible to alcoholism as a teenager while her brain was still growing than she would be in college. She just had to make it till college. Then she’d be free.

The Assembly Hall had been decorated over the course of the afternoon. There were silver and gold party balloons and streamers, the lights had been dimmed, and in a corner by the stage, there was a table with a white tablecloth, covered in bottles of wine. Becks made a beeline for it, pouring herself a large glass of chardonnay. Then she looked around.

She supposed she should go back to her stepsisters and her classmates, all of whom had claimed one of the little round candle-lit cocktail tables that peppered the room. But just like when she’d been fifteen, it didn’t look like there’d be room for her.

She sighed.

One glass, then you can leave.

She went to a table near theirs, hoping someone would notice and drag her over, or that they’d see she’d colonized another table meant for the class five years younger than them and spread out.

No one noticed her.

She took a sip of wine.

It was good wine, but she wasn’t surprised. Bateson had money. It had an endowment and rich, empowered, girlboss alums who donated out their ears to the school. Becks could only ever give fifty dollars or so, because teachers made fuck-all in terms of money.

“Cool kids table?”

She recognized the voice before she saw the speaker, and fear shot through her. Fear that they wouldn’t be looking at her, or maybe fear that they would be. It would be easier if they were looking at the table of packed classmates.

But no.

Angel Gonzales was standing there in a tweed sports coat and a tweed vest, their head cocked, a crooked grin on their face.

Back in High School, Angel had always worn their long, curly hair in two tight braids, usually French braids that clung to their skull. They didn’t post a lot of pictures of themself these days on Facebook, so it was jarring to see Angel’s usual heart-shaped face beneath hair that was cropped short, but long enough to begin to curl up towards the ceiling. They also had a septum piercing, which made Becks’ mouth go dry, because there was just something about septum piercings, and of course Angel had a septum piercing now. The semi-darkness made their chestnut skin seem that much darker, but their eyes glittered in the candlelight as they approached the table and—to Becks’ shock—held out an arm to pull Becks into a quick, tight hug.

“How’s it been?” they asked, glancing around. “Same old Big B?”

“Pretty much,” Becks said, her voice stupidly high-pitched and wispy. She wanted to sound like a teacher, brassy and confident. But once again, she couldn’t be herself here. She’d never been herself here.

Angel’s grin twisted a little. “Then I’ll need some of that. Be right back.”

Becks didn’t let herself watch Angel go. Angel would go get wine, then be noticed by their classmates and pulled to the real cool kid’s table, and Becks would be left to finish her wine on her own.

But Angel was back a minute later, approaching with their own glass of chardonnay. “So tell me about—” they began but stopped midway through because their glass jerked sharply in their hand as they stumbled over nothing. Wine went everywhere. Becks supposed the only consolation to it having gotten on the front of her shirt was that it had also splattered on Angel’s waistcoat.

“Ah fuck,” Angel said. “I’m sorry.”

“Party fouling this early in the evening?” Becks laughed as she took a paper napkin and began to dab at her shirt.

“I swear this is my first glass,” Angel replied, a crooked smile crossing their face again. They glanced at Becks’ chest. She was glad the room was dimly lit, or else Angel would be able to see her flushing. “That won’t stain, will it?”

“I don’t think so,” Becks replied.

Angel offered her their arm. “Can I escort you to the bathroom, mademoiselle, to properly cleanse yourself of my invasive wine?”

Becks grinned, and took Angel’s arm. It was warm, even through the layer of their sports coat.

The bathroom was unnaturally bright after the dimness of the Assembly Hall and Becks made a beeline for the paper towels.

“Shit, they spruced this place up,” Angel said, looking around. It was true. The lights had been guttering and yellow ten years before, the floor an off-white tile that looked perpetually dirty, the stalls a sort of taupe color. Now the stalls were red, the lights were bright white, and the tile looked positively polished.

“You should see the classrooms upstairs,” Becks said as she handed Angel some paper towels. Angel looked at her blankly, blinking as though a bit confused. “For your vest.”

“Oh. Right.” Angel turned on the tap and wet the paper towels as Becks did the same. “Just my luck getting wine on this.”

“Is it new?” That was something that someone only ever said about new clothes, worn for the first time.

“Yep. Just got my last paycheck from my temp gig. See ya,” they said aggressively.

“That bad?”

“Terrible, but it paid super well, so I didn’t quit. Told myself if I lasted through the contract I’d get some fancy pants. So I did.”

“They look good on you,” Becks said, giving Angel a once-over.

They did.

The coat and vest were well cut, possibly even tailored to fit them. The coat was cut to make their shoulders look broad, their hips narrow. Their rear bubbled out in a way that made Becks jerk her gaze back up. She was not going to stare at Angel Gonzales’ ass in the bathroom at Bateson. She was not going to do that.

“Thanks,” Angel was saying. “I like your hair.”

Becks grinned, and flipped it over her shoulder. “Thank you,” she said. It was strange. Standing here in the bathroom, away from everyone else, Becks almost felt like herself again. It was the briefest, brightest, respite from the regression and nerves.

Angel liked her hair.

“You should dye yours,” she said. “Or is it too much with the septum piercing?”

She wondered if Angel ever stopped smiling. She only ever remembered them smiling, but now, every time she said something, their smile seemed to get wider. It made her feel a little bit light. “I should,” they agreed. “Though I can’t while I temp for corporate,” they rolled their eyes. “It makes me less hirable.”

“That’s dumb,” Becks said.

“Yeah. Especially since I don’t want to get hired full-time anyways.”

“Oh?” Somehow Becks wasn’t surprised by that, and yet within the walls of Bateson, it felt almost sacrilegious to say so.

“Nah. Need to keep my schedule flexible for my stuff.” Angel jerked their head and suddenly looked a little shy.

“Are you making another Triceracops?” Becks asked, excited.

Angel blinked. The smile faded and was replaced with a sort of delighted awe, the same expression that Socks got on his face whenever someone brought up his Soundcloud account. You saw my movie, they didn’t have to say.

“Not a sequel, per se,” they said at last, opening the door to the bathroom and holding it open for Becks. “But something in the same vein. You’re in Saint Louis still, right?” they asked as the two of them left the bathroom. Becks gave them a look out of the corner of her eye. Were they changing the subject, uncomfortable talking about their movie? Or were they just asking after her?

She nodded. “Yup. Teaching high school English.”

“Nice,” Angel grinned. “My mom wishes I’d do something like that.”

“She still giving hell?”

Becks had heard about more than known Angel’s mom, a religious woman who’d grown up in South Carolina before moving to New York. She was strict, and had never thought that Angel was serious enough about their schoolwork, despite having spent years at Prep for Prep, which made them easily one of the sharpest students in their class at Bateson. Becks had seen her at Angel’s plays in high school, sitting in the front row, her every motion controlled. She was frequently the only Black person in the audience.

“Until she dies,” Angel said. “She thinks I’m just frittering around. Which, to be fair, I am.” They winked.

“She was in Triceracops though,” Becks said, testing the subject change.

 Angel grinned. “Only because I didn’t tell her what it was about. Though, to be fair, she didn’t mind being in it, she just thought that it would make sense.”

“Proper modern Dadaism,” Becks smiled encouragingly as they approached their previously abandoned wine-covered table. She liked watching the way Angel seemed to expand as they kept talking about the movie, as though it were really hitting them that their classmate had seen it, and liked it.

Angel raised their glass with its remaining drops of wine and winked. “I try.”

“I’m astounded Hollywood hasn’t come knocking,” Becks replied with a sniff as she took a sip of her own wine.

“Do I look like a sellout to you?” Angel asked, mock outrage filling every line of their face, before grinning and saying, “I would absolutely take their cash and run. We all gotta hustle, and I’ve been hustling since I was a kid.”

Becks laughed.

She remembered Angel standing on top of desks in homeroom, brandishing a broom like a sword, defying anyone to let a King Lear paper defeat them, for they had Angel Gonzales as an ally at arms. She remembered Angel always at school early and staying late, sometimes doing homework but more likely drawing storyboards for ridiculous movies that would never get made.

Or maybe they would, now that Angel was making their own cult films.

“But it’s nice to make money on your own thing, I’m sure,” Becks said warmly. “It was sold out of Best Buy when I went to buy it.”

Angel blinked again, and this time, it was more than just you saw my movie, available for free streaming on three platforms. It was you went to buy the DVD.

They didn’t reply, looking down at their wine. “Yeah,” they said, their voice a little thick. “Yeah, it’s good to make money off my own thing. It’s gonna help fund the next one, even if the bulk of the money’s gonna come from crappy soul-crushing corporate temp gigs.” When they looked up again, they looked a little more composed. “I’m outlining it now.”

“I can’t wait to see it,” Becks said.

Angel took a sip of wine. Their hand shook a little bit. “Sorry,” they muttered, and Becks had never seen Angel like this before. Angel was the epitome of confidence. Angel had gone to Brown, had gotten in early and hadn’t had to worry about college admissions for most of their senior year. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to have actually seen it here. It’s not…” they bobbed their head back and forth. “It’s not the sort of austere art that Bateson would highlight, you know?”

Becks frowned. “Why would that mean that people wouldn’t have seen it?”

But before Angel could answer, someone at the next table noticed them and shrieked in delight. “Angel! You’re here!”

And their table was flooded with classmates, everyone gushing delightedly that Angel was present, pulling them into hugs, telling them how much they liked Triceracops.

Angel’s sudden shyness was gone, and there they were, tall and confident again, exchanging teasing jabs with people who clearly thought they were more valuable than Becks.

Becks, who was still going unnoticed, who was finishing her wine quietly, watching a community she’d never felt a part of continue to not include her. She felt small again, young again. The momentary respite was over.

She wished she had a girlfriend there, but was woefully single and would probably have wanted to shield her girlfriend from this place that had caused her so much misery for being gay in the first place. Louise Aston had brought her fiancé, who was standing there looking almost nervous that he was one of maybe ten men in a room of over a hundred women. Yeah, that’s right, be afraid, she thought darkly. Bateson had taught her that men who were afraid of women, who didn’t know how to engage with them when they were in a room, were weak and wouldn’t survive the winter. She’d never been proven wrong about that.

Though she did almost pity him. She supposed he could have not come at all. At least he was trying.

“Becks got it on DVD,” she heard Angel say and her attention snapped back to the table. Angel was watching her, their eyes in the glowing gold of the candlelight. There was such a warmth there. Was it pathetic to cling to it a bit, like a life preserver thrown to a drowning sailor, a smidgen of attention given to her when no one else would give her the time of day?

“Really? You still buy DVDs?” Cora Haynes snorted in derision. But that was Cora Haynes. She always looked like something in the room smelled bad, and Becks had never known her to say anything nice.

“It’s easier than dealing with eighty million streaming platforms that get rid of the things I like on whim,” Becks replied. “And it gets money directly to artists.”

“I guess,” Cora replied, turning back to Angel, clearly done with the interaction, but Angel was still looking at Becks.

Their eyes were locked on her as they said, “Also just like…knowing someone wanted to have your thing forever. It’s a good feeling.”

“I bet,” Becks said softly. She would never have anything like that. She was a teacher, not a creator. The closest thing to it was hoping that some of the lessons she gave would stick with her students the way some of her classes in high school had stuck with her. The classes had made this place almost bearable. She’d loved all of them. Except chemistry. Fuck chemistry.

“My boyfriend loved Triceracops,” Sarah was saying with a broad smile, angling her body forward in such a way that Becks felt squarely shoved out of the conversation. “I think he watched it like five times.”

Becks needed another glass of wine. She pulled herself away from the table and back towards the bar, where she filled up her glass with more chardonnay. She paused to check her phone, hoping she had a text from someone—anyone. She did have an email from her department head at school, though, and paused at an empty cocktail table to reply to it quickly.

“You ok?”

She looked up from her phone to find Angel standing there, looking concerned.

“Work,” she said, holding up her phone as an explanation.

“Yeah, but I meant…” Their voice trailed away. They looked around the Assembly Hall significantly.

“It’s hard being back here,” Becks blurted out. “It’s… I loved this place and it was hell at the same time, you know?”

Her hand shook as she lifted her wine to her mouth. She shouldn’t have said that. She wouldn’t have if she hadn’t already had a full glass of wine. The next question out of Angel’s mouth would be, what do you mean, and then she’d have to explain, and everyone was already glancing over at them from the table that Angel had abandoned, clearly curious about why Angel was leaving them for her right now.

Why was Angel leaving them for her?

She didn’t know Angel very well at all. They’d been friendly, but never close.

Angel’s next words left her breathless. “I bet it was never easy having them as sisters.”

Becks gulped. “Not really, no.”

“They shut you out a lot.” It was an observation, not a question. Becks looked up at them. Angel was taller than her, but then again, everyone was taller than her. She got the short Jew gene. Angel’s face was kind, their eyes soft.

Becks hated pity, but this didn’t seem to be pity.

Commiseration, maybe?

She didn’t know.

“They weren’t worse than anyone else,” she said carefully. They were in the same room. If they heard her, she’d never hear the end of it. “Some of it’s just… Bateson, you know? You get shut out if you’re not their perfect definition of a Bateson Girl.”

Angel let out a low laugh. “Preaching to the choir there.” They looked around. “Fuck this place, sometimes. I learned some amazing things and it always told me to sit down and shut up, that I was being too loud.” They gave Becks a significant look.

Becks got it. “The microaggressions must have been….” She fumbled for the right words. Her own experience teaching had opened her eyes to racism she hadn’t known how to be aware of in the early two-thousands, still in the Bush years and during the early days of the Internet, before the dominance of social media. The speed of learning had accelerated drastically during her college years and after, with every shared article, with every #movement, and Becks had absorbed more about power structures, and systemic oppression than she ever had from Bateson and all its feminism.

Angel didn’t wait for her to find the right word. “The loud part was what got to me,” they continued. “Kate Bass shouted as much as I did in the hallways between classes, but I was the one they always reprimanded for it. Especially since it’s that loudness now that everyone keeps praising because it’s the energy I put in my movie.” They made a face. “Whatever.” Then their face went serious again. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to make it about me.”

But Becks was smiling. “I’ll take the distraction,” she said. “I’m sorry it was so hard for you. It never seemed to be, but I know that doesn’t mean it wasn’t.” Angel had always seemed like the queen of the school—a crown they’d claimed rather than been granted.

They sighed and looked around. “I know everyone fronts in high school, but this place really makes you front. Which was useful, I suppose. I’m better at,” they pulled a voice, “networking. Or whatever now. I can code-switch properly. But you had to front the whole time or else they’d counsel you out. And my mom would have killed me if they’d told me I needed to go to another school.” They took another sip of wine and looked around. Becks saw the table of their classmates, still eyeing them. Why would Angel want to talk to Becks instead of us?

She confessed herself similarly confused.

“Anyway, ain’t nothing like anger to get you through high school,” Angel said. “Even if you can’t show it. And regression’s a bitch, so here I am, angry over nothing now.”

“What else were you angry about then?” Becks asked. Bateson had trained her not to ask this sort of question. Her stepmother had told her it was endlessly rude. Teaching had taught her that you always check in with your students, that you offer them the space to give voice to what’s going on in their heads, because they need that, sometimes. They need it a lot.

“Mom had a tight grip,” Angel said, seeming to find Becks’ question welcome rather than intrusive, and Becks let out a slow breath. She wasn’t totally surprised, though. Angel had always been easy-going. An open book here at Bateson, where Becks had always been a closed one. “I wasn’t really… allowed out much. I needed to get into a good college. Dad was gone all the time because he was trying to get his business off the ground. And I felt like I didn’t belong here because I had to take a prep program just to apply, while the rest of the white girls just got in.” They sighed. “You always have to prove yourself, but you don’t even get to prove yourself as yourself. Just some version of yourself that’ll get you their approval. And they keep beating back the parts of you that don’t fit their mold.”

Becks got not fitting their mold. She got that way too well.

It wasn’t just Bateson, but Bateson was such a part of it.

“I’m glad you were here,” Becks said. “I’m sad we never had classes together.”

“Me too,” Angel agreed. They sounded like they meant it. They opened their mouth as though about to say something else when Naomi appeared at their shoulder.

“We’re going to head back to our place,” she said. “Wanted to get the after party going.”

Becks looked down at her phone. They’d only been at the cocktail hour for forty-five minutes. There was another hour left.

“Shouldn’t we wait to see if more people show up?” Becks asked.

Naomi waved a hand. “They’ll text. I already let people know to just go to Mom’s.”

“Yeah, ok,” Angel said. They glanced back at Becks.

At least she wasn’t getting left behind. If Angel hadn’t been here, there would absolutely have been a version of this evening where Naomi shepherded everyone out of the door and left her to her own little table. She’d know how to get home. It didn’t matter if she came with them or not.

It was still early enough in the spring that it was getting dark by the time they all emerged from the school around five o’clock, though the dark was made darker by heavy clouds overhead. It was chilly, too.

“This way!” Naomi called to the little pack of classmates, as though they hadn’t all gone to parties at Gloria’s a million times before, and they all began to march off together. Becks caught bits and pieces of chatter. Once again, none of it seemed to take her into account.

Do they think that this is something I like? she wondered as she watched them walk ahead of her, crossing East End Avenue and marching towards York. Do they think that I just…

She seemed to be accepting it. She wasn’t trying to make conversation with them. But then again, she’d never known how to, and she still felt like she was sixteen again, not like she was closer to thirty than twenty. She felt lonely and friendless, even though she had plenty of friends back in Saint Louis, even though Socks was in her pocket, waiting for her to text if she was in distress.

Angel glanced back over their shoulder to look at her, a curious expression on their face. Becks forced herself to smile. It’s fine, she thought at them. This is just how it goes. It’s ok to be cooler than me.

But Angel didn’t seem to be able to read her mind for some unfathomable reason. They slowed their pace for a second and walked in stride with Becks for the remainder of the block.

The others crossed York Avenue, but the light changed before Becks and Angel made it there. The others didn’t even notice that some of their party had been left behind, and kept on going.

It was starting to rain. Not a heavy rain. It was one hair heavier than mist. Becks pulled her cardigan tighter around her. It’d get cold fast.

“Want my jacket?” Angel asked.

“Will it fit me?”

“You don’t need to button it,” Angel said.

Becks looked them up and down. Angel had always been slim, but it wasn’t just that they were thinner than Becks. Their shoulders were narrower. So were their hips. And the shoulders would make a big difference in putting on a jacket. “Your frame is just narrower than mine. Thanks, though.”

Angel shrugged. Sarah, Naomi, and the rest were already almost out of sight in the darkness. Becks felt better.

For the first time all day, she didn’t have to tell herself not to be bitter. The one person she actually wanted to talk to was right there with her, waiting for the light to change again.

She wished she knew what to say. She wished she could dive into witty banter. It was as though oversharing earlier had gummed up her throat and her heart, and made it impossible to think straight at all.

Think straight.

She snorted.

“What’s so funny?” Angel asked at once.

“Nothing,” Becks said, her cheeks heating.

“It’s gotta be good if it’s nothing,” Angel said, that crooked grin back on their face. “Share with the class.”

“Oh, it was stupid,” Becks said. The light changed. “I was just thinking that I was having trouble thinking straight. Thinking straight. Get it?”

“Nice,” Angel said. “That cocktail hour was a lot and that was all I could make myself go to. How did you manage to be there all day?”

“Bold of you to assume I managed,” Becks said darkly. She shuddered. Maybe it was the rain, or maybe it was just because it was the two of them, but she felt less nervous. More herself. Her voice didn’t feel high and fluttery and quivering. It was low and brassy, cutting through the sounds of traffic as they crossed the street together. “That place…” she shook her head. “It’s not easy, is it? I loved what I got from it, but I could have left… most of the rest behind.” She shot a significant look up the block. Sarah was holding an umbrella that she and Cora Haynes were walking under. Naomi was walking under Sophia Chiu’s umbrella.

“You rocked it, though,” Angel said. “You’re a badass. Brave as fuck.”

Becks stopped dead in her tracks.

She’d been called many things in her life. Half of them were insulting. Some of them were kind. None of them were brave.

It didn’t compute at all. She had a thousand questions, but all she managed to say was, “What?”

“You heard me,” Angel said quietly. They were looking away, as though suddenly shy, the way they had in the Assembly Hall during cocktail hour. “You’re brave.”

“How am I brave?” I’m a coward and always have been.

“Because Bateson was all ra-ra feminism, but the pulsing subtext of every interaction was don’t you dare be a lesbo. And you were out. You didn’t try to hide it.” They tilted their head. “Do you have any idea what that meant? I was still going to church every Sunday, convinced I was going hell for looking at tits. It made me realize maybe I could be gay and that it would be ok. And from there, maybe it was ok to wonder if I might not be a woman after all. I’d probably still be in the closet if not for you. Well,” they paused. “I wouldn’t be. Brown would have gotten me out. But it would have been a harder journey because I wouldn’t have been wondering since I was fifteen instead of shaking my foundations when I was eighteen. But you get my point.”

Becks stood rooted to the spot, halfway between York and First Avenues, staring at Angel. Their words were ringing in her ears. They thought she was brave. They thought she’d done it on purpose, that she’d felt confident rather than defeated.

She swallowed.

“Anyway, you’re really brave,” Angel said, throwing their arm around Becks’ shoulder.

“I didn’t come out, though,” Becks blurted out. She felt both hot and cold at the same time. She felt afraid.

Angel frowned. Their arm was still around her shoulder. They’d probably peel it off, after this. But she couldn’t not tell them. She wasn’t brave.

“Naomi found a book I took out of the library. Some baby dyke teen romance.” She couldn’t make herself say the rest. She was already back there again, walking down the seventh floor hallway, Naomi’s voice ringing in her ears that Becca likes girls. She’d wanted to cry her eyes out in the bathroom stall. She’d cried her eyes out into her pillow the night before. But the only thing that kept her going, kept her from saying that it was a lie, she was just reading a book, was knowing that somewhere, her Dad—if he didn’t hate her for being gay—would hate her for denying who she was.

“They outed you?”

She couldn’t make herself look up at Angel. She couldn’t make herself face it. The way you remember me—that’s a lie. I’m so sorry I lied to you, like I lied to everyone.

Angel’s arm tightened around her shoulders. “Remember what I said about you being a badass?” they growled. “Fuck Naomi. And Sarah too if she was a part of it.”

Becks reached a hand up to rub her eyes. She didn’t know if it was tears or rain, but her face was wet and she didn’t like it.

“Anyway,” she said, her voice thick. “I’d have left most of the rest behind. I wasn’t myself there the way I am now. I wanted to show everyone who I am now.” She rolled her eyes, wishing they were less tearful. “And then, of course, regression hit.”

“Badass,” Angel repeated with a growl. Becks almost believed it coming from their lips. “That’s why I came too. I wanted them to see who I am, not remember who I was. But I think they wanted to see who I am more than they wanted to see you.”

“You were always cooler than me,” Becks sighed. “They always liked you more.”

“I didn’t have popular sisters outing me to the whole fucking class,” Angel said. Their thumb was rubbing against Becks’ shoulder. She closed her eyes for a minute. Let yourself be comforted, bitch, Socks always told her. You deserve it.

After a moment, she gently peeled Angel’s arm off her so they could keep walking. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She’d said it. She’d told someone. She hadn’t told anyone from Bateson before, not even the friends she’d had in other grades. The first person she’d told was Socks, but she hadn’t tried to get his pity out of it, because he’d been kicked out of his fucking house by his parents when he’d come out, and he still didn’t talk to them.

“How’d your mom take it?” Becks asked Angel, to give herself something to hear that wasn’t the sound of the raindrops on pavement, or their footsteps in the dark.

“Not great,” Angel said. “We didn’t talk for two years. Then her dad died and we talked through it. She…” Angel sighed. “She got me being gay better than me not being a woman, but I think she’s trying.”

“It’s harder,” Becks said idly. “Although my high schoolers—they’re on it.”

“Gen Z terrifies and delights me,” Angel grinned. “I’m so glad they get to be as angry as they want.”

“Are you on TikTok with them?” Becks asked.

“Oh yeah. TikTok is perfect for getting ideas for what to make next.”

“What are you planning?” Becks asked.

“That would be telling,” Angel sniffed. Then their face changed. “I still can’t believe you actually liked Triceracops enough to buy it on DVD.”

“It was hilarious,” Becks said firmly. “I made three of my friends watch it too. Why wouldn’t you think I’d like it?”

“Because it was a fuck you to Bateson and Brown. It was a fuck you to all the places that told me how to be, and what to be, and how to behave in order to achieve that. It’s not high art. It wasn’t meant to be. And you like it. You liked it. This… this expression of everything I try to be.”

Becks finally looked up at Angel. They’d reached First Avenue and were stuck at the light again. By now, the others were totally out of sight. “I watched it with my best friend Socks. And every four seconds, I just kept saying, this is so Angel. That movie is you. That movie’s everything I thought was so cool about you when we were in school together. It was funny and sharp and crazy and loud and biting and critical and—and you. It was just you.”

Angel looked almost as though Becks had slapped them. Not a bad slap, a punishing slap, but one that was used to shock someone out of some line of thought. They stared at Becks almost in wonder as they stood there in the glowing yellow lights of a rainy New York City night, their eyes flickering between each of hers and then, noticeably, down to her lips.

Angel Gonzales is staring at my lips.

Angel Gonzales was kissing her lips, their hands cupping her cheeks. They tasted like wine and something else, that human taste that comes with kissing. Their lips were soft, and knew what they were doing and Becks couldn’t tell if it was the shock of it, or just that it was a good kiss that made her feel so breathless.

And then the lips were gone. Angel wasn’t quite backing away, but they’d pulled their head back, eyes darting between each of Becks’. Was that ok?

Had she forgotten to kiss Angel back?

Had she been that stupid?

But the moment was gone. Angel was pulling away more firmly now, letting her go. It was like watching sand slip through her fingers, and she knew each grain would be gone soon if she didn’t do something.

Becks took Angel’s hand and Angel stilled, looking down at it for a moment. Then they looked back at Becks. Becks gave them what she hoped was a sheepish look. “Caught me by surprise,” she said, hoping that would be enough.

It seemed to be. Angel let out a long, shaking breath. They squeezed her hand.

“Do you think that cupcake place is still around? The one everyone was obsessed with during tech weekends?”

“No idea,” Becks said. She remembered only that the place had been on Second Avenue, in the opposite direction of Gloria’s apartment. “Let’s check.”

And together, they walked into the night.

 

~*~

 

By the time they arrived back at Gloria’s, it was fully dark and heavily raining. The cupcake place had, in fact, been open, and they’d each gotten two. Becks couldn’t have told anyone what they talked about. It wasn’t important. It was light, and fun, and relaxing. She felt like herself, and if she had to guess, Angel felt like themself too. There’d been more examination of one another’s lips, and all Becks could think about was how she couldn’t believe that she was getting cupcakes with Angel, that they were laughing together, that Angel’s thumb kept brushing against her leg from where they sat. It was the sort of thing she might have let herself dream about in high school, if she didn’t feel guilty about crushing on her—presumably—straight classmates.

Angel’s coat was soaking, and their pants up to their knees were too. Becks wasn’t much better, but at least she had clothes to change into in her bedroom. “Here, I’ll hang it in the bathroom where it can drip a bit,” Becks said as she helped Angel out of their jacket. “Do you want sweatpants?”

“Nah, I’ll suffer in silence. Thanks though.”

Becks rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to do a stoic mask, you know.”

Angel snorted. “Would your sweatpants even fit me? You’ve got tiny legs.”

“Hey,” Becks complained, elbowing Angel playfully. Angel grinned.

She disappeared towards the bathroom by the kitchen, by her bedroom and hung Angel’s sports coat in the shower next to her own cardigan. Then she took off her wet shoes and socks.

She took a deep breath. Ok. Afterparty.

If there was one thing that cupcakes with Angel had shown her, it was that she could be her usual self. She felt like it now. She didn’t have to lose it.

People were milling around the living room, various forms of alcohol in their hands. Gloria had provided hors d’oeuvres—cheeses and charcuterie and various dips and vegetables. There were more men now. People had invited boyfriends and fiancés to the afterparty where they hadn’t to the cocktail hour at the school. That made sense, she supposed.

Angel was chatting with a few people by the window. They glanced Becks’ way when she came in, giving her a quiet smile, but they didn’t beeline for her.

That was fine.

They’d just gotten cupcakes and chatted. It wasn’t like they were dating or anything.

It wasn’t like dating would be possible, even. Angel lived here; Becks lived in Missouri. An evening spent in one another’s company wasn’t enough to solicit a long-distance relationship, no matter how strong Becks’ penchant for U-Hauling was.

It’s not like I’m cool enough for them anyway.

The thought was chilling, colder than the rain outside. Where Becks had felt bubbly and warm—borderline confident, even, when she’d walked through the door to Gloria’s apartment, she felt small again.

She tried to summon Socks’ voice. You’re the coolest person I know. She tried even to summon the way that Angel had called her brave. None of it mattered.

Not a single person in this room had turned to greet her when she’d come through the door. Not a single person cared if she was there or not.

Not a single person except Angel, who she wasn’t cool enough for.

Stop it, she tried to tell herself as she raised her can of beer to her lips. This isn’t helpful. Angel thinks you’re cool and brave, and they’re not wrong. They’re probably more right than everyone here.

Fuck Naomi. And fuck Sarah if she was a part of it, Angel had said vehemently between First and Second.

Becks looked around the room. It wasn’t just them, though. It was all of them. All of them didn’t care, didn’t know, would smile and be polite and not acknowledge her existence at all. Maybe it was Naomi and Sarah to an extent, their iron grip on popularity ten years before. Or maybe it was a little bit her, too.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket, and texted Socks.

Come up with an emergency, please.

Socks called instantly.

“Hey,” she said into the phone.

“Babe, what’s wrong?” he asked.

Becks turned away from the room, disappearing into the kitchen and making her way towards her bedroom.

“I hate this,” she said. “They just—they don’t care about me.”

“Who cares if they don’t care about you,” Socks growled. “I care about you and I’m worth at least ten of them combined.”

She let out a wet laugh. “You’re worth all of them combined,” she corrected before pausing. “Well. Almost all of them.”

“Seriously, high school reunions are bullshit,” Socks said angrily. “The only thing they’re good for is showing your glow-up. Spending more than forty-five minutes with people who knew you when you were a teenager is bad for your brain. One hundred percent of the time. Let the past die. Why are Americans so fixated on eternal youth? Leave it all behind.”

“I’m trying,” Becks said quietly. “It’s just… hard when you’re home.”

Socks’ tone changed sharply. “I bet,” he said gently. “I can’t imagine what going home’d be like. Can’t as in won’t. It’d kill me.”

“I love you,” she mumbled into the phone.

“I’ll fight all of those bratty Bateson bitches for your honor if I gotta. Bring me next time.”

“I will,” she sighed.

“Seriously they’re not talking to you?”

“They did some at lunch, but you could just tell it was pity, you know? They were doing the right thing because you have to ask people for life updates at these things. It wasn’t about me, it was about them feeling good about asking me.”

“Please never go home again.”

Becks tried to laugh. “Naomi and Sarah are being peak Naomi and Sarah.”

“Of course,” Socks said. He’d met the two of them before. Becks had brought him home for Thanksgiving exactly twice before deciding to make excuses to never come back for Thanksgiving again.

“And I…” she took a deep breath. “It hasn’t been all bad.”

“Stop lying to yourself,” Socks said firmly.

“I’m not. One of my classmates has been very sweet. And kind. They said I was brave.”

Socks paused, and she could practically hear him doing the math. There was only one classmate she had—as far as he knew—who used they/them pronouns. “Did you kiss the Triceracops person?”

Where Angel hadn’t been able to read her mind, Socks seemed to be able to from thousands of miles away.

Warmth flooded her.

“Maybe,” Becks said. “We got cupcakes.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“No, there’s a cupcake place on 85th and Second. We literally got cupcakes.”

“I think you should get cupcakes, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down.”

There was a knock on her bedroom door, a light knock, three quick raps. Naomi and Sarah didn’t knock like that. They never knocked at all because they never came to her bedroom. They’d just call to her from the kitchen if they needed her for something.

“Hang on, I’ll call you back,” Becks said.

“Beat ‘em up, champ,” Socks said before killing the call.

She got up off her bed and opened the door.

There was Angel, a frown on their face. “You ok?” they asked. It felt like the millionth time that night that they’d asked. Which probably meant that no, no she wasn’t ok. She’d fled the living room on the verge of tears, had gone from feeling happy and confident to small and worthless in about four seconds flat.

She shook her head.

Angel stepped through the door, closing it behind them.

“I hate being in this house,” Becks mumbled. “I hate feeling like I’m sixteen again because I hated myself so much when I was sixteen. I felt so much shame all the time, and even when I try to forget it, even when I do forget it for a few minutes, it just comes back and drowns me.” She looked away, her eyes landing on her suitcase. “I promise in my real life, I’m not this whiney, mopey, fragile person.”

“Of course you’re not,” Angel said firmly. “You’re Brave Becca Kaplan.”

“Not even brave,” Becks said, turning back to them. “Just normal. I’m normal amounts of fucked up. Abnormal amounts of neurotic, but I’m a New York Jew so that’s par for the course. But I’m…. I’m not this. I’m not…”

There were tears on her face again, and she made to brush them away, but Angel beat her to it, wiping the wetness away with their thumb.

“Sorry,” Becks mumbled.

“Don’t be sorry. What do you have to be sorry for?”

“For making you step away to… to deal with me.”

“I want to deal with you,” Angel said. “Also believe me when I say that if this afterparty were at my house, the shoe would be on the other foot. We all got shit to deal with. They all do too.”

“I know,” Becks said. That was a thing she’d learned teaching, too. Even when your students were golden students, there was always something that caused them pain. Everyone had something.

“You don’t have to let them in,” Angel said. “Them not getting to know you, or seeing you in any other way than they see you—that’s their problem. It’s not just what you remember, it’s how. I bet they remember all the same things I remember about you, but they don’t remember it with my lens. Maybe they remember it with their own, or maybe it’s Naomi’s and Sarah’s, or whatever. Who cares? It’s how you remember it that makes the difference.”

Brave, Becks reminded herself. Angel thinks I’m brave.

She didn’t feel brave.

If she felt brave, she’d surge up to kiss Angel for saying all the nice things that they’d said, for coming after her to find her, which they absolutely didn’t have to do. She’d have been fine just talking it through with Socks.

“Why are you…” Becks began but stopped herself. She had this feeling she knew why Angel was being so nice, and it had to do with Angel kissing her on the street, and why Angel had kissed her on the street. It had been so clear that Angel didn’t think people saw them the way they were. But Becks had.

And Angel was returning the favor.

Except it wasn’t a favor. It was just how she was.

Fuck it.

She stood on the tips of her toes and brought Angel’s face down to hers. She sucked on their lower lip for a moment, massaged it with her tongue, then tried to pull back. Tried, because Angel’s hands were cupping her chin again, not letting her come up for air. Angel was pulling her closer, pushing her back until her knees collided with the bed and the two of them were toppling down onto it, a swirl of breath and wet fabric.

“Not to be bold or anything, but your pants are super wet. Do you want to take them off?”

Ok, she could maybe get how Angel thought she might be brave.

Angel grinned at her, fiddling with the button of their pants and beginning to shuck them down their legs, eventually throwing them onto the floor.

“No, they’ll dry more slowly like that,” Becks said, and she pushed herself sideways and began to straighten out the pant legs, stretching them out on the floor by the bed.

Angel crawled over her, pressing kisses to the back of her neck, the weight of their torso perfect against her spine. Becks stilled as Angel’s hands traced her sides. She lay there, breathing for a moment.

She’d always loved it when past lovers had covered her body with their own. The weight was comforting—unsurprising for someone who slept under a weighted blanket every night. The warmth, the skin contact… all of it was… it was wonderful in a way that Becks wasn’t used to things being wonderful. Angel was still kissing her neck, their lips inching around towards the fleshy side of it. Becks twisted her head and caught Angel’s lips with her own.

Her heart was pounding in her chest as they rolled around on her bed, her legs wrapped around Angel’s hips. Her skirt had ridden up, so Angel had pulled her top down, had popped her breasts out of her bra, was thumbing them and sucking them and Becks’ head was spinning as her own fingers traced the lines of Angel’s briefs. She’d gotten as far as undoing Angel’s vest and throwing it to the ground next to their pants before getting distracted by their ass.

She’d never done anything like this in this house. She’d never brought a girlfriend home, never brought anyone home, and now her tits were out and she was arching her back up towards someone’s lips, her breathing erratic, her skin aflame.

“Is this ok?” she asked, tugging lightly at the elastic leghole of Angel’s underwear.

Angel groaned ascent, and she slipped her fingers in.

Angel was warm, and wet—so very wet. The second that Becks’ fingers began to probe, Angel was bucking their hips towards her fingers. They sucked the inner part of Becks’ cleavage, groaning a little bit as they ground into her hand. She saw their fingers tighten on Becks’ bedspread.

“Jesus,” they breathed into her skin. “Oh fuck.”

Becks grinned.

She may never have touched anyone in high school, but this wasn’t her first rodeo. She knew what she was doing, how to read the signs and figure out what someone liked, and it wasn’t long before Angel was whimpering and trembling in her arms, biting their orgasm out into the flesh of Becks’ breasts as their cunt spasmed around her fingers.

She’d made Angel Gonzales come.

In her bedroom in Gloria Katz’ Park Avenue apartment.

While half her high school class was schmoozing in the living room.

She grinned as Angel wriggled over her, their lips pressing against her skin again, peppering her with hot, open-mouthed kisses.

“You’re something else,” Angel murmured at last.

“I like to think so.” She felt a world away from the rest of the apartment. She felt young, and happy, and alive. She felt that bright joy that always came from being in bed with someone you liked for the first time. That giggly, almost shy delight as they looked at you, and kissed you, and wanted more of you.

Angel shifted slightly, stretching out their spine so that they could kiss Beck’s lips again. It was a lazy kiss, but it sent warmth flooding through her all the same. They kissed her jaw, her neck, the crevice between her breasts. They pulled up her shirt more so they could kiss her stomach, then shoved her skirt out of the way and continued to slide down the bed until their face was a few inches away from Becks’ own underpants.

“Can I?” they asked.

Becks nodded.

Angel tugged the underwear down her legs, and a moment later, they were kissing her slit, too.

“Oh.”

That felt good. That felt very good.

She wasn’t surprised. Angel was good at everything, why wouldn’t they be good at giving head. The gentle, precise motions of their tongue, the way they teased… her heart was sending singing blood through her veins as she closed her eyes. She couldn’t stare at her ceiling. It would distract her from feeling this.

Not even a burst of laughter from the living room could stop her from feeling this, could block away the way that Angel’s fingers—now slipping into her to move in time with their tongue—were making her writhe.

She let out a particularly loud groan right as another burst of laughter came from the living room and she clapped her hand over her mouth. They’d hear her. They’d know.

Angel paused, and Becks opened her eyes. She looked debauched, lying there with her tits out and her skirt up, her underwear about halfway down her bent legs. Angel reached their free hand and grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand away from her mouth.

“Don’t,” they said. How could one word, spoken so quietly, be so loud?

“But they’ll hear me,” Becks whispered.

“Let them hear you,” they said.

Becks stared at them.

She heard so many things in those words.

Let them hear you. Let them know you. Let them hear us. They should have seen this one coming years ago. Let them hear me make you come.

She lost the rest as Angel bent their head again and everything was a swirl of warmth, of pressure, of lapping noises and laughter and moans. So many moans. Fuck. She’d always been loud during sex, but was she really this loud?

Her body shuddered and rolled, and Angel licked their way through it until Becks angled her hips away from their mouth. Her heart hadn’t beat this hard in… she couldn’t remember how long. Not since the summer at least, but even then, this was a better orgasm than the ones that Susan had given her.

She twitched her fingers. Angel got the gesture and crawled up the bed again, curling around Becks, burying their face in her neck and kissing it again. Becks twisted towards them for a better cuddle and let herself melt happily into Angel’s embrace.

Maybe they’d make it out to the party.

But Becks didn’t feel like they had to.

She, at least, had no desire to move. Though it would be amusing to go out and make everyone pretend they hadn’t heard her come just now.

She grinned.

“What’s got you smiling?” Angel asked.

“You,” she said. “And a little bit me, too.” And she pressed her lips to Angel’s.