Vic thought she was intimately familiar with the suffocation of disappointment. The way it grabs onto your clothes and digs its fingers into your intercostal cartilage. She was, after all, her mothers' daughter. Growing up with that woman meant missing out on a lot of things she actually wanted. It was still a cold shock, though, when that first drop of rain hit her and the guy running the ride brought out the sign that told everyone the ride was closed and the chain barred her from going any further. The one thing she wanted was just out of reach.

She started at the yellow rubber-covered chain, a perfect representation of her dashed hopes.

Scotty and the girl from 2B snapped her a little out of it a moment later. The palm of Scotty's hand slapped down on her shoulder. "I'm sorry you were right, Vicky."

"I just wanted to ride the goddamn ride."

"At least we got to ride it once?" 2B offered.

"Yeah, I guess."

"All right." Scotty paused, as if considering something. "We could still go to that show Leo wanted to go to."

"It's going to be crowded as shit under that pavilion, with the rain and all," 2B reasoned.

"Let's just go hang out in a bathroom or something." Vicky grumbled, shoulders tense.

"You want to hang out in a bathroom?" The girl from 2B wrinkled her entire pretty face like one of those improperly-bred pugs. She smooths it, then admits, "I guess we did hang out in a bathroom earlier."

"That wasn't hanging out, that was me taking off my shirt and you watching."

"Same difference?"

Vicky frowned at the chains one more time, then turned on her heel to walk through the rain and find somewhere dry to wait it out.

While the three of them walked, side by side, Scotty raised an eyebrow. "No-Name, you watched Vicky get undressed?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"How big were they?"

Vicky smacked him between the shoulder and the chest. "Are you talking about my tits?"

"Uh, yeah."

"You've seen them before, you jackass."

"I wanted to know what No-Name thought of them."

"Well, what does she think of them?"

Scotty and Vicky both looked at the girl from 2B, grinning matching grins with matching looks of malice and glee in their eyes. 2B stopped in the middle of the path, hunched her shoulder uncomfortably, and looked away. That wasn't going to stop Scotty and Vicky; the two of them sandwiched her, leaned in, and didn't move until she, squirming in the falling rain, whispered that, "They were okay."

"Oh!" Scotty leaned back around 2B and smacked Vicky on the shoulder. "She likes them!"

"Hell yeah, she does." Vicky held her hand out for a high-five from him, which she got immediately.

"If you get a girlfriend before I do, I'm going to kill myself," Scotty grumbled loud enough that both 2B and Vicky could hear him.

"Who says I want a girlfriend?"

"Uh, God?"

"We don't believe in God, Scott."

"I still think it would be nice."

"Aren't you homophobic?"

"Only when it comes to me and Connor." He patted her on the shoulder again.

This was another thing the two of them talked about on the walk home. Queer identity, homophobia, how it sucked that nobody in this stupid town would let them hear the end of it if any of this got out. Vicky was surprised that Scotty was talking about this so openly in front of 2B, but she didn't mind. She figured everyone could see it anyway and was just waiting for her to come out or something. Well, she wasn't going to give them the satisfaction. She wasn't their cautionary tale. She wasn't their scapegoat. This was her business, not the general public's.

But Scotty could know. She trusted him, implicitly. He was close to her; she was more like an older sister than anything, especially after he spent so much time living with Vicky and her mother when his parents were arrested on some drug charges (which Vicky didn't understand, because who gives a shit about people doing drugs when there are worse things to worry about). When that kind of thing happened, he split his time between Vicky's mom's house and his aunt's, depending on whoever could take him at the time. They were close to being family.

And Scotty knew Vicky better than anyone. He could poke at things without explicitly saying them. They had already done things together-- had conversations, spoken things over. He knew what was on her mind.

And he knew what he was doing.

Vicky tried to keep it light. She slugged him in the shoulder with a tense smile. "All right, buddy. Let's just get to that show. Or the bathroom. Whichever's more fun."

*****

The three of them shuffled back into the back of the stage to catch the tail end of some Riverdance number. There weren't any seats back there, so they stood, leaning against walls and columns, watching the next group come out on stage. The storm raged on outside the pavilion, and everything was okay for a little bit.

It was still raining when the five of them climbed back onto the bus. It came down in torrents; it was impossible to dodge. By the time she got on, Vicky's clothes were entirely soaked through and the girl from seat 2B was shivering. The rain wasn't even that cold and, yet, there she was, shaking in the bus aisle.

After everything that had happened that day, Vicky didn't really want to sit with ornear her at all, but they ended up sitting next to each other on a nasty red vinyl bench with stussies carved into it, looking at white cotton spilling through the cracks in the seat in front of them.

And, as they drove back toward the school, 2B rested her head on Vicky's shoulder and seemed to doze off. So she wasn't disgusted? She wasn't terrified? Good. Vicky couldn't bring herself to object to it. In fact, she let herself smile.

*****

The two of them sat together, waiting for their parents to arrive. Leo and Connor drove home together, since Connor's house wasn't too far out of the way. Scotty said he was going to walk home in the rain, but ended up inside all the same.

A few minutes proper, he had left to go get something to eat out of his locker; he kept fruit cups taken from the cafeteria in there. Fruit cocktail, mandarin oranges, applesauce, the elusive pineapple-- he had it all. His locker was clear on the other side of the school, though.

So 2B and Vicky ended up e dedup alone. Big whoop. What was the point? Vick was still in a mood, especially now that her shoulder was sore.

But she looked at the girl from 2B and tried to think of something to say to the waterlogged, damp-haired girl who was sitting in front of the heater in a desperate attempt to warm herself. It was dark out, now, and, still, their parents were nowhere to be seen.

"What do you think about aliens?" Vicky asked, not looking at her. She was sitting alone, of course, ass on the ground with her legs straight out in front of her.

There was a long pause before 2B finally answered, "What?"

"Aliens. Thoughts?"

"Not real."

"The fuck do you mean? Of course they're real."

"They're not. If they are, then where are they?"

"The CIA is hiding things from us. You know that."

"You're insane."

"I'm just saying that, statistically, there has to be some sort of extraterrestrial life out there. Statistically, there has to be. It's insane to think that we're the only ones."

"What kind of aliens are you talking about? Little green men? Hitchhiker's Guide? Trandoshans? Mandalorians? Vulcans? What are we talking about here?"

"You've read Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy?"

"Yeah. I've read a lot of things."

"You like sci-fi?"

"Not really. I like horror, Jane Austen, and poetry."

"Interesting."

"Yeah, I'm real final girl material or something. Virginal and bloody, just how the slashers like 'em."

"You're a virgin?"

"No."

"Huh."

"Why, is that shocking?"

No. It wasn't. It was just that she was so incredibly annoying most of the time. "Uh... I plead the fifth."

"You, you should." 2B readjusted her legs so that she was sitting criss-cross applesauce on the lukewarm tiles. "How about you?"

"How about me, what?"

2B raised an eyebrow, and suddenly Vicky understood.

"Oh. Uh... I plead the fifth."

"Again?"

"Again."

"There's got to be a limit on how many times you can do that."

"There's no limits on the Constitution."

"Technically, that's the Bill of Rights."

"Still can't limit the Constitution, you commie."

"I am not a communist, you take that back."

"No, I don't think I will."

2B grinned at her. It was influenza to Vicky, and the symptoms were showing all over her face. She was finding the girl from seat 2B a lot less annoying than before.

"So. Aliens." 2B raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah. Aliens."

"Why is that your go-to thing?"

"I just think they're fun to think about." Vicky doesn't admit that the real reason she wanted them to be real, that she believed in them like her own personal Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, was only partially because she genuinely because she thought it was cool to think about, partially because there was no way she was ever going to be able to see the stars otherwise, and partially because, deep down, she wanted a way out of Cape Hux she knew she was never going to get. Moving costs money. Education costs money. What's the one thing Vicky is lacking in? What is the anvil over her head? There are times that she fears she will never see anywhere else, that she will die in the same place she was born.

"You genuinely believe in that?" The girl from 2B seemed intrigued, not angry, not like she was about to bring the Christian smackdown on her. Was she a Christian? Vicky had no idea.

"Yeah." Vicky breathed in, blinked. "Do you believe in anything?"

2B considered it. "Yeah. Love."

"What?"

"I believe in love."

"Huh. Weird. Girly."

"I don't know if you've noticed, Vic," 2B soapboxed, her face a vision of angelic purity, "but I am a girl. In fact, we're both girls."

"Nice."

"What?"

"Never mind."

"No, what does that mean? I'm genuinely asking here."

"It's just something that Leo would say."

"That girl-on-girl is hot?"

"Yeah. He's weird about it. Doesn't think it counts if a girl kisses another girl unless he can somehow get in the middle."

"Doesn't it count?"

"I don't know. I usually just agree with him. It's easier than arguing. Why?"

"Don't worry about it."

"You can be honest. I'm no gossip."

"I don't know if I know you well enough to be honest."

"Well, pretend that you do."

"I don't know, Vic."

Vicky turned herself around and pushed off the wall; she slid easily across the ground and ended up next to the girl from 2B. "How about now?"

"Stop," she chuckled clearly trying to act like she wasn't uncomfortable.

"I won't push it, then."

Minutes later, while Scotty was still gone, 2B sighed and said, "I'd like to kiss someone. Anyone. I've never been picky. It's been a while."

"You could kiss me?" Vicky offered, suddenly willing to be of service. The lights overhead flickered in the storm. For a moment, they were entirely in the dark.

After a moment, 2B asked, "Would that even count?"

"I don't know. You tell me. It doesn't have to mean anything if you don't want it to."

"Huh."

The lights flickered on. 2B's head was cocked to the side, like she was considering it.

"I'm headed to the bathroom," she said, after a moment. "You want to come with?"

Vicky nodded, a little too quickly.

*****

It wasn't that good, but it was okay. A little sloppy. Kind of gross, at times. Lips on lips, hands on hips, the cracked plastic of the always-broken paper towel dispenser and the graffiti of the bathroom stalls moved them; but Vicky tried her best not to notice. The wall tiles were cold on her back. It was weird. It was fine.

But she liked it. She liked it a lot.

And then, of course, Scotty ruined the moment by walking in on them, making them jump away from each other and pretend to be washing their hands or just standing there. Scotty didn't blink or blanch. He was eating a fruit cocktail with a plastic fork. The room reeked of fruit syrup, of someone's unflushed shit in the toilet, of sweat, of soap.

Around a rolling mouthful of peach and maraschino cherry, he grunted, "Vicks Vapo, your mom's here."

"Thanks for telling me," she said, trying not to warble. Her voice tended to turn to a weird sort of vibrato when she felt nervous, or when she had been caught doing something. In this case, it was definitely both.

"Could I get a ride?" he asked, still leaning against the doorway.

"Sure."

"Thanks. Hey, No-Name, Vicky's mom's got an extra seat in the car. You want a ride?"

"Yes-- and I have a name."

"Okay? And? I don't remember asking." He spooned another forkful of dripping old fruit into his mouth. "Come on, Mrs. McNamara is waiting for us outside. Let's go."

Vicky knew what would happen next. She was used to this routine. They would go home and pretend it never happened and, when they came to school the next morning, or when they saw each other at graduation next week, they wouldn't even look each other in the eye.

But, for now, they walked out to the car side by side, and sat in the back seat of Vicky's mother's car together.

And it didn't mean anything.