Chapter Text
“The necklace, ” Laura hisses the minute she gets in the car. Donna stares at her blankly, hands gripping the steering wheel.
“Laura, what-”
“The necklace, Donna! My locket. The one me and James got. It’s gone, we left it at the cabin!”
Donna blinks. “ Oh. ”
Laura digs her fists into her eyes. “God, what are we going to do?! ”
Donna rubs her hands on her skirt, and then moves them back to the steering wheel. Doesn’t start the engine, doesn’t start driving. She taps the wheel with her fingers, scratches at the leather, leaving nail-shaped imprints in the upholstery. Laura watches her hands, knuckles white on the wheel. Her nails are painted light blue, clean of any blood or dirt from the night before. Her face is clear.
“Okay,” she says, slowly. “Okay, Laura, it’s going to be fine. It’s going to be alright.” She glances at Laura in the passenger side seat, then back. “No one even knows yet. We’ll go to school, like normal, and then after, we’ll go back to the cabin and we’ll find the necklace, okay?”
Laura feels like she’s going to cry. “What if someone finds it, Donna? We’re going to go to jail! We’ll be crucified! We-”
“Laura!” Donna says, louder this time. Laura stops, instantly, stares. Donna’s face is hard, determined. “We can do this. It’s going to be okay.” She turns in her seat, and fixes Laura with a sharp gaze, brow crinkled with resolve. “I promise you.”
For a moment, neither of them say a thing, but then Donna is reaching over the gear shift and grabbing Laura’s hand. Touching has never been a foreign thing for them, more than a decade of friendship tends to do that to people after all, but this is different, somehow, and for a moment, Laura is lost for what to say. She remembers, briefly, shared smiles as they sit by the lake, feet dipped in the cool water, and Donna's arm linked through hers.
“Thank you,” she manages, finally. Donna smiles.
“You’re my best friend, Laura.” She reaches up to wipe the wetness from Laura’s eyes away with her thumb, and her hand rests there, for just a moment. “You know I’d do anything for you. You know. ”
And, truth be told, Laura does.
She half expects the police to be waiting for them outside the school doors. They are not.
No one looks at them strangely as they walk in, no one says a thing, except the usual ‘hello’s and ‘good morning’s. Everything is just as it was yesterday.
Everything is exactly the same, and nothing is.
Laura and Donna stop at Donna’s locker. Next to them, Audrey Horne is bent over, unbuckling her Mary Janes, a pair of red heels on the floor next to her and a cigarette in her free hand. She looks up as they approach her, flashes Laura one of those smiles. Laura thinks about her father, about Ben. Would he have mourned me if I died in that house last night? She wonders, Or would he have just been annoyed his best fuck fell through?
She looks away, looks back at Donna. Donna opens her locker, blocks Audrey out of their conversation.
“After school,” Donna whispers, only just loud enough to hear. “After school we’ll go back to the cabin. No one even knows yet, it’ll be okay.”
Laura nods. Donna’s voice is always slow, intentional, every word is long and sure. It wraps Laura up in its warmth, and she finds herself wanting to get lost in it, now more than ever. She nods, and Donna returns the gesture. Her face is so strong, so determined, and Laura is momentarily drowned in the understanding of how lucky she is to have her.
After a moment, Laura pulls her eyes away, glancing around the hall, eyes fixing on a head of frizzy black hair. Donna follows her gaze, there’s a small change in her expression, the smallest movement.
Ronette seems almost surprised to see them. She’s pale under her makeup, and she looks about as tired as Laura feels.
“Hi,” Laura breathes as they reach her. Ronette’s hand grip the arm’s of her jacket, black leather and far too big for her, the red of her nails and the pink of her knuckles a stark contrast against the dark fabric.
“Laura,” is all she says in a way of greeting. In a moment, her hand is on Laura’s shoulder and dragging her across the hall to stand away from the gaggle of students, Donna following behind them. “Laura, I feel sick. I feel like everyone knows, like everyone can see what we-” She cuts herself off, glances around. Her voice lowers. “Like everyone can see what happened.”
“I know,” Laura whispers back. “I know, Ronette. It’s crazy but-” She flicks her eyes to Donna, then back again. “God, I know what you mean. It feels like we’re all wearing these giant neon signs, telling everyone what we did. But no one’s even looking.”
Donna’s hand finds her’s, and a moment later, her other hand grabs onto Ronette’s.
“I know what you mean,” she says, voice once again almost too low to hear. “But we just have to remember, okay? No one knows. No one can see.”
The sudden exclamation of"See what?" scares Laura almost more than the hand that snakes its way around her waist in two seconds flat, and the accompanying groan of pain when she elbows her assailant in the gut shakes her back to earth.
"Jesus, Bobby," Donna's saying, looking annoyed. "What's your problem?"
"What's my problem? She just fucking-"
"Sorry," Laura says, absently, but she's not. Bobby should know better than to sneak up on her after all this time.
"Whatever." Bobby doesn't look convinced. "Look, Mike and I wanted to get some beers and go up into the woods tonight, you interested?"
Say yes, says a voice that sounds a lot like BOB. Go on, you slut, you know what he wants from you.
"I got stuff to do tonight," she says instead.
"What stuff?"
"My own stuff! It's none of your business!"
"It's my business if it's taking up your fucking time," Bobby says, mouth contorting. A hand reaches out to grab Laura's forearm, but she pulls away before he can reach her. "What stuff, Laura? Some other guy?"
And just like that, Laura's done.
"You're such an ass," she snaps back at him, and Bobby puts his hands up in annoyed surrender. "So what if it is? God, Bobby, you're fucking crazy. Just get over yourself and leave. Me. Alone."
"What's wrong with you today?" he asks, and Laura could hit him. "Why are you acting like such a bitch?"
"Fuck you, Bobby," she says, and she's walking away before he gets the chance to say anything in response, leaving him looking completely baffled, Donna and Ronette following her in close procession.
"I gotta break up with Mike," Donna muses. "He's cheating on me anyway. And he's boring."
Laura laughs, and for a second, it feels okay again. Like everything is like it was. And no one can see.