Chapter Text
Everything starts on the afternoon when she (rightly) punches Andrew in his stupid fucking face.
It’s a beautiful September sunset when she sees them from afar, and at first, she believes her eyes must be deceiving her; surely, there’s no fucking way that’s Andrew fucking Walker in a Whataburger parking lot making out with her fucking girlfriend with his fucking hand down her pants in the front seat of her car.
For Toni, anger starts like a tingling in the back of her head; it’s difficult to control and leaves her vision white-hot and blurred. In that state, usually things come out of her mouth without her explicit permission, proven many times by the fights she would have with her foster parents, siblings, best friends, cashiers, customers, police officers, coaches, teammates, herself (in the shower), whatever piece of furniture she stubbed her toe on, to name a few. Sometimes, even her body moves without her telling it to – it’s famously why you shouldn’t piss her off during basketball games. She’s noticed, though, it seems the key to making that tingling go away is attached to her knuckles – so when she feels angry, she punches, she breaks, she destroys, until it’s all settled and the anger is gone.
Usually, by then, the clawing, angry, red feeling in the back of her head is replaced with a quiet, purple guilt around her throat.
But on that chilly, even pleasant, Tuesday afternoon, when she comes closer and realizes that it’s actually Andrew and Regan making out in the front seat of her car, it all comes down with a crash. A literal one, too, as her schoolbag smashes through the back window, small shards flying everywhere.
“What the fuck!” “Shit!” , they both shout at the same time.
She’s around the car in a flash, opening the passenger door, and pulling Andrew out by his collar. She looks into his surprised eyes; the first punch goes straight to his nose, and the second is on its way to his left cheek, when he manages to grab her arm and deliver a swift hook to the side of her jaw. She presses him up against the side of the car, and with a firm knee to the middle of his legs, he falters and grunts in pain against her. She feels his weight give and manages to deliver a few blows to his head while holding him up, not that she thinks it will make any difference with the way he probably has enough brain damage to spare.
Over his head, she catches Regan’s eyes, open, scared, worried, upset, worried about Andrew, upset at her. Distracted momentarily, she doesn’t at all see the two-handed blow to her gut coming, and for a second, all her breath seems to leave her body; it’s enough for Andrew to push her away, and she stumbles and falls back on her ass. It’s a little embarrassing. She’ll probably leave that part out when she retells this to Dot later.
Andrew now has time to get back in the car, and Regan promptly speeds off. From her place on the ground, Toni manages to catch a handful of gravel and chuck it at the car, although all the little pieces fall a bit lamely a few feet in front of her.
By now, the sun has already set; the sky is still bright, but the streetlights start to light up, one by one, with a quiet hum. Toni is left in the fluorescent parking lot, body and mind aching, as the adrenaline and rage leave her system. This time, she might not feel guilty, but she definitely feels sad.
Pulling her knees up to her chest, she looks down at her hands. The left one, next to the right one, already starting to swell up. She wonders how she thought she might run away and marry this girl someday, and how their hands seemed to fit perfectly together. She thinks of all the shit she’s been through for her. And she thinks about how she never gets to have anything good – it’s all always taken away by the same people. The same, exact people.
She doesn’t know how long she’s sat there thinking, but it’s enough time to leave her head in a buzz, buzzing like the wasp nest next to her old camping site, buzzing like the phone on the kitchen table that always goes unanswered, buzzing like the streetlights, buzzing like a beer bottle that hits the ground but doesn’t break, just spins, and spins, and spins.
And it’s with her mind like a particularly resistant beer bottle, spinning, buzzing, covered in green, that she makes her way to her house that night. Buzzing, spinning, but unbreaking.
-
The thing about Tuesdays is that the next day is a Wednesday. And Wednesdays fucking suck. The weekend feels an eternity away, and Toni has Biology class at 9 a.m.
Dot notices her swollen hand and bruised jaw while they eat breakfast and puts a little bit of ice inside a plastic bag to give her, but doesn’t say anything. It’s only on their walk to school that she says “You know, I can’t keep pretending to be your mom and faking ‘disciplinary warnings’ signatures forever”.
“Well. You might be right, but I can assure you he deserved it this time. I doubt he will tell on me for this, though”, Toni responds, keeping her eyes on the sidewalk in front of her.
“Who even was the poor bastard?” Dot asks.
Toni opens her mouth to answer, but it turns out she doesn’t need to. At that point, they’re approaching the school and Andrew is out of his truck, kissing his girlfriend, Shelby Goodkind, goodbye. When they part, it’s glaringly obvious that one of them has a very purple nose, and it’s glaringly obvious that the girl with the very swollen hand might have had something to do with that.
“Oh.” says Dot, “What did he even do?”
“Um.” Toni runs her hand through her face. She really doesn’t want to talk about it ever again, but whatever, it’s Dot and she deserves to know about this. “I caught him kissing Regan. Kinda lost control a little bit, fucked up his nose, as you can see. Fucked up her car, too. Totally did not fall on my ass.” She throws the bag of water that used to be a bag of ice into a trashcan nearby. Nice toss, three-pointer. She does a little discreet fist pump.
Dot pauses. “Yeah, that’s Andrew for you.”
“On the bright side,” Toni spins on her heel, facing Dot now, and bumps into her shoulder, “with a broken nose, maybe he’ll be needing some painkillers. If you know what I mean.” She wiggles her eyebrows and smirks.
“C’mon, keep your voice down, dumbass.” Dot says, smiling all the same. “Also, you know that I’ll be running out soon – if anything, this will only speed up the process.”
The truth is, that was a situation they would both need to deal with soon. Ever since Dot’s dad died, selling whatever medicine he had left was her only way of income, and she didn’t want to spend all of the little inheritance he left for her at once. The meds were running out, so Dot and Toni had been looking for some other way of making money, part-time jobs, that kind of thing. Long weekends by the computer, looking for small things to do or places that would be willing to hire students.
Most of the time, they both felt like outlaws, hiding from the system of social workers that were supposed to be helping them – being so close to turning 18, anyway, they didn’t really want any of that. God knows that Toni had lived in enough different houses and had her fair share of foster parents, and Dot didn’t want to leave everything she knew, everything she had left of her dad, all of a sudden. She could survive, she knew that. And Toni had also been proving herself incredibly resilient ever since she ran away from her last foster home.
“Speaking of, I’m going to that smoothie place later. I think I can adjust my practice times around their shifts.” Toni remembers. That was where she was yesterday, before the whole shitshow with the shithead and Regan.
“Alright. I’m thinking of dog-walking,” says Dot, “who doesn’t like dogs, right?”
Thinking of the only dog Toni ever had a close relationship with, a French bulldog belonging to one of her foster families that drooled all over the place, Toni answers, somewhat sceptically, “Right.”
They’re walking down the main hall now, and it’s almost time to part ways. The usual people they see at the school are telling each other about their summer holidays, the places they visited, the girls they kissed, the parties they went to. Toni does pass some of her friends, who salute her as captain, people who high-five her and who she really did miss over the holidays. Dot fades into the background, as she’s used to and quite frankly prefers, until they’re past the thick of the crowd and approaching Toni’s classroom.
“Dude, I still can’t believe we’re not in Biology together this year. It’s gonna be so weird.”
“I know, but think of what happened last time you didn’t have a partner in Biology.”, Toni tells her, bringing up the time they first met. “Think of how shitty your life would be if you’d never met yours truly”, she shines a teasing smile.
Dot laughs at that. “Good luck, punk”, and shoves her lightly into the classroom.
Unfortunately, that’s when she crashes right into this girl who’s taking the first row seat, spilling both their books to the floor. They both crouch to pick them up, and around them the classroom starts to fill. It’s only when Toni raises her eyes to apologize that she realizes the girl she bumped into is actually Shelby Goodkind, blonde hair, green eyes, perfect smile, and all.
“Uh. Shit. Sorry.”, Toni wonders if this can ever get more awkward.
Shelby’s eyes shine at her. “It’s really no problem. Clumsy me!”
They both get up, and Toni realises she’s been holding her breath. She doesn’t know if she should be getting ready for a fight. Shelby doesn’t look like the type to try and punch her or anything, but she could still try to poison her, or pretend Toni hurt her, or stab her with a mechanic pencil and claim innocence and everyone would believe her, or something psychopathic like that.
“Uh, I’m gonna go,” Toni begins to say, but -
“Wanna be lab partners?” comes the interruption, Shelby still smiling. Extremely confused, a little dazed (Shelby actually smells really good?) and mostly desperate for a way to escape, Toni’s eyes search the room. Every other table is already occupied, the teacher is one foot through the door, and that’s when she realizes she doesn’t really have a choice.
Actually, that’s how everything starts.