This time, Parker bought me the iced coffee.

She convinced her stepmom, Debbie, to drive her through downtown this morning for coffee and another peek at Miss Patty's Salon. Apparently, Debbie worked from home as a travel agent, so she didn't mind. It was the most Parker ever talked about her family to me. I always forgot her parents were divorced. Maybe it would've been smarter to get to know the person I'm contracted to stay with for thirty days, but oh well, I guess.

If Parker wanted to murder me, she would've done it by now.

Sitting in my car, getting ready to head over to Parker's house, I realized I didn't know anything about her family. Not really. Their personalities were a mystery. Did she like her dad? I guessed not, since she never really mentioned him. I remembered her mom lived somewhere in New York, but I couldn't recall why Parker had to move in with her Dad, after all this time.

Starting a new school before your senior year was kind of a big deal.

Sighing, I started my car and flipped through my music. Nothing stuck out to me at all, my mind too muddled, when a text from Camille popped over the screen:

I stared at the text.

A strange thought crossed my mind, the first of its kind. I didn't want Camille to join. This time, I kind of wanted to keep Parker all to myself. The memories we were about to make, I just wanted them to be Parker's and mine. No Camille to third wheel.

Wow, I surprised myself. When did Camille become the third wheel?

Suddenly, I felt sick to my stomach. Carsick in an unmoving car. I closed my eyes, feeling my arm move on its own. I put my phone away, leaving Camille's text unanswered. I've decided to ignore my cousin, like an ungrateful swine... but she'll never know. I've got a reputation of not replying to texts.

Now I was just trying to convince myself.

Groaning, I curled against my armrest. A bug had bitten me. This was a rare diagnosis that I thought I had been immune from catching. Peering at my phone, I suddenly knew which playlist to turn on and my whole body cringed. This sickness involved body aches, a high fever and the sweats.

1. Crush by Tessa Violet

2. It's Strange (featuring K.Flay) by Louis the Child

3. 1950 by King Princess

4. Golden Hour by Kasey Musgraves

5. Etc.

"Kill me," I muttered before driving out of the school parking lot.

Debbie and my Dad didn't know how to deal with the idea of a girlfriend coming over to the house. They straight up panicked, going into a tizzy about cleaning the house and making sure there were snacks and drinks. To be fair, I never brought Emily over. I've never brought a friend over either. Not even Camille, so I guess this was a big deal to them.

Sometimes, it felt like inviting a friend to someone else's house, which would be rude.

I didn't go around inviting Camille to Ian's house, so I didn't bring people here.

While I sat on the kitchen counter, Debbie was at the table, scrolling through pizza deals on her laptop, getting insecure and opening more tabs with different Take Out options. At this point, we were going to have Chinese Pizza fusion. This woman. She was good. She interrogated me this morning like a damn FBI investigator.

She was like, "This is a nice thing to do."

And I was like, "Yeah, so?"

And then, she was all like, "I mean, it's a lot of effort for a friend."

Then, I spilled the beans. "She's not my friend, she's my girlfriend."

What a master.

I was sweating.

Hayden wandered into the kitchen with his Nintendo Switch hanging by his side. In some ways, we did look alike with our stick figure frames, tall height and freckles. Hayden ended up with Debbie's brown hair and curls though. They both had thick brows and square jawlines. He came home and threw on some basketball shorts and a Stranger Things sweatshirt, seemingly unruffled by my 'girlfriend' coming over. He elected to stay in his room.

He glanced at me from around the fridge door.

"Shut up," I said.

Hayden's brows narrowed and he shut the door, having secured a bottled water. "What? I didn't say anything."

"It's your face. It's very loud."

"Behave," Debbie said without looking up.

Hayden rolled his eyes and passed my Dad on the way out. My Dad pushed up his glasses. Behind them, that was where we looked alike with two pairs of tired eyes. My grandmother used to say we had the eyes of dreamers. He looked at me like he had something to say. He always did. One day, he'd have the balls to say it. Instead, he just smiled and walked over to Debbie.

"How many people are we feeding?" he asked, leaning over her chair. Debbie backhanded his chest, still consumed by the many options.

I jumped down from the counter and wandered upstairs to my room, checking out the mostly halfway finished costumes hanging on a rolling rack. Dragging my hands over the fabric, my brain went through the endless lists of tasks I still needed to do and sew and pin and design and bejewel and embellish and embroider.

On my desk, my laptop had a few videos up on how to cut someone's hair at home. My stomach tightened. Sometimes, I regretted making plans with people the second after I've made them. I get lonely and crave human interaction, but then again, I want to be by myself all the time with my work.

Still, I wanted Lizzie here. My stomach twisted, juicing out a hearty cup of guilt. Not even a week into this relationship and I was sure Lizzie already wanted to dump me. We should've put a clause that said if one of us was an unbearable ass, the other person could dump the jerk without consequence—a Parker clause. But it wasn't over and I was relieved.

Funny, when this bet started, I didn't think I had anything to lose. I never considered Lizzie might be someone worth keeping around.

A knock on my door made me jump.

Hayden smirked. "You didn't hear the door, did you? Your girlfriend is getting grilled right now-"

Cursing, I flew past him and basically threw myself down the stairs, already listening to probably the worst conversation I've ever overheard in my life. Debbie asked, "Where did you two meet?"

Lizzie's soft little voice barely made it up to the second floor. I only heard pieces like "I'm Camille's cousin" and "It's kind of hard not to meet her" and I thought about flinging myself through the closest window when my dad said:

"Well, we're just so glad Ashley met you. She's never brought anyone over before, so you must be really special-"

As I moved my mouth, my heart was busy doing gymnastic stunts and I seemed to be sticking every landing. Parker's parents were all smiles and asking the normal parent questions. It hit me that these people knew I was gay. Not many people knew that. My hands tightened around my backpack straps. Not being Out, not officially Out increased my awkward meter and I suddenly forgot how to just be myself, which somehow translated into:

How does a lesbian hold her hands?

How does a lesbian make eye contact? Do they?

How does this lesbian make a good impression?

Should I have worn plaid?

I took a deep, needy breath and tried to will Parker into existence. Not that things were going bad. I just wanted her to get here before I said something so stupid, they kicked me out.

On cue, Parker skittered into the foyer. "I'm here!" she shouted. "Please stop what you're doing!"

We locked eyes as I stood between her parents. Seeing her, face to face, after my car ride over, a blush splashed across my face and trickled down my neck. Violin covers to love songs blasted in my ears and the heat in my face rose.

She smiled when she saw me.

I was in so much trouble.

My eyes sparkled, feeling better already. I turned my attention back to Parker's dad, who had the same green eyes and poor posture. "No, this is great," I said, grinning from ear to ear. "Talk to me about what Parker was like as a kid, is she any different? At all? I need to know. Pull out the embarrassing baby pictures." I rubbed my hands together, eager to dive in.

The happy little atmosphere faded out from the room as if I turned on the vacuum cleaner and sucked out the joy. Disappointment flickered across Parker's dad's face, but he recovered quickly with a lukewarm smile, kind of like a forgotten mug of coffee.

Parker appeared by my side. "You're out of luck, we don't have any," she said, surprisingly nonchalant. She grabbed my arm, dragging me into the house and up some stairs.

Parker's stepmom called after us, "I'm gonna order the pizza!"

"Get cinnamon bites too!" Parker shouted.

"Try not to get hair everywhere!" her father warned us with a twinge of amusement.

"Okay!" Parker shouted and pushed me into what I could guess was her bedroom, where a Lo-Fi beats playlist was going.

It was a mess, but a Parker kind of mess, so it looked on purpose and like it was a choice to leave her fabrics everywhere and bins open. She had a moving rack full of Cinderella costumes and a mannequin form, currently sporting Camille's costume. I could tell by the picture she tacked up of Camille's smiling face. She had a mess of fairy lights around her bed, piled with pillows; Broadway posters and cross-stitched, framed vintage T-shirts covered her walls.

Even paint speckled her floor.

It was like I knocked on Parker's skull and she invited me into her brain.

Before I realized it, Parker helped me out of my backpack and tossed it on the bed. My stomach hadn't settled. I studied Parker's face, trying to figure how badly I crossed the line back there. Not having baby pictures? That sounded strange. I mean, I'm the middle child and my parents still had enough pictures of me to fit a gallery (pictures of Danny and Gina could fill an entire museum. I love being the middle child).

"Sorry about that," I mumbled anyway, even if Parker's face was a stone fortress.

"That? Oh." Parker sputtered her lips and shrugged. She walked over to her desk, snapping her laptop shut and cutting off the music. "It's nothing, really."

Still, my brows wouldn't unquirk. I fussed with my sleeves, eager to ask more and press on. Parker was still a person and I've watched Parker smile enough to know that wasn't an actual smile. I couldn't imagine living in my own home without a single picture of me as a kid, or a single picture of me at all. That would bother anyone... but if she didn't want to tell me, I wasn't going to tip her glass and force her to spill her secrets.

"My parents got divorced when I was a kid..." she said softly at first, before clearing her throat and talking normally. "But when I moved here, after all the fighting and the moving and all the mess, they lost most of my pictures." Parker smiled tightly as she thought about her choice of words. "When I moved here at the tail end of last year, it was kind of rushed. A bunch of my own stuff got left behind." She sighed, looking off into the distance as if she could see her old room in New York. "I had the best sewing machine back home."

So, she still referred to New York as home? A pang of jealousy punched me in the stomach.

"Why did you move here?" I asked, realizing I didn't know.

Parker looked down, caressing the smooth front of her pink laptop. She explained, her voice so soft and fragile like brittle flower petals. "Well, you see, my grades sort of plummeted last year and I sort of just stopped showing up to school altogether. It's not my mom's fault. She didn't realize what was going on and I..." She licked her lips. "I got sick, the whole nine yards. I won't gross you out with the gory details... My dad couldn't get a hold of me or my mom, so he called our housekeeper, Beth. She told him what was going on and he flew to New York and raised Hell. He really blew everything out of proportion."

"So, he brought you here," I inferred.

I imagined her Dad, the man downstairs freaking out, being so scared for Parker's safety that he'd travel across the country for her to come home with him. They didn't seem close, but he really loved his daughter, I could tell.

Parker nodded, trying to comfort me with a soft smile as if I was the one that needed it. I tore myself from my spot on the floor, no longer collecting dust. I approached Parker with caution and took the laptop out of her hands, placing it on her pile of scraps. I slipped my fingers through her hand. Her brow twitched. One stone fell from her wall and she laid her head on my shoulder, dragging her thumb up and down my knuckles. Her hair smelled like honey.

"Do you and your mom still talk?" I asked because now that I had a peek inside the pages of Parker's history, I wanted to stay up all night, past my bedtime and read her story from cover to cover.

Parker nodded against my shoulder. "Yeah. Not a lot, but I invited her to the musical, so hopefully she'll be able to come."

If I still hated Parker, the hope in her voice would have melted my icy heart.

But I didn't hate her. Not even a little bit. Not at all.

"I'm sorry," I said because there wasn't anything I could do to change her past and I couldn't go back in time and be the person that cared about her, that noticed her in New York.

"Don't be. I'm fine," she insisted, peeking at my face. She sighed, glumly smiling back at me. I wasn't exactly the expert on hiding my emotions.

"Yeah, you say that a lot... but I'm still sorry. New York sounds lonely." I stared into her eyes and traded her hand for a hug. I raised to my toes, wrapping my arms around her neck. She chuckled, holding me back and I existed snugly inside her arms. Closing my eyes, my lungs filled with the smell of her shea butter lotion. My heart was going nuts and I thought that my body was never going to cool down.

She leaned side to side and a laugh tumbled out of my mouth. She squeezed me before she broke away. Nabbing her laptop, she motioned me. "Come on. Let's go chop that hair off."

"Oh," I mumbled, shuddering a little. "I almost forgot."

I looked up as Parker slid past me. She stopped next to me, hesitating to leave my side with her back against the frame. I swallowed, my eyes flickering to her lips and back up to her questioning eyes. It always felt like a question posed to me, but I never knew how to answer it, not when I could be wrong, not when it could feel like the right answer and then realize I was wrong. Parker smiled a little, a real one this time.

Parker rested her hand on my shoulder that was still warm from her forehead snuggled against my neck. All my baby hairs stood on edge, waiting for whatever was going to happen next. Parker leaned in closer and I held my breath, stiffening straight like a stick. I shut my eyes, totally ready for whatever. Parker pressed her lips to my cheek and whispered, "Thanks."

"The bathroom is this way," she said at a completely loud, normal level.

Popping my eyes open, I watched Parker strut down the hallway, her ginger hair waving back and forth. My entire body from my baby toes to the tips of my ears burned. It was more than a heat flash, it was a fiery car crash and I was trapped underneath five eighteen wheelers. My knees gave out and my back hit the threshold.

That almost killed me.

Dropping my face into my hands, I wrapped my mind around kissing Parker. Kissing her soft-looking pink lips. God, her lips looked so soft. I really wanted to kiss Parker and I didn't know how to tell her that without risking looking like a total idiot. This wasn't real, not in a way that mattered. I covered my screams of agony inside my hands, quiet enough that Parker couldn't hear me freak out.

"Yeah," someone said.

I looked up at a preteen guy that kind of looked like Parker and not like her at all. He moved the flop of curls out of his eyes and said, "Parker gives me stomach cramps too."

I sighed.

Don't forget to leave a comment! Camille uses the "black heart emojji" so I want to know your preferred heart. I'm partial to: 💖. And what did you think about Lizzie's playlist?? Can you believe? And we got a little more backstory on Parker! Do you understand her a little better now? And whooaaa! That peck on the cheek? Sorry guys, I'm gonna have to put on the mature content warning XD

Also, I've been doodling more lately. Here's something I whipped up the other day:

tip jar: ko-fi.com/auburn