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Selah Summers had never been in love before. Better yet, she’s never been loved before.
Not, at least, within any of the traditional boundaries. Of course she’s had her run of little schoolgirl crushes that she never dared to act on. But now she was a goal-oriented senior with a legacy to ensure and with time running out. Feelings be damned.
Then again, nothing’s ever that easy. Mainly because of the newcomer sophomore who was just gaining her sea legs at her school.
Selah caught herself way too often. She would stare enviously when Paloma was snapping who knows how many pictures of two flawless cheerleaders lined aesthetically against the mosaic wall. Or when she would wake up at 7 like clockwork and instead of picking up the phone call from her mom, she would just turn on her side and lie face-to-face with a peacefully asleep Paloma, hands tucked under her head as she watched her snore lightly while trying to ignore whatever was blooming in her chest.
What scared her more, perhaps, was when she would glance over at the younger girl from the corners of her eyes and see her with her cheek pressed into her palm, staring up at the older Spade like she was the absolute center of the Universe.
So Selah tried to direct the traffic, in a sense. She worked on the Spades, because long after she was gone some part of her identity, her impact, would continue on in the rooms of Haldwell Boarding School. Paloma was simply a moving part in that assembly line, a cog in the machine to quote herself. Selah would teach her how to keep the peace with the factions, uphold the integrity of the Spades, and run a successful secret trade. Then, when the time came, Paloma would pass that knowledge down to another, and so on and so forth.
But Paloma, oh Paloma, was much too intelligent and curious for that path. She started to take a more radical approach, threatening the establishment that Selah worked so hard to create. To add to that, Selah noticed how the Bobbys and Prefects were slowly pushing an unaware Paloma under their thumb. When Selah first met Paloma, she was in desperate need of someone to pass down her position to. But now that Paloma was slowly siphoning away her authority, well, Selah fought to let it go. It was like an addiction, because for most of her life, people were telling her what she should and shouldn't do, from her mother to the factions to the school. As the head of the Spades, Selah got comfortable with finally being the one in charge, with finally having things her way. And if Selah wanted to salvage what she worked so hard for, she had to puncture a hole in Paloma’s ego. So she cut off her wings and let her fall into the depths of the ocean.
In typical Selah fashion, she made things worse than better.
It was like her mother always said. She was too destructive for her own good, for the good of others around her. Scorpions don’t change. They sting.
And when she saw Paloma hunched over the green grass, Maxxie’s blue jacket draped haphazardly over her shoulders as its owner tried to comfort the woozy girl, radiating not only physical but emotional pain, Selah realized the hidden but obvious solution to her mother's story: the only way for nothing to get hurt is if the scorpion drowns itself.
So she climbed on the concrete ledge, balancing on the tips of her toes, and stared down the side of the cliff, past the vegetation and into the unclear darkness.
Selah leaned forward, keeping a lax grip. Paloma wouldn’t have to worry about her friends drugging her, betraying her. Maxxie could date Nuri without Selah’s dictatorial reign, and he could run the Spades like she should have trusted him to do. Her mother wouldn’t look at her like she was the world's greatest disappointment. She wouldn’t beat herself up over one screw-up on a Bio test. She wouldn’t have to worry about getting into some high-named college and becoming the family’s pride and joy. She wouldn't have to worry about how she didn't love the right people. She wouldn’t have to be Atlas with the world on his shoulders.
That power that she held, to make all of that happen in that single moment, was unmatched.
Unmatched, except for her voice calling out her name. It was much more gentle than Selah was expecting it to be. Most importantly, it reminded her that what she had to live for would suffice.
So she released the metal bar and slipped back into the space between the two people she held dearest to her.
Maxxie took his jacket back and decided to return to the party and spend time with Nuri. Paloma said that her and Selah would call it a night.
She took Selah’s hand and pulled her like a lead rope through the tumultuous waters, but the strong-willed seventeen year-old wriggled her wrist out of her grip, stumbling back at the force of being freed and rooting herself to the spot like a tree.
Paloma frowned when she felt the other girl's skin leave hers, and she whipped around, leaning side to side as she tried to regain her stability. "Selah?"
"Just go back to the dorms, Paloma" the older girl insisted, wrapping her arms around herself and using her nails to clutch her sides.
The sophomore's eyebrows furrowed, but she still held that soft look in her eyes. "What? No. Come on it's cold-"
"Paloma, go!"
The curly-headed girl froze in her spot with surprising balance and focus. She tilted her head and analyzed Selah in the way that only she really could, and decided that if Selah was going to stay, she was going to stay. "No."
In that moment, Selah really was getting annoyed with Paloma. There was no 'my love' or any other cute names for her that popped into her head. Just Paloma, but with deep tone and barely a hint of affection. Why the hell did they both have to be so damn stubborn? "Just leave, Paloma! Get away, go...I don't know, go back to Maxxie and the Bobbys or something!"
Paloma Davis had just pulled off the biggest fuck you to the school, united the factions and prevented another war, and organized perhaps the best party that Haldwell had ever seen. And yet there she was. Looking after Selah. For the life of her, Selah Summers just could not figure it out. And to be honest, she didn't want to figure it out. She wanted Paloma at a mandatory distance of 15 feet away from her at all times, because god knows what she could do to her if she came too close.
"You were gonna jump, weren't you? Back there."
It was more of a hesitant statement, but Paloma wanted some confirmation before she leaped to any conclusions. She got her answer in the form of Selah looking away and biting her lip. Paloma knew exactly what her tells were.
"Why?"
Why? Maybe because every good thing she's had in her life she manages to screw up. She had already upended the life of one of her other choices for heir. She ruined her relationship with Maxxie, her bond with her mother was hanging on by a thread, practically everyone in the school looked at her like she had ten eyes, and to say the least she was extremely overwhelmed. Everything used to be good, maybe not the best but somewhat good, because at the very least she still had Paloma.
But she had almost ruined her too. And there was no way that Selah was going to let herself damage that one genuinely beautiful part of her life.
So when Paloma took a step forward, she took a step back. She could see the hurt in her light-brown eyes, but she just dug her nails into her palms and held her ground.
"I want you to leave me alone."
The brown-haired Spade gave her a lopsided half-smile before trudging towards her at a fast pace.
Selah's eyes bugged out and she attempted to move back, though her feet felt like they were stuck in dried concrete. Finally their bodies collided, knocking some wind out of the shorter of the two and causing her to grunt slightly as she caught herself haphazardly. Two lanky arms circled around her back and pulled her closer in. Selah stood in shock, not really knowing what to do and yet not wanting to escape her embrace just yet.
"No chance."
The senior's head felt pressurized as she tried to hold back her tears and prevent her lip from quivering. She gave in just a little by resting her chin on Paloma's shoulder, her arms still dropped down by her sides.
"I know why you did it" Paloma stated knowingly. "And the answer is no. The world would be a much worse place without Selah Summers."
She leaned back and pulled Selah's smaller hands apart, holding her fingertips perpendicular to her own and pressing her thumbs flat against the canyons of her knuckles. “I hate that you feel that way, you know. I’m glad you didn’t do it.” She really wouldn't know what to do with herself if Selah was gone.
Selah stared at the girl in a mix of wonder and confusion, but let her continue drawing lines into her skin. She didn't quite know what to say, so she didn't say anything at all.
Paloma took that as an opportunity to continue. "I know that...you don't like telling people things. But, I don't know, I thought that you would always tell me at the very least." She finally looked up at her. "I thought you trusted me."
"Oh, Paloma" Selah sighed, framing the younger girl's face with a hand on either side. "I do."
"Then why can't you tell me how you feel? I don't like having to figure it out myself."
Selah's lips curled inwards slightly as she looked away. "I-I don't want to hurt you."
"You could never hurt me."
"I just did" she exclaimed, distancing herself again. "I spiked your drink, for Christ's sake Paloma I could've killed you or something-"
"But I'm fine" she reasoned nonchalantly in response. As frustrated as she was with her, Paloma could never be mad at her, although the bruise forming on Selah’s lip begged to differ. Paloma could never be mad at her, at least, not for long.
Selah chuckled darkly. "It's not that simple."
There was a pause. "Look, I know you think that you're self-destructive, but you're not. You're insecure like all normal people are, and yeah, sometimes you make mistakes because of that. But...that doesn't make you a bad person.”
The senior internally disagreed. Those words weren't genuine, Paloma just strung them together in a last ditch effort of pity.
"Stop that."
"Stop what?"
"Overthinking" Paloma stated. "I meant what I said.”
Selah sighed and toyed with the tulle on the exterior of her pink dress. She was exhausted.
Paloma lent out her hand again, and this time Selah grabbed it and held on to it quite literally for dear life. The sophomore smiled slightly and tugged her so that they walked side by side. She didn’t say anything and neither did Selah, they just drifted through the halls until they got to their destination: Selah’s room.
Paloma stood in the doorframe, half in and half out of the room as Selah plopped unceremoniously down in the chair by her vanity and started to remove all of her hair clips and jewelry.
Without removing her dress, Selah crashed down into her bed, bouncing slightly from the springs in the frame. She closed her eyes as her arms were spread wide and her feet dangled off the edge, breathing in the mixed scent of fresh laundry and nature.
When she finally realized that Paloma was still there, she wordlessly held out a hand, not looking up or moving from her spot. She heard the slip of Maxxie’s jacket off of her shoulders and onto a spot nearby, she heard the squeak of her soles as she slid her shoes off, and she felt the mattress dip as she lowered herself carefully right next to her.
“Can you..uh, can you stay here for the night?”
Paloma’s face turned towards her. “Yeah” she whispered reassuringly.
Selah nodded. “Okay.”
She turned onto her side and scooted to the right, lifting her head and resting it on Paloma’s collarbone. The photographer stretched her limbs and very carefully placed her arm under and around the other girl's body, dropping her wrist so that her hand hung in the space between them.
“Do you want to change?”
“No, I just wanna sleep” Selah mumbled.
“Yeah, that’s fine too” Paloma muttered.
The latter waited until she felt the steady in-and-out breaths of the former before finally relaxing into the comforter. She could hear the chatter of kids returning from the party outside of the closed door, and even though she should ask how it went and should be worrying about how the school would react, she wasn’t. Everything could wait until tomorrow.
In that moment, she was utterly engrossed by the girl beside her. And for the first time, Selah Summers was truly loved.