Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Contrary to popular belief, Annie doesn’t have a single problem with school dances.

What she does have a problem with, though, is her grandma (her abuelita, if you will) always asking her who she’s gonna take as her date. Once, Annie informed her that she was going with Johanna, and she just barely managed to avoid getting smacked over the head with a greasy spatula.

Her grandma is a giant homophobe. She’s lucky she’s cute, or else Annie would have disowned her a long time ago.

Contrary to popular belief, Annie wasn’t actually dating Johanna. They just went to homecoming as friends. There was also that time some senior asked Johanna to prom, but they don’t like to talk about that.

Everything always turned out okay. The music was always too loud and everyone was always packed too closely together, but Annie’s favorite part was sneaking off and eating the snacks she smuggled into her dress.

Also, contrary to popular belief, Annie was not the culprit for dumping a pound of salt into the punch bowl or releasing a swarm of crickets into the gym. Pranks are way too unserious for Annie; she prefers making political statements.

There is no political statement to make tonight. Finnick asked her to homecoming as soon as it was announced and (contrary to popular belief), he was not playing a joke on her. He’s her boyfriend, after all. It just makes sense.

Boyfriend. Boyfriend. Boyfriend. Even after all these weeks, the name still sounds strange on her tongue.

Annie sits at the foot of her bed, contemplating something. Finnick would be driving her to the venue. Finnick’s car has a backseat. The backseat is where you give all your love (aka sex)—just ask Gwen Stefani. 

It’s getting hard to breathe. Annie blames it on her burning cheeks.

No way is she gonna give Finnick all her love in the backseat. She’s not ready. She barely figured out how to make out with him properly. Also, Finnick doesn’t know anything about Gwen Stefani. Annie wouldn’t know anything about Gwen Stefani, either, if it wasn’t for the fact that her own mom was the most bubble-y popped electric woman she knew. (Not that Annie’s mom is giving anyone love in the backseat—she’s too prudent for that. She just likes pop music.)

That’s not a bad thing, by the way. It just means that she has her own form of self expression, just like Annie has her own.

Annie takes a deep breath. Contrary to popular belief, sometimes she lets societal norms get to her. Yes, she’s still a virgin. No, that’s not something to freak out about.

Except that it is. Lots of babies are conceived on nights like these. Or so she’s heard.

Ugh. No way is she getting FOMO over teen pregnancy. How totally lame.

Annie forces herself to stop thinking about Finnick and love and backseats. She has better things to do.

Don’t get it fucking twisted. Annie loves Finnick, and he loves her. She doesn’t care if they’re too young, or if they haven’t known each other for very long. Her mom doesn’t know what she’s talking about. When you know, you know. And, right now, Annie knows that she and Finnick were soul-bound to each other. Fate and destiny and sorcery and all that.

So, yes. There will be a backseat, and there will be love, but not like that. Gwen Stefani needs to chill. 

Annie needs to chill, too. And get ready. 

Contrary to popular belief, Annie is not modeling her look off a Tim Burton character. That guy was so fucking uninspired. And overhyped. 

Annie loves being a contrarian. 

Her dress was totally Frankensteined. (Frankenstein's monster, that is.) Her mom saved a pair of elbow length velvet gloves from her youth, so they used a scrap piece of lace that she found in her closet to embroider the top with. It tickles against Annie’s arm, but that’s not important right now. Her dress was awesome—she found it at the thrift store, because fast fashion was fucking evil and expensive and for capitalists, and it has the perfect red base to complement the amalgamation of black swirls sprawling over the fabric. 

But wait. There’s more.

It’s tight on the top but nice and flowy on the bottom, the skirt interrupted by tiers of fluffy tulle. It’s nice, but a bit too long for homecoming (Annie was saving the longer stuff for prom.) So, naturally, she grabbed a pair of scissors and chopped off a few layers. She twisted the red tendrils of excess fabric into bows and stuck them onto the gloves for some added decoration. She stored the rest of it in her closet in case she needs it for a future project. 

The dress isn’t perfect, though, especially since Annie obviously couldn’t find it in another size. She whips out her favorite corset belt to cinch in the waist, complete with about a million clasps to lace it up. 

Some might say that underskirts are absolutely archaic, but those people obviously haven’t mastered the art of layering. Annie inherited her crocheting skills from her mom, so she pulls out a black midi skirt threaded with silver sparkles and uses the underskirt to make it fluff out. The flowiness of her dress gives her just enough room to shimmy all that extra fabric over her waist. 

Annie stares at her reflection. She feels like she’s missing something.

“It could use some beading,” her mom says. Annie gasps. She’s a genius.

She does her best to stand still while her mom adds a crimson and black color combo to the hem, but it’s hard. She’s so excited to see Finnick.

Just as her mom finishes adding on the final touches, Johanna lets herself in. She’s not going to homecoming (something about third wheeling, even though Finnick always refers to himself as a third wheel), but she’s perfectly okay with helping Annie get ready.

That’s good. Annie has a lot of hair. She knows it’s not good for her curl pattern, but she was going for Frankenstein’s Bride Couture, so she and Johanna attack it with a hairbrush until it’s frizzy and teased up. She looks utterly alive. And electrocuted. 

Annie saved the best for last: makeup. She usually wears a lot of smudged eyeliner and glossy crimson lipstick to school, but this was a special occasion. She kicks it up several notches. 

Her eyeliner remains big and sharp, but she makes sure to make the pattern running along her inner tear ducts bigger and sharper than usual. Kinda like an eagle beak. She skips out on adding freckles—too playful—but she makes sure to dab on some silvery glitter along her under eye. She swaps out her usual black mascara for white so that her lashes look like spider webs. She pats some highlighter onto the blush sweeping across her cheeks and sprawling onto the tip of her nose. 

The grand finale is the lipstick. She swats aside her usual bloody lip for a purple so deep that it looks black. She adds on some sparkly lip gloss for emphasis, making sure that she wipes off the excess on her cupid’s bow so that it looks extra shaved down. 

She studies herself in the mirror. She looks so cool.

Still, though. Contrary to popular belief, it bothers her when people stare at her. (Seriously—she’s not smudging her makeup or wearing patches on her jeans for attention. She’s just expressing herself.)

“Is it too much?” she asks Johanna. She feels untouchable now, but after she takes a moment to envision the looks she's gonna get from people at school, it’s almost enough to give her cold feet.

Almost. Johanna scoffs at her.

“Of course it is,” she says, but she’s grinning, so Annie doesn’t take it to heart. “That’s your thing, bitch.”

You know what? She’s right. Some might argue that spray painting the football field to protest the gross misuse of school funds was too much, but Annie knew it was something that needed to be done. Same thing goes here—the white mascara and bird-like eyeliner might throw people for a loop, but that’s Annie’s whole point. Change is supposed to be unsettling, and instead of shying away from it, Annie is embracing it. That’s how you fix things for the better.

For now, she focuses on homecoming. And Finnick. He should be here any minute.

“Ta-da!” Annie models the look for her mom. Contrary to popular belief, she loves Annie’s style, even if she doesn’t understand it most of the time. “Looks cool, right?”

Annie pretends like she’s not holding her breath, secretly vying for her mom’s answer. She doesn’t have to wait long. Her glossy pink lips pull up into a smile, her delicate falsies squishing together as she grins.

She’s very pretty. Annie wonders what she looked like in high school, wearing the very same velvet gloves that Annie has on right now. Her mom doesn’t have very many pictures at that age. 

“Really cool,” she agrees. “You look just like that girl from the Corpse Bride!”

Annie takes that with a grain of salt. Her mom doesn’t do well with creepy-crawly movies. She can barely stomach Tim Burton’s uninspired-ness.

“Thanks.” Then, quietly, before anyone else can join them: “You think Finnick will like it? Not that I care,” she adds, because she really doesn’t. She was dressing like this before Finnick, and she will forever dress like this after Finnick. “I’m just wondering. He’s never seen me all dressed up.”

“He better love it.” She gets frowny, like she always does when Finnick is mentioned. “You look beautiful, Annie. Straight out of a haunted house.”

“Aw.” Annie blushes, overcome with emotion. Haunted House Couture was exactly what she was going for. “Thank you. It’s not too much?”

That’s exactly what she asked Johanna, but she wanted a second opinion. Her mom shakes her head.

“Absolutely not. I mean, do you or do you not feel beautiful?”

“I feel bonita,” Annie confirms. Her mom set herself up for that one.

Her mom grins, ‘cause she probably thinks Annie is embracing her ethnic side. “Good! ‘Cause you look bonita!” Speaking of embracing her ethnic side, she calls out, “Luis! Get in here! Annie looks bonita!”

Annie grins. Her mom is so cringe, but in a good way.

Her dad immediately walks into the kitchen. He’s very appreciative of Annie’s new look.

“Cool!” he says. “You look like a fallen angel!”

“Thanks!” Annie’s vibe isn’t satanic—it’s supernatural—but she writes it off as a generational thing. Her dad did grow up Catholic, after all, so the Bible imagery probably stuck with him. “Should I wear my Docs or my Mary Janes?”

“Mary Janes.” Johanna comes up behind them, smelling artificially sweet. Her weed pen is to thank for that, but since she doesn’t smell like weed-weed, that throws Annie’s parents off her scent. “Your Docs are too loud. Remember when you got caught—”

“Johanna!” Her parents don’t know about the Firecracker Incident. Her mom narrows her eyes, but since this is a special occasion, she doesn’t push. “I was sticking it to The Man.”

“Just shut up,” her mom says, but it’s without venom. She’s offering Annie a boon—she won’t interrogate her if Annie doesn’t talk about it—and Annie takes it. “Let’s just get some pictures in before Finnick shows up.”

Annie checks her phone. She knows he’s her boyfriend, but it’s getting harder and harder to believe that this isn’t some sick practical joke with each passing minute. She’s never had a boyfriend before, sure, but she’s certain that Finnick wouldn’t hang out with her for weeks just so he could discard her. That would require playing the long game, which high school boys aren’t very good at doing.

Right as she’s letting doubt consume her every thought, there’s a distinctly Finnick-sounding knock at the door. She shoves her feet into her beloved pair of Mary Janes and flings the door open in record time. 

She kinda forgets how she’s dressed until his eyes widen. There’s a pit in her belly—he hates it he hates it he hates it and now she’s gonna have to break up with him—but he scoops her up in a hug before she can get too swept up in her (horrifying) thoughts.

“Babe!” he says, carefully setting her down. He examines her look, from the top of her frizzy dark curls to the bottom of her sturdy Mary Janes. His eyes definitely linger on some places, but then her mom clears her throat, and he has to pretend that he was just appreciating the red lace trim on the neckline of her dress. “You look gorgeous! Drop dead gorgeous!”

His enthusiasm is infectious. Annie giggles.

“Thank you!” She does a little twirl, ending right back up in his arms. “You look pretty too, you know.”

Finnick’s #1 green flag is that he loves it when Annie calls him pretty, which is good, ‘cause he really is the prettiest person she’s ever met. She’s been dying to ring his soft green eyes in eyeliner ever since she met him. His mop of coppery hair is the perfect length for her to run her fingers through. He even makes a simple button-down look utterly Couture. (She’s not sure what type of Couture, but it’s definitely something.)

“Thanks.” He presses a sneaky kiss to the top of her head. Since her hair is so frizzy, it just looks like he’s talking into her curls. “You’re making me feel better about being underdressed.”

Annie was worried about being overdressed, so she won’t let him freak out over not being glammed up enough. “You’re not underdressed. You’re perfect.”

“You’re perfect.” He moves to give her a kiss on her nose, but she spent hours perfecting her makeup, so she covers up his lips with her hands. He shoots off a muffled apology against her palm.

“No, it’s okay. You can kiss me—” Annie glances at her mom, who is frowning so hard that her foundation is cracking. She backtracks. “Actually, you can’t kiss me. Ever. That’s, like, rule number one. No kissing.”

He catches on. He nods. “No kissing. Promise. Just a respectful night out.”

“Shut up,” her mom says, but it’s with a teeny bit of venom this time. Annie doesn’t take that to heart. She doesn’t care much about kissing as long as it’s behind closed doors and she never, ever has to find out about it. Annie is good at closing doors, but she’s not very good at being quiet about any of her schemes. It’s why she gets in trouble so much. “Let’s take some pictures.”

They take a lot of pictures. Some with Finnick’s hand on her hips, some with her hands on his, and a lot of candids of Annie laughing at a joke he makes or of him lovingly staring at her while she plans out the layout of their next photograph. Even though Johanna won’t be joining them, they drag her into a ton of pictures too.

Johanna sets a hand on Annie’s hip. Finnick nudges it off.

“She’s my girlfriend,” he says through a tight lipped smile. 

“She’s my friend.”

“It’s my hip,” Annie shoots back. So, to make a point, she sets both her hands on her hips. Her mom snaps another photo.

After a few more rounds, her mom gets a notification that her storage is one grainy picture away from being full, so they have to stop. After a few hugs, Annie and Finnick make their way to his car.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna come?” Annie asks Johanna. “I’m sure we could sneak you in.”

“Tempting. But the soup your dad is making is even more tempting. And the brownies your mom wants to bake with me.”

Annie wrinkles her nose. “Don’t talk about my mom like that.”

Johanna grins. Annie flips her off the entire time Finnick pulls out of the driveway.

Bubble Pop Electric by Gwen Stefani plays in Annie’s head the entire way to the school’s gym. Even though giving all her love in the backseat scared her when she was alone in her bedroom, something about it deeply excites her now that she has Finnick by her side.

She drowns out the stupid song stuck in her head by blasting Mistki’s music. She holds Finnick’s hand at all the red lights, just barely resisting the urge to smother his face in all sorts of forbidden kisses. Her lipstick bleeds, after all. Why else do you think she’s licking her teeth so much? 

“I’m so excited,” she tells him. “I don’t know if anyone’s told you about it, but I’m not the one who always ruins school dances.”

Finnick nods. “I did hear about that. What do you think will happen this year?”

Annie perks up. She loves taking bets on this sort of thing. “Okay. So Johanna thinks it’ll have something to do with the toilets—maybe a flood or something—but I think it’ll be more low-key. Last year, they let a raccoon loose, so the school is gonna be all over the security cameras this year. I think they’ll only be tampering with the snacks. Maybe some food coloring in the punch.”

Finnick grins at her throughout the entire ramble. Some jerk honks at them, even though the light literally just turned green.

“Yeah.” Finnick pulls into the packed school parking lot, joining the line of cars. “Maybe they’ll change the playlist.”

“Ooh,” Annie agrees. “That’s good. But it’d have to be something universally intolerable. Like Ed Sheeran.”

“I kinda like—”

“Don’t say that.” Seriously. How ick. “Just ‘cause you’re part Irish doesn’t mean you get a pass to be a fuckin’ cornball.”

“I thought he was Scottish.”

“What’s the difference?”

By the time they score a parking spot, they’ve moved on to unpacking the lore of Count Chocula’s incestual past. It’s yet another thing he (probably) has in common with Ed Sheeran.

“Annie!” Finnick protests.

“That’s not what I mean!” Seriously. Does Annie look like the type to dunk on people for not being conventionally attractive? “It’s the cornball-ness of it all!”

“What if I wanted to play that song at our wedding?”

Annie is more floored over the fact that he is an Ed Sheeran fanatic than him being so transparent about wanting to marry her. “Don’t you dare!”

He turns the car off. Then he turns to her. “Fine. But only because I love you more than I could ever love him.”

“Thank you.” And then, because he got extremely vulnerable with her, she says, “I love you more than I love Mitski.”

“Babe.” He dots a soft kiss to the back of her hand. “You’re the sweetest.”

She grins. Before she can lose her cool and drag him into the backseat, she opens the door. Her dad always did say the gentlemanly thing to do was to open the door for her, but he’s taking too long, so she swings it open for him. He’s pawing around his pocket.

His green eyes get so big and pretty as he snaps his head up to look at her. She gets lost in them. “Um! I was just putting my keys away. You know, deep. So I don’t lose them.”

He rearranges himself in his seat. Annie feels a bit like a dork standing outside the car, especially with other couples walking past her hand-in-hand, so she’s just about to ask him to scooch over so she can sit next to him. He jumps up before she can open her mouth, positioning himself behind the fluffy expanse of tulle exploding from her skirt. 

“After you,” he says, holding out his hand. She vaguely thinks he’s acting a bit strange, but she thinks that’s cute, because it must mean he’s nervous about something.

Not to sound like a narc, but Annie is pretty sure that a few people fucking laugh at her as they walk by. If she was feeling a bit uncertain in the safety of her own home, her chest balloons in panic as she rethinks every single choice she’s made up to this point. Should she have just stuck to her black mascara? Did she really need to add another layer under her dress? Why did she make her hair so frizzy?

No. No, she looked good. She looked cool. Her lashes look like cobwebs. Her dress looks positively Frankensteined. Her hair looks like it’s defying gravity. 

It’s very positively Annie, which is exactly what she was going for, and she wasn’t gonna let anyone trick her into thinking she should be embarrassed about it. Making your own choices and expressing yourself isn’t something to be ashamed of, but you know what is? Being a fucking sheep. 

Baa. Finnick and Annie enter the belly of the beast (aka the school gym).

They’re playing Megan Trainor, who is essentially Ed Sheeran’s blonde cornball-y cousin, but Annie doesn’t mind. There’s something about white woman pop that speaks to her. It probably has something to do with her mother’s genetics.

Annie and Johanna never spent so much time on the dance floor before, but so many people are grabbing at Finnick and inviting him into The Grind Circle that Annie gets dragged along with him.

She’s never made it this far. She’s usually on the outskirts, which is perfect for swaying when you wanna dance and making a speedy escape when the loud music finally grates on your nerves. 

She can’t say she’s not curious, though. She takes a peek, but nothing could prepare her for Brutus Onasis slapping Cashmere Reyes’ ass. Annie’s eyebrows jump from the impact.

She glances at Finnick. Maybe she wouldn’t mind if he did that to her behind closed doors, but he better not try anything crazy in public. He’s avoiding her gaze, but she knows that he saw what she did, because his face flushes bubblegum pink. 

Wait. Now that she’s thinking about it, he’s watching Cashmere get her ass slapped. She tugs at his arm to capture his attention.

“What the fuck?” she demands. “Stop looking at her!”

“You were looking, too!” he says, but that’s not the point. “Do you want—”

“No!” she says, even though she doesn’t even know what he was gonna say. She could make some guesses, though. “Do you want to do that to me?”

“That’s not what—”

Brutus grabs onto Finnick’s arm, borderline tackling him into the center of the circle. Annie stays locked in place. She might look supernatural, but there are scarier things in this world than ghosts and ghouls. 

A girl in a pretty blue dress takes a leaping step toward Finnick, but Annie struggles to see what happens next, because everyone is jumping and bumping into each other and even though she’s part of all the madness she still ends up getting tossed out of the circle anyway. She tries elbowing her way back in, but she only gets elbowed back. Hard. 

What the fuck? Luckily, Finnick fights his way back to her in no time. She knows that he did not participate in Grind Circle Activities because Brutus and all his friends boo at him and call him a fucking pussy whipped loser.

Annie glares at him anyway. “They pushed me!”

“I’m sorry.” He takes her hand. “Wanna get a drink?”

That was exactly the response she was looking for. She decides to stop being mad. “Yes.”

He holds her close the entire time, occasionally pressing kisses to the back of her hand. She forgets all about the Grind Circle by the time they scoop some punch into a cup.

“Wait!” she says. He stops dead in his tracks. “Smell it first to make sure there’s no salt!”

They sniff at it. It smells just like high fructose corn syrup, so they down it all in one gulp.

Bruno Mars blasts over the loudspeakers. Annie wonders if Finnick would catch a grenade for her.

“I’d throw a grenade for you,” he says. “Straight into the football field.”

She can’t help it. She smacks a kiss right onto his cheek. She moves to wipe away the lipstick stain after, but he stops her by lacing both of their fingers together. He kisses her makeup-less forehead.

“It’s okay. I like it. Your lipstick is kinda like a souvenir.”

That’s so fucking romantic. Her gaze bounces to his lips, which are looking especially red and kissable from the punch, but some nosey chaperone breaks them up.

“Hand holding is fine!” Mrs. Donner says, chirpy and peppy and cockblock-y. “Hand holding is cute! Just remember to keep it classy!”

Annie thinks about kissing Finnick’s cheek again in protest, but he steps in before she could get too contrarian.

“Absolutely,” he agrees. “We love keeping it classy.”

Annie giggles. Mrs. Donner procures a flask from the folds of her skirts, going on her merry way. Maybe she really doesn’t give a fuck about keeping it classy. Annie takes a swift look around the room for any opps.

Principal Cray is glaring at her. She glares back. It’s not her fault that she and her boyfriend love each other.

It’s hard to keep their hands off each other. The Grind Circle might seem like an easy solution to that, considering that it’s harder to keep track of the teen pregnancies being being borderline conceived in there, but Annie wasn’t in the mood for getting tag teamed. It’s a relief when a slower song comes on as an interlude. It gives Annie and Finnick an excuse to shuffle together so closely their knees knock together.

“You’re so pretty,” he reminds her. She can feel her cheeks flush. “Can you tell me where I can kiss you? I can see the sparkly stuff on your nose, but are your cheeks safe?”

“Cheeks are safe,” she confirms. Her blush isn’t going anywhere. “You might just get some glitter stuck in your teeth.”

He grins. Annie’s stomach bottoms out.

Bubble pop electric…

“That’s fine by me.” His eyes flick down to the neckline of her dress. Oh. Maybe Gwen Stefani was on his mind, too. “Where else?”

“Um…” Annie glances around, catching an eyeful of wandering boy-hands and giggling glossy lips. She’s suddenly hyper aware of his warm palms against her ribs. “I dunno,” she finally decides, because she doesn’t. The first time they ever made out, her top was suddenly off, but she didn’t exactly plan to do that. She was just in a bubble pop electric mood. “Let’s just play it by ear.”

He nods. He quickly pecks her on the cheek, then spins her around to distract the chaperones from the fact that they are not keeping it classy.

“Where can I kiss you?” she asks him.

“Anywhere you want,” he says. She pretends that this isn’t absolutely crazy news.

She’s held Finnick’s hand. She’s kissed him absolutely breathless. Once, she even threw his shirt across the room. But she’s never gone below the belt.

Her entire body catches on fire. Is she about to go under the belt?

He rests his chin against the top of her head, so there’s no telling how he feels about this. Usually, she’d just ask him, but she’s kinda freaking the fuck out right now. In a good way. She knows for absolute certain he’s not getting under her belt, though, ‘cause Annie has a low pain tolerance. Better to save that for places more comfortable than the backseat of his car.

Her sister was away at college. Her dad was going on a business trip soon. Her mom is probably gonna wanna visit him.

Annie lets her thoughts run wild. She is definitely not gonna keep it classy.

The song ends. She and Finnick take their time pulling apart.

“I love you,” they say in unison. It was supposed to be really tender and raw, but now that Taylor Swift is playing in the background, it’s impossible to take anything seriously. 

The volume of the music and the intensity of the chatter and the scratchiness of the lace on her skin was really starting to get to her. Just as she’s about to suggest they catch their breath outside, something wet and cold plops onto her nose.

“Did you just drool on me?”

“Huh?”

Finnick, in fact, did not drool on her. Obviously. A shockwave of cold water explodes from the ceiling, dousing everyone in the process.

Someone set off the sprinklers. Turns out that Johanna’s prediction was right.

“Fuck!” Annie just remembered something: her makeup. Finnick immediately whips off his jacket and sets it over their heads as everyone barrels out the door. Setting spray could only do so much, so she’s thankful for the extra coverage. 

Since Annie and Finnick were chilling by the outskirts of the gym, they’re the first people to get out. Salty punch and loud crickets were kinda gross, but they never yielded such chaotic results. The raccoon sent people scattering, too, but it wasn’t nearly as severe. No one wants their fancy clothes and pretty makeup ruined by the rain.

Annie watches a group of girls comfort their friend, who tripped and fell in the chaos. Whoever did this is either really stealthy or really stupid, ‘cause now the school board is gonna be all over their ass. 

Annie pulls out her phone, assessing the damage. Her makeup was intact. Her gloves were soaked, but they weren’t very comfortable, anyway, so she sheds them off when they get in the car. She tosses them in the backseat. Hopefully, she and Finnick will follow in their footsteps in just a few minutes.

Actually, it takes longer than a few minutes. There’s a severe traffic jam since everyone is leaving at the same time. Finnick’s phone buzzes.

“Will you answer that?” he asks. “It’s probably my mom.”

Finnick’s mom knows everything about everyone. Even though she’s not on the school board, it doesn’t surprise Annie that she already knows what’s going on.

It’s not Finnick’s mom. It’s Brutus. 

we’re all just heading over to my place rn, lemme know if ur coming.

Annie squints. She knows Finnick gets invited to parties all the time, and she knows he always declines in her honor, but something about it still stings. She reads the message to him. 

“Tell him I’m not coming.”

Annie lets out a breath, as if she actually expected him to accept Brutus’ invitation. She tucks his phone away, pretending that nothing exists outside of her and him and the backseat of his car. 

He parks several homes away from Annie’s house without her even having to ask. She refers to it as the Cul-de-Makeout inside her head, ‘cause this is where they always park if they wanna steal a few more minutes alone after class. Sometimes, the school parking lot just doesn’t cut it.

He doesn’t initiate anything just yet. He’s waiting for her to take the lead. “I had a lot of fun. I was kinda looking forward to the prank.”

“Me too.” Annie turns to him. She wonders if it’d be too forward of her to pounce on him. “The first year, me and Johanna just went to homecoming to try it out, but I think this makes the tickets worth their price. It’s like a show.”

“It messed up your hair, though,” he says, which is true. Now it’s all flat and wet. He threads a finger through her curls. “It’s still pretty,” he assures her, the pitch of his voice jumping the way it always does when he’s worried he said the wrong thing, “very pretty. Just wet.”

Annie’s wet, and the hands in her hair aren’t helping. “It’ll get frizzy again,” she assures him. She sounds a million miles away. “Probably even frizzier than normal after it dries. And after I brush it.”

She’s babbling. Finnick’s finger traces over her jaw, stunning her into silence. She juts her chin out in an attempt to chase him down.

“Thank you for letting me take you out,” he says, which might be the most attractive thing he’s ever said to her. No one’s ever thanked her for her company before. “I like the way you dance. Like a spider.”

She gives a noncommittal hum. She doesn’t even know what he just said.

“You’re pretty,” she reminds him.

“You’re prettier.” Then, finally, he leans forward. He presses a soft, barely-there kiss on her lips. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she says, so she proves it. She gives him an identical kiss back—soft, barely-there—but it’s hard to keep things classy when her boyfriend is so grabable. She clutches onto his shirtsleeve, tugging him closer. Her ribs dig into the center console, which catches her off guard. Her tongue prods against the corner of his mouth. 

“Oops,” she says. “Bad aim.”

He laughs, soft and gentle, with a constellation of lipstick sprawling over his cheek and over his mouth. That alone has her leaning back in, twisting his shirt up in her hands for better momentum.

As always, the journey to the backseat is awkward. She fumbles with her seatbelt and presses her knees against the center console to launch herself forward, landing in a giggling heap onto the seats. He follows soon after, his hands already reaching out to grab her before he’s even officially reunited with her.

He’s warm. Loving. Intoxicating. Annie wonders why anyone would get drunk at a party when kissing already exists.

Hot kisses trail down her jaw, so she shimmies the thin straps of her dress down. She slips off her corset for good measure. Being in the backseat was exhilarating, but sometimes it could get very uncomfortable with all those stray seatbelt buckles laying around.  

“Annie, babe,” he says, coming up for air. Something very tight and sexy wraps around her belly, almost making her forget about her low pain tolerance. Almost. “What do you wanna do?”

“Um…” It’s homecoming night. A special occasion. That doesn’t really mean anything, but there’s something so special about the way Finnick is looking at her and the way she feels right now, so she decides to try something new. 

He’s poking at her. That’s nothing new. He always pokes at her whenever they make out, but he usually tries staying on top so that he can shift away and place it onto empty space. He gets sloppier as things get heavier, and he’s definitely very sloppy right now, so Annie squirms against him to make his breath catch.

“Do you wanna…?”

She does. It’s not exactly all her love, but it’s definitely some of it. Finnick steps away from the car for a few painstaking moments to retrieve a blanket from his trunk so she has something soft to kneel on. And then she takes the plunge. Literally.

It’s nice for her, all things considered. Finnick doesn’t tug at her hair or jam anything anywhere, so it kinda doesn’t even feel like she’s the one on her knees. She’s calling all the shots, like the girlboss she is. 

On the flip side, it’s nothing short of an out of body experience for Finnick. A mixture of whispered curses and love confessions tumble out of his mouth the entire time. And, when Annie finally comes up for air, her stomach drops at the fact that he’s in fucking tears. 

Before she can overthink too much about that, he clasps her face in his hands and gives her peck on the lips. Oh! She didn’t know he was into that kinda stuff.

“Thank you, babe,” he says, setting his forehead against hers.

“No problem,” she says. It really wasn’t. She’d do it again—she’d do it right now—if she could. “Do you still love me?”

He doesn’t take offense to this question. He knows she’s only fishing.

“I love you so fucking much.” His posture sags. The pressure on her forehead gets a lot heavier. “Like, holy shit, Annie.”

She giggles. She should give him head more often. “What was your favorite part?”

“You.” She giggles yet again. She likes that answer. “It’s criminal I haven’t done it back yet.”

Annie tenses up. Suddenly, nothing is very funny anymore. Finnick catches onto that.

“Or maybe not,” he amends. “Actually, it’s not criminal. What is criminal is how uncomfortable it is back here.”

Annie relaxes. He’s such a dork. “We’ll have to play it by ear. But I definitely wanna do that again.”

Annie tucks herself into him, carefully setting her cheek against his chest. His love envelops her better than any blanket ever could.

They sit there, lazy and content, until Annie’s phone buzzes. Her mom was getting nosey.

“I have to go back inside,” she tells him, deeply unhappy with this information.

He sighs, equally as forlorn. “At least we can steal a few more minutes at your front door.”

It’s true. They can. They’re so caught up in each other that Annie completely forgets that her gloves are missing and his shirt is slathered in her makeup.

Her makeup. Her eyes flit over to his lipstick stained face at the exact moment she begrudgingly opens the door. 

Fate is not on her side tonight. Johanna and her parents are at the kitchen table, dousing a bowl of popcorn in syrup, but they all look up at the exact same time.

Her dad suddenly finds the kitchen table fascinating. Johanna smirks, no doubt anticipating what’s coming next. Her mom sets her hands on her hips.

“Annie Cresta,” she says, which already means they’re off to a bad start, “what’s all this?”

Annie already wiped at her mouth after she was done with Finnick, but she wipes herself down again just in case there’s still stray jizz on her face.

That does not help her case. Her mom prods Finnick away with a prudent index finger. He easily steps away, leaving Annie to fend for herself.

“It’s not my fault I’m in love,” she informs her mom.

“Go take a shower,” she says simply. Annie decides the best thing she can do right now is surrender.

“That works for me,” Annie says. She kisses Finnick’s hand before her mom can protest further. Then she officially steps inside, sidling up to her mom in an attempt to get back on her good side. “Okay, Finnick. I bid you ado.”

“Yeah,” Finnick agrees. Maybe Annie sucked more than his soul out of his body. “Ado.”

Her mom swings the door shut. Contrary to popular belief, not even that can kill the magic.

Chapter Text

“Jesus-fuck, Sarah.” Clove reaches over and pinches at Sarah’s velvet gloves. “Wrinkly bitch wannabe much?”

Sarah stares at herself a bit longer in the mirror, assessing her look, as if what Clove said isn’t getting under her skin.

But she is. A lot. 

She can’t help it. She made these gloves herself, with nothing but a few scraps of black velvet and her own two hands. She thought it paired well with the frilly sweetheart neckline and the billowing skirt on her homecoming  dress. 

Apparently not. Glimmer joins in on the fun, even though she should be worried about the whore-red lipstick on her teeth. 

“Seriously, Sarah. You look like my mom.”

“Shut the fuck up.” It’s a weak response—especially for Sarah, and even for Glimmer—but she genuinely did think that the gloves were cute. Evidently, she thought wrong. She needs to create some sort of diversion. “Add another slip under your dress. Your thong is showing.”

Madge snorts. “That’s probably the point. How else is Marvel gonna get it up?”

It’s a low blow, but maybe that’ll finally convince Glimmer to dump his two-timing ass. Plus, what sort of guy owns a hamster?

Clove laughs along, as if she isn’t literally a fucking queer. Sarah clocked that from the very beginning—why else would she be fucking Marvel?— but it’s all about checks and balances. She stays quiet about Clove being a fucking lesbian, and Clove doesn’t make a move on Sarah’s boyfriend.

Johnny’s nice. Kinda. He’s standard—walks Sarah to the door, sticks his tongue down her throat—and that’s exactly what she needs tonight. Clove could fuck him after Sarah dumps him. Call it a civil service. Community dick.

Sarah ditches her gloves amidst the chaos of getting ready so that no one can accuse her of letting Clove, of all people, get to her head. If Sarah looked like a walking antique store with those gloves on, no amount of pushup bras and dangly earrings can save Clove from looking like a prepubescent girl. 

Sarah frowns at herself in the mirror. Wouldn’t that make Cato a quasi-pedophile?

Sarah frowns even harder. Why is she fucking asking herself that?

The girls burst into laughter. Sarah joins in, hoping that she’s not the target.

“Enobaria’s such a bitch,” Madge says. Oh, good. She’s not the target. “I’m just looking for an apology, you know? Knocking my grandmother’s urn down was already bad enough—she didn’t need to make snow angels out of her ashes.”

“She was literally drunk,” Clove protests. Of course she’d say that. The only reason Sarah predicted her carpet muncher tendencies is ‘cause she always looked at Baria like she was waiting to be eaten alive. “Besides, you’re  not even Catholic. Why do you even have her ashes?”

“That’s so not the point!”

Sarah decides it’s safe to check out of the conversation. Usually, she’d pick a side—seriously, the only thing Enobaria has going for her is that she didn’t try to eat the ashes—but she looks weird as fuck right now, and she’d like to figure out why.

She practiced her makeup a million times over. She already knew she couldn’t wear the exact shade of lipstick as Clove (orange-y stuff washed her out) and she couldn’t wear her hair like Madge (her hair was too straight to hold a curl. She’d have to remember to ask her parents for money for a perm after they got back from their getaway trip.)

So, what? Her lashes fluttered away from sparkly eyelids. Her blue dress was Sleeping Beauty blue. The brooch holding her blonde hair back was brand fucking new, the necklace resting against her chest on full display.

She surveys the area. Glimmer’s makeup was equally as sparkly, if not even more flashy. Madge’s dress had the same amount of frills. Clove was wearing an identical brooch (in a different color), so it’s not like Sarah looked stupid or anything. 

She figures it out as soon as the boys arrive and the girls shuffle out of the room. She really wants to wear her velvet gloves. 

She had strategically strewn them across the room, as if she ditched them without a second thought. Now, she tracks them down, staring at them extra hard.

Sarah isn’t stupid: she and all her friends are bitchy. Obviously. In between Madge’s hunger pangs and Clove’s closested lesbianism and Glimmer’s stupid fucking boyfriends, they didn’t have much room for sweetness. But here’s the thing:

They’d never let anyone walk out that door looking a damn fool. So, if Clove said to ditch the gloves, Sarah should ditch the fucking gloves. She does not wanna look like a wrinkly bitch. Besides, she could probably use them for a costume or something.

She quickly hides them behind her crochet stuff. Yeah. She and her friends aren’t very good at being good, but they are good at being good friends. Case in point:

“Why does Glimmer have whore-shoes on?” Cato asks. 

“They’re called stilettos, you idiot,” Madge says, shooting Peeta Mellark a pointed look. Sarah’s surprised he’s not creeping on Katniss Everdeen tonight. She must not be going to homecoming.

“Yeah, dude,” Peeta says weakly. “Stilettos.”

Cato still doesn’t look very sorry about it—only the girls can make fun of Glimmer, ‘cause they all know none of them are any better—so Sarah switches her attention to Clove. “Your girlfriend’s the one with her tits out.”

Tit for tat. Clove can’t expect them to defend her when she’s screwing Glimmer’s boyfriend, no matter how disinterested she actually is in men. Cato rolls his eyes.

“What tits?”

His eyes widen. He really is an idiot. “Oh, wait, babe, I didn’t mean—”

Clove whacks him in the arm. Glimmer pretends that Marvel isn’t already groping her. Madge pretends that Peeta is actually attracted to her. So far, Sarah’s own odds with her date don’t look very good. 

“Hey,” he says nonchalantly. Too nonchalantly, considering they’ve only been together a couple weeks (which, by no coincidence on her part, was homecoming’s official announcement date). So much for the puppy love all those romance novels she reads (aka hides in the back of her closet) rave about. 

“Hi,” she says back, accepting the arm he slings over her shoulders with little protest. She wishes he’d just be a little more considerate of her hair that he has trapped under the crook of his arm. “You look nice.”

Johnny isn’t like any of the boys she’s read about, but she knows better than to dwell on that thought for too long. She isn’t really embarrassed about reading that sorta stuff—at least, if she found those books in the girls’ closet, she wouldn’t make fun of them for it—but she’s already been making fun of herself plenty, mainly because Johnny isn’t like any of the boys she reads about who buys you milkshakes and shows you off at football games. The closest he’s ever come to caring about her is the corsage he pokes into her wrist.

“Good thing your dress is blue, huh?” he says, like he got lucky. She’s been telling him about her dress for weeks. “My mom said we needed to match.”

Sarah clings to that detail. She finds it really charming that this is something he mentioned to his mom—even in passing—and that she had advice for him at the ready. The only advice Sarah got for homecoming  was from her older sister, and Kirsten had just told her to not let Johnny stick his tongue down her throat at the end of the night.

Too late. Sarah’s let him stick his tongue down her throat plenty, but she swears the first time was mostly just ‘cause she could have either spent her first kiss with Johnny squirming against him until he was done or simply succumb to his octopus-sucking tendencies. It had been too late to find another date to homecoming, anyhow. And who knows? Maybe she’d end up marrying him.

Sarah doesn’t really mind that so much. Marriage, she means. Sarah’s parents are out of town so much that other people’s parents have all caught on that all the parties she hosts are so unsupervised that it’s a literal safety hazard. (How is it Sarah’s fault that Rue fucked with the one room in the house that locked from the inside?). It gets fucking lonely sometimes. 

Besides, Johnny’s nice. He’s still an octopus, but Sarah already tried to find people who aren’t, and she’s shit out of luck. There are boys like Peeta, but she’s never met one that’s attracted to her. 

She doesn’t need to wonder why. She’s a bitch.

So is Johnny. He’s just a boy, so it looks more natural on him. They all leave together, but they drive to the school gym separately, and Johnny’s hands are on her before he even turns his car off. Sarah makes it very clear that she intends on shooting off muffled protests against his lips the entire time, so he backs off.

“You wanna get me some punch first?” she asks, because she deserves to be miffed right now. Not even Marvel tried sucking Glimmer’s face off before their first date officially began. It’s how he trapped her.

Johnny has the decency to look embarrassed. “Sorry. It’s hard to behave when you look like… well, like that.”

Sarah smiles at him, as if he complimented her. She decides she likes him a lot better when he leans back and doesn’t try touching her again the entire time she checks her makeup and smooths down her dress. 

Her bare hands retie the little DIY bow detail on her dress. She tries not to think about the gloves in her closet. She wonders if Johnny would have liked them.

Johnny isn’t horrible. Again: he’s just a boy. After she brushes off his groping attempt, he’s nothing but a perfect gentleman, opening car doors for her and holding his elbow out for her to wrap her arm around.

“You’re the prettiest girl here,” he says. She knows he means it because he gets pink in the cheeks.

She can feel herself getting pink, too. Maybe she was being too hard on him before. If she wanted to settle, she’d hang around Blight more. That would be a hate crime in the making. 

Johnny doesn’t have a bad bone in his body. He’s just eager. Sarah can’t blame him—she already fucked all of his friends. (She’s gonna fuck him, too, but she’s not gonna let him know that. He might just try to take her home early, but her place is gonna be empty all night. Might as well milk the 11pm curfew the school set.)

Homecoming  is… okay. It always has been. There’s a venue to take pictures. The watered-down punch. The crowded dance floor. 

Delly Dumptruck is today’s victim. Sarah thinks it’s stupid. Fucking with her at a school sanctioned event is even more stupid. It’s like they want to get kicked out.

Cato and Marvel sandwich her between their gyrating hips. They make fun of her for not enjoying it, as if they have anything to bring to the table other than dick and alcohol. 

Actually, they barely bring alcohol to the table. That’s why they keep Haymitch around. 

Johnny’s smiling. Sarah needs to put a stop to that.

“They’re so stupid,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“So stupid,” he echoes, quick to agree with her. “If that were me—well, I’d just wanna dance with you.”

Good. That was exactly Sarah’s point, and she didn’t even have to spell it out for him. Maybe Johnny is smarter than he looks.

Clove and Glimmer and Madge find it funny for a bit, sure, but Cato and Marvel have never been very good about letting a joke end naturally, so eventually Madge wanders off with Peeta and Clove and Glimmer pretend to be okay with being left alone on the outskirts of the gym. If Sarah didn’t know any better, it’s like they didn’t even have dates.

She sees when this realization dawns on them, too. It sends Clove marching straight up to Cato and twisting his arm until he disengages, swooping her around in his arms instead. Marvel decides to gyrate his nasty fucking hips some more before following Cato’s lead, shotgunning for Glimmer.

Johnny spins her around some more. Sarah pretends that his hands aren’t getting sloppy. Then someone spikes the punch.

And, by someone, she means Haymitch. He and his girlfriend (Sarah had no idea he had a girlfriend) get escorted off the premises, with the boys cheering him on the entire time. 

Sarah doesn’t like how many hits Haymitch takes for them. It’s like he’s trying to be a girl. 

Either way, the damage has been done. The boys aren’t sober anymore—Haymitch spiked more than the punch, not that any of the chaperones know (or care). Sarah’s clumsy gentleman of a date turns into a mouth breathing, face-sucking octopus. She even has to resort to shoving at him. 

“Johnny!” Yelling is very foreign to her. Her parents aren’t around enough to know what trouble she’s getting into, so she doesn’t have much experience with getting disciplined in general. She hopes she doesn’t sound fucking ridiculous. “I wanna dance, goddammit!”

He grabs her ass in response. In front of everyone. “I’m not stopping you. Let’s dance.”

It would be humiliating if Sarah’s friends weren’t facing similar issues. Hell, some of the other girls were brushing away stray hands and octopus lips, and their boyfriends haven’t even been drinking.

“Let go of me,” she says under her breath. Where the fuck are all the chaperones when you need them?

He grabs tighter. Maybe it’s even painful. Sarah doesn’t know—isn’t really sure. She can feel herself losing her temper—people are gonna stare, and the whole point of being so popular at school is having the illusion of control over the boys she fucks, and Johnny isn’t even letting her do that—but she forces herself to stay calm. Struggling makes things worse. Struggling will cause a scene. Struggling will make her look bitchy instead of bossy. 

Compliance. Sarah doesn’t know how she’s supposed to comply with this.

“Goddammit, Johnny!” she repeats, smacking him away with all her might. It’s admittedly not very much—especially not against the quarterback—but he’s not Blight-levels of rapey. Just a fucking jerk. He backs off. “Come find me when you stop being a fucking idiot!”

Sarah isn’t being sloppy. She can afford to have outbursts like that. So can Clove. Glimmer is a different story, and so is Madge, because Glimmer fucks boys she wants to marry and Madge fucks boys to feel better about herself. Sarah fucks boys so she isn’t lonely, so she has more of them on her roster, and Johnny knows it. They all know it. 

And they like it, so Sarah can do it. That’s the difference between her and all those dweebs who lash out at their equally dweeby and loser-y boyfriends. 

Johnny is such a loser. It’s one thing to stick his tongue down her throat after walking her to her door. It’s another to grab at her in front of all her friends. And it’s something else entirely to do all that in front of an audience. A dweeby audience full of dweeby boys, watching the scene unfold like soft porn.

Sarah grits her teeth together, fighting against the lump in her throat as best she can. She’s been kissed and grabbed at and rutted into before, but this is the first time she’s ever felt like an object. And the worst part is that she knows she’s still gonna sleep with him after this is all over. 

There isn’t a soul in sight, so she allows herself a little sniffle in the hallway. She flings open the door to the janitor’s closet, ready for a full on misery session, but the shadow-y figure lurking in the corner makes her heart stop.

Then she smells the weed. It gives her enough sense to straighten her posture and pretend to get irritated with the dork huddled around a fuckton of cleaning supplies. 

“What the fuck are you doing, Luis?”

“Gale forgot his cologne,” he replies, like this explains everything. He sprays some windex on his wrist. It reads as very feminine to Sarah, but instead of turning on her heel and leaving his ass, she steps inside and shuts the door.

Oh. He smells like a lot of weed.

Luis always smells like weed. He smokes so much weed you’d think he was stupid, but he’s not. He knows how to play three different instruments—guitar, drums, piano—and he writes all those songs his scream-o band plays. Sarah always thought his long hair and heavy rings would get in the way of that, but oddly enough, he makes it work.

She stares at him. Ripped jeans, oversized band tee. Unruly hair (he needs to let someone fix it up for him), heavy combat boots. He’s obviously not homecoming  ready.

“What’s Gale doing here?” she asks, even though she has a feeling she already knows. Luis and his band are planning a coup, otherwise known as taking over every single school event they can get their hands on. He and Sarah have spent countless lunch periods arguing each other out of breath over the songs he wants to play at their biggest football game of the season. She doesn’t care what he says—she can’t fucking do cartwheels and summersaults while he and all his stoner friends are raging and screaming about societal problems. It’ll kill the fucking vibe.

Anyway, rumor has it that they’ve been trying to sabotage their way to performing at prom. As if. If there’s gonna be live music, it better be fucking Madonna. (A girl can dream.)

“Luis,” she protests. That’s all he needs to hear.

“The sound system has been jank anyway,” he protests. “We’re not gonna do anything—we’ll be the first people Cray targets whether we did it or not. We’re just sticking around in case we’re needed. Better our music than no music at all, right?”

Sarah huffs, irritated at the fact this works in her favor. She tolerates Luis way too much for someone that’s fucking up her craft (aka her cheerleading career). She tells herself it’s because he’s equally passionate about his craft. She wants to be a professional cheerleader—he wants to travel the world with his band. 

Sarah slides down the door, using her dress as a cushion. Luis follows her lead from where he’s standing.

He stares at her. He’s letting her call the shots.

“I’m rolling my eyes, by the way,” Sarah tells him, even though she’s not. She’s just been getting too comfortable with Luis recently—why else do you think she’s in this fucking closet with him?—and she doesn’t want him to know that. 

He laughs. She doesn’t take it personally—he’s high. “Okay. I’m smiling.”

Yeah. She knows. It’s fucking dark, but she always knows when Luis is smiling. It’s one of those things she can feel.

Those stupid little butterflies flap against her belly. She squashes a hand over her abdomen, attempting to suffocate them. That sorta thing has been happening more and more lately—even when she’s not fucking horny— and it’s always at inconvenient times, like when Luis makes a horrible chereo suggestion or when he has bits of food stuck in his teeth.

“You’re such a dweeb.” There’s no heat behind it. She’s too tired. He laughs again, nice and bubbly and kind.

The butterflies are back. Sarah doesn’t try to suffocate them this time. She likes kind, and she likes pretending that it’s something she deserves. As if she’s never called him a loser virgin dweeb.

Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies. She kinda really wants him to be a virgin, but that’s Blight-levels of creepy, so she makes sure to never have that thought again.

“You smell so much like weed,” she says, giving up on pretending to be annoyed. 

“Want some?”

“Shouldn’t.” With Haymitch gone, all her friends will know exactly where she got it from. She did not feel like beating the Cresta-fucker allegations today. “I have a party planned. Marvel’s mom’s flight might be delayed another day.”

Emphasis on might. It better be, or else Johnny’s gonna have to come over to Sarah’s house sooner than she anticipated.

“A party?” Luis leans forward. Of course that’s something he’d be interested in. Dweeb. “Isn’t this sorta like a party?”

“Homecoming?” She waits for him to nod before she laughs. It’s not mean—she doesn’t intend for it to be, at least—and she knows her point lands when he laughs with her. “No. This is gonna be a real party, with real drinks and real brownies and stuff.”

“I bet I could hang.” He sways to the side. “See? I’m hanging right now.”

Sarah laughs even harder, pressing her hand to her mouth to stifle her stupid giggling. “You’re so hanging.”

He straightens up. She bets he’s smiling. It’ll explain why it’s getting so warm in here all of a sudden. “You’re so nice.”

She can’t tell if he’s making fun of her. “Shut up,” she says anyway. He doesn’t get offended.

“Seriously! Even when you’re being mean, you somehow make it nice.”

She’s too sober for this conversation. She decides to just tell him thank you.

“What are you doing in here?” he asks. “Hanging?”

God. She laughs again, as if the reason why she’s here in the first place isn’t something that makes her wanna cry. “I just needed some time to cool off. Boys are fucking stupid.”

Luis doesn’t take offense to that. She’s been telling him to add some girls to his band since their feud started. Maybe then they’d reach some compromises on the whole the-music-doesn’t-match-the-choreography thing. (Girls do it better.)

“Yeah, well.” There’s a pause. “I’m shrugging, by the way.”

Loser virgin dweeb. Sarah has to excuse herself before she does something stupid, like succumb to the urge to run her fingers through his hair or shuffle closer to all that weed on his clothes. 

She walks back to the gym, and Johnny is already mouthing his apologies as soon as they make eye contact. He even sobered up for her. Good. Considering that she already fucked all his friends, it’s gonna ruin him if she doesn’t fuck him, too. Having leverage over men is a real good strategy to abuse if you wanna lose your temper so often. Glimmer and Madge should take some notes. 

The party is a complete bust. Everyone’s parents are fucking home, and Sarah’s house was put on some sort of watchlist, so her only companion after all of this is still Johnny. 

Everything is shadowy. Her stairs creak. There’s not even anyone to talk to.

She turns to Johnny. Before he can lunge at her, she nods toward her house. “Wanna come inside?”

He looks less like an octopus-sucking monster and more like a pathetic worm squirming on a hook. He opens and closes his mouth a couple times before anything comes out.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Sarah confirms, already opening the car door. He scrambles after her. “My parents never come home early from their trips.” They hardly come home at all, actually. Sarah forces herself to sound excited about it. (Because it is exciting. Glimmer and Clove and everyone would kill to have parents like hers, and they tell her so all the time.) “Kirsten’s away at college. It’s just us.”

That’s all he needs to hear. She lets him nip and suck at the exposed skin on the back of her neck the entire time she unlocks the door. Looks like she’ll be enduring dog-levels of slobber tonight. At least he doesn’t even try asking for oral. (After all that dancing and drinking and sweating, he fucking stinks, and Sarah wasn’t in the mood to swallow.)

She is in the mood to make it last, though. All that time she was gonna spend with her friends (and the boys) was cut way too short, so she yanks her skirt up and tells him to kiss her there. Johnny hesitates, and for a second she thinks he’s gonna refuse, maybe call her a gross bitch, but then he smiles at her.

“Woah,” he says, peering in between her legs like he’s bird watching. “Has anyone ever…?”

“No.” Not well, anyway. Which is exactly why she only makes these suggestions during desperate, desperate times. “Will you?”

“Okay!”

She threads her hand through his hair—not long enough, not thick enough, even though she never cared about that stuff before—to keep him exactly where she wants him. She’s stalling. She was stalling when they kissed. She’s was stalling when his tongue was all up in her thighs, too intimidated to venture farther for a long while. And she’s stalling now, keeping him inside her even after he already jizzed.

“I better get…” He pauses. She’s glad she doesn’t have to interrupt him. “Wait. No I don’t. Your parents are gone, right?”

“Yup.” They told her they’d be back a week ago, but she keeps that to herself. If they’re not back now, they’d call first with another arrival date. See? They’re considerate. “Like, forever.”

He flops over, grinning into her neck. Her heart aches. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to marry him. She likes being cuddled. She likes knowing someone wants to stay with her, skin-on-skin, smiles on smiles, heart on heart. She burrows back into him for this exact reason.

She does his laundry for him the next morning. Not necessarily because she’s being traditional about it—she just hates seeing her silky covers ruined by his gross jizz, so she spots the stains as gently as she can without waking him up. She just barely finishes folding up his freshly dried clothes before she’s hit with the sudden urge to pee.

She thumps around as quietly as she can in the early morning sunshine. Being an early riser has its perks—she’s awake before he is, so she can soak in the presence of someone being in the house with her before she inevitably has to watch him leave. Maybe she can call Madge later. Hopefully she’ll be done with her family brunch by noon. 

She practically collapses onto the toilet, which is fucking embarrassing. She didn’t even enjoy herself all that much last night, but it’s only natural that she feels so weak after all that poking and prodding around. 

She’s fine until she looks in the mirror. Then she sees her stupid fucking bedhead and the hickeys on her neck and she wants to punch herself bloody, because she just let fucking Johnny make her look like a bedraggled idiot. Johnny. The boy with suction cups for lips. The boy who’s gonna go home and tell his friends that Sarah let him hit, because of course she did. The boy who’s gonna leave her in a few hours and not even be sorry about it.

Sarah sighs, angry with herself. So fucking what? She was using him, just like he was using her. If she was so worried about being slutty, she wouldn’t have dated all those boys and dealt with their idiocy. 

Sarah complied. Now what?

She splashes some cold water on her face to cool herself down. Sarah complied, so now she’s not alone for a little bit. Sarah complied, so now she’s not a fucking loser bitch prude. Sarah complied, so now someone will stay with her.

She gulps some water down, her cheeks puffing with it.

Smudged mascara. Dried boy slobber. A wilted corsage. And, underneath it all, a desperate DIY-ing dweeb. 

She spits the water straight into her mirror, her reflection bearing the brunt of the assault. Serves that stupid bitch right.