SomeMooreOnTop: Vague!
SomeMooreOnTop: i read Greenest Skies!
SomeMooreOnTop: as always its super good!
SomeMooreOnTop: i never know how you get so descriptive with your characters and settings without it feeling awkward and just shoved in like an exposition dump.
VaguelyPoetic: I would say that it’s practice but I think that implies that you don’t have much practice writing.
SomeMooreOnTop: i have only really been writing for a year or two, and ive been reading you for like… two more than that
SomeMooreOnTop: it certainly isn’t a stretch to say that you have more experience than me
VaguelyPoetic: I suppose that’s fair.
VaguelyPoetic: Wait, you’ve been reading my work for three years???
SomeMooreOnTop: yep! you’re basically an inspiration for me.
VaguelyPoetic: Huh.
VaguelyPoetic: That is surreal.
Ava sat in bed, pondering. Was she really an inspiration? She was just a girl writing stories as a hobby, that didn’t feel particularly inspiring. That’s probably how all her favorite authors felt, they were all just people. But they were all published, or they went to school for writing, or had been doing it for longer than Ava had even been alive. She really wasn’t impressive or inspiring whatsoever, but she supposed that the truth didn’t stop Moore from thinking that she was.
Ava eventually pried herself from the comfort of her bed, reminding herself that she had errands that needed doing for the day if she wanted Sunday completely free to really get in the zone and get a lot of words down on the page.
Ava headed to a nearby thrift shop first. She hardly ever needed an excuse to go thrifting, but some of her pairs of pants were on the verge of falling apart and she was in desperate need of a few replacements.
Ava caught a bus down to her regular thrift shop, a cozy little place halfway across town that was packed to the brim with more unique and interesting clothing than every other store Ava had ever been to. Some of the clothing always left her wondering ‘who in the world saw this and thought it would look good?’ when she saw a particularly strange-looking article of clothing. Ava always had the possibility of finding her new favorite article of clothing or laughing her ass off at some custom made t-shirt with a faded ten-year-old meme printed on the front. That was half the fun of thrifting, the other half was how cheap everything was.
Ava certainly could spend a hundred dollars at a department store and get approximately two pairs of jeans, or she could go to a thrift store and get herself several entire outfits for the same price. The choice was always obvious.
Ava managed to find some promising pairs of pants and made her way to try them on in the dressing rooms. A few minutes later she exited the fitting room feeling satisfied with her finds, only two pairs had to be put back on the clothing racks for being uncomfortable. She looked up to find a person digging through the clothing rack in front of her. Wait a moment… she recognized that vivid purple hair and trans-pride-pin-covered backpack.
“Paige?”
Paige jumped and whirled around to face Ava. “Oh! H-hey Ava!” She fixed her big, round glasses and regained her composure. “I didn’t expect to see you here!”
“I was the one who showed this store to you in the first place.” Ava deadpanned.
Paige chuckled. “I mean at the same time as me. We don’t run into each other often.”
“It was bound to happen sometime,” Ava shrugged. “What are you looking for anyway?” Ava stepped closer to the clothes that Paige had been looking at.
“Just y’know… clothes. I’ve been meaning to finally purge the rest of my boy clothes now that I’m out out.”
Ava blinked. Paige went public nearly a year ago and she still hadn’t replaced her wardrobe yet? Granted, Ava didn’t know that much about being trans, but that seemed like quite a long time. “Do you want help looking?” She offered.
“I think I know what I’m looking for already,” Paige explained as she pulled another hanger from the clothing rack.
“Okay.” Ava paused for a moment. “Would you like some company instead?” Ava suggested.
Paige smiled. “That would be nice.”
Was it selfish to hijack her shopping trip like that? Replacing her whole wardrobe was probably a really personal thing and Ava just tacked herself onto it. Paige hadn’t refused, so clearly she wasn’t bothering Paige, or… not enough for her to refuse her outright–
Ava shook her head. Where were these thoughts coming from? Paige was her best friend. Spending time with each other was what friends did! That certainly didn’t change because Ava caught feelings.
Just act normal.
Just act normal.
Just. Act. Normal.
Ava repeated the words in her head as she watched Paige pull a few articles of clothing from the rack and put them in her basket. Ava tried not to stare but she couldn’t help it. Paige was just so–
“So what were you doing here?” Paige asked, snapping Ava out of her head.
“Uhhh…” Ava’s brain lagged as she tried to remember why she’d come to the thrift shop in the first place. Her eyes eventually drifted to her own basket and the jeans within. “Oh! Right! Pants!” She pulled one of the pairs of pants from her basket and presented it to Paige. “I needed some new pants.”
Paige nodded. “Pants.”
Ava wanted to scream. Why was she being so awkward? The answer was obvious, but she’d never been so hopelessly pathetic around a girl before. She’d done it, she somehow devolved into a lesbian more useless than her own characters and it was infuriating. She wasn’t even this weird about it at game night. Did writing about it somehow make her worse?
Ava followed closely behind Paige as she added more clothing to her basket. What was the correct solution here? In a story she’d be screaming at the offending character to just confess and get it over with, but this was real life, that’s not how it worked, she couldn’t just tell her how she felt! In fiction it would be guaranteed that Paige felt the same way, but there was no way for her to know for sure that she wouldn’t be making a fool of herself by confessing her feelings. It was best to keep quiet and not make their friendship weird.
Ava spent the rest of her time at the thrift shop trying not to stare at Paige or freak out every time they accidentally touched each other as they squeezed through the cramped aisles.
“Hey.” Paige started as the pair paid for their clothes. “While we’re out, do you wanna grab lunch together?”
Ava tried not to sound too enthusiastic about the idea, but her response was instant. “Yeah! that sounds great!” Ava’s stomach rumbled, as if trying to disguise her hasty response as hunger rather than infatuation.
“Any ideas on where you want to eat?” Paige held the door for Ava, despite carrying far more than Ava was. Ava briefly thought that Paige had to be doing it on purpose, but she was just like that: effortlessly caring and considerate. How had it taken so long for Ava to realize that she was hopelessly in love with this woman? She was just… perfect.
“Anywhere is good!” Ava snapped herself out of her head. “I’m not picky.”
“Cool!” Paige let the door close behind her as she chose a direction to walk, seemingly having chosen where to go already. “There’s a sushi place just down the street that I wanted to try, figured I’d get some shopping done and then try it out, birds and stones and all that” Ava nodded as she followed along. It sounded nice, it had been quite a while since she had some good sushi. Ava tried not to think about the fact that she would have been happy to eat anywhere as long as it was with Paige.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ava tucked her bag beneath her seat as Paige did the same across from her.
“So Ava, you got any plans for tomorrow?” Paige asked, leaning forward.
“Not really, I’m just staying home and–” Ava caught herself before she could say any more. She definitely couldn’t say that she was going to be writing. Paige, with all her good natured curiosity, would no doubt ask about her writing and if she could read it. That was a worst case scenario. Either Ava would have to come clean about writing a romance novel about Paige (no) or she’d have to get defensive about her writing and come across as weird (also no). Keeping her writing career a secret was the correct choice.
“And?” Paige prompted Ava to continue.
“And do nothing! Sundays are my designated lazy days.” Ava smiled awkwardly. “Sunday snoozeday, I like to say.” That was stupid. She never said that. Why did she say that!?
Paige furrowed her brow. “Are you okay? You’re acting weird.”
Ava sighed. She was not a good actor. “I’m fine, just… personal stuff”
“Mmm” Paige nodded.
“Well I hope you know you can tell me anything, okay? You’re my best friend and I don’t want you to deal with heavy shit on your own.” Paige’s concerned expression only made Ava feel worse. Paige didn’t deserve the dishonesty, but Ava couldn’t ever talk about her writing.
“Thanks Paige. But this is something I really should keep to myself.”
“And that’s okay too!” Paige picked up the menus from the side of the table and offered one to Ava. “What say we eat some sushi to get your mind off of it?”
Ava smiled. “I’d like that.”
Ava thoroughly enjoyed the sushi, even if it didn’t get her mind off of what was “bothering” her.
Paige’s face paled as she looked at the bill. “Wow. This is a lot more expensive than I thought it’d be.”
Ava snatched the paper and looked it over. It was pricey, but nothing that she couldn’t afford. “I got it,” She said as she pulled out her card.
“What? Ava. No. I can pay for my own food.”
Ava raised an eyebrow. “Your expression certainly said otherwise.”
Paige shrugged. “It’s significant but I can handle it, I promise. Besides, I dragged you out here anyway, I’m the one who should be paying” Paige reached for the bill but Ava pulled it far out of the shorter woman’s reach.
“You just spent well over a hundred dollars on clothing and I know you struggle to pay your share of rent half the time. I can pay seventy dollars for sushi.”
Paige looked a little embarrassed and fell back down in her seat. “You really don’t have to–”
“No. I don’t ‘have to’, but I want to.” Ava gave her card to the waiter. “And I have more money than I know what to do with anyway.” Ava certainly wasn’t rich by any definition of the word, but she was comfortable enough to have a fair amount of money saved up with nothing to spend it on. “I’m definitely not out wasting it on designer clothing, that’s for sure.”
Paige cracked a thin smile, making Ava’s heart skip a beat. “I suppose that is true. But I’ll have to pay you back sometime!”
“You wish” Ava teased, “You’ll be in my debt forever.”
“Hmm. I suppose there are worse debtors.”
Ava couldn’t help but laugh at her misuse of the word. “Paige, you’re the debtor here.”
Paige looked confused. “What? No, I’m in debt to you, you’re debt-ing me, you’re the debtor.”
Ava clicked her tongue and shook her head slowly. “Nope, you have the debt, that makes you the debtor.”
Paige squinted in disbelief. “That can’t be right.”
“I don’t know what to tell you” Ava collected her card and the receipt from the waiter when he returned.
“Well then what are you?”
“I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘creditor’. I’d be your creditor.”
“That feels incorrect.”
Ava shrugged. “It’s the truth.”
“Fine then. I suppose there are worse creditors.” Paige corrected her initial statement.
“Damn right there are.” Ava laughed as the two of them stood up to exit the restaurant.
they're so cute ,,
That last scene… Paige is me, and Ava is who I’d like to be. *sigh*