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Jessica always has lunch in the center of the courtyard, where the lawn is flush with golden dandelions and errant wrappers. She sits at a table with the other cheerleaders and proverbial Golden Girls, but she clandestinely wishes that she could sit in the grass with one leg tucked in and the other splayed out and her freckled middle bared to the gilded slants of sunlight. Not exactly sunbathing, but sun-cleansing, stripping herself of her ugly, acne-pocked skin and allowing the light in.
But she's a cheerleader. So she sits at a table.
Lunch would be a more enlightening affair if Cathy didn't insist on inviting the full gauntlet of assholes and douche bags to share their table. They cram themselves in between the girls' nubile bodies, callus-studded hands perpetually scrabbling for a breast to grope or rear to goose. Jessica despises their wanton grabbing, their lewd grins and cologne like thunderheads breaking and disgusting slang. Their hands make her flesh marble hard with goosebumps and gorge heave slightly like she needs to cough something vile up.
Eventually, she switches spots with Lili to escape the boys. And it is from this new corner that Jessica sees Morticia Smith.
Morticia reclines against a poplar tree with her homework notebook braced against her tented knees. Her forefinger is partially corked in her mouth and she keeps gnawing on her knuckle as she revises her work once, twice, thrice, before conceding to the equations and opening her lunch box. There is something inexplicably soft about Morticia. Jessica briefly contemplates if Morticia's chestnut-brown curls are as satiny as they look and if it would be gauche to take one of those pearly tresses between her fingers.
It's a weird thought. A really weird thought. Almost as weird as Morticia herself, an odd specimen who rarely makes it to class and always appears to be on the precipice of a narcoleptic fit. Jessica initially suspected that Morticia had some kind of terminal illness or heart defect, something to account for her ghostly pallor and lethargy, but that theory has since been dispelled by the realization that Morticia and her family are just… well, weird.
Weird or not though, Jessica still wonders if Morticia's hair is like silk and if her hand would melt into Jessica's like strawberry gelatin. Not that she's gay or anything. Just… curious.
.
.
Occasionally, Morticia goes to school just for Jessica.
Being carted around the galaxy by an inebriated Rick doesn't exactly precipitate a stellar attendance record or a decent night's sleep. It is sometimes all Morticia can do to even crawl into bed after Rick unceremoniously dumps her in the hallway and belches a good night. And as she lays there in the dark--quietly trying to comprehend her surreal experiences--she considers quitting school. She's a terrible student and dyslexic and always tardy, and besides, isn't Rick right about school being a place for people to teach you what to think?
Before she can fully realize her half-conscious plot though, her thoughts invariably turn to a certain redhead and her body begins to thrum with an alien energy. Jessica and her constellations of freckles and her eyes like the viridian moon of Dimension KG-93. Jessica who is in the dumb classes with her, Jessica who sits at her designated lunch table with one leg tucked beneath her, Jessica who sometimes lapses into fits of laughter that circle her head like sunny whorls of champagne bubbles.
Morticia then has to clutch fistfuls of sheets as her whole being longs for the beauty that is Jessica. And she barely sleeps at all.
It isn't just girlish infatuation. Of that much, Morticia is certain. She has taken to observing Jessica, mentally cataloging the girl's quirks and comparing them to her own, striving for compatibility. There is something about the way that Jessica pushes Brad away, the way she keeps all those rude boys at arm's length--tensing her polished fingertips against their chests--that gives Morticia hope. Hope that maybe Jessica actually is gay or maybe bisexual or even pansexual like Rick. Hope that Jessica would one day turn to Morticia in class, her strawberry-pink lips cocked into a smug grin, and whisper I think you're cute. Hope that Jessica will be there waiting for Morticia when she stumbles in after trawling the galaxy and they will collapse into a sweaty, freckled embrace and Morticia will sleep so soundly that her black circles will disappear.
With a girl like Jessica at her school, it's hard to sleep at night.
Not that anyone knows how Morticia feels. Not even Rick. He knows better than to grill her about the boys at school, but knowing his impulse control--or lack thereof--Morticia is wary about handing out anyone's personal information, much less that of her potentially straight crush. Summer still prattles on about Brad and makes bawdy comments about this and that and oh my GOD, Morticia, stop blushing, don't be so immature. And Beth, bless her heart, gently pries about boys and crushes, wanting desperately to know that her daughter is happy and not so horrifically lonely that getting pregnant in high school seems almost desirable.
It's enough to make Morticia want to come out. But she can't. Not yet. She wants to know something first.
.
.
The day is warm and distantly fragrant of grease and rubber. And Morticia is approaching Jessica's table.
Jessica cannot divorce her gaze from Morticia's eyes. They're so dark and deep that she feels like she's catching a rare glimpse of outer space, like she's looking into a window that will shortly be shuttered. When Morticia notices her stare, a dull blush creeps up the brunette's neck. Her honey-dark cheeks are luminescent under the April sun and fuck, she wants to hold Morticia's hand.
Morticia is getting closer and Jessica is suddenly panicked. It is so glaringly obvious that she has been admiring Morticia, that her eyes keep straying over to her in the courtyard. Her heart aches viciously because she likes Morticia. She's sweet and funny and actually kind of smart, even if she can't do math. But it's okay, Jessica can't do math either, not high-level stuff anyway, and Morticia is going to tell her to stop looking, Morticia is going to ask her to stop being so fucking creepy, Morticia is--
"Um, h-hi Jessica."
The obnoxious din that defines their table is dispelled by Morticia's quiet greeting. Cathy sneers; Brad makes an obscene gesture. Jessica tries not to die.
"Hey, Morticia," she replies, feigning ennui.
Morticia shuffles a bit before finally braving a glance at Jessica. The redhead smiles disarmingly. "Uh, I-I was just, uh, wondering if y-you had the, um, the math notes. From yesterday."
"Oh." Jessica exhales fiercely in spite of herself, only now aware of the crushing vice trapping her lungs. "Yeah, sure. Hold on…"
She hefts her backpack into her lap, cards through her jumble of messy notes and stray lipsticks, and uncovers the notes. Oppressing her hand not to tremble, Jessica passes the paper over to Morticia, whose hands are trembling.
"Uh, th-thanks. I-I'll give 'em back after school."
With an appreciative grin, Morticia nods at Jessica and turns to flee the appalled glares of Jessica's tablemates. In her haste, she catches the toe of her sneaker on a crack in the concrete; Jessica's notes jettison from her flailing arm. And then Morticia falls.
She cracks her nose on the cement so violently that her mind briefly flares with fireworks. There is the immediate gush of blood, then the copper-penny zing of it crushed into the pits of her molars. A noise like doors creaking escapes her aching mouth.
"Morticia!" Jessica abandons Golden Girl pretenses and rushes over to Morticia, who is still sprawled on the pavement with those soft curls half-trapped beneath her shoulder. She rolls Morticia onto her side. "Oh, my God…"
Morticia's nose is slightly crooked and shrieking with broken veins and spouting blood like a bathtub faucet. Her chin is lightly scraped; her forehead is purpled with bruises. But her eyes survived the fall and now, at this close proximity, Jessica realizes that they are deep enough for her to enfold herself in their velvety depths and never leave.
"J-Jess… ica?"
Right. Morticia. "It's okay, Morticia, just let me… hang on, I have an idea. Can you walk?"
The brunette nods shakily. This is the closest she has ever been to Jessica and even though her nose is a blaring fire alarm of pain, she can still detect a sweet aroma of pineapple. She allows Jessica to help her to her feet, where she promptly begins to sway as her blood flow is renewed. Some people are screaming in juvenile horror; others are giggling feverishly. But Jessica--close, pineapple, firework Jessica--is there, close and somber and holding onto Morticia's forearm in the event that the brunette faints.
"Ignore them. C'mon, let me take you to my car."
The prospect of bleeding all over Jessica's seat covers makes Morticia gag and not metaphorically either. Jessica pauses to ensure that Morticia is steady before leading her out of the courtyard and into the parking lot, where the harsh glint of metallic exteriors forces her eyes shut. She trusts Jessica to lead her to safety. Because even if this is some twisted prank and she ends up with a shiner to go with her busted nose, Morticia will have been next to Jessica and that will grant her peaceful slumber for weeks to come.
There is no bait and switch. They actually arrive at Jessica's car, with its ladybug-red shell and tiny sea turtle pinned to the rearview mirror and cheerleading equipment strewn across the backseat. "Hold on, let me get you a tissue first. Aw, you've bled all over your shirt."
"It-It's okay," Morticia rasps, "I've g-got, like, six more."
Jessica giggles, an ice cream-bell sound, and rummages around in her glove compartment for a tissue. She recovers a Wendy's napkin, which she apologetically presses to Morticia's crushed nostrils; the brunette yelps in spite of herself. "Sorry. This is just to stop the bleeding for a minute. I've got something that'll help. It's… a little embarrassing, but it'll help, I promise."
"Okay." The obedience in Morticia's voice is demeaning, but she can't help it. She trusts Jessica more than she has any right to.
"Here." Jessica pats the passenger seat invitingly after closing the glove compartment. "Take a seat while I get it."
"B-But I-I might bleed on--"
"I don't care," she interrupts flippantly, closing a hand over Morticia's shoulder. "These seat covers are gross anyway. Sit down, it'll make you feel better."
Morticia obliges. The seat covers aren't gross, but they aren't especially comfortable either. Still, Morticia makes a noble effort to not hemorrhage all over it and Jessica's other personal belongings.
Jessica rummages through her pocketbook, which had been slung carelessly in the backseat with her pompoms and skirt, and begins to mumble under her breath. "I know I have some… Cathy had hers last week and I kept a few extra in my purse… oh! Here they are!" She produces two slim plastic capsules, each capped with a limp string. "Um, don't be weirded out by this, okay? I've done this before."
"I-I hope those are going in my n-nose…" Morticia croaks. This time, they both laugh.
"Yeah, they are. They'll absorb all the blood and straighten your nose out some." She feels justifiably strange explaining the complexities of tampon medicine to Morticia Smith in the frontseat of her Chevrolet, but not at all uncomfortable. In fact, Jessica is almost… relieved. Morticia isn't weird, she's just as funny and sweet and shy as Jessica estimated, and her eyes are still too deep to fathom and even with that unsightly beard of blood shadowing her chin, she is cute the way she used to say boys were cute in grade school. She is cute in a way that Jessica actually understands, actually appreciates.
And now it's time to shove tampons into the nostrils of the girl who is bringing her great and perplexing joy. "This'll hurt a lot at first, but I promise, it'll work."
Jessica removes the plastic applicators and, moving cautiously, edges the first tampon up Morticia's nostril. The brunette tenses, then carves meat out of the palms of her hands as her fists clench and her fingernails dig. By the time the tampon is applied, Morticia is shivering uncontrollably. "Sorry, sorry, sorry… okay, here's the second one. Just--" And her hand drifts over to Morticia's. "Squeeze my hand. You're about to punch holes in yours."
There is a lapse where Morticia and Jessica both seem to know what the other knows. They are simultaneously aware of one another's struggles, of their insecurities and infatuations and inferiorities, and they imbibe this information as desperately as a dying man does water. Once it passes, Morticia hesitantly takes Jessica's hand. It melts into hers like strawberry gelatin.
To distract herself from this revelation, Jessica begins to thread the second tampon up Morticia's nose. Again, Morticia squirms and crushes Jessica's fingers, forcing the redhead to acknowledge that Morticia is strong, incredibly strong, how is a girl so pale and nervous so incredibly, impossibly strong? Jessica coerces the tampon up her nostril brusquely just so she'll have an excuse to remove her hand from Morticia's. She immediately misses the softness, even paired with such extreme pressure, and tries to conjure another excuse to reclaim it.
"D-Did it work?" Morticia, sounding dazed.
"Oh! Yeah, it looks like it. You've stopped bleeding," Jessica adds, examining Morticia's other injuries. "You've got a cut on your chin. I've got a band-aid here somewhere."
"I-I can get one from the n-nurse." Morticia's tampon-clogged voice is adorable, sort of like the voice of a precocious child, which--in some regards--she is. Jessica smiles inexorably.
"Don't worry, I've got one. Besides, I don't think you really want to walk around with those hanging out of your nose."
Jessica finds a bandage in her purse. She peels back the paper and sticks it onto Morticia's chin; with a maternal frown, she smoothes it down repeatedly until its flatness suits her. "There we go." A fuzzy whorl of Morticia's hair has escaped the red headband she always wears. Jessica tucks it behind Morticia's ear and feels that urge, that craving, to plunge her fingers into those curls.
So she does.
She tangles her slim fingers in their silkiness, relishing the individual springiness and softness of each ringlet. Morticia gasps softly at the abruptness of this gesture, but does not attempt to shove Jessica away. It isn't like Jessica is trying to violate her. She's just… holding her hair. Caressing it, almost.
Jessica snaps out of her reverie and promptly retracts her hands. "S-Sorry. That was weird of me."
"No, no," Morticia says quietly. "It wasn't weird."
"Yes, it was. Sorry, I just… your hair's soft."
Morticia's complexion takes on the hue of the blood still gumming her upper-lip. "Oh, um… th-thanks. Yours is too. I-I guess."
A shadow passes over Jessica's face and her eyes are suddenly shrink-wrapped with tears. "I'm sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable, Morticia."
"No, no! I-I'm just… y-you're being so nice to me…" She hates the childish phrasing of her remark, but it's true. Jessica is an objectively nice person, but she has never given Morticia the impression that she was indebted to be nice to anybody, much less Morticia.
Jessica fidgets with the hem of her skirt to avoid getting trapped in the deep space of Morticia's curious eyes. "I'm not a total bitch. You're really sweet, Morticia. You don't deserve any of the crap you get and I knew that if I just left you there, no one else would help."
Morticia goes quiet because she knows Jessica is right, but she quickly finds her voice upon fully comprehending the redhead's first statement. "Y-You're not a bitch, Jessica. Y-You are nice. And funny. And… y-you're really pretty."
It is Jessica's turn to blush. Boys have been sharing their opinion of her appearance since her inauguration into society, but they were never timid in their delivery. They were always brash and lewd, sexualizing every aspect of her being in the attempt to gain her affections. They were never humble, never sweet.
Hearing Morticia Smith call her pretty is like finally hearing a song that she has been hearing snatches of her entire life. She feels cohesive and satisfied. She feels right.
And suddenly her fingers are in Morticia's curls again and she is intoxicated by those eyes. "You're pretty too, Morticia."
Morticia can't stop her stupid mouth from stuttering out an incredulous "y-you're gay?" before realizing it is an insensitive, ridiculous question to propose. To her relief, Jessica merely quirks her strawberry lips into a smug smile.
"I think so. What about you, Morticia?"
"B-Bi, actually. B-But I've got a th-thing for redheads," Morticia says without consulting her mind for a wittier retort. Jessica indulges her with a giggle and presses her palms into the sides of Morticia's head. "S-So, uh… Jessica… I-I've kind of l-liked you for, uh… forever."
"I thought I was the only one," Jessica whispers, tenderly tracing her fingertips down the slope of Morticia's skull. "I've always been weird about boys. I felt this weird urge to always let them get on me, because that's what all the other girls were doing. I felt like I had to have crushes on boys, like I had to date them. I let them do whatever the fuck they wanted to me because I was afraid of the alternative. But when I saw you, Mortie…" The nickname rolls off her tongue like a swirl of caramel, so effortlessly that Morticia almost doesn't notice it. "I felt free. I felt refreshed. And when you fell… I didn't just want to be nice. I didn't pity you. I was… I was afraid. For you."
Morticia blinks. "For me?"
"Yeah. I was panicking. And I feel… I feel so good. With you. Do you feel that, Mortie?"
Something inside of her snaps and relief inundates her chest and she lolls her head slightly into Jessica's open palm. "I-I feel it, Jessica. And I-I feel happy with y-you."
Jessica beams at the delirious joy illuminating Morticia's visage. "This is… kind of weird. Not this, but… how crazy is it that you fell? And this happened? It's, like, fate or something."
"Y-Yeah," Morticia says, melting into Jessica's gentle touch. "Fate."
The redhead reluctantly removes her hands to plug her keys into the ignition, startling Morticia out of her enamored stupor.
"W-Wait, where are we going?"
"Back to my place," Jessica replies, tapping the gas and dialing the air conditioner down out of respect for Morticia's raw nose. "My parents aren't home. And I make great banana pancakes."
"B-But school--"
"Like we ever go. You in, Mortie?"
Morticia looks over at the driver's seat, at the vision of beauty that has been the centerpiece of her dreams since she first saw her, and notices how much fuller, how much brighter this Jessica is. This is the real thing. Not a superficial crush, not a sketch, but a human being. Someone better than a dream.
"Y-Yeah. Let's do it."
Someone real.
.
.
Jessica sits with one leg tucked beneath her and the other splayed out and her freckled middle bared to the gilded slants of sunlight. To her left, Morticia is dozing with her homework notebook opened across her rising chest. Despite the list of her nose, she looks almost angelic.
Jessica settles back in the grass, her descent pillowed by crops of dandelions, and she recovers Morticia's hand. It melts into her own like strawberry gelatin and finally, fully, they sleep.