lemme introduce ya to the featherweight queen

#16

BB went totally dead silent.

She held it for three seconds.

Then she couldn't keep a straight face anymore, and she cracked up.

It was the sort of laughter that wasn't really aimed at anything or anyone. It was a mixture of genuine humor at the situation and the relief that came with tension flowing away. She quickly reined it in, taking big gulping breaths of air until things stabilized.

"Well," she finally managed, "well I'm glad to hear that."

She straightened up and gave him a smile, now making more casual eye contact, the I'm-having-a-conversations-with-somebody sort instead of the I'm-assessing-somebody-for-a-traumatic-brain-injury sort.

Yeah, they definitely crossed paths now and then, saw each other in class all the time, but she wasn't sure she'd said a single word directly to him in their years together thus far. It wasn't that unusual; Aurora Bay was a big school. It was starting to bug her that she was drawing a blank on his name, though, since they did share classes, and in fact were at rehearsals together sometimes.

"I was worried I was going to have to go and talk to, you know, the nurse or some paramedics or something," she went on. "After the night I've had, that's the last thing I need."

#17

Was she laughing… with him? At him? At the general situation? Was she… okay with the whole joke and stuff? Did she resent him for it? Like maybe the smile was meant to meant to signal that things were A-OK but also people smiled at Jeremy all the time and he never really knew what it was that they actually meaned when they did that so, like… okay with him? Not okay with him? Yes? No? Maybe if he just… joked around too he could get a grasp on the general situation? Maybe make sure she didn’t hate him or anything?

Maybe?

Fuck people were so hard to read sometimes.

“What-” he said, doing his best to maybe make this come off natural. “You don’t like Guys and Dolls?”

#18

"Hm," BB said, "it's a bit..."

She wasn't quite sure how to proceed. They were standing here, in the cool night air, neither one quite understanding the other. The one good thing was that she was pretty sure he also didn't know her name, since he hadn't used it yet, and that meant they were both equally guilty of at least one faux pas.

"...heteronormative," she went with.

It seemed a safe enough option. She didn't hate the show, maybe partially in spite of herself. It took a special sort of musical for BB to hate it. At the same time, there was a certain 1950s air to it, with everything that decade implied. It was, she thought, almost kitsch in a way, the sort of thing she could enjoy best through a certain application of irony. It was like a rom com, but far enough in the past for a certain degree of detachment.

"But no," she continued, "no, see, my brother was supposed to come pick me up."

She shrugged and waved her hand around, letting it flop limply back and forth in exasperation. As she did, something clicked into place, a little piece of thematic resonance that brought another wide smile to her face and another laugh.

"But, well..." She cleared her throat, and then sang: "When an honorable mister's abandoned his sister, then you know that it's all because of..."

#19

Oh man that told Jeremy everything he needed to know about this dude he was never going to meet. Really. Like, being somebody’s ride there or ride home was fucking serious shit. They were reliant on you. They had no choice but to wait, out in the open, for the hope that maybe the car they were looking out for would be the one to enter eyesight, and if anything happened they no way of knowing. There’d be no point in texting because most likely they were driving and they wouldn’t be able to use their phones while that was happening. No way to tell exactly how long it’d actually be before they got to you. And if they were late, or if they were a no-show, you were fucking powerless. You’d just have to watch the time tick on and on and on and hope maybe they’d appear soon. Maybe it’d happen now. Because it wasn’t like they could get anybody else on such short notice. Or nobody who wouldn’t judge you for being in that position, at any rate.

So to completely just dump on your responsibility? When it’s your fucking sister? Like, Jesus, dude. Fucking lucky she’s at least seeing the humour in it.

Jeremy didn’t. Not quite. The concern was a little bit overwhelming.

“Shit. Is there… anybody else?”

#20

"Well," BB said, "Plan B is to bike home."

She spoke confidently, nodding like she knew exactly what she was talking about. As she did, she let her stance relax a little, some of the tension leeching out now that they were discussing her predicament and not her misdeeds.

"I'll just walk back to my place, grab my bike, bring it back here, and then it's smooth sailing." She snapped her fingers. "Easy peasy."

She laughed, casting a quick glance around like there was any chance of somebody else waiting in the wings to whisk her away home. Realistically, there was probably a reasonable chance that if she really desperately wanted to, she could track down someone else in the show and guilt trip them and/or their parents into giving her a lift, but it really just wasn't that huge a deal to her. She didn't have any big pressing plans for the night, and walking was nice in its own way, meditative. She had some good mood music on her phone. The only part that wasn't ideal was all the stuff she was lugging, but that was the musician's life.

Plus, again, her brother would owe her so bad for this one.

"But seriously," she said, patting her thighs, "my ride's right here."

#21

Well… okay. She was… probably close enough to make the distance, if she was that confident. Still kinda stupid that he wasn’t coming given all the shit she was carrying, but if she was willing to make jokes about it, then… then it probably wasn’t a big deal. At least not on her end. She was probably thinking it the same way he was. That it’d be nice. A way to see the city a way you never tended to see it. A way to kind of relax and listen to some music. A way to get some exercise in along the way. Jeremy had never really done it after sundown. Like, he could — he was a dude so it wasn’t like he was really risking anything going out at night — but his parents were so stringent about how he needed to take his shower right after dinner and-

-wait.

Uh.

Was it-

-right to ask?

Maybe?

Maybe not?

…No way to tell but to really do it. He doubted this would be what she judged him for, anyway.

“...Need somebody to come with?”

#22

That one caught BB off guard.

If he was going to offer her a ride, well, that wouldn't be totally unexpected. Ditto if he was going to say he could wheedle his parents into giving her a lift. But offering to walk her?

In a different set of circumstances, she might've been offended. There were some guys in her class who, despite any protestations to the contrary, still absolutely had all sorts of sexist ideas about what girls were capable of. BB didn't need to be escorted anywhere; she walked around on her own all the time, thank you very much. But this didn't feel like that. This felt like somebody bored seeing somebody else bored and offering to kill the time together.

"Hey," she said, "sure, if you wanna."

She waved her hand in the rough direction of her home.

"I mean," she continued, "if it's not too far out of your way. I'm going that way."

#23

Okay so that was like, wayyyyy away from where Jeremy would’ve been going. He would’ve had to go, like, however long it’d take to get to her place, and then he’d have to walk the forty minutes it usually took plus however long the distance was between here and her house. Would take… an hour, at best, and he was sure his mum would have a lot of words to say about his being late home, but…

But the alternative was leaving her here. No car, no other way home, no… probably a lot of things. Wouldn’t feel right just abandoning her, like her brother apparently did. It was like leaving work, heading home from there. It was like locking up the house. Always had to make sure there was a clear memory of him trying the handle. If there wasn’t, if there was any chance he’d forgotten to lock it, then… it didn’t matter how far he was away. Didn’t even matter if he’d already made it home. He’d take his card, he’d take the bus, he’d go however far it took to get back just so he could be sure. Just so there was no chance of, like, a thief or anything getting in.

Wouldn’t sit right, otherwise.

“...I could use the exercise, anyway,” he said, looking down at himself. “Don’t think I could sit with hearing all that from you and then just being, like ‘skill issue, bye bitch.’”

He didn’t look back up.

“...Or anything like that.”

#24

BB considered his words for a little. She pursed her lips in thought, tilting her head.

"You couldn't?" she said. "Skill issue."

She nodded very solemnly at her diagnosis, then broke into a big grin.

"Well, if that's the case, you're stuck with me for a bit. Plus, I guess we have to make sure I didn't break your leg."

She shifted her shoulders, adjusting the straps of her backpack and her bass case so that everything was a little more steady, now properly getting ready for the walk ahead. She wasn't too worried about getting anywhere in a hurry, especially since literally nobody in her family was going to be home for hours and there wasn't anything specific she had planned for the evening. There were way worse things than a walk, especially now that she had some company.

Speaking of...

"Oh, right," she said, "before we get any further here, I'm, um, totally blanking on your name."

#25

“It’s… I’m Jeremy.”

Was he allowed to be a little miffed that she didn’t know who he was? Like, yeah, it wasn’t like he was a social butterfly — more like a social… caterpillar? moth? Dustox? — and it wasn’t like the two of them had ever talked before, but, like, they’d been around each other like… three? four years, at this point? Surely she would’ve memorized everybody at this point. Jeremy had, of course. Put him in a room with Mr. Saw Guy and force him to name all his cohort and he could do it. And, like, they were in band together. They’d literally been performing Guys and Dolls over and over the past six months? How didn’t she-

In fairness, if he got put in a room with Mr. Saw Guy and he was forced to name everybody in his cohort… she’d maybe be one of the last on the list. Wasn’t like she’d ever come to mind right before now.

“And you’re… BB, right?”

#26

BB looked at him hard, narrowing her eyes into a baleful glare. She pressed her lips together, making them a thin, flat line.

"Is that your final answer?"

#27

Jeremy thought about it for a second.

Gave a little bit of a smile.

“Oh, shit, I didn’t realize that was you, Harriet.”

#28

BB broke into laughter.

"Alright," she said, "you got me."

Why hadn't they talked much before? It wasn't like BB made a huge habit of assessing every single one of her peers, but she appreciated someone who could almost keep up when it came to messing around, and she also always appreciated a fellow musician. So maybe this would be an interesting evening after all.

"Well then," she said, "shall we?"

Without waiting more than the obligatory moment, she started off on her path, her pace nice and relaxed. She could move reasonably quickly when she wanted to, but she was going to keep this calm for now. Especially since her stride was shorter.

#29

Was she… not gonna go ‘oh, don’t worry, I was just joking, my name’s BB’? Was he… gonna have to keep up the guise that her name was actually Harriet? Was she… making him keep going with the joke?

…Shit. BB, Harriet, whoever she wanted to be: she was dangerous. Jeremy was gonna have to fucking watch what he said. Lest he give her too much ammo. Lest he give himself too much rope.

“So where are we going, anyway?” He asked, hurrying up to cover the extra distance with her. “Like, what suburb? Maybe- probably need to know how long the walk back’s gonna be.”

#30

"Oh, right," BB said. "You know, I'm just..."

She gestured vaguely into the distance, a loose, ambiguous movement of her hand that could've encompassed just about anything.

"You know, over that way, across the river? About halfway through Minneapolis."

This time she waited just a moment before grinning.

"No, but seriously," she said, "it's not that far, just a couple miles."

Hopefully Jeremy was the sort for whom "just" a couple miles really was no big deal—BB was very aware that some of her classmates couldn't stand having to walk farther than from parking lot to door. She'd always thought that was more than a little pathetic—honestly, like, BB wasn't in bad shape but she wasn't any sort of hardcore athlete and conventional beauty standards would definitely be telling her to lose fifteen or twenty pounds, but walking was never any big deal to her. Disability was one thing, of course, but she couldn't imagine struggling with such a basic part of life as the result of simple preference.

She flipped her phone around, map pulled up, and held it out for Jeremy to see, her address filled in already, showing that she wasn't messing with him this time (well, she couldn't make sure he was sure she'd put in the right address, but he'd just have to trust her).

"Still time to back out," she said. "If you're a coward, I mean."

lemme introduce ya to the featherweight queen

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