Spoiler! :
~*~
Ivy sat in the plastic lawn chair, hunched over her sketch book as she attempted to perfect Megan's eyes. Pencil-grey birds flitted off the sides of the paper and delicately drawn flowers lined the bottom, but Ivy paid them no mind as she tore the page out of the book and threw it with the rest of the crumpled pieces of paper littering the floor. She stood, the sun blinding her momentarily as she stepped out of the shade of the oak tree. She walked up to her house and flipped her white-blonde hair up into a ponytail before opening the door and stepping inside. Her summer had been more or less the same as every other summer in her fifteen years, except for Megan, the new babysitter of Ivy's younger sister.
Her mother had tentatively told her the news, claiming that it wasn't Ivy's disability that forced them to hire a babsitter for six-year old Elizabeth. Her father took over saying, they felt safer with someone else in the house, someone older. Ivy had rolled her eyes and went to her room, drawing her parent's hesitant faces, before writing 'liars' in big, block letters beneath the sketch.
The scent of slightly burned sugar cookies drifted through Ivy's nose and she followed the smell to the kitchen, where she found Megan and Elizabeth giggling while they poked scorching hot cookies off the cookie sheets and onto a plate. Elizabeth glanced up at Ivy, but Megan became suddenly very interested in the hem of her t-shirt, her dirty blonde hair covering her face.
"Oh, hi, Ivy! You want some cookies?" Elizabeth asked, while pushing her whispy blonde hair out of her face.
Ivy shook her head and looked at Megan, trying to figure out why, of all people, her eyes she couldn't draw.
"Mrs. Donaldson just called. She's coming to pick up Liza for a playdate with Adam." Megan said, her eyes still averted to her shirt.
"When Adam comes, can I just go out?" Elizabeth asked, still looking at Ivy. She nodded and Elizabeth smiled at both teenage girls before walking out. It was always like this: as little speech as possible from Megan, silence from Ivy and Elizabeth oblivious to it all.
'Can I see you alone?' was written on Ivy's sketchpad beforehand and she showed it to Megan, who nodded and followed her out of the kitchen and up the stairs to Ivy's room.
Megan sat in Ivy's computer chair and began to bite her fingernails, tapping her toe on the desk leg.
Ivy sat on her bed and the two stared at each other for a few minutes. Ivy looked over Megan's dirty blonde hair, cut perfectly straight to her shoulders; her rail-thin body, long and lean; and finally, her eyes, the most intricate, complicated set Ivy had ever seen. They were the color of star dust, like God had taken the sea at high tide and a blade of grass from a faerie forest and melted gold and silver and flecks of dawn and threw them together into Megan Rennolds eyes.
Ivy grabbed her sketch pad and wrote out one simple word.
'Why'
"Ivy, you're fifteen. I'm seventeen. This time next year, I'll be getting ready for my freshman year in college. It wouldn't have worked out. And don't think it's because you're mute. That has nothing to do with this." Megan replied, playing with the hem of her shirt again.
'Bullshit and bringing up that to deter the conversation? Megan. I know you're scared but you know you love me and I know I love you.'
"Ivy, I'm...I'm not like you. I'm a Christian girl and what you are is, well it's wrong and it's disgusting. I've been to treatment and I know now, that's how life is supposed to be" Megan said, her voice raising and raising, still speaking to the sketch book, "I love you, Ivy, but as a close friend and nothing else."
Ivy ground her teeth together and furiously wrote out more to Megan.
'Bullshit. You're fine with Jason, you're friends with Jason, but you're not okay with me? That's not fair, Megan. You need to get over yourself because it's not only you that's hurting, it's me.'
" I won't- I can't go back. Ivy, I moved two thousand miles because of what they did to me. I was attacked because of it. I can't" Megan was yelling at this point, standing, tears welling up in her eyes.
Ivy stood too and pushed Megan against the door, effectively silencing her. Ivy wiped off the tear dancing down her face and etched this moment in her mind forever before kissing Megan for the first time in a long time.
It was all lips and tongue and hands and lovelovelove, Ivy's hands tangled in Megan's hair and Megan pressed close against Ivy until-
"I can't do this"
Megan was slightly panting and her eyes were wide with disbelief and realization. She looked as if she had just woken up from a long dream, her hair messy, her cheeks flushed and this look on her face, as if she had just realized that her entire life was a lie. Ivy was silent, breathing heavy and staring at the floor with a look not of anger, but of immense sadness.
"I-I have to go" Megan mumbled. She rushed out of the room and that was the last time Ivy saw Megan for years.
~*~
Megan nervously adjusted her hair and re-applied lip balm, before sinking into the comfy leather chair and waiting. Over the next ten minutes, students began to mill into the classroom, some with the flyers Megan posted around campus, some old faces from last year, some incoming freshman with awe in their eyes and a certain sort of innocence to their faces.
It was the last week of August and students were just beginning to move into their dorm rooms. They were still grasping to the last strings of summer before it vanished, wearing tank-tops and short-shorts, tossing Frisbees and popping off the cap of a Corona, but the laughter and talk had grown quieter as the sun set and evening came.
Megan looked over the fairly full room, waving to a few friends and smiling reassuringly at the nervous looking freshman in the corner. She faced the front of the room and called the room to attention.
"Hi guys. Some of you may know me, but for those who don't, my name is Megan Rennolds and I'm this years president of the LGBT club. To start off this weeks discussion of 'Accepting Ourselves', I'd like to tell you all my story with accepting myself." Megan said.
The door cracked open and a girl with white-blonde hair and ink-stained fingers slipped into the room, sitting in the far back and setting her eyes on the front. Megan's heart skipped, once, twice and her breath caught in her throat as she ran her eyes hungrily over the girl, staring at the face she left three years before.
Megan cleared her throat and started speaking, "In my hometown, I was attacked for being the other half of the only lesbian relationship for a hundred miles. I forced my family to move, telling them it was for my safety, when I was really trying to run away from my past. As soon as we got to our new home, I reinvented myself, going to treatment and therapy and metaphorically, shoving my gayness back into the closet. It was after I hurt someone I loved that I realized that I couldn't keep fighting myself and I had to face my fears. It took time but now I am proud to say, I am lesbian."
There was much applause and the night went quickly, each student speaking up on their troubles and the intolerance they faced, whether it be from themselves or from other people. The meeting finally adjourned and Megan hurriedly said good-bye to every last straggler, before locking the door and turning to the green eyed artist sitting in the far back.
"You came. I didn't know whether you had gotten my email or whether you would listen or if " Megan whispered, not wanting to continue that if. If you still liked me, wanted me, loved me.
Ivy smiled and took a thick envelope from her shoulder bag and handed it to Megan. It was full of dozens of sketches of Megan, her baking cookies with Elizabeth, her spiking a volleyball in the high school gym, her kissing Ivy and her eyes, the final sketch capturing them perfectly, all the colors and her thick eyelashes and the large, almond shape.
"Ivy, these..are wonderful. Thank you, thank you so much," Megan said in awe, still looking at the gorgeous drawings.
Ivy showed Megan her arm, where a little black scripted tattoo lay in the space right before her elbow.
I will always love you.
Megan looked at the tattoo, then looked back up, waiting an intolerable two seconds, tick-tock-tick before catching Ivy's lips with her own. Ivy's hands tangled in Megan's hair and both girls knew that this was right.
~*~
A/N Edited: K, so I tried a different sort of ending, it's still pretty corny but at least not as stupid as the 'woah what a coinkydoink, they're at the same college, in the same dorm and they still have feelings for each other?' sort of ending I had before. I'm not sure whether it was clear, but Ivy and Megan both came out, they're both in college and they had been emailing for some time. Thanks for reading!
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