They had eyes like a backwards sunset, a golden curve

[RC~]

((Janice Cresner, Start))

The cafeteria was full and loud. Janice was stressed. She was hungry. She was thirsty. All of these statements were true.

Not only was the cafeteria slow, some people were blocking her way, either by standing around or by walking slowly or seemingly without a direction. Janice rolled her eyes when a pair of girls who talked about nerdshit blocked her way and moved as slow as turtles. Janice needed to get to the vegan menu section of the cafeteria and she was already walking in that direction. Only the two nerds were in the way.

"Excuse me."

Janice grabbed Beatrice's shoulder to push her out of the way.

[Dr Adjective]

Splitting her attention as she was between looking where she was going, and turning back to make acknowledging sounds and expressions as appropriate, the discomfort coming through in Beatrice’s story was mostly lost on Evie. It certainly sounded nice to her after all. She could fondly remember the banter among her family the prior November when the Ravens had visited Foxborough, starting off strong only to leave with a close defeat. It had been one of the highlights of the quarantine, really, bringing the family together with a mutual passion even if their allegiances were split down the middle.

“Have I ever?” she began to answer, a little grin forming at the memory,
“Last year was the first time in ages we didn’t get down to M&T for the Steelers game, dad and I alw—“

Her eyes landed on an unfamiliar hand. Tracked along to a more familiar owner. Janice Cresner, Evie recognised her as a former track athlete and fellow vegan. Once upon a time Evie had hoped that common ground might make them natural friends, but the two had never seemed to get along, not to mention the generally bad feeling Evie got about the other girl. It just hadn’t been meant to be.

Normally speaking, Evie was quite averse to conflict. She let little things go and tried to just get along. Had it been she herself getting pushed aside, most likely she’d just have ignored it and gotten on with her day, maybe grumbled something hyperbolically venomous under her breath were she in an especially poor mood. But no. No, Janice had chosen to grab hold of Beatrice who, despite worries of being overly patronising, Evie was feeling quite a degree of responsibility towards. Big sister instincts overrode usual desires to avoid a fight, her features hardened into a scowl, and she fixed Janice with a glare she hoped was, well, anything other than her usual warm and welcoming look.

“Excuse you?”

[Pippi]

This had been a very strange lunch period, all things considered.

Beatrice had been prepared for it to be completely awful, in all honesty. If Evie had arrived in the cafeteria earlier, for example, then she would probably still be stuck outside the entrance, paralyzed as the need to hydrate herself clashed with the intense discomfort that the lunchroom noise gave her. But things, thankfully, hadn’t turned out that way, and although there had still been some upsetting moments, such as the continuous noise that she couldn’t turn off, and the sudden hollow feeling that had just opened up in her heart, she was very thankful that Evie was here. She was lovely, and Beatrice was eager to keep the conversation flowing, especially now that she knew they shared some common ground.

It seemed as though things were about to take a turn for the worse again, however.

It was not an easy task to move Beatrice under normal circumstances, particularly when she was on the lacrosse field, or in the backyard playing football with her brothers. Her height and her weight made her a towering presence, and the muscles that had developed in her arms and legs made her, as Mrs. Perez often said, something of a ‘fortress’ of a person. Even in the most crowded of hallways, the majority of people didn’t even bother trying to shove past her, especially her classmates who were unfamiliar and intimidated by her.

But the hand on her shoulder was rough, and the push came from behind, all of a sudden, midway through the conversation. Unsighted, Beatrice gave a little cry of shock and stumbled forwards. Her bottle slipped out of her grip and hit the ground with a metallic thud, bouncing twice before rolling towards a bench leg.

“Oh, um, sorry, sorry…”

Face bright red, Beatrice quickly bent down to retrieve her lost belonging. Her heart was pounding. Her head felt like it was full of cotton wool, and there was a hushed sensation hanging above it. People would definitely be looking at her now, crouched down here on the cafeteria floor. She kept her head low, even as her fingers wrapped around the bottle once more and immediately started drumming against it.

[RC~]

They wouldn't get it. Of course they wouldn't, both girls were taller than Janice. It was no crime for a small girl to push a mountain to the side. Janice actively picked Beatrice over Evie, because well, she seemed less vulnerable with her size. Plus Janice didn't really get along with Evie back on the track team, so she didn't want to make it personal.

Janice did not expect the shove to make Beatrice lose her grip on her bottle, so it fell to the floor. But it could be worse. At least Beatrice didn't spill any food.

Looking at Evie's face she was pissed about her assertiveness. Jance sighed.

"Sooorry," she said in an annoyed and a non-sincere way, dragging out the "o". Janice then looked at Beatrice crawling on the floor. She considered helping her but it looked like she already found it. Well, looks like Janice can go her way again.

[Dr Adjective]

It wasn’t like she wasn’t prepared to stand up to her, that’s what Evie would tell herself later. She wasn’t a coward, maybe a little conflict-averse, but that’s part of being kind and agreeable, right? So it certainly wasn’t a convenient excuse to avoid a genuine confrontation when Beatrice’s bottle went flying, and its owner scrambled after it. Of course not. Evie just prioritised being nice over being tough… right?

“Rude.” she muttered with a huff, not really to anyone in particular, but all the same stepped aside to let Janice by in favour of offering Beatrice a hand back up off the floor.

“You good?”

A thought crossed her mind, and it showed briefly in her expression. Lowering her voice to more of a stage whisper, Evie added,

“If you wanted to go, I could bring you your water?”

At this point it didn’t take a professional to tell the poor thing was struggling, after all.

[Pippi]

For a brief moment, Beatrice wondered whether she should just stay where she was, huddled on the floor like this, clutching her water bottle like it was the sides of a lifeboat. People would stare at her if she did, of course. But they were probably already staring, a few of them trying to hide laughs behind their hands. Maybe she could just stay down here, out of the way, hiding her scarlet face and the embarrassed pinpricks of tears in her eyes, until lunch was over and she could hurry off to her next class.

It was just a flight of fancy, though. Like whenever Freddie said that he wished a hole would open up underneath him and swallow him up. She had never repeated the phrase herself, because the idea scared her, but the principle behind it was the same. Even if she actively wanted to stay down here on the cafeteria floor, the noise was growing in intensity once again, attempting to cover her up and crush her. She wanted to be back on her feet, talking with Evie about football and video games and their families once more.

So as soon as she saw that her friend had offered her an arm up, she took it immediately, her gentle hand slipping into Evie’s, helping them to hoist her back up. She hurriedly brushed her jeans down, then did the same to the palms of her hands, swiping away any dust and dirt that lingered there, before she gave a short, small nod in Evie’s direction.

“I’m okay. I’m not hurt or anything. I don’t think my bottle got damaged either. But…”

The word hung on her lips for a while. She looked about herself, trying to see whether the person that had pushed her aside had stuck around for any reason, but whoever it was had probably already joined the throng of people lining up to get food. So it was just her and Evie again. Just as it had been a couple of seconds ago. But even so… Even so…

The words still hung in the air, and the unspoken follow-up to them remained that way, because it seemed as though Evie could tell exactly what she was feeling, even without them. Her mouth closed fully again, and then she gave her friend another small nod, and a gentle, grateful smile.

“I think I should leave, yes, I’ll, um…”

She quickly thrust her bottle towards Evie, her free hand playing with the hem of her jacket as she did so.

“I’ll be just outside, okay?”

Beatrice turned, ready to hurry her way out of the cafeteria.

[RC~]

Janice kept her ears open just in case-

"I’m okay. I’m not hurt or-

Yeah, that was enough for Janice. She didn't listen to her words further. Of course she didn't have to worry about Beatrice, it's not like her push had been strong or malicious and it's not like the giant girl was fragile. Evie was just bitchy and looking for drama with her overreaction. That's all.

And so Janice calmy walked to the vegan area, with just a tiny bit of bad conscience. She already forgot the situation the moment she arrived at the food stand.

((Janice continued elsewhere))

[Dr Adjective]

All told, maybe Evie had overreacted. She’d never really be able to say for sure of course. Not being inside Beatrice’s head she had no idea how big of a deal the whole thing had been for her, and nothing at all had really happened to Evie herself besides getting interrupted for a moment. But even so, as she helped the taller girl up off the ground and tried her utmost not to look like she was struggling with it, that instinct that had made her so uncharacteristically confrontational lingered. Who’d want to upset someone so sweet and harmless? The warmth of her nervous hand lingered too, in a way that made Evie feel a faintly uncomfortable, unexpected sense of intimacy. She’d basically never spoken to this girl before, and here she is putting on the Princess Charming act? A quick reassuring smile, as much for her own benefit as Beatrice’s, and she accepted the empty bottle with a nod. Best to move things along.

“Cool cool, I won’t be a sec.”

Beatrice seemed plenty happy to get out of dodge as predicted, and so with quest item in hand, Evie lingered a moment to scan the immediate area for where Janice had gone, trying to muster up a bit more courage to go straighten things out with her, explain why she’d been upset and… and… And she couldn’t string together the words she’d say in her head. The thought of striking up a whole new conversation, no, a whole new confrontation, was much too intimidating. In her wide array of conversational approaches, telling a person off for a very minor transgression and explaining why it had felt a bit more than minor? That one was a weak and poorly-exercised skill.

Of course, she also couldn’t quite spot Janice either. That’d make for a good excuse later on, she couldn’t have gone and talked to her anyway since she couldn’t even see where she went. Problem solved. Confrontation-adversity excused, again.

As for her other objective, getting water was nowhere near as daunting a task. Cafeteria noise was just that to Evie, some noise. She’d been tuning it out since she arrived and had no trouble carrying on as she waited in line briefly to use the nearest water fountain, and filled Beatrice’s slightly-scuffed with its long-sought bounty. Success! After how long it had taken to get to this point, it almost felt anticlimactic when Evie weaved her way back through the crowds to meet back up with Beatrice outside in the relative peace and quiet. As she offered her the bottle with a casual grin, her brain was still hard at work considering. Considering if she’d have to speak about this again if and when she next had to interact with Janice. If the strange way she’d felt when helping Beatrice off the ground was because it was a strange situation, or… or if she’d have yet another knot of feelings to untangle next time she spoke to Teddie. Surely she couldn’t keep on getting temporarily smitten with every other girl that smiled at her, it just wasn’t sustainable.

Indeed, she was so busy pondering, it took a while to realise she hadn’t actually said anything since returning. Oops.

[Pippi]

It took a few moments, once Beatrice had reached the sanctuary of the corridor, for her breathing to return to something of a normal pace again. She hadn’t even noticed how heavy and harsh it had been until the doors to the cafeteria had swung shut behind her, and the din from within was reduced to a, mostly, manageable level. She had just been so intensely focused on getting out of the room as soon as she could, and on the myriad eyes she was sure were trained on her, and on the girl that had knocked into her, that everything else had been secondary in her mind.

She sighed, and walked further down the corridor until she was still in sight of the set of double doors, but far enough away from them that the sound was finally tolerable. It was still gnawing at the back of her mind at just how badly it had affected her today, though, like a gnat hovering around her head. Her sensory issues didn’t normally flare up this badly; if anything, it was the taste and texture of the food that provided the biggest threat in the cafeteria. Today had just been an unlucky day, she supposed.

Well, hmm. Maybe that wasn’t true. Because it had been incredibly fortunate that Evie had appeared when she had, and Beatrice felt even luckier to have made a new friend so quickly. There was just something warm and soothing about her, something that made her feel as though she could calm down easier when she was around her.

And as if on cue, here Evie was, smiling and holding out Beatrice’s water bottle for her. She returned the smile, and gently wrapped her fingers around the bottle with a soft “Thank you,” her hand brushing against Evie’s for a moment. She twisted the cap off, and tilted her head back to take a sip, the cool liquid running down her throat. She hadn’t realised how badly she’d needed this, either; as soon as the first drop of water hit the back of her throat, it felt like an oasis in the middle of the desert, and it took her several more seconds of drinking before she felt like she was fully quenched.

With a rather bashful laugh, Beatrice put the cap back on and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, hoping that she hadn’t been leaving Evie on hold for too long. It didn’t seem as though the other girl had been waiting on tenterhooks to say something, however. In fact, it looked as though she had been thoroughly distracted by something; she was looking right at Beatrice, but there was a very particular expression on her face

“Is there something on your mind?” she asked. She smiled at the other girl, hoping it could match her friend’s level of warmth and comfort.

Faces were always difficult for Beatrice to read, but she could recognise a look of deep, intense thought any day of the week. It was one that she herself kept on unconsciously slipping into, after all.

[Dr Adjective]

"Is there something on your mind?"

A little while, and being asked. That usually helped.

"Uh, yeah," Evie began, the instinct to make nice, or make normal at least, bringing the words quickly to her lips. Unfortunately she didn't have an adequate white lie prepared yet. So she found herself thinking about what she could plausibly have been thinking about. The travails of trying to be perceived as friendly, normal, unthreatening at all times.

"I was thinking about," beat, "like, I had to wait for someone to finish getting a drink and,"

The idea came to her after minimal rambling, and fake or not, it brought a genuine little smile along with it. She quickly fished her phone out of a pocket, pulling up a video she'd saved a couple of days prior: a couple of sea otters at an aquarium, frolicking in a big bucket of ice shavings.

"and I found this while I was bored. They're so fluffy!"

Not having seen her own face earlier on, she couldn't really be sure if the hastily crafted answer we actually believable, but hey. Much easier than explaining that she'd been wrestling yet again with a rather late-blooming sexuality, mixed with a little anxiety about heaving any sort of not-positive interaction with someone what with the compulsion she kept feeling to be at least superficially liked by everyone. Way too much too unpack there just for herself, let alone anyone else. Better to keep it superficial and charming.

[Pippi]

She waited patiently once more, offering Evie her most encouraging smile, as the other girl stumbled her way through her words. She hoped that she hadn’t accidentally pried upon something personal, or sensitive. It seemed like Evie was happy to talk about whatever had been on her mind, but what if she was just trying to be polite?

Beatrice shuffled a little more to the left, distancing herself from the cafeteria, the sound from within ebbing further and further away as she did. Being able to read faces on occasion was one thing. Navigating her way through conversation, even with people she liked and that she cared about, was an entirely different matter, difficult even when she hadn’t had her nerves well and truly wracked.

She did feel a lot more at ease now, though, even with this uncertainty toiling away at her brain. She would have been happy, she thought, to spend the rest of the school day here with Evie, if she hadn’t had classes to get to.

And then, as she looked back up at Evie and was greeted by her smiling face and a video of two playful otters on her phone, that feeling of comfort only grew, even more warm, even more welcome.

“Oh, these are adorable!”

Beatrice had been to a few aquariums and zoos before, but they’d either been small, indoor affairs that only contained tanks full of fish and amphibians, or, in the larger ones, she had managed to miss the otter enclosures entirely. Her only exposure to them until now had been pictures and photographs, and so she watched the pair frolic in their ice bucket, entranced, stars practically visible in her eyes.

“Did you take this yourself?” Beatrice asked, once the video had ended. “I'd love to see them in person at some point. Do you like otters a lot?”

[Dr Adjective]

Success! Beatrice approved of the cute otters. Then again, who wouldn't? Anyone who didn't approve of being shown fluffy sea otters playing in ice was simply not worth talking to at all, that was Evie's stance on the matter. Well, truth be told she'd probably still try to make nice, but only on the most superficial level. Whereas with Beatrice, she did certainly want to be actually, sincerely, not-superficially friends by this point. The other girl was sweet, and seemed quite kind, like herself but without the confidence and occasional obfuscating bravado.

"Oh no, not myself. Found it on Twitter." she answered, smiling at the fuzzy mustelids.

"But I do love otters!" Evie continued, spinning around to show off the otter printed on the back of her hoodie. A Jessica-Lee Smith original, a river otter wearing trunks and goggles; McKown stencilled above it and Otter Mode! below. Indeed the same design also appeared on a badge on the messenger bag slung across her shoulder, alongside pins declaring her for World of Warcraft's Horde faction, to be Proudly Plant Powered!, and a fan of the Baltimore Ravens, amongst a bunch of other things. But that'd be much harder to show off, and the other ones might dilute the message a bit.

"I think these guys are from..." she spun back, and swiped away from the video for a moment to check on the source, rather defeating the object of just thinking she knew,
"Yeah, Shedd Aquarium, in Chicago! You gotta go! I've been once! None down in Boston, though."

The last part came with a hint of dejection, not that Evie hadn't been plenty excited to see turtles and seals at New England's own aquarium, but... they just weren't otters.

[Pippi]

“Chicago?”

Beatrice put her hand to her cheek and looked up to the ceiling, face a mask of concentration as she mentally scrolled through her near-countless list of folders filled with folders filled with alphabetised files filled with Excel spreadsheets. She had spent hours upon hours working on these back home, both for the NFL and for the MMOs that she played, updating them after every match and patch update, and creating new ones whenever she got a workable idea. She couldn’t recall every bit of information off the top of her head without the sheets there to assist her, of course; she could remember when the Patriots were founded (November 16th, 1959), but not the Dolphins, for example.

But she could remember the order of each cell on each sheet, as clear as day. And so she could tell you, in a heartbeat, that the Dolphins were established after the Patriots. And she could also tell you, thanks to an organised table showing the relative distance between each team’s stadium, just how manageable a trip to Shedd Aquarium would be.

“That’s not too far,” Beatrice said, smiling as she looked back down at Evie. “Well, comparatively, I mean. You’d still probably have to get a plane to go there, but it’s not as bad as trying to get to Seattle from here.”

As quickly as she could, she unscrewed the cap on her bottle again and raised it to her lips. Evie’s dejected tone had flown completely under her radar; she was much more concerned about the fact that she hadn’t said anything about her friend’s jacket yet. She wanted to, but it would be odd to just drop it into the middle of an unrelated conversation, one whose completion she was delaying even further. So, even though she was still feeling a little bit thirsty, she twisted the bottle closed again, wiping a drop of water from the corner of her mouth with her sleeve.

“I could maybe convince my family to spend a long weekend there, but I don’t think any of us are interested in the Bears, so I’m not sure what else I could tempt them with. Oh! Or maybe we could go together, some time. I think that’d be fun. I’d like that a lot.”

She smiled again, shifting her gaze away from Evie for the moment, oblivious to the other girl’s internal raging storm of emotions.

“I like the design on your jacket, by the way. It looks familiar, I think? Or am I just misremembering?”

[Dr Adjective]

Idly remembering her family's trip, Evie smiled. The Bears had been quite a formidable team back in 2018; a one point loss to their eternal Green Bay rivals, then three successive victories including the absolute rout of Tampa Bay, so her mother and brother had been a little bit apprehensive to see how the Patriots would match up. Luckily for them, just like the rest of the weekend holiday, it had been a happy occasion for the visitors and they'd left with their team victorious. Evie had been more excited to see the sea otters and beluga at the aquarium later that afternoon truth be told, but it was nice to see the Patriots half of the family so happy too. And then after dinner it had been back to the airport and back home. Evie had rather enjoyed Chicago; she would've liked to have stayed for longer, and often thought of going back again some day.

Or maybe we could go together, some time.

Excuse me what? Surely in her reminiscing, Evie must've missed some valuable context there. Beatrice wasn't just casually suggesting a trip to Chicago together was she? That seemed unlikely to her, and yet, Evie couldn't help picturing the two of them revisiting the spots the McKowns had gone to see, not to mention the ones she'd wanted to go to but hadn't had the time. Picture perfect rom-com scenes of the two taking in the sights, fawning over the adorable sea otters... no, stop that. They'd basically not even spoken before today, dreaming up a romantic city break was surely ludicrous, who's to say the two would even really get along? She was just about to apologise, ask for clarification, when she was saved by a new line of enquiry. Thank the Lord.

"Oh, that? Do, uh, do you know Jessica-Lee Smith? It's one of hers, I commissioned her!"

A grumbling in Evie's stomach drew her attention in a new, third direction. A much more familiar physical urge that she actually knew how to process.

"Shoot, what time is it?" she wondered aloud at the sound, and pulled a sheepish expression.
"Got so carried away I haven't even eaten!"

[Pippi]

Beatrice made a sound of recognition and gave a few little nods as Evie talked about her otter jacket. Truth be told, she couldn’t quite put a face to the name ‘Jessica Lee-Smith’; there were three, maybe even four, other girls in their grade called ‘Jessica’, and it had always been a little tricky to mentally distinguish between them, given she wasn’t particularly close to any of them. Maybe Evie’s friend had posted some art online before? That would explain how Beatrice recognised the style.

She had only around a second to consider this before a rumbling noise filled the corridor, one that Beatrice recognised and that caused her to quickly look down at her own stomach, face flushing red with embarrassment. She didn’t think she was that hungry, even though she hadn’t eaten yet, but maybe with everything that had happened this afternoon she just hadn’t noticed it, what with all the stress and-

Oh. Wait, no. Evie’s stomach was the culprit on this occasion.

“I think we still have some lunch time left,” Beatrice said, hiding a bashful smile behind her hand as she talked, trying desperately to stifle a giggle. It felt a little rude to laugh at something like that; even though part of her amusement came from her own mix-up of stomach noises, it wasn’t as though Evie had any way of knowing that.

“I still need to eat as well. I was going to eat in the library; I always bring my own lunch with me. The texture of the food they serve in the cafeteria always makes me…”

She made an involuntary disgusted face, a moment of upset passing over her before she smiled once again.

“But I’d love to hang out some other time. If you’d like to as well, of course.”