Chapter Text
“Admit it.” She crossed her arms and walked past the bed, turning her head to stare at Emma’s nonchalant face. She could almost scoff. Lounging and slacking off weren't Emma’s things, and the constant persistence that they were was getting on Rikki’s nerves. “You’re trying to be someone you’re not.”
Emma swallowed and pushed herself up on the bed by her palms, glaring at Rikki, harsh eyes narrowing into slits. “You don’t know me at all, do you?”
“Wha—” she clenched her teeth. She didn’t know Emma? No, that wasn’t even true, and Emma had to have known it. They fought, and they bickered, but Rikki knew that this phase where she slummed out on the couch with potato chips for dinner was not a regular activity. How could Emma even say that? She scoffed, “You think so?”
“I know so,” Emma replied back, snappily. Rikki tried desperately not to grind her teeth into powder. Instead, she scrunched up her face, tongue pulled to the side of her mouth in a shocked-sort-of scoff.
“Fine, let me be honest,” she finished, and made a splaying motion with her hands, cutting through the air. “You’re not a rebel, Em.”
“And who says? You?” Emma scoffed, chewing on her bottom lip. She stood up to sit on the side of the bed, facing Rikki with anger spilling into her vision. “Like you’re the queen of rebellion?”
Rikki shook her head, unable to even begin explaining what she'd meant. After a beat of thought, she grabbed a towel from the side of Emma’s dresser. It was folded neatly into a square, but Rikki ruffled and unraveled it as she picked it up, pushing it with a raise of her eyebrow into Emma’s arms. “Here, throw it on the ground. Make a mess.”
Emma stuttered, her hands twitching as she looked over at Rikki. She glanced down to the towel, and then her floor--the pristine, spotless floor that she vacuumed three times a week. Being a rebel meant you littered all over your floor? How was that true? Just because she didn't want to dirty her floor for no reason didn't mean she couldn't relax and rebel. She hadn't been paying attention when Rikki continued speaking.
“Make a mess,” Rikki repeated, and then nodded once there was more silence, only proving her point more. She didn’t say anything else but fill the room with a click of her tongue, wordlessly ending the conversation. All it did was anger Emma more.
“You know what? I will make a mess,” Emma shouted, a fresh wave of rage pouring through her. She could let loose if she wanted to. She rushed to her feet, the towel still in grasp, and chucked it at the floor, right at Rikki's feet.
It was just a towel. It unraveled and fluttered, landing like a feather on Emma’s floor. And though it basically made no noise, she was still able to hear the whooshing of the air as it fell down. Rikki looked down and watched it fall, holding back very little of a chuckle.
Emma paused, and said after a brief cough, “See?”
“Right,” she could barely hold back a laugh, and she bent down to pick up the towel, dangling it in front of Emma's face. "Congratulations, Rebel."
Emma snatched it from her hands, a scowl forming along the contours of her face, but it dissipated the more Rikki looked at her. It was just a long gaze that wasn’t interrupted, not her scowl, not their bickering, not even the towel that Emma had dropped as she was preoccupied with analyzing Rikki’s eyes.
After a beat, Rikki blinked out of the haze and tightened her ponytail, turning away from the bed. “I’ve gotta go now, bye Em.”
Yeah. With her brother, Emma thought briefly, and her stomach churned in jealousy, anger, in disappointment. Did her brother really want someone like Rikki more than her?
And she really couldn’t do anything else but watch her go, the unfamiliar emotion curdling and churning against her stomach.
Emma gripped the edge of the counter, her knuckles burning white. “You know what your problem is?”
Rikki raised an eyebrow in response, crossing her arms, waiting to see what Emma would come up with this time. And sure, at first she had enjoyed teasing her—riling her on and making her lounge on the sofa for once in her life—but it was getting out of hand. Emma was as stubborn sometimes as she was tidy and neat, and there was no way Rikki could get through the hard exterior she'd built up. Rikki knew she was destined to watch her fall apart now.
“What?”
“You think you’re the only one who can do what you like!” Emma complained, gnawing her lower lip, her fists clenched by her sides. “Well, you’re not.”
Rikki tilted her head, one side of her lip quirking up. “Is that so?”
“It is,” Emma retorted back, her teeth grinding together. She swore she heard her jaw snapping. Rikki was just so annoying, goading her into being rebellious and then taking a high-and-mighty stance when she actually did it. What was her problem? Was it purely to tick Emma off?
She hadn't realized she'd stepped closer until they were an inch apart. Her limbs instantly froze over as the realization seeped through the haze of anger. Her eyes darted down like a reflex, down to Rikki's lips, and she immediately purged the thought that snapped through her brain. Let loose, Cleo’s voice said in her head, like a fiery inferno. And, she wanted to, but, just look at where letting loose had gotten her. In a party, with cups and trash everywhere, tons of boys stinking up her once perfectly pristine house… with her, staring at Rikki’s lips.
She really wasn’t meaning to stare, but, she just couldn’t stop once she had started. Rikki was infuriating, and she made Emma seethe, but she was charming. And pretty, and even if she teased her, she was always there. Even now, she was trying to get Emma out of the hole she’d dug herself into and was now moping in. How was she meant to clean these cans? How was she meant to explain the stench to her parents? This... wasn't her. Even Rikki had known that, even if she'd refused to accept it.
“Em?” Rikki asked, her eyebrows furrowed. Emma was frozen still, unresponsive, spaced out. And here Rikki was again, she thought desperately, trying to help her. “You oka—”
Cleo had told her to let loose. She remembered it thickly within her mind, swimming somewhere. And maybe she wanted to, just once.
She palmed her hands over Rikki’s shoulders and pressed their lips together, crashing them both against the counter. Let loose. Maybe it could be a good thing. Well, it would be better if she knew how to kiss. The only person she’d ever kissed was Byron, and his mouth was sort of… wet? She couldn’t explain it. It was smacky, and like sucking the middle seeds out of a kiwi. And she'd thought that maybe that was how it was meant to feel, wet and confusing. But Rikki felt much different than that, something she'd never comprehended before.
Between them, it'd always been a battle of some sort, a back and forth. But this was like an intersection between ice and lava, the bridge between water and magma, flowing together and bubbling just where they met. Emma's neurons sparked in every edge of her body, her fingertips curling and tingling at the feeling of Rikki’s shirt bunched up between her fingers. Rikki pushed back against her lips, finally, and she tilted her head to slant her mouth against Emma’s, two hands wisping around her waist and pulling their stomachs together.
Emma felt fire erupt deep inside of her abdomen, and it was blooming like sparks in her chest, a flower field of electricity lighting up, energy sizzling out all inside of her, and she pulled back in shock, panting, unable to breathe suddenly. It was a strange feeling. She could usually hold her breath for fifteen minutes, but not when she kissed Rikki.
“Woo! Give us a show, Emma!” a man called from behind her, and it was like someone had used her own powers on her, freezing a block up her spine. One of Rikki’s hands left her waist, and the spot soon turned cold as she turned in Emma’s grasp, chucking a crumpled bottle at the owner of the voice.
He ducked from the hit and made a breathy sort of laugh, only to get pelted again with another cup she'd thrown. Rikki’s face contorted into a pure shade of anger, and she shot an insult at him that Emma didn’t really hear. She turned to face Emma, and she returned the hand that was once on her waist, although they were farther apart now.
“You alright, Em?” she asked, and her cheeks were flushed red from the kiss, or maybe the anger? Emma couldn’t really tell all that well. It was like she'd been spun around, her eyesight blurred up and swelling.
Emma blinked away the hazy vision of the kiss and stepped back, wobbling, away from Rikki’s hands. God, what was she doing? Why was she letting loose? Hadn't she already learned her lesson when she was standing between her kitchen counters, picking up soda cans and wrappers? Things never went well when she let go of her schedules and her allotted time periods—and when she decided to recognize her feelings for Rikki. Emma was going to roll her feelings up in a tight carpet and pack them away in the confines of her mind again, because that was what worked. That was what kept her safe. That's what kept her male classmates from seeing her kissing Rikki Chadwick in the middle of her house party.
Because there was no way she was going to think about that. What had just happened in her own kitchen, for God's sake.
Finally, her mind started working the way it should. Making plans, formulating a singular goal, and making steps to reach it. End the party. Text people and tell them it'd over. Call a cleaning service. Get those cans in a plastic bag. Step one, step two, step three.
“Party’s over,” Emma said and stepped out from around the counter. She could feel Rikki’s hand brush against hers as if she was going to pull her back, but she didn’t. Emma guessed she could be okay with that. Even if it burned. Even if she had to crunch it up into a number and hide it underneath her tongue in order to cope with its heaviness. “Everyone get out!”
“I could’ve taken the blame,” Rikki said, her thumbs stuffed in her pockets, the rest of her hands hanging out. “I wouldn’t have minded.”
“But it wouldn’t be true,” Emma sighed and tightened up a plastic black bag, filled with used plates and cups. She dropped it off in the dumpster by her work, the last bag to get rid of, to cleanse the memory of her rebellion away. It smelled just like the impromptu party she’d wanted to have, for no other reason than to prove Rikki wrong. In hindsight, it was even stupider than it'd sounded when she first thought it up. All she could do now was sigh at what she’d done. She’d really gone to such a length just to seem cool—and now her mind was on fire and it wouldn't be cooling down anytime soon. She guessed that her parents saw her as a rebel now, which was... new. “You know me and my mum don’t lie to each other.”
Rikki just shrugged and continued on her walk. They were walking alongside the beach by the Juicenet cafe now, shoes marking indents behind them in the sand that the wind and waves would eventually cover up. Emma really didn’t want to say anything else. What she’d done at that party was something that would haunt her, and she had no idea where to catalog it in her brain, either. Under mistakes, maybe. Under embarrassments, maybe.
“So. Did you want me to bring it up for you?” Rikki added after a while of walking, until they reached a beachside area, piles of rocks built up on the shore. Mist traveled over the waves and tickled her nose, morning dew filling the areas where she lacked confidence.
“Bring up what?” Emma asked, as nonchalantly as she could, trying her best to look more interested in the tiny pockets of pebbles along the path they walked. She tries to file it again. Under mistakes? It didn't feel like one, but... "Look--"
Rikki smiled, with half of her face, and shook her head. She interrupted, “Just forget it.”
Emma smiled back, weakly. She really, really wished she could.