Chapter Text
Christine patiently stood outside the blue house. Alana’s house. She had only seen it twice before, but never had she gone inside. And today wouldn’t be the day she went inside either. She was only there to pick Alana up for their date. First date, in fact. Or, ahem, first official date, with no one else around. They had both decided on a picnic in the park. For a March day, it was pretty warm, and it was supposed to stay that way all week.
The more Christine stood thinking about it, the more she realized there was only a couple of weeks of big snowfalls in winter and then the rest was light snow showers. Barely enough to stick. She read somewhere that warm weather earlier in the year meant the next winter would be terrible. She silently hoped it both would and would not be true. Some snow would be nice, but hopefully it wasn’t going to be too much.
She was so lost in thought about snow that she almost didn’t realize the door opened at all until Alana spoke up. “Hey!” she said breathlessly. She smiled brightly, wearing a blue sundress with her hair put up in a bun. She had on a blue and black jacket that she had gotten for her birthday a year ago. It was really the only jacket she owned, as she refused to borrow any of Christine’s for some odd reason.
“Hey!” Christine replied cheerfully, looking into Alana’s eyes for two seconds before her eyes started to drift to the rest of the house. More specifically, towards her dad’s room.
Alana saw her girlfriend’s eyes dart anxiously behind her and chuckled. “He’s not home,”
Christine let her shoulders drop and breathed out a sigh of relief at the statement before throwing herself on her girlfriend, wrapping her arms loosely around her neck and smiling as she leaned in for a kiss. “Oh, thank god,” Alana grinned as the pair’s lips touched and they stumbled into her house for a few seconds. They took one or two steps before Alana planted her heels firmly on the floor, stopping them both from going any further.
They both pulled away slowly, staring into each other’s eyes and smiling wildly. Alana gave her one last quick kiss before asking; “You ready to go?”
“Yeah,” Christine replied, slowly moving out the door. She slid her hand down to Alana’s without letting go of her somehow and started walking to the car. No one spoke until they both slipped in the car with smiles on their faces. They had nothing to talk about, but awkward silence doesn’t exist when you’ve been dating someone for over four months. Or, at least, in Christine and Alana’s world it didn’t. Evan and Connor could tell a very different story.
So, it was just silence. Until Christine started overthinking. She looked over at Alana as she pulled out. “No offence to your dad,”
“No, no! I get it,” Alana said quickly, assuring her girlfriend that she’s done nothing wrong. In fact, she was kind of glad Christine asked if her father was there or not. Not that he hated Christine or anything, it wasn’t that at all. But he would have hated the kiss and probably grounded Alana for a lifetime. Or worse. Even touching was off-limits. Only because Christine was a girl. Her father was fine when it Jared gave her a hug at the mall or when a kid in 8th grade named Mark kissed her hand. “I mean, he knows you were picking me up,”
“Oh, yeah! No, I know,”
“It’s just,” Alana looked over at her girlfriend, wondering if she should say more about her father. Christine didn’t know a lot. She only really knew that he was homophobic, transphobic and very strict. She decided not to go into it as she looked back out of the window. There was more to say about him, but it was a date. And, to be completely honest, Alana didn’t know if she ever wanted to tell Christine about her father and situation. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Or, meant. It’s fine,”
It was quiet again. Again, not awkward silence really, but Christine saw Alana out of the corner of her eyes. She knew Alana had more to say but wasn’t going to push. If it was important, she would have told her already. She took a deep breath and smiled again. “How are your classes so far?”
Alana smiled as well. “A’s in everything,”
“Obviously,”
“I can’t wait for it to be over,” she laughed out, before going on about projects she had to finish in every class. Whereas Middleborough teachers started not caring about school around March, Alana’s school teachers seemed to assign everything they were supposed to assign during the school year in those last few months, leaving Alana with multiple huge projects and tests.
But no matter how much she was assigned, Alana never complained about it. However, she didn’t seem ecstatic either, except for one time she had to make a model castle. She worked weeks on it, making it the biggest (and best in Christine’s opinion) castle in her class. It was no surprise that she got an A on it and it was put on display in the art case the school had in the main hall.
The conversation somehow left the topic of school in a matter of minutes and started to go in all different directions. One second it was the treatment of animals in zoos, next it was politics, next it was good places to stargaze, and it was just a mess, but the two enjoyed every second of it. It was kind of nice to just sit and talk without anyone else. Of course, they loved their friends, but this was pretty much the first time they’ve been alone together.
An hour of conversation passed before Christine pulled into the gravel parking lot and the two hopped out of the car. Alana eagerly dug in the back and pulled out the picnic basket, which was actually quite heavy. “Got it?” Christine asked, locking the car.
Alana nodded. “Lead the way,” She looked down a path she had never walked before and never heard of before, but according to Christine, there was an amazing view. She was a little worried that her dad didn’t know where she was. What if he went to check on her at Evan and Jeremy’s house and she wasn’t there? What if he called and heard other hikers in the background? What if he decided to track her phone and found out she was here? What if-
“Earth to Lana,” Christine was already on the trail, looking back at her girlfriend who was so lost in thought, she didn’t realize what was happening.
Alana blinked, shaking her head slightly. “Coming,”
___
It took 30 minutes and several anxious phone checks done by Alana every time she thought someone had texted her, worried that her dad had found out that she was not at her friend’s house and, in fact, some place that was at least an hour and 45 minutes away. It never was her dad, but that didn’t stop Alana from being on edge the entire hike. She tried to forget about it, she really did, but this was the first time she ever disobeyed him and went somewhere she shouldn’t.
He let her go to Zoe’s house, Evan and Jeremy’s house, the bowling ally that one time, and then the mall a few times, and he had said he trusted her friends enough that she could go out with them more, but he didn’t approve of Alana going out of the house with just Christine, or just anyone. This was pretty much the first time she lied about who she was with and where she was going because her father disapproved of it. What if he found out?
Christine saw that her girlfriend was getting considerably more anxious as the day went on, and it was only 2 o’clock. She had tried to distract her multiple times, and it would work for only a few minutes before Alana checked her phone again with a slight frown. Luckily, before Alana could check her phone for the 60th-ish time they got to the site.
It was better than Christine had described. A river that was previously unseen by the pair lead to a roaring waterfall, descending at least 40 feet into a large pool of water which was streaming in two different directions around a mass of land that the path leads to. The small island like piece of land had one giant, climbable tree on the edge near the water. Near the tree were two wooden picnic tables, with one being sort of old and worn out, although still usable and the other looking almost new. The waterfall itself was wide, with tall green trees surrounding it. Alana had heard the water on her way to the site, but the trees and wildlife must have muffled most of the sound.
She gasped in wonder but did not put her phone back in her pocket. Christine turned around to face her girlfriend with a huge smile on her face. She held up the picnic basket and stared making jazz hands with her free hand. “Surprise!”
Alana didn’t say anything, but instead let her facial expressions do much of the talking. She smiled brightly, taking in the scene. She slowly made her way to the edge of the landmass to face the waterfall.
“I’ve really only seen waterfalls in pictures and videos,”
Christine creeped up behind her and put her head on the other girl’s shoulder.
“It sounds really stupid to look up videos of waterfalls, but when my dad and his girlfriends would argue, I listened to the sounds of waterfalls to help me get to sleep,” Alana said softly, as if someone else would hear, even though there was no one but Christine, Alana, and Zoe in the room. She chuckled. “Even with the explanation it sounds kind of stupid,”
She kissed Alana’s chin lightly as they grabbed each other’s hands slowly.
Christine shook her head lightly. “Nah, it’s not stupid, but why waterfalls?” Alana thought for a minute, but only shrugged in response. “Whatever, you know? Everyone has their own thing. I listen to classical music sometimes,”
Zoe looked back at the two and raised her eyebrows. “Nerds,” she said under her breath, but loud enough for them to hear. She turned back to the bookshelf and smiled, rolling her eyes.
“They look really pretty up close,” Alana whispered, chuckling lightly. Christine nodded to the best of her ability, then she slowly stood upright and tugged on her girlfriend’s hand, urging her to sit down. “This is perfect. This is...really what I need,”
Christine scoffed and smiled as the two took a seat on opposite sides of the table. “We’ve only been planning a date forever,”
“I’m glad you took it over,”
“I’m glad you like the place,” She said as she started to get stuff out of the picnic basket and put it on the table. “You know, I came here with my aunt and her girlfriend and boyfriend about a month and a half ago, and immediately thought of you,”
Alana beamed, looking around. She had remembered that Alana wanted to visit a waterfall. “Oh, Christine,”
Once she was done stetting everything up, she looked at Alana and did jazz hands for the second time in a day. “I bring you, a waterfall!”
Alana snorted and rolled her eyes at the remark but kept smiling. “You’re such a dork,”
“But I’m your dork,” Christine replied, leaning over the table the best she could to kiss Alana’s forehead. Everything was perfect for a moment. Just one moment. Alana forgot about her father.
“That was cheesy,”
“But I’m your kind of cheesy,”
“Oh my god, stop,”