Chapter Text
Usually, Yvie liked it when she woke up to dozens of messages. Like any other teenage girl, when people texted her during the night, she felt well-liked and popular.
However, this time, when Yvie’s phone was blowing up, it was not a good thing. Turns out, going missing for 16 hours after she’d told her already overbearing mother she was just hanging out at Brooke’s had its consequences.
This morning, she’d woken up groggily to the insistent buzzing sound of a phone against wood. She rubbed at her eyes, flicking out some of the gross crust that had collected over the night, before stretching. Immediately, a wave of strong nausea hit her and she struggled to keep the sour liquid down.
As she slowly blinked her eyes open, her brain was sent into a state of panic. Cracked blue wallpaper. A poster of Mae West. This was not her room.
Scrambling up, she realized that the room was empty. What the fuck had happened last night? Was this a one night stand she had just completely forgotten about? Had she drunkenly broken into someone’s house and spent the night there? Find out on the next episode of Yvie Bridge’s Dumbass Decisions, airing right now!
The next thing Yvie noticed was that she still had all her clothes on. So she had just fallen asleep with everything on. Crap, that probably meant she had slept with her mascara too. And don’t even start on her hair. Her usual dreads were already messy enough.
And could that buzzing please fucking stop?
A jolt of pain up her arm made her collapse back onto the bed when she tried to stand up. In front of her, the room wobbled as if it was on stilts. Dust drifted around like lazy amoebas and clouded her vision.
There was more buzzing from the counter. Yvie squeezed her eyes shut and started to count. The first time she’d gotten a hangover, she had developed a habit of counting and taking deep breaths to relieve the headache.
Anyways, what was the sound coming from anyway? She shuffled over to the counter before almost doubling over in terror. There, flashing on her iPhone screen, were 14 missed calls and over 20 messages. Taking a shaky breath, she scrolled down and confirmed her fears. They were all from her mother.
“Fucking fuck of a fuck.”
Nina POV (because she’s the only one sober enough to recall the events of the pool party and she needs some lov)
“Fuck her,” Brooke sniveled once more before hurling into Nina’s toilet.
Nina smoothed out her hair, “Shh...just let it all out.”
“Literally, one second she wants to fuck me, like...long term or whatever the fuck that means, and then...then she ends up going home with a guy,” the blonde really swore like a sailor when she was drunk, “It’s so annoying and...downright rude. Why can’t she just make up her mind?”
Nina continued rubbing Brooke’s back while trying to hold back her own nausea. Why couldn’t her friends be the kind that do sunrise yoga and drink protein smoothies first thing in the morning instead of puking up a storm in her toilet?
Brooke raised her head once more, lines running down her face from last night’s mascara, “And a guy? Really? She’s like one of those...those…”
“Just shut up and vomit,” Nina chuckled and gathered Brooke’s hair back.
After the next round, the blonde lifted her head up again, “Like those ‘I’m straight but I’d love to use you as a sex toy for the purpose of...of gaining experience and having fun with another girl’ type.”
Brooke’s rant was interrupted by a loud click of the bathroom door as it swung open, revealing a very disheveled Yvie. The girl’s pink dreads were done into a loose topknot that threatened to spill over at her every movement. She sluggishly padded her way to the sink, as if trying to disturb her stomach’s contents as little as possible.
Nina knew that feeling all too well.
“Good morning, love,” Nina chirped, doing a not-so-great job of trying to hide her mild hangover. Sure, she drank just as much as the other girls, but her Irish blood made her alcohol tolerance almost double as much as her friends.
“Go die,” Yvie managed before retching into the sink. Meanwhile, Brooke had another go at Nina’s poor toilet.
“What’s next, the bathtub too?” Nina groaned but even she couldn’t help but be amused at how much her bathroom resembled the food poisoning scene from Bridesmaids.
“Toothbrush, please?” Brooke sheepishly croaked as she fumbled with the lever, finally flushing her mess down the drain. Nina shuffled over to her drawer, where she tossed a lavender Oral-B to the still sniffling girl.
Yvie nodded before looking up in the mirror, “Me too, bitch.”
“What’s the magic word?” Nina smirked before narrowly dodging Yvie’s comb, “Hey! That’s my sink you’re puking into!”
Yvie just gave her the finger and proceeded to use Nina’s mouthwash and Nina’s cup to gargle while Brooke squeezed a large chunk of Nina’s toothpaste and then brutally abused Nina’s toothbrush.
God, Nina needed new friends.
Leaving Brooke and Yvie to their own necessities, she made her way into her kitchen. Her tiny flat could barely fit her, much less with two wasted girls, but she had to make things work out. After all, Nina always did.
Not many high schoolers could even drive, much less have their own place. If it weren’t for the fact she was gonna turn 18 in a month and her part time job as a math tutor, she doubted her social worker would’ve allowed her to live alone.
She glanced at their purses, which were flung carelessly on the countertop when they stumbled home last night.
Oh ya...last night.
It had been absolutely wild, as all of Timmy’s parties were. He was well known for throwing the biggest parties in all of Tuck. He was also extremely popular and one of the star players on the football team. So when he had taken an interest in Mrs. Alyssa’s newest adoptee, a quiet Vietnamese girl who was often made the punching bag of the cheerleading team, the popular kids went crazy.
Still, they’d made it through all the rumours and gossip. Together.
It was mainly because of Plastique that Nina’s friend group had prime tickets to all the hangouts at his house. Nina thought it was so cute. Plastique and Timmy were exactly like the teen rom-coms that she still watched as guilty pleasures. It was the popular guy and outcast girl romance that everyone at Tuck needed. They were practically a carbon copy of Pretty in Pink.
Another movie-worthy couple was Brooke and Vanessa. The girls had been flirting for years since they met, just unknowingly. After binging all those romance novels and shows, Nina knew exactly what the cues were.
They made every excuse possible to touch each other. Vanessa holding Brooke’s hand during horror movies. Brooke hugging Vanessa for longer than needed. Vanessa and Brooke choosing to share a straw even when there was another unwrapped one right next to them.
When Brooke came out to her by scrawling ‘I’m gay’ on a Starbucks napkin in seventh grade, (Nina will always tease her about it) deep down in her heart, Nina already knew that Brooke and Vanessa were going to get together in some epic high school rival cheerleading team slow burn.
What she hadn’t expected was for Vanessa to go so out of line last night. While Nina, Brooke, and Yvie were drunkenly slapping each other with pool noodles, Vanessa had slipped off with some soccer player named Jason or something. The news was broken to a hopeful Brooke looking for Vanessa at the punch table by none other than Silky and Ra’jah, who were gossiping loudly about the cute Latina Silky’s ex had decided to sleep with.
Brooke hid it well, but Nina had seen Brooke’s heart freeze over enough times to see behind her cool exterior. She had worn the same stony expression during her parent’s divorce, during her first breakup with a girl named Honey, and most recently, during the pool party.
When Brooke had slammed her cup down on the table and filled it to the brim with the spiked punch, Nina knew that she would be the one holding her hair back in the morning, reassuring her that Vanessa was just playing hard to get, lending her a toothbrush...again. But still, Brooke was just right before the climax of her own high school run of Sex in the City, where everything seems to fall apart only to get stitched back together. After all, things played out for Steve and Miranda. And they’ve always played out for Brooke Hayhoe.
And now there was Yvie too. Nina could tell something was different with her ever since she went inside to use the bathroom. She’d seemed more distracted and had her head in the clouds, which was so different from the usual, no bullshit Yvie she knew. Another telltale sign of romance in the films.
When Nina and Brooke decided to pull her aside while the rest of the crew was dancing, Yvie had told them about her encounter with Scarlet. Nina could see just how giddy Yvie was despite her attempts at being the calm and calculating person she usually was. She couldn’t help but be giddy too. Yvie had found her princess, and was off to starting her Roman Holiday.
As for A’keria, she definitely had the least problem finding a man. In fact, her problem was that there were too many chasing after her. The last time Nina had seen her, she was laughing with the cute Chinese exchange student Timmy was hosting this school year. One might think that A’keria was a perfect “girl next door” with all her high ponytails and jean jacket, but Nina knew from A’keria’s hook-up stories that she was just as nasty as the rest of them.
When A’keria did a little twirl and led the practically mesmerized guy outside, Nina knew it was gonna be so The Girl Next Door. Besides, with her stunning features and charming personality, A’keria had no trouble landing a guy. She would no doubt find her Prince Charming by the end of the year, or even the end of the week.
And then there was Nina.
Besides Brooke, Nina was the only other virgin in her friend group. And Brooke barely counted because she had many chances to lose it, whether with Honey or the many flings she had on her vacations. Nina couldn’t help but be jealous. Why were her friends all starring in their own real life TV shows when hers was more like a tired replay of Never Been Kissed?
Nina wanted a whirlwind romance, but none of the guys she's dated really fit her criteria. They were always too boring, or too loud, or even too exciting. Her biggest fear was that all her friends would have someone and she would be left all alone. She knew it was selfish, but who doesn’t think that from time to time?
Gah, even the therapist needed a therapist sometimes.