Girls are beautiful, every line of them. She's known this for a long time, but it becomes more and more apparent when she's falling for Gabby, not Troy. High school is like a jungle. One match lit up an entire flame and soon she's receiving awkward conversation any time it comes up: do you have a crush on me? How do you have sex without a d**k? Threesome? Are you butch or not?

(Ironically, high school is hardly a place for education).

It's not so bad though. She's in a more progressive part of town; she has undying support from her mother, her best friend Archer. Archer goes with her to an LGBT support club as an ally (asexual, she would later call herself, but it's high school and finding that label is hard at their age); Scout never says anything, but everyone is so animated that it feels comfortable. She can better sink into the background and listen to the conversation knowing that she's happily found other people like her.

Despite this, she only ever once worked up the courage to ask a girl out. Her name was Bree, and Bree was beautiful. All sharp cuts and square parts. Hard, but she had a smile that stretched from ear to ear; both ears were huge too. She had frizzy hair, but cut it all off and somehow still managed to look just as handsome as before. Her front teeth stuck out a little bit, but that was okay to Scout. Brown skin, bound for the army- enlisted the moment she turned 18. She'd joined the national guard and had duty every Friday. Beautiful, beautiful girl.

Scout chose to do it in private, one day when they were going to study after school in the library. Scout didn't have flowers or any other gifts to speak of. She liked poetry and flowery words, but often stumbled over her own (she'd had a small stutter before speech lessons had ironed it out). Instead it seemed better to go for a straightforward approach.

Her throat was tight, especially when she looked up from her workbook and met Bree's dark brown eyes. Enchanting things, a deep dark pair of spheres that seemed to suck you in (maybe that was just her romanticizing?).

"Hey Bree?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to go uh ... to a movie sometime?"

"Oooh yeah, I really want to see Inception! Amanda went last week and she said-"

Scout let her prattle on. Bree was a talker, the kind that wasn't very bright, but pleasant to listen to. It was a good personality type for Scout; she was happy to listen and nod, kept to her thoughts and admiration.

"-We could invite everyone, like I think Mariposa hasn't seen it either."

"Oh ... yeah ... I guess ..."

"What's that for?" Bree leaned forward, sticking her nose right in Scout's business as always.

"What?" Scout hasn't realized it but she's starting to sweat. Nervous.

"Mariposa botherin' you or something?"

"Oh no it's not that- I mean she's fine it's just. Uh." Scout's looking elsewhere, down at her notebook, over at the clock. She tilts the legs of her industrial chair back nervously. "I just- uh. I meant like a date."

"Oh."

Now Scout's eyes are laser focused onto Bree's face. Oh can mean a lot of things.

"Um ... I'm flattered, but I'm not like- I mean-"

s**t.

"Not gay?"

"Yeaaah ..."

"Oh. That's- yeah that's okay. I mean yeah. We can bring the others then, just as friends." She waves her hands. It's fine, it's fine.

"You sure?"

"Yes of course."

"God this is awkward, right?"

Scout lets out a very awkward chuckle in response. "Yeah."

Then Bree laughs, and Scout knows her well enough to know that she's laughing to try to relieve the tension between the twosome. But it just makes it worse, because now Scout's thinking s**t, she's so nice and how she wants to hear the laugh more. It's hard to think about how nice someone is when they're rejecting you.

Scout tries to shut her books and pick up her pencils. "Yeah- Yeah I uh. I think I'm just gonna go."

Bree almost reaches out to touch Scout's arm, but then hesitates. It's lucky that Scout doesn't see the motion; she's too focused on her books. But she does hear Bree saying, "Oh no, don't do that. We can still be friends! Y'know, just forget it ever happened!"

A dark look crosses Scout's face. "Are you sure? I don't want to make you uncomfortable or anything ..." Why are you apologizing? from Archer is kicking around in her head.

"I'm not uncomfortable!" She is. "Let's just finish these problems?"

Scout nods, relieved almost that Bree wants to brush past it as badly as she does. "Okay."

I really thought ...