Mixtapes & Polaroids | Sam x Deena

22

"So this is it. It's not much, but it's better than your car." Kate says, leading Sarah down to her basement a few days after their little drug fueled rain adventure.

Kate came home that night looking to apologize, but she didn't even have to. Just like everything wrong with their lives, her mother treated her like nothing had ever happened as she cleaned up her room, picking up money off the floor and laughing about how she felt like a stripper.

With their problems swept under the rug once again, she finds her mother smiling even when Kate knew it was far from real. Kate kind of wishes they'd talk about it, that they'd stop living such synthetic lives, pretending they were satisfied when nobody in that house was even close. But at the same time, she didn't want to talk about it.

So she doesn't even try, she just tells her while they're across each other at breakfast that she has a friend looking to rent their basement, and she subtly brings up the comment about her not helping financially. At first her mother was reluctant, but if there was one thing Kate knew how to do, it was to sell and she does it exceptionally well that by the time she's halfway out the door, she already has the answer she wants.

It only took Kate a day, and a ten dollar bribe for Simon to help her get the basement ready and it was actually somewhat inhabitable. She found an old lamp she doesn't use, along with Kate's old solo bed and some fairy lights she bought at the store on the way home. It was actually kind of cute.

"Are you insulting my car?" Sarah chuckles, looking around curiously with a small smile on her lips.

"Maybe a little bit." Kate admits playfully.

"Okay, I gotta give it to you. This is cooler." Sarah hums, setting her bag down by the bed and plopping onto it. There's a satisfied look on Kate's face, proud even, as she approaches to sit right by the blonde.

"Why are you still in town?" Kate asks curiously, she figured since they'd practically be living together she gets to ask something a little more personal.

"What do you mean?" Sarah hums, scooting back far enough for her back to be able to rest against the headboard while Kate sat on the opposite end, both their legs paralleled and outstretched.

"You've graduated, you can be anywhere else by now. What's keeping you here?" Kate reiterates her question, watching carefully as Sarah hums in thought with a finger absentmindedly tapping against her thigh.

"My sister." She finally replies, tight lipped smile and eyes that never falter. She's too honest that sometimes, it scares Kate, the way Sarah never seemed to be afraid.

"Your sister?"

"Yup. She adores me, and i'm just not ready to go far yet. I had this big argument with my dad when I told him I didn't want to go to college, he thinks the whole music thing is gonna be a bust and I have too much of my pride to move back in and prove him right." She concludes with a small shrug, words falling off her tongue with ease that Kate thinks she could make even the largest problems sound nonchalant.

"So you'd rather be homeless than be wrong?" Kate raises a brow, and Sarah laughs. Kate thinks she's got a pretty laugh, she'd never say it out loud though.

Compliments are given to her, not by her.

"Pretty much, yeah." Sarah nods.

"And you? What's all this about?" Sarah returns the question, looking around them as Kate falls into feigned innocence.

"What do you mean?" She mimics Sarah's earlier sentiment, but the blonde just looks at her with a smile that knows a little too much.

"What are you trying to prove by having me here?" Sarah clarifies, such a weighted question floating from her mouth like a cloud that shrouds Kate's thoughts.