What Can I Do? (renee rapp x reader)

Re(neé)connecting (Part Six)

A/N: Easily my favorite part yet. Enjoy gays.

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The Past (July, 2019)

Janis Ian + Regina George

Reneé's POV

It is insanely frustrating and heartbreaking to have the girl you're in love with be inches away. Yeah, I'm in love with her. I admit it. There's just something about her that's so intoxicating. The way she smells freshly out of the shower, coconut wafting into my nostrils when she nears me. The way that she shivers every time I slightly graze her neck when taking her hair out of the way to zip up her dress. The way she smiles and every part of her face contorts, her not quite dimples etching themselves into her skin. The way she genuinely turns red when she blushes and the way her skin is as soft as the blanket she's been sleeping with since she was ten. I know everything about her. I guess that's just what happens when you're the only people you know in New York, or when you're co-stars, or when you're 'best friends'.

She's the only one who knows about me being...well gay. I know I should tell other people. Like my parents or my brother or at least my friends, but I don't know if I'm ready for that. Plus, it almost feels like it's a little secret between us, which I kind of like. And she understands me so deeply, and hasn't changed how she acts around me. Which has got me wondering. Does she like girls? Is that why, despite knowing that there was the possibility I could like her, she has continued to do that playful flirting I have loved from the start? Or maybe is it just that she hasn't changed around me because she is in fact an ally, and she can't even begin to imagine that her best friend actually wants to fuck her?

It makes me feel bad. If she really has no idea that I like her then I shouldn't be doing this. Getting my hopes up, falling in love, encouraging my infatuation with her all for her to just be being affectionate as a friend. It almost feels dishonest. I should tell her, I know I should. But if I tell her, it might ruin everything between us. I would rather never kiss her and hold her like a girlfriend than not have her at all. I need her. I need to breathe her in every day. I need to feel her soft, warm skin under mine. I need her to hug me in the way she always does.

What I need is to throw up.

We had gone to a bar after the last show of the week. Most of the cast was way older than me and Y/N, so they had offered to buy us drinks. Hey, if it's legal in Mexico, why not here? They were constantly praising us for having gotten such good roles at such young ages, constantly telling us how talented we were. Grey –the amazing Damien– was probably my favorite of the bunch, and it helped that he was unapologetically gay, which helped me be more comfortable with myself in turn. And you know how I said that Y/N was the only one who knew? Well apparently I had drank enough to start telling my woes to Grey, including the fact that I was madly in love with my best friend.

"That's like a gay rite of passage." He had told me.

"Yeah but look at how Kyle is flirting with her." Being at least five years older than her had definitely not deterred him from flirting with my best friend. Just watching how his eyes scanned over her body made me want to punch him in the face.

"Please, she's just humoring him." He had noted, which was in some part true. Y/N did that a lot, allowed men who she was obviously uncomfortable with or not interested in, to flirt with her. She let guys do so much. It was infuriating, because I knew she didn't like it. I just didn't get why she let herself.

And yet now, I'm stumbling outside of the bar in order to spare myself the misery of barfing inside of the bar. I try to get myself to gag, hoping that vomiting would make it easier to get sober. But apparently, I did not need to vomit.

Apparently, I just needed to get out of there.

Apparently, Kyle —Mr. Aaron Samuels himself— made me want to vomit.

Or maybe it was the idea of Y/N being with anyone else but me what made me want to vomit.

Stop it. I think. You have absolutely no right to be jealous, Reneé.

I sit on the curb for what feels like nothing, but probably isn't nothing because when I come back to reality, I hear the bell that hangs above the bar door jingle as someone comes out. I don't even bother to look at who it is. Someone sits next to me and it is only when I hear them speak that I realize who they are.

"Reneé are you okay?" Y/N asks, placing her hand on my knee which gives me butterflies. I know I should say that I am, that I should look at her, that I should tell her that everything is okay, but I don't.

"Do you even like Kyle?"

"I-"

"You don't." I interrupt, still looking at the curb. "And yet you let him touch your waist and buy you drinks and flirt with you." I spit out, poison dripping from the ends of the letters of my words. I continue with my ramble.

"But you don't even like him."

There's a pause between us and suddenly the air is heavy.

"I know." Her voice cracks. "I just need guys to like me. To want me. To have their validation."

"Why?" I ask, facing her now, concerned.

"So maybe I'll want them too." She's silent again, before she whispers; "So I can ignore this."

"Ignore what?"

"This." She says, pointing at me and before my drunk mind can even comprehend what is happening, she leans in and kisses me. She puts her hand on my jaw and our faces fit perfectly together, and we melt into one. I'm too shocked and too drunk to even react until she pulls away.

"Oh my god." She begins, not looking at me. "I'm so sorry! I know you probably don't even like me and I shouldn't assume that because you like girls that you-" But before she can finish her ramble, she falls silent as I pull her face towards mine and for a moment we are breathless, just looking into each other's eyes.

"I've been wanting to do this for a long time."

I kiss her again, and it is beautiful. Fireworks explode in my chest as I pull her closer and closer to me. It's like we're kissing right before the world caves in, like we can feel the sawdust falling from the creaky bar behind us as it falls with the rest of humanity. We kiss like it's the only thing we've ever wanted, like we are two halves that have finally become whole.

It is the best feeling in the entire world.