Chosen Family🫶

Chapter 2: you're so gorgeous it actually hurts

3pm rolled around and reputation decided it was due time she got out of bed, she had no idea how folklore managed to get up so early every morning it was crazy.

She'd slept terribly, staying up until midnight talking to her best friend lover, then up until 2 after her friend had left analysing everything each of them had said the whole conversation and every interpretation of what that could mean.

Reputation wasn't in denial about her feelings, she knew very well that she was completely and irreversibly in love with her best friend.

However she also knew that there was nothing she could do about it, she could steal lovers T-shirts and fall asleep in them, write her coded love songs and never play them aloud, mirror lovers body language and spend hours thinking about how beautiful and precious the short blonde girl was, but it wouldn't change the fact that lover was straight and would never ever see her in that way

She sighed a sigh of the greatly suffering and began to dress; grey T-shirt with a graphic snake image and black denim shorts (if you looked really closely at reputations recent outfits, you could see little lover influences here and there, for example the tiny embroidered pink hearts on the back pockets of reps shorts)

She pulled on her black vans and grabbed her car keys, heading down the stairs to fearless' room to pick up her friend

Fearless should have learned to drive about three years ago but for some reason everyone had forgotten to give her lessons, rep had promised to teach her in time for her 20th birthday

Rep and fearless had an odd friendship that most people found difficult to understand, reputation usually tried to maintain a don't care attitude even around her friends, but she saw fearless as a little sister and they often did things like this together like when fearless had attempted to teach reputation how to ride her horse snowstorm

'Hey fi let's go' rep said swinging the door open to her friends room

'Gimme like two seconds alright?' Fearless was finishing off her makeup, adding gold body shimmer

'You do realise you're gonna be driving to the nearest Dunkin right?'

'Yeah I know...' fearless bit her lip nervously

'Wow I haven't dressed up to go to a chain coffee shop that sells mediocre coffee since I was in high school and was crushing on the senior who worked the cash register...wait.'

The pennies dropped and realisation dawned on reputations face 'isnt it debuts shift right about now? At Dunkin? That were about to drive to?'

Fearless ducked her head 'stfu rep it's not like that she's my best friend'

'Sure honey but I've been in love with someone long enough to know that you don't put on a corset sundress for a driving lesson and then to go order coffee' reputation loved imparting the wise knowledge of her many years of life on the you get generation is situations such as this, and fearless loved to divert from the actual conversation

' you know you don't have to say "someone" like you're a secret admirer, we literally all know you have puppy eyes for lover; we know you went out and bought her perfume so you can smell her on your clothes all the time' 

Reputation sacked her around they head and they drive off 

Meanwhile, evermore was preparing herself to knock on midnights' bedroom door. Evermore wasn't usually the shy sort of girl, although she dressed in a way that suggested she might be, but even though she and midnights were quite close friends, the woman could be scary if something had upset her.

Having the job of being midnights talk person was sort of like running out into no man's land to collect dead bodies: the most dangerous job, despite being the most honoured 

She has expected to come in to find midnight downing bottle after bottle of vodka, but when she opened the door she found the girl sobbing in a pillow fort with photos strewn across the floor 

Evermore crouched down next to her friend and hugged her tightly and while midnights cried into the green silk of the bodice of her  flowy halter neck dress, evermore cast her gaze of the photos on the floor

1989s eyes lighting up as midnight's presented her with giant heart shaped candy floss 

1989 with her and midnights' first cat, karma 

Midnights kissing 1989's cheek as she smiled at the selfie camera 

Action shot by rep of 1989 and midnights in the air on a trampoline, holding hands, hair flying, looking so in love 

1989 and midnights last Halloween dressed up as Danny and sandy from Grease 

'Oh honey what happened?' Sighed evermore as she wiped midnight's tears with her sleeve 'come on deep breathes, what went wrong? Was it 1989?' 

'GOD NO, of course not it would never be 1989 I just....' She sniffed 'I just didn't know what to do anymore, it wasn't fair on 1989 

She could do so much better than me I just wanted to give her that option. She's too nice she would never leave me especially not when things are getting so bad again I just couldn't hurt her anymore' 

Midnights was spiralling and evermore was struggling to keep up 'woah what do you mean 'when things are getting bad again'?' 

Midnights took a deep shaky breathe 'I can feel it coming back, the depression, the Ed, the sleepless nights staying up freaking out, the constant stress and  damp mood, I can't put her through it again, she's been through enough for me she deserves to be happy she deserves so much better than me I'm broken  a mess, she deserves someone who can give her everything she wants and I can't right now and I don't know what to do about it so I ended it because I didn't want to hurt but even trying not to hurt her hurt her which is why she needs to get over me and find a new, prettier, happier girl to give her candy floss and be in love with her and-' and here midnights broke down into a fit of sobs

Evermore held her shaking body close, a level of affection she never showed for people other than folklore, and waited for her friends crying to cease, this was far bigger a problem than she and her sister had thought