Ready? Not Really.. (Fem USUK) •IN EDITING•

Alice

The air smelled like mildew and my grandmother's house back in England, and it was a sort of smell that brought back nostalgia but in a good way.
I ran my hand along the dusty keys of an old typewriter. A few of the letters were broken and long gone, but it was still functional and there was ink inside. I looked around before typing the first thing to come to my mind.
I'm in love with Amelia Jones.
I frowned.
That was pretty lame.
"Hey, Alice!" Gil called from the other side of her brother's store. "Come over here!" I glanced down at the piece of paper sticking out from between the cylinder part and inside of the typewriter. "Aliiiiice?"
"Coming!" I turned the knob on the cylinder until the paper came out, folded it up into a little square, and stuck it in my pocket before running over to my Maddie's girlfriend, which was difficult to do with the minimal space between shelves of such fragile relics. Ceramic figurines of various animals and people, old clocks that were well past their ability to function, and other knick knacks lined each side of me. Eventually I reached the front counter, where Gillian was talking excitedly to her brother. She noticed me- well, her brother pointed me out to her- and smiled.
"You've met Ludwig, right?" I looked up at the tall man that towered over me. His blonde hair was slicked back, save for a few pieces sticking up thanks to the the humidity in his shoppe. He didn't have any emotion on his face, and his blue eyes simply stared me down like I was inferior. I immediately stood a little taller.
"Yes. Hello." I stuck my hand out. Ludwig's eyes drifted down to my outstretched palm, and he reached out to shake it. His grip was fucking strong. I stumbled a little when we shook hands. "Erm, we have met before, if I remember correctly."
He nodded. "We did." Ludwig looked thoughtful. "You're Alice?" I nodded quickly. "Ah. You must be the Alice that Amelia never shuts up about." I could actually feel my face get redder. Amelia talked to him about me?
"What does she say?" I blurted.
Ludwig smiled slightly, which was pretty surprising, to be honest, even if it was just a lift of the corners of his lips. "Only good things. A lot of good things. Too many. She once spent an entire Saturday texting me about how she should go about asking you to go out with her on a Valentine's Day. She really wanted to incorporate the colour of your eyes on the card, but kept getting frustrated because she didn't have the right construction paper."
I wrinkled my nose. "Amelia never asked me out on a single Valentine's Day, although last year she did put a frog in my backpack with a note that said I'm 'toad-Ally annoying', if you want to count that. It was a terrible pun, really."
He sighed and covered his face. "I told her not to use that. I gave her my book on relationships, but she refused to read it."
I blinked. "You have a what?"
Gil sighed in exasperation. "Anyways." She turned to her younger brother. "Ally and I were wondering if maybe you could be a totally awesome bro and give her a job here."
Ludwig looked vaguely confused. "But I don't need anyo-"
"She starts next week?" Gil said over him. "Awesome! Thanks bro!"
I rolled my eyes and smiled sheepishly at Ludwig. "Really, it's fine if you don't need me. I understand."
"Hmm." He tilted his head and looked me up and down, narrowing his eyes. "I suppose I could use someone to dust everything." Ludwig leaned down and fumbled through some things under the counter and stood back up with a piece of paper. It had the name of the store as well as a bunch of words and blank lines. "Fill this out and return it to me by this weekend." He pushed the paper in front of me. "I'll see what I can do."
I skimmed the page. It had a few questions about my work experience and medical issues I may have and whatnot. I looked up at Ludwig and smiled. "Thank you," I said, genuinely grateful that he was kind enough to offer me a job when he clearly was doing just fine running his little shoppe by himself.
He shrugged. "It really isn't that big of a deal. I'm happy to help anyone that's a friend of Madeline. She does everything for my sister."
Gillian beamed at the mention of her girlfriend. Their love for each other struck a chord in my heart that was too close to home. I wanted that kind of relationship. The kind where my significant other wouldn't just be a hug, kiss, repeat kind of girl, but would complete me. That was what I envied.
Sadly, it was obvious I wasn't going to be getting that anytime soon, and I really needed to move on from Amelia. I couldn't spend the rest of my life going after a girl that constantly drove me out of my mind. Honestly, did I want to be thirty one day and drink myself to sleep over some crush I had in high school? Of course not. I didn't need her. She apparently didn't need me. Fine. Whatever.
I was perfectly fine on my own.
So I walked out of the shoppe with Gillian at my heels, reading over the questions and answering them in my mind since I didn't have a pen.
Did I have experience in a work place? Well, not really.
Good qualities? Once I managed to burn noodles. That was impressive, I must say.
Criminal record? As if. I cried when I was seven and accidentally walked out of a gas station with a pack of gum I had forgotten to put back.
I wasn't exactly a very interesting person, to say in the least. The closest I'd come to ever having a job was when I babysat my neighbours' beta fish when they went on a vacation. It had died the second day they were gone because I was so intrigued in exploring their house that I had forgotten to feed the fish.
"So, Alice," Gil said, breaking the silence and snapping me out of my thoughts. "My brother is going to be a pretty awesome boss, dontcha think?"
I shrugged. "I guess."
"The correct answer is yes."
I rolled my eyes.
I have no idea why Gillian insisted on coming with me to see her younger brother. She was so hyperactive and obnoxious that I had gotten sick of her presence ten minutes into the walk to the little antiques shoppe. But Maddie had told me that being in someone else's company other than just hers and Amelia's would do me good, and it was pretty difficult to change Gil's mind once it was set. It would've been nicer if Gillian wasn't a maniac and didn't have a personal mission to fuck with me every chance she had.
"Look, Alice!" Gil called. "It's you!"
My eyes followed her finger to where it was pointing. "I am not a goddamned trash can!" She grinned and laughed, running ahead when I picked up a soda can and threw it at her head. "Piece of shit!"
How the hell did Maddie manage to date such a horrible human being?
~•~•~•~
I was exhausted by the time I returned to my dorm room. Being around Gillian was like babysitting five toddlers whilst walking barefoot on hot coal. In other words, it was hell. I think she had made an unnecessary comment on every single object we passed by on the way back to the campus. My head ached and my ears were ringing when I managed to get her off my ass.
I kicked open the door with my foot since Amelia's jacket was draped over my arm. Luckily, it was open and I didn't kick a hole in the wood. Loud beeping and whirring came from inside my room, and as soon as I walked in, I was met with a blast of multiple sounds that immediately made my head pound more. I covered my ears without even thinking.
Amelia sat on the floor with a blanket draped over her shoulders, her back facing me. She sat literally three centimetres from the TV she had somehow set up in the time I was away from our dorm room. A video game controller sat in her hands, and the screen flashed images of spaceships and laser beams faster than my mind could process.
"What the hell are you doing?!" I shouted over the noise.
Amelia didn't respond.
I narrowed my eyes and walked around her so that she could see me. She blinked in surprise when I stood in front of the TV. "Get the fuck outta the way!" She snapped, leaning to the side so she could see past my body. I glared at her. How dare she ignore me? This was my room just as much as it was hers. I glanced at the telly and noticed a cord leading from the back of it all the way to a wall socket. I reached down and pulled it out of the wall. "What the fuck, Alice?!" Amelia yelled. "I was on the last fucking level!"
I stood back up and brushed my knees off. "The volume was making the entire room vibrate," I said.
"Maybe it can help you get off to the porn stash you have under your bed."
My throat constricted and my face heated up in embarrassment. I stepped closer to her. "You went through my stuff?"
Amelia raised an eyebrow. "I saw it when you were making your bed. You know, hiding dirty magazines under your mattress? Not nearly as effective as you'd think."
"You would know, wouldn't you?" I threw her jacket onto my bed. "Hiding my journal under your mattress for weeks really taught you something, didn't it?"
She gripped her controller tighter. "Doesn't matter. Nothing you said in it is actually true, right? You said you loved me and I walk in on you French kissing my actual French cousin."
I swallowed hard. She really did read it, didn't she? "Why should it matter to you?" I asked slowly. "You hate lesbians. You hate everyone that isn't exactly like you, right? That's how Americans think. You just go and do your little cheer shit with your white girl friends in mini skirts and bang some druggies while you're at it."
Her eyes widened. "You seemed to like my mini skirt in your little diary."
I clenched my hands into fists. "I'm not arguing with you about that." I stomped over to my bed and sat down. I wanted so badly to leave the room, but that would be an unspoken win for Amelia. There was no way I would let her get away with this one.
"Why?" she asked. "Because it's all lies?"
"Because I'm not fighting about something you were never supposed to see." I crossed my arms.
Amelia looked up at me. "Like you and Francine? Was I not supposed to see that, either?"
"Fuck you."
"Don't you wish?"
"Don't you?"
She looked at me in surprise, but her face slowly melted into suspicion. "Why would you say that?"
"Why are you so upset about me kissing someone else?" I felt anger pool in my stomach, frustration about the past few days and all of the anguish this girl had brought me. "Shouldn't you be celebrating how I'm not lesbian for you? I thought you would be happy, right?" Amelia looked at the ground. Ha! So I one-upped her. But at what cost? I felt guilty for using her cousin and I against her, but really, Amelia had no right to be a dick to me. She was the one that caused me suffering for so many years.
"I'm not happy." She stood up. "Before I saw you with Fran, I was going to..." Amelia shook her head. "But you and her are a thing, right? Good for you guys. Who cares what I think. I'm just a ditzy cheerleader." She shot me one last look before leaving the room, slamming the door behind her.
So I won the argument.
Great.
And yet, I felt so horrible.