Meaghan Walter and Kate Zimmer

10

⚠️TW⚠️ mentions of assault
(A/N I also use She/They pronouns for Meg in this so tell me if you like it
Kate's POV)

Despite not being the best at longboarding I had an amazing time with Meg and Kasper. I got to know Kasper more and got to understand truly how protective and loving she was towards Meg. She always seemed to be looking out for her even if Meg wasn't paying attention or Kasper wasn't there. Kasper had told me about another one of their close friends named Sam. (A/N in this Sam lives in Chicago and has known Meg almost all their life) Sam was like another sibling to Meg and they were always doing impulsive things together such as getting tattoos and going to abandoned places. I was kind of confused by the fact that Meg hadn't told me about Sam but tried to brush it off as best I could. We were in a park when at like 1 a.m when I finally realized how hungry I was and so we decided to get burritos. Throughout the car ride to the food place I noticed Meg slid away from me and just looked out the window the whole time. Kasper didn't seem that concerned so I again tried to shrug off my bad feeling. As we arrived at the burrito place Meg was still deep in their thoughts and even when we said her name she didn't respond. She only looked away from the window when I hesitantly placed my hand on her shoulder. She flinched and gazed at both Kasper and I with a confused expression.
"What?" Meg asked discomfort clear in her voice.
"We have been calling your name but you completely zoned out." I noticed the concern in Kasper's voice which made me slightly more worried then I was before. Meg's eyes darted between both of us as she responded, "Oh sorry, I didn't mean to not listen I just got caught up in my thoughts. It's nothing I promise." I didn't know who she was trying to convince us or herself but I saw her discomfort so I tried easing the tension.
"We're here so let's go I can't believe we found a shop open at 1 a.m."
Meg looked relieved and quickly hopped out of the car while making a comment about how Chicago has anything you need. Walking into the restaurant it looked normal but there was something sketchy about the place. I guess Meg thought so too because once we ordered they said we should eat in the car. No one spoke as we ate because we were all starving and in less than 10 minutes we were done and had decided to go home. The whole ride Meg didn't talk which made me anxious and I noticed that their leg was bouncing uncontrollably. Kasper and I glanced at each other but didn't say anything about it and just talked about random shit. By the time we got to Meg's house she looked like she was gonna panic at any moment and I was worried I had messed up somehow and was further convinced when Meg finally spoke,
"Umm Kate can I talk to Kaspie for a second?"
She looked worried about my reaction so I answered as nonchalantly as possible,
"Yea sure Meg, do you want me to wait for you or just go inside?"
She told me I could just go inside so that's what I did. Instead of going straight to Meg's room I searched for the guest room for when I needed to go to bed. Once I found it I went to Meg's room and flopped on the bed my thoughts taking over. I had definitely done something wrong throughout the night and I had to figure what it was. Did I ignore them or give her too much attention? I probably triggered them somehow. I couldn't think that much about it as Meg opened the door. She stood there for a second while I got up from the bed.
"You okay?"
Something in her cracked and she started bawling her eyes out. Rushing over I stopped in front of them but didn't touch them because I didn't know how they would react.
"Can I give you a hug?"
She seemed to cry harder when I asked but nodded and engulfed me in a tight hug. I felt my breath hitch as her hands wrapped around me tightly like she afraid I would leave. I would never get tired of Meg's hugs. It was different then others it seemed like she always gave the best hug she could like it would be their last hug. She let go after a few minutes first looking at my now soaked shirt and then me. I didn't want to loose contact with her so I rubbed circles on her back as we sat down. There was a tense silence before Meg finally spoke,
"I'm sorry about your shirt, here let me get one of my hoodies."
As she stood up I noticed their arm sleeve had risen just slightly when we were hugging and as I looked a little closer I saw something that crushed me. Scars made by either herself or someone else. I kept my composure as Meg handed me her hoodie and her sleeve rolled back down before she noticed. I was kinda stunned so without saying anything I quickly got up and took off my shirt. Her eyes went wide and she quickly looked away blushing which made me smirk lightly. After putting on the hoodie I was met with Meg fidgeting and my smirk disappeared.
"Can you speak? You are worrying me." Meg asked quietly before avoiding eye contact. I mentally slapped myself realizing I hadn't spoken in at least 10 minutes.
"I'm sorry Meg I didn't mean to upset you. I just don't know what to say. Do you wanna talk about it?"
I didn't want to mention what I had seen as I felt that she would tell me when they were ready.
"It's fine you didn't do anything. I bet you have a lot of questions so I'll let you ask any question and I'll answer honestly. Okay?"
I was skeptical of the plan because I felt I would over step a boundary but nodded nonetheless.
"Yea okay but you tell me if any questions make you uncomfortable and we will stop and go to bed." She agreed and to ease the tension I asked a somewhat dumb question first.
"Okay first question...what was your first kiss like?" I was actually curious and thought it was a good first question. Meg laughed and told the story causing me to laugh along. All the tension was gone but I knew it would come back with my next question so I grabbed Meg's hand trying to reassure her or myself I honestly don't know which.
"What is your greatest fear?"
I knew I messed up when I felt Meaghan's entire body tense and they squeezed my hand before answering,
"Lauren..." She stopped and took a deep breath before continuing, "and not being enough."
I wasn't sure who Lauren was or who made Meg feel like she wasn't enough but I swore to myself if I saw either I would personal beat the shit out of them. I noticed Meg was about to cry so I tried speaking calmly, "Meaghan," She didn't look at me so I tried something else, "Bubs look at me," My nickname for them made her look up as I continued, "you are more than enough. Anyone that says otherwise doesn't deserve to be in such a loving and caring person's life such as yours. We don't have to talk anymore if you don't want to." I had a billion questions but it wasn't worth it if I upset Meg. She hugged me and I felt so many emotions at one time and I honestly had no clue if that was a good or bad thing.
"I'm kinda tired but you can ask one more question and we can talk more later."
I nodded while trying to think of a question that would answer some questions but not upset Meg too much. Finally I decided to ask, "What was you nightmare about?"
I felt bad for asking but it had been thinking about it since I woke up and I was honestly really worried.
"Umm my uhh Lauren... wait not my Lauren but," I saw her struggling with her words as I tried to comfort her by holding her hand. She looked down at our conjoined hands before continuing, "Lauren wasn't very nice and I always upset her. I didn't mean to of course but when I messed up she would hurt me. I deserved it,"
I wasn't able to control the soft gasp that escaped my mouth. I couldn't believe that Meg thought that she deserved to be abused but I didn't say anything as they finished speaking, "but it still fucks with me so I have nightmares."
Meg was silently crying as she finished telling me so I wiped away the tears. I was beyond shocked and angry with what I had just heard. I wanted to punch something or go find this Lauren girl and actually kill her but all thoughts stopped about hitting something as I saw Meg scoot away from me. I was sad and disappointed with myself as I saw how she looked afraid of me. I was still so angry that I barely heard Meg call my name.
"Kate?"
I snapped out of my anger as I saw fear on Meg's face and realized that I had caused it. In a slight panic I started apologizing, "Oh shit bubs I'm so sorry I didn't mean to scare you. I'm not mad at you I promise. Nobody deserves what happened to you and I'm so sorry it did."
I heard a slight sigh and I hesitantly connected our hands again. We sat in a comfortable silence as I thought about everything. I was extremely mad at myself for upsetting Meg and asking so many questions. As I was being upset about how awful I was I noticed Meg trying to stifle a yawn and then look at me. I looked back and thought about how we had totally switched positions. They were now the one tired and I was the one wide awake. I smiled at the thought before getting up.
"Hey where are you going?" Meg said with a frown.
"You look tired so I'm gonna go to the guest room so you can sleep." I explained before opening the door. In all honesty I wanted to do anything but leave Meg but I figured she wanted space after admitting what happened in her past. My suspicions were seemingly correct as I turned and Meg hadn't said anything. Suddenly their voice called out almost in a panic,
"Kate can you stay in here? I wanna cuddle."
My heart melted as I heard Meg's baby voice come out and there was no way I could have said no even if I wanted to. I was jumping into their bed without a second thought and I quickly got under the covers. She followed and I instinctively wrapped my arms around her. Instead of flinching she snuggled her head into my neck and was asleep with in the next few minutes. I wish I could have fallen asleep as fast as Meg had but my thoughts were running wild. I thought back to when her hoodie sleeve came up and I had seen the scars. Surely Lauren didn't make all those scars. The thought of Meg actually hurting herself made me sick to my stomach and I couldn't face it so I tried making excuses. But nothing really came up the only thought that was slightly reassuring was the scars looked somewhat older and healed. My mind drifted from the scars to Lauren. I didn't care how long I had known Meg if someone hurt her and I ever saw them I would beat the shit out of them. There was no way that Lauren was still in Illinois because from what I had seen of Kasper and heard about Sam they would have killed her for hurting Meg. The thought made me feel better and so I focused on the person that was cuddling me. You always hear people saying 'oh I get butterflies around this person' and I always thought it was bullshit until I met Meaghan. She made me feel all these different emotions without even trying and they had no idea how much I cared about them. I was falling hard and I didn't know if she liked me back or not and there was no way I would tell her and ruin our friendship. As my thoughts continued to swim in my mind I felt my eyes close and sleep take over.