Boscha looked over to the door to the bedroom before taking her water bottle off of her lips. Amity was flicking water off of her hands before she looked at her old friend. “Luz should be in soon. She said she wanted to soak her head for a little longer to make sure it didn’t catch fire again.”

The bully lifted herself up with a stretch before cocking a hip to the side and putting a hand on it. “I’m hoping that by again you mean the twelfth time. You guys have been in there for fifteen minutes.”

Amity groaned as she rubbed her temples and sat down on Boscha’s desk chair. The bully’s room was almost exactly the same as she remembered it. It was pretty sparse with a dresser against a wall, a bookshelf to the right of the desk she now sat at, and a closet she bet looked like a mess like it always was. It didn’t help of course that at least a quarter of it was dominated by her giant bed that could easily hold all three of the girls tonight so no one would need to sleep on the floor. You know, unless they were afraid of waking up holding another girl. Again. Amity glanced away as she considered for a second just how long she’d liked girls before deciding it didn’t matter. She didn’t hold feelings for Boscha after all and was here to relax. Romance was the last thing she wanted to think about. “She was like one of those trick candles. You put it out and ten seconds she’d light back up.”

Boscha let out a snarky laugh before gesturing to herself. “Well, I mean, this is the first time she’s seen all of this. I can’t blame her for needing some time to cope.”

Amity’s cheeks burned enough to spread to her ears for a second before looking her old friend up and down and asking, “Did you really have to go so extra?”

Boscha rolled her eyes before sitting on her bed and taking another swig of her water bottle. She was already a third of the way done with it and she couldn’t help but think that she was probably going to need a refill before the end of the night. She then reached into one of her pockets and popped a stick of gum into her mouth before finally looking back at Amity. “Like I said, I wanted to make sure Luz was in a mood to like me. Horny is a mood.”

Amity almost choked on her own spit at the joke before coughing hard to clear it. When she recovered, she took her time to finally say, “Yeah, but, uh, did you have to buy all of that for tonight? You… You don’t wear that stuff normally, do you?”

Boscha let out another obnoxious laugh before pointing at the gloves and saying, “Vampire costume from last year,” then at her fishnets, “something fun for myself one night,” then at her shorts, “I wear these under my Grudgby uniform to help avoid chafing,” and then finally pointed at her wrap. “And this was me forcing a sewing club nerd to give me some white cloth so I could get the sizing right myself.” Her eyes then widened as she realized what she said. “Uh, I mean, I asked one of them politely and they were kind enough to help me out by giving me the cloth.”

Amity grabbed a cup of juice Boscha had left on her desk, along with a few others for her two guests to enjoy, before looking her over the top of it. “Boscha, you could have led with that and I would have known what you actually did.”

Boscha sighed before shaking her head and holding her hands up to stop this. “Look, I said I’d try to make peace with Luz. Random nerds still don’t matter.”

Amity scowled for a second before saying, “You realize that becoming a better person shouldn’t be for selective people, right?”

The bully’s third eye twitched as she couldn’t help but think about how she was definitely going to need a refill by the end of the night. She even took another large swig of her water bottle before biting back with, “Oh, and you don’t still almost curse out anyone who knocks into you in the hallways, do you?”

Amity glared back at the triclops before both of them stopped to look at the door as Luz walked in. Amity paled at the sight of what her crush had changed into while Boscha’s jaw went slack. The idiot didn’t seem to notice though as she said, “Okay, I think I-” she looked at Boscha for a second before smacking a few small licks of flame out of her hair. “Okay, now I think I’m good.”

Boscha took another second to process the human’s outfit before just saying in a deadpan tone, “Are you an-”

“Don’t say the O w-”

“Otter?”

Amity smacked herself and let out a small scream as Luz put a hand under her chin and said, “With a dark side.”

Boscha lost it at that as she fell back onto her bed and couldn’t stop herself from falling into a complete laughing fit. She did manage to squeak out, “What’s, hehe, wrong, hahaha, with her?”

Luz was beaming at how well Boscha was taking the outfit but soon had on the same mischievous smile that she always had when she was being a bad, bad otter. For a second, as she looked at Boscha, Luz realized what her normal thought about her costume would sound like to others before deciding to focus on messing with Amity instead of having her head catch on fire again. So she pressed her cheek against her crush’s as she said, “She wore a costume just like this during our first sleepover and we made dark side and light side jokes all night long. Didn’t we?”

Amity was questioning her life choices at this point and Boscha made her blush turn ghostly white as the hyena that appeared to look like a girl sprang up from her bed. “Oh Titan, please tell me you have pictures!”

Luz leapt up before reaching for her phone. “Of course!” The moment she took out her phone though, Amity snatched it out of her hands and threw it out the window of the room as hard as she could.

Boscha blinked a few times before whispering to Luz, “She did always have the fastest hands on the team, but usually didn’t need to panic to show it off.”

Amity grabbed her head as one of her eyes twitched. Who brought these two together? Who thought this was a good idea? This was a nightmare! Why would anyone do this to her? And why in the world did she agree to this? “Boscha, you realize you don’t need to torture me to get along with Luz, right?”

Boscha tapped her chin a few times before stretching out the start of, “No.” She then turned to Luz and asked, “Speaking of, I looked back through my phone and cameras to see if I could dig up any of the ‘unspeakable photos’ Amity and I have taken. I was thinking that they could help us understand each other.”

Amity’s brain just slowly shut down as she wished she could disappear or that Titan would strike her down where she stood as she heard it. After all, she knew telling Boscha no wasn’t going to work and if she told Luz no, she’d just get more curious. After all, her idiot was already excitedly saying, “Oooh, I love backstories!”

Boscha let out a sigh of relief. This wouldn’t last all night of course, but it was the best thing she’d been able to come up with to try to get both of them on her side. After all, Luz seemed to love making a fool of herself so if her letting herself look like an idiot would get the human on her side then she’d suffer through it. And then there was Amity. Maybe if she reminded her of what the two had been through she’d remember why she mattered…

No. She… She mattered without Amity. Amity…

“This is the best thing that could ever happen to us so if you fuck this up… “

She forced herself not to take a long breath to clear her head and instead spent about five seconds chugging from her water bottle. She then coughed as she accidentally swallowed her gum before pulling out another stick to chew on. Luz’s eyes lit up at the sight of the treat. “Oh, is that gum?”

Boscha rubbed her throat for a moment before looking over. “Yeah.” She then paused for a second before realizing that Luz wouldn’t just ignore her popping gum like Amity would. “Uh, would you like a stick?”

Luz nodded eagerly before jumping at Boscha throwing the gum at her forehead. Amity laughed for a moment as the idiot flailed her hands around and fell backwards. Meanwhile, Boscha grabbed one of the three cameras she kept in one of her drawers. One was for when she wanted to take better looking photos than she could get on her scroll phone, one was a back up, and then one was an old one she’d kept after she got the second two from Amity when she was twelve because it was the first gift her old friend had given her. The memories on it… “Alright, I’m not going to torture you with the last two years, especially since I think I’m done dealing with a bonfire in my room.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Luz pouted for a second before bouncing onto the bed to sit beside Boscha. To the bully’s other side, Amity relaxed and sat herself. She was resigned to her fate after all and at least Luz wouldn’t see her after Boscha started convincing her to try out different outfits with her.

Or so she thought as the first one the triclops flipped to was the two of them in sailor outfits. Luz almost spat out her drink at the sight before yelling, “How? I mean, what?”

Amity groaned as she buried her head into her hands. “Edric and Emira bought the dumb things and Boscha thought we could pull them off.”

Boscha batted her eyes at Amity as she countered with, “And I still think we did.”

“I look like a guy!”

“A cute guy.”

Amity squealed as she covered her face and Boscha found her breath catching at the sight. Amity was never this flustered with her before. She’d normally just scowl, cross her arms, and look away before calling whatever they were doing dumb. To think she might have actually been reacting like this secretly before now… She touched her chest as her cheeks managed to beat out her blush and foundation because of how fast her heart was beating.

Luz frowned for a second as her chest hurt for a second before glancing around and spotting the wardrobe. She could distract Boscha by opening one of the drawers… No. She would be breaking one of the rules Amity told her to stick to. Besides, she was being dumb. Amity and her were barely friends nowadays.

She then sighed as Amity leaned against the bully. She looked content. She never looked so calm with her. She was always in a full panic, even without her having to get all dressed up and flirty. She then clapped her cheeks as she tried to figure out what the heck she was thinking! And why wouldn’t those stupid voices return to make sure she didn’t think like this.

Amity looked up at the sound of the light smacking while Boscha continued to scroll through her photos. “Are you okay?”

Boscha winced at the question. Why was she worrying about the human being weird? They were supposed to be focusing on them. On the rare times they did dumb stuff. She couldn’t just yell that though. She couldn’t even growl.

Luz then blinked a few times before asking, “Did you just growl?”

Fuck.

“Do humans not?”

“Amity doesn’t.

The two girls glared at each other as Amity frowned at seeing the two of them like this. She couldn’t even just blame Boscha for it. Were they really this incapable of getting along? She then looked down and pointed at the camera. “Oh Titan, I remember this one. You invited me to your hangout shack and one of the other idiots in there decided that bringing bees to show off was a good idea.”

Boscha rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I don’t know why I kept hanging out with him afterwards. Then again, he was pretty good at obeying.” The bully smirked at herself before noticing that Amity didn’t smile. Luz at least was as she was trying to get over how in the picture Amity was looking away from Boscha, just like she did nowadays when she got flustered, and covered in honey from when the bees began exploding. She looked so cute too from being so short, or shorter, just four years ago. She looked like she was trying to be some old biddy though with how she had her hair tied up in a bun too.

Just as Boscha was about to start panic scrolling to try and get to whatever would get her friend smiling again, Amity said, “I remember when he agreed to be the skeleton to one of my abominations. He was real desperate to be next to us, wasn’t he?”

Boscha raised an eyebrow at her friend. “Was? I still get atted at him on his try hard Penstagram posts.” She then held her hands to the sides of her face and sarcastically said, “Oh, I totally believe you’re on top of the giant skeleton in the sea. It’s not a green screen at all.” She then snickered as she now calmly scrolled through the memories.

And it continued that way. Luz kept trying to say stuff but she had no entry point. She didn’t know the people, it was connected to some weird part of the Boiling Isles that she didn’t know, or something she didn’t consider dumb or embarrassing because she was never held to any sort of high standard. At least, before this Summer and she still ran from that. Even worse was that Amity got lost in talking to Boscha more and more with each photo. Seemed to transform back into the mean girl she used to be as she laughed at how much of a jerk she used to be.

Luz’s eyes glanced back at the wardrobe as the other two girls stopped. The two didn’t take too many pictures that wouldn’t have made them look good after all, not with how they were raised, and the camera was old enough to not be able to hold that many pictures. Which meant they got to the first one. The one where Boscha had asked the serious girl to pose for a picture to go with the camera and she’d just walked away because she didn’t want to.

Amity blinked a few times at the memory. Back when she only got Boscha something because they’d known each other for two years and her parents forced her to. A camera had seemed like as good of an option as anything back then. She sighed before hesitantly reaching over and slipping her fingers into Boscha’s. “There’s a reason I’m happy that I grew up. I want to stop being a bitch to my friends. And the fact that I’ve just continued being one to you…”

Boscha blinked a few times before realizing she was too late and a set of tears had already run down her face. She sniffled back some snot before trying for a smirk but really just made her lips tremble. She was better than this. She was supposed to control herself better. She had the water bottle for that exact reason. “I-I mean, you were right enough about me to help me figure out I liked taking pictures.”

Amity shut her eyes harder but couldn’t stop the tears this time. “Boscha, my mom chose to give you a camera. It was just some throw away thing back then. The fact that it helped you,” her voice cracked for a second before she rubbed at her eyes with an arm, “I wish I could take credit for that.”

Oh. Boscha blinked a few times as she stared at the picture. A picture that meant so much to her. That started so much. After all, sharing some of the places she went to take pictures was part of what got Amity to start actually noticing her. To make her like her. To actually talk to her instead of always seeming to think about someone. Thinking about Willow. Thinking about how angry she was for “the best thing that could ever happen to us.”

“Wow, you have a lot of foundation in here.”

Boscha blinked a few times before turning to the voice. Luz was looking around in the second drawer of her dresser. The first one had been just socks but neither Amity or the bully had noticed Luz opening the drawers so she’d had plenty of time to move to the next one. To her makeup drawer. She even had the time to figure out, “Like, seventeen. They’re even the same color. W-”

“Get out of there!” Boscha didn’t think. She just lunged at Luz and slammed the intruder into the bed. What right did she have to try to get to know her? To ask her questions? If she didn’t exist then everything would still be okay. It’d be uncomplicated. It’d be just how she liked it. Just Amity and her against the world.

She gripped the collar to the otter costume hard enough to almost tear it as she looked at Luz’s neck. Humans were fragile. An abomination would take time to make and pry her off of the monster who ruined everything. It’d be so easy…

“Boscha!”

The bully froze instantly at the sound of her father’s voice. Amity then came next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. But she looked sad. No, she looked at Boscha like she was pathetic, because she was. Amity never looked at her like that before. Or, at least, never pitied her. Her voice only confirmed it for the bully as she whispered, “I’m so sorry. I told Luz to stay out of your stuff. I’ll talk to her while you see your dad.”

Boscha actually did rip the costume this time with her nails as the thick fabric was the only reason she didn’t cut into her palms. She wasn’t pathetic. She was the Grudgby team captain. She was a star on Penstagram. She was friends with the Amity Bli… She was friends… Boscha shut her eyes as she let go of Luz before barely getting onto her feet. Everything was suddenly spinning. Was she that angry? No. No, she needed a potion. One of the ones she had just in case of this sort of thing. She placed a hand on the bed to steady herself for a second before reaching over and grabbing her water bottle. She needed it. But she couldn’t drink it now. Not in front of Amity and Luz. She was too far gone.

She stumbled for a second as she made her way to the door but Amity didn’t notice. She was too busy trying to get an answer out of Luz for why in the world she intentionally antagonized Boscha, especially when the bully had actually been trying so hard tonight.

All for nothing, Boscha thought as she spent about ten seconds chugging down the last fifth of the bottle. She then almost dropped straight to the floor with her next step but instead leaned against the wall all the way to the center of the house where the kitchen and dining room were. Boscha’s father was waiting there. He was a large man, both in weight and stature. His arms were as thick as his daughter’s head and the muscles in them were currently very easy to see with how angry she was. “I’ve been listening in on you all.”

Boscha winced at the statement before she went to check the drawers. She couldn’t remember where they were but once she found her potions she could get the spinning to stop. Could stand on her own again. The thoughts would stop too. They had to. She was going to fuck this up otherwise. They were going to have to talk about it finally. “It… It was just a small hiccup. Luz is enjoying herself. I think. That’s what’s important.”

The second the words were out of her lips she knew she’d misspoken. Her dad only crossed his arms before saying, “She doesn’t matter. She’s nothing but a freak that shouldn’t get five seconds of your attention. Amity is what matters. Just like she always has.”

Boscha slowly nodded back before knocking back the shot of potion she’d made herself, after spilling half the bottle because she thought the cup was a few inches to the right, and breathed a sigh of relief as she opened her eyes and saw properly again. She just had to keep her chill and make things right. Killing Luz would manage both of those things.

Oh. The potion didn’t stop the thoughts. “Fuck.”

“What did you just say young lady?”

She groaned at the growl in her dad’s voice. “Nothing.” She then dropped her voice a little and whispered, “Totally didn’t curse because of that fucking idiot.”

Did she just say that second part out loud? She glanced at her water bottle and shut her eyes. She hadn’t downed a whole bottle this fast… ever. It was okay though. She would shut up. Nod. Be good. Be good for her friend. The girl who was totally her friend. The beautiful, smart, bitch that never cared about- No, Amity did. She had to. She had to.

“Bo, can you not handle yourself in there? Do I need to send them home so we can talk?”

Boscha flinched hard enough to almost fall down before she shook her head. “No. I can do this. I promise. I just… I just need another bottle.”

Her father narrowed his eyes at her. “There’s another one in the fridge and some cookies on the counter to explain why I had you come in.”

Boscha slowly nodded as she grabbed the two of them. She then downed a fifth of this bottle before swaying for a second. She could stabilize though. She could function. She had to. She did need gum though. She should have another piece in her pocket. She hadn’t expected to burn through so much so quickly though. It was supposed to be simple making that idiot happy. Then everything would be okay.

She then pulled her hand out of her pocket and looked at the empty package of gum. For a few moments, Boscha was confused. She had three. She knew she did. Where did the third…

I am going to fucking kill her.

No. No. She would just keep her mouth shut until she got to her dresser and grabbed some more. Then everything would be okay. It had to be. It had to be.

It had to be.