my friends from instagram (fifth harmony)

3.12 where there's security

fp: 4/12/21

part 50 - how did this get so far? and it's nowhere near the end. wild. stream ordinaryish people by ajr and enjoy!

dinah
clara offered to babysit tonight

dinah
she did coat that with saying that i'm uptight and probably need a night to myself but

dinah
she has michael tonight

normanz 💕
that sounds like an invite to come over

dinah
i ordered pizza and chicken wings

normanz 💕
i'm coming

-

Half an hour after their texts, Normani arrives at Dinah's. They talk for a while and the food arrives, which they devour in no more than one crappy romcom.

"How long were you mad at me for?" Dinah asks once they've decided to go lay down in her room.

Normani sighs, not meeting her eyes, "Longer than I'd like to admit."

It's quiet for a few minutes and Normani grabs her hand, gently running her thumb alongside the younger girl's knuckles, "If you stayed after high school, do you think you ever would've gotten over Lauren?"

Dinah hums, "I was already almost over her when I left. I knew she was happy with Camila and it was enough for a really long time. And I liked you... but, I don't know how to explain it. UCLA accepting me was like this fresh start that I never imagined for myself."

"So you're happy that you took it?" Normani asks.

"Even though it hurt so much at the time?" Dinah asks and Normani nods, "Yeah, I'm glad I did, because it gave me the time I needed to reevaluate everything I was doing. And I found Michael... and he just makes everything so much better in my life."

"That's the only time I've ever heard you use male pronouns in a loving way," Normani laughs, and Dinah laughs with her.

"I mean," Dinah's stomach twists at the way Normani's looking at her, "I loved my brothers. They just never really came up."

"You never talked about your family except for your mom," Normani replies, shuffling so she could cuddle closer to Dinah, "and that was always just bashing, you never spoke fondly of her."

"There's not a lot to be fond of," Dinah explains, "like... the one time she was truly proud was the day we got the confirmation that I could move on to fourth grade instead of third. She and my dad took me and my siblings out for ice cream and because I was showing so much promise, she got me two scoops while the rest of my family only got one."

"My mom did shit like that for everything. Good grades, bad grades, graduations, bad days especially but she'd bring home a tub and we'd go to town with shit movies playing... she was the best at that," Normani recounts, a perfectly placated smile on her face, "even when I moved out, she said that once a month we needed to have a treat together, even if it was over FaceTime."

"I loved your mom," Dinah says, "She always asked me how I was doing, even if I was fine, and I was so not used to it that I was really standoffish at first and she had to sit me down and explain that she wasn't trying to catch me doing anything wrong and she just cared."

"She told me about that after you left," Normani says, and Dinah barely notices how their voices have fallen from loud laughter to gentle voices that were reserved for only them to hear. "I never asked because I was pissed and kind of just wanted to rip your eyeballs out, but how did you manage living alone?"