nineteen. deny, deny, deny

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THE DAY AFTER HOMECOMING, Nina expected giddy texts from the two of her friends

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THE DAY AFTER HOMECOMING, Nina expected giddy texts from the two of her friends. Maybe Betty calling them over to celebrate in one of those smoothie places she loved so much. Maybe, a small part of her expected Liz to be gushing over the wonderful time she and Peter spent together, dancing at the even that Liz had micro-managed.

What she didn't expect was this. Liz obviously sullen, voice just on the edge of cracking as she explained her whole situation which even for Nina, was way too fucking much: 1.) Peter Parker ditched her, not even a minute in Liz's presence as Space Age Love Song played in the background. 2.) Her dad got arrested. 3.) Her leaving New York and moving to Oregon since her dad doesn't want her family to be there at the trial. 4.) Her unable to see either Betty or Nina at the moment since she was busy packing up all her stuff and the only reason she'll be going to school on Monday was to grab all her stuff - then it's straight to Oregon.

It's fucked up. It's thoroughly fucked up on so many levels and there's a part of her chest, angry and bitter at the boy for just leaving Liz like that. Although the two of them became friends in a very unconventional way, Nina has grown to love the presence of Liz, as cheesy as it might sound, and knowing that Peter had started her downward spiral of the night made that bitterness worse.

So despite planning her escape route with the one sister she'd never thought would be on her side, Nina spends a couple of hours consoling her best friend who was crying on the phone. If she could just walk up to Liz and take that pain away from her at that very moment, she would.

Well, technically, she could do it. But emotions are what make us human. Make us real. (It was ironic, really. Here she was, running away from her emotions and shoving them down into a pit in her stomach - she was the last person who should be talking about emotions.)

"She finally done crying?" Valeria enters the kitchen with her trusted laptop eleven minutes after Liz ended the call to pack up the rest of her personal belongings. "Can we talk about the plan now?"

"Don't be such a fucking bitch, Valeria." Nina snarks aggressively, setting her chicken sandwich down. It wasn't Delmar's, but it was okay.

There's no weird tension between the two of them like Nina initially thought this whole thing was gonna be: since Valeria was also a mentally ill teenage girl who ran away from her emotions, the two of them chose to pretend like the last night of the two girls in their most vulnerable states never happened.

It gave Nina that small sense of normalcy that she clearly needed before everything goes to shit, so she wasn't complaining.

"What?" Valeria defends herself, grabbing the sandwich off Nina's hands and taking a huge bite of it. "She was crying so loud."

"Her homecoming date ditched her, dad got arrested, and she found out that she needed to move to Oregon all in one night. I think that's a valid reason to cry. Give me my fucking sandwich." Nina quipped, taking the meal out of her sister's fingers just when she was about to take another bite.

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