Between Two Girls

Epilogue

2 months later

"Paige! Get up!" Juli shrieks, making Paige sit up on her bed fast. "It's a special day!"

The bookworm groans and touches her forehead. "Yeah, I know," she mutters. "It was funny the first time. Several years later, not so much." She drags herself out of bed while Emery's chuckling. Paige grabs the first clean things she sees. She then walks out of her room and into the nearest bathroom with a yellow tank top and jeans.

"At least Juli can remember your birthday," Emery says. "A lot of kids have to be reminded by Facebook these days."

Paige snorts, grabbing a hairbrush. "'These days'. For a voice you sound like you've been around for a long time," she remarks.

Imagining the sage shrugging, he answers, "Technically, I have been around for a long time."

"Alright. Point taken." Paige puts her hair up in a ponytail and gets to the kitchen, hearing a loud whirring. Anika is sitting on the kitchen counter pushing the blender lid with all her strength. "Anika, what are you doing?" Paige asks her sister.

Anika looks up. She lets go of the lid, which immediately flies up to the ceiling. The blended contents fly everywhere in the kitchen. Paige rushes back to keep herself dry while Anika hurriedly shuts off the machine. Anika looks at her sister with a sheepish grin. "Happy birthday?"

The bookworm laughs. "What were you trying to do?" She gets a bucket under the kitchen sink and grabs a nearby mop. "Make some kind of pink goop?" The contents are chunky and dark pink; Paige assumes it's supposed to be some kind of drink.

"Unless a strawberry-and-cake-frosting smoothie counts as goop," Anika replies quietly. She slowly gets down, trying not to step on any of the smoothie. Paige can see her sister's front is completely drenched.

"Well, why don't you clean yourself up, and I'll try to recreate your . . . " Paige isn't sure what it's supposed to be.

"Breakfast," Anika finishes. "And okay." She waddles to her room, passing by a confused Mrs. Sery.

"What happened?" she asks, looking at the mess.

Paige gets water in the bucket and dips the mop in. She then puts the mop on the floor and starts cleaning the smoothie up. "Just your typical every-day mess kids make," she says. After she's collected enough, she dips the mop in the bucket. "You can help if you want."

Mrs. Sery laughs. "Might as well," she says. She pauses. "Guess how many pounds I've put on," she adds.

The bookworm raises an eyebrow. "What?"

"15, since I came back home from the hospital."

Smiling, Paige gives her mom a congrats. She goes back to cleaning when Mrs. Sery holds her by the shoulders. "Let me look at you," she says. After a scan, she adds, "My, my. You're growing up fast." Paige's mom squeezes her shoulders. "Could have sworn you were ten just yesterday. I can't believe it."

"Yeah, I can't believe it either," Emery says. Paige just smiles and gestures the rest of the mess. 

Minutes later, they both manage to clean the kitchen up in time for Anika to come again. "All clean!" she exclaims.

"Anika, you only swapped your outfit," Paige says. "That's not exactly cleaning."

"It is in my world!" She proceeds to take out the ingredients again.

"Imagine how that'll go when she's out of the house," Emery comments. "She'd probably put someone with OCD in a coma." Paige and Juli laugh.

"What's so funny?" Anika asks.

The bookworm shakes her head. "Nothing," she says. "I'm just thinking."

"Oh. Think quietly, then."

________

Paige goes to her locker for her books. She passes by staring people, which after a while she's used to. She guesses any significant other of someone popular would get the same treatment. She and Lucy only showed the school they're together by a quick kiss between classes, but it was enough for people to gossip around.

Speaking of popularity, Lucy somehow got ranked higher than before. More students at the school were coming out, and Paige was surprised at how many people were like her. She managed to make a couple new friends in the process.

The first thing she sees is a "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" on the middle of her locker. Balloons are taped around it, and underneath the message Paige finds a lollipop dangling. She smiles to herself, surprised that Lucy would go through all the trouble to make it. She opens it and a small box is in the center of the locker space. "Open me," it says in bold letters.

"This reminds me of 'Alice in Wonderland'," Emery muses.

Paige nods in agreement and opens the box. Inside is another note. "Go to room 203," it states.

"Oooh, treasure hunt!" Juli says. "I call dibs on the prize!"

Paige ignores the party animal and enters the room the note told her to go. She immediately sees another note pinned on the whiteboard. "Lucy, what kind of trouble did you go through?" she mumbles, reading it.

The note takes her to another room in a different hall. All the teachers, including the one in the first room, give Paige weird looks as she enters, read the note, and leave. She ignores a few people jeering at her. Eli is one of them. As far as Paige knows, he's still popular, but only by football status. He had shown a lot of people his true colors that day Lucy came out.

After the 11th note points her to the cafeteria, Paige is starting to get a little annoyed. "I hope this is the last one," she mumbles.

Sure enough, she goes to the room with a few people there waiting for her. Lucy is in the center of the crowd with a huge smile on her face. "Paige!" she greets, hugging her girlfriend. "Took you long enough!"

"I was only following where the notes wanted me to go," Paige replies.

"I knew you were good enough to follow orders," Lucy teases.

Paige looks around. The other people are the ones who came out, and they each hold a colored box, one for each stripe on the rainbow. "Is this the end of the hunt?" she asks.

Lucy nods. "Kind of." She steps back and takes something out of her pocket. She holds it up for Paige to see: a simple necklace chain with a tiny book charm. "This is for you," she adds. Lucy gestures the bookworm to turn around so she can put the necklace on.  When she's done, Lucy wraps her arms around Paige's waist. "I had a few people hold a different charm in different boxes. That's why they have them."

Paige laughs. "This is the sweetest thing to do," she says. The people smile and hand her the boxes. She's not sure what to do with them, until Lucy tells her she can open them later.

"And," Lucy pauses for dramatic effect. "I'm going to take you to a place I think you might like." She looks at her phone for the time. "And I think I should get you out of here about now."

"Wait, what?" Paige asks as Lucy escorts her out of the room. "Where are we going?" Lucy doesn't answer as both girls walk to Lucy's car. When Paige gets in the passenger seat, she says, "I never thought I'd be dating a rebel."

Lucy smirks. "There's quite a few things you don't know about me," she says. "As to answer your question . . . remember that one cafe where we sang?"

Paige raises an eyebrow. "You're taking me there?" she asks.

"You wish. No, there's this amazing bookstore with several floors. It's next to the cafe." The bookworm's jaw drops. "See? I knew you'd like that."

"Holy-you'll regret taking me there," Paige says. "In case you don't know, I like to spend a lot on books. It's not even funny." Lucy just smiles softly, and leans over to kiss Paige on the mouth.

"One more order, Birthday Girl," she whispers. "Shut up and enjoy it."