Chapter Text
In the beginning of the beginning, they were all children.
In the beginning of the beginning, they never knew any better. Young sacks of blood and bones, getting drunk at Joe’s with heartbreak after heartbreak.
They walk that street to the east of the hospital everyday, without any second thoughts to what they had left behind.
They started putting on suits and dresses, trying and pretending to grow up. Somewhere along the way, they looked down at a picture they took all drunk, and realised that it was time to stop staying out until three in the morning.
They started to shed their bright eyes and closed in on the distance between scut and scalpels. On new pictures, one might not even recognise their old familiar smiles, standing in different clothing and different hair.
At the end of the end, they all have children of their own. At the end of the end, they are settling down in different suburbs. Cornflower scrubs are lying forgotten in dusty corners, replaced with peeking bits of white hair.
At the end of the end, meeting was fate, but falling in love is a private kind of delight.
JUNE 15, 20 09
Seattle Grace Mercy West wasn't ever particularly gentle to anyone. People broke hearts, ran from gunmen, and had sex in on-call rooms as people do.
Arizona still worked there, day and night, chasing after surgeries and pursuing these so-called dreams. She was everything an intern was supposed to be.
…
Maybe all that was good was never really meant to stay good. The very same way what was bad didn't ever stay so terribly bad.
People talk about parallel universes a lot. Parallel universes and other lives. No one ever seemed too satisfied with the present.
Callie smoothed out her already smoothed dress. This visit to Seattle was ending tomorrow. She was leaving her best friend tomorrow and going back to her slow life in Miami. What was she waiting for to start living?
Mark ruffled her hair and grinned, spinning her around and putting his hands on her shoulders as they both looked into the mirror. "We're only twenty something, Cal. We've still got the rest of our whole damn lives."
"But I'm freaking out.
"Don't freak out," Mark said, "we can stay up all night if you want to forget about your life for a little bit." He pursed his lips. "Forget about Erica. Forget about your family. Tonight is you, your best friend, and beer."
Callie blinked and her red dress clung to her shamelessly. She wouldn't have wanted it any different. Flimsy, thin, and cheap in that dollar-store way.
Callie smiled at them in the mirror. "Thank you, Mark."
Tonight, they were young.
He shrugged good-naturedly. "If no one takes you home in this, I will."
She laughed, turning around, and punched him softly on the shoulder and didn't answer. She didn't need sex or alcohol or doing stupid things with stupid people in order to have proof of her youth. Her youth was her's, and it counted no matter how she chose to spend it.
The night was thick and the bar was full. The music was loud and inappropriate, and Callie liked it that way. Music turned so fucking loud she couldn't think. Thinking was overrated anyway.
Mark moved in tune with her from all the times they'd danced before and she loved it. The bar was so crowded she couldn't breathe without taking in a mouthful of sweat and booze. It also meant that she could dance like no one was watching in between all the other lost bodies moving to the beat. He spun her around and they both laughed. They'd once ventured into the 'friends with benefits' area, even if that wasn't the case anymore. Callie wasn't his great love story, and Mark, not her's, but he hugged her when no one else would, and she stayed when he had no one to turn to.
Swaying dangerously close to Mark, she grinned up at him as she wiggled her hips. He wiggled his eyebrows back. Just about as she was going to turn around, a hard body collided with her back.
A white button-down shirt and a head of blonde hair scowled when Callie turned around. The woman pushed her hair out of her face and forced a smile, crookedly, bobbing her head as a greeting to the both of them.
"Sorry. My bad."
"It's okay," Callie grinned, still caught up in the music, not minding the half-hearted apology.
The woman saluted them both, still wearing that crooked smile, like she just didn't have enough energy in her to pull the other corner of her mouth up too. "Have a nice night."
"You too!"
The woman nodded and stuffed her hands into her pant pockets, lowering her head and pushing back through the sweaty bodies. And in just another moment, the bunch of faceless people jumping and swaying went back to being blank and unjudgmental.
Swivelling around, Mark wiggled his eyebrows again. Callie rolled her eyes at him, getting exactly what he was meaning.
"To early, Mark."
He deflated a little. "It's always too early for you. It will always be too early until you actually go out and find another person to love, Callie."
She made a face. "I just don't know how to yet. I'm tired, you know?"
"I get that." He said after a long pause as he took her hand and spun her around again. "Then all we'll do is dance tonight."
"We'll dance tonight."
Callie didn't believe in best friends for a long time, not when she was in grade school, not when she was in high school. All of the books and movies of groups of friends beating the crap out of life were bullshit to her. No one stuck out with anyone like that. This path everyone walked was each for themselves. She never thought that this particular man-whore could be the exception that made her have a little faith again, but he was, and she couldn't be more grateful.
The speakers changed songs, and Callie turned around to Mark. "Something to drink?" Her voice was nearing on shouting over the blaring song, but she liked the rawness in her throat.
"Sure," he answered, looping an arm around her shoulders and squeezing the both of them through the crowd.
Everyone got a bone to pick, and everyone had a person to love. Callie sat down on a stool and she was the person out of place of this building oozing of booze and adultery. Mark had gone since a few minutes to hit on a group of girls. On which one, she didn't know, maybe the whole damn gang of them. It wouldn't have surprised her.
She sighed.
She wandered pointlessly around the slick floors and then out the jingling front doors. The night air wasn't any less stuffy then the air inside the bar, but it was lighter. She crinkled her nose when she smelled smoke in the air, but she guessed it shouldn't have surprised her. This was the alley next to a bar, after all. Still, she coughed quietly when another bout of breeze brought another bout of smoke.
"I can put out this smoke if you want. I wouldn't want you suffocating out here."
Callie jumped a little, spinning around. The blonde woman nodded at her, still wearing that tired smile. She looked better in the streetlights then the fuzzy neon lights of the bar.
It made her look purer. Cleaner. Less sinful.
Her smile matched her tired jeans, worn out and scuffed at the edges. It looked good all the same.
"Jesus. You scared me."
The woman chuckled. "Sorry."
She looked too pretty for Callie to be completely at ease. Her blonde hair was nearing to a state of angelic in the night, but the cigarette between her fingers said completely otherwise.
Callie stood there, not really knowing what to say.
Callie imagined getting her own place thousands of times, and carrying grocery bags to the fridge on a Sunday afternoon and making a good dinner with good music. Callie never wanted great accomplishments or memorable excitement to invade her life. All that she ever wanted that was great was a great love story, and she was already trying to let that one go.
Whatever the air that night was infiltered with, it certainly was a little bizarre, because Callie was really, never, ever, one to reach for those reckless adventures. She didn't know why she didn't back away when Arizona stepped forward.
And when Arizona spoke, it was like a lull into a dangerous trance, but still a trance that she somehow wanted.
The wisps of blonde hair in the woman's face were delicate and golden under the faint light, and a little bit dirty. Callie couldn't take her eyes off her.
Arizona was speaking, and Callie was sure that she was answering, but she wasn't too aware of the directions and the specifics of this conversation. She supposed it was sort of long, because it was enough for her to not flinch away when Arizona stepped forward again and she stood still. She kind of liked the teetering pleasure this brought.
Bits of conversation floated around, getting into her head. Your name…this bar…Mark…breakups…you're pretty…
At least, that was until Arizona's breath was so close it dizzied Callie, and it was no longer teetering. Her red dress was as flimsy as ever, and it felt barely even there with Arizona's cold hands on her hips, red and cheap and ready to be ripped off.
"What if it's just tonight?"
Callie swallowed. "Tonight?"
"One night."
Callie swallowed again. She didn't know any better than Arizona's hands on her hips. That she wanted her. "I really need you to stop looking at me like you're about to kiss me," she whispered.
"But what's wrong with that?"
Arizona's eyes sparkled for the first time that night. They escaped the cloud of smoke they perpetually seemed stuck in and called out to Callie. The two of them weren't ever getting older than this particular night of June.
"One night, then," Callie mumbled into the skinny inch of air between them. She almost regretted it as it left her mouth. She didn't do one-night stands. She did relationships and commitment and…one single Mark. She'd only been with, like, four people her whole life. But she'd been walking this fine line between being a good girl and dumb ideas for so long.
The corner of Arizona's mouth flicked upwards and her heart forgot how to beat without throwing itself in a suicidal rage against her ribs.
…
Neon signs flickered above Callie's head, spelling out the name of this motel near a highway. It looked like the god hanging above every young, drunk, and useless American night. It made her a little sad. She looked at Arizona in the driver's seat, one hand out the window and one hand on the steering wheel and Callie could swear that Arizona felt a little sad too. But it was very much alright.
They weren't alone. They could be just a little sad together. In, like, a really sexy way.
The car stopped and they were both out of the car, and Callie's hand was somehow already tangled in Arizona's. They arrived to front of their room door with Callie pinned to it, and Arizona pressed against her like religion in high heels. The fraction of the slice of time before they kiss, Arizona looked at Callie and Callie nodded. She didn't know what she nodded for until Arizona was kissing her and her hands were in Arizona's hair.
They shouldn't have been kissing. Kissing was supposed to be reserved for people in love, in tune, in a relationship. This wasn't anything much of what Callie had ever done before, and exactly what she felt like she should've been doing on a Wednesday night in June. Callie could still taste the smoke on Arizona's breath, and to be honest, she never liked the smell of cigarettes. They made her cough.
She never liked them, not up until now.
The door was fumbled open and the dress was finally ripped from Callie's body. The tinkle of Arizona's belt buckle interrupted the heat and they both giggled at her fumbling hands.
With only a lacy bralette and underwear, Callie sat on the edge of the bed. The giggle that came out of Arizona's mouth didn't belong with the tired smile and tired jeans smoking outside of a bar. Her unbuttoned shirt hung loose and the whiteness of it was a different then that of her skin, and again, Callie had no idea how this woman could look so deadly and angelic at the same time. Arizona chuckled again at her own hands, and Callie smiled too. The moment was catching up to her, and it didn't feel as scary as it did in the car.
"Here," Callie said, scooting closer to the edge, "let me."
Arizona looked surprised, but let Callie pull her in closer by the belt loops. When she'd undone the buckle, Arizona pulled it out in one swift movement, and looking up, Callie smiled at Arizona. She was met with a smile and before she could comment on the uneven dimples that appeared, that smile lowered and brushed against her own. Only for a second, forsaking the almost-kiss and landing instead, open-mouthed and soft, on her jaw.
Callie didn't take her time, and she didn't want Arizona to either. Maybe if this burned enough, Callie could forget that this wasn't something that she'd usually do at all, and that she was currently in a cheap motel with a practical stranger. She would just have to believe that this particular stranger wouldn't burn her too much.
She yelped softly when her back hit the bed. Looking up, Arizona's wicked, greedy, smile looked back, and Callie tried to control the little squirm of her own hips. Metaphorical winds rushed in her ear, and she moaned as Arizona pushed a knee into her thin underwear. Neither of them said much of anything, and there wasn't much dirty talk. They were strangers, and they were fucking. That was all.
…
Arizona's hand was planted next to Callie's head, and she watched her bite her lip as her fingers trailed over her underwear. It seemed as though Callie was determined to look not so easy. Arizona smiled at the warm sight of Callie squeezing her eyes closed and gripping the lapels of her own shirt that was yet to be taken off. The flimsy material of the underwear was barely keeping the heat from seeping out. Arizona traced a finger over it, and smirked when Callie bit down harder on her lip and dug her head into the sheets.
Out of nowhere, she thrusted two fingers into her, and hummed when she finally pushed a small moan out of Callie. And then she thrusted harder, faster, because that small moan seemed to have been her undoing.
She could smell their sweat dripping together and she could smell Callie's sweet shampoo from where her nose nudged against the tender skin under her ear with every push.
"Mm." Arizona was never one to talk during these one-night things. But she couldn't stop this one statement from taking form.
"God. You're so fucking pretty like this."
And it was every bit as true as anything could be. Arizona hooked her fingers and Callie's moans cut off short with small gasps. And lord, she really was fucking pretty this way. With a pink tint spreading all over her chest and cheeks, her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth bobbing incoherently. This woman was one of the nicer fucks, Arizona had long decided.
The one moment before, Callie struggled against her eyelids and finally gazed through her lashes, up at Arizona's flushed face. And then came a gentle moan that ended in half a whimper, and Callie's back arched away from the white sheets and into Arizona's front. Pliantly, marvellously, pushing herself into Arizona.
…
To be honest, Callie never planned on being this easy.
She told herself that she could back away any time anyway, but that was before Arizona laid her hands on her and before Callie realised how hard it was to pull away. This was such a bad idea.
"This is my first time doing…" Callie finally said into the dark room, both of them watching the pattern-less ceiling, "this kind of thing, you know."
She heard Arizona stop breathing for a second beside her and embarrassed, she quickly added, "N-No! Not that. Uh, I meant, uh…this. This one-night kind of thing."
"Oh."
"But, uh, I guess, I mean," Callie made a face to herself and pinched her own leg, "it was nice."
Arizona chuckled at Callie's awkwardness. "My pleasure." She liked this girl. She could almost sense that she was not her usual flimsy kind of girl who were only there for liquor and sex. She thought that they might could've even been friends in another time. She thought that they were nice together.
"I'm just, just, not in a, um, very good place right now."
"Me neither."
"Yeah," Callie breathed.
An old clock that was coloured in the color of yesterday's lunch ticked away the seconds on a nightstand next to their heads. Arizona didn't know why she didn't just up and go like she usually did.
"My best friend has terminal cancer," she suddenly blurted into the dark, "and I'm a fucking doctor, and I can't do anything except to smoke six cigarettes a day and go to bars and have one-night stands." She half-expected the other woman to laugh or stay silent or call her a freak. And then her other half thought that she just might understand.
"I get it," Callie said after a small pause. "Not the one-night stands or the cigarettes. But I broke up with my girlfriend three months ago and my family is pretending I never existed."
"God."
"I'm in medical school."
Arizona managed to smile. "Maybe you can become a genius orthopedic goddess one day that could've can cure his leg."
Callie shifted into a small smile too. "I'll try my best."
"You know, being a good human is so hard. Maybe I can turn into a frog someday. Or a duck. Ducks are cute." Arizona's eyes grew wider and she added, "Or I can be a chicken. I've always like chickens."
Callie nodded in agreement. "Same here." She paused for a moment and then said, "For the record, I think you'd make a great chicken. Or whatever else you'd want to be."
"Thank you for believing in me, Calliope," Arizona said solemnly.
"You're welcome."
"I believe in you the same."
Callie chuckled, "Thanks, I guess." She fidgeted with a bit of sheet between her fingers and asked the ceiling, "Does this make us friends now?"
"Friends who are having sex tonight, but yeah," Arizona shrugged, "I think we're friends now."
"Cool."
"Very cool."
…
"Everyone is healing from things they don't talk about, I guess."
Arizona hummed. "Yeah, I think so." She shook her head and toed the packet of cigarettes by her feet that fell out when they threw her jeans onto the floor. "Everyone is. And I just constantly wonder how they do it."
"How they do it?"
"Because the line between good and bad is so fine, and I'm constantly left wondering if the way I'm fighting for myself," she paused, "rather, the way that I'm trying to fight, is wrong. Like, I don't know, like it shouldn't happen this way. You get that?"
"Like you shouldn't be looking for one-night stands and smoking Marlboros and trying to waste this part of your life away just so the next part will come quicker?" Arizona nodded. Callie shrugged. "Yeah, I get it. Kind of."
"Like I should be doing something better. Like I'm supposed to be someone better after hurting. I don't really know how to hurt properly, I guess."
Callie sat contemplatively for a moment, then said, "It's one of my theories that everything is so constantly on a sort of bend that when you think too hard about it, it doesn't make sense anymore, and you can't really know the good from the bad either." Arizona regarded her with amusement and interest, not egging her to go on, but still listening. "The thing I tell myself when I'm hurting, is that the best way to heal is the way that hurts the least people."
"Deep. I like it."
Callie laughed. "Thanks, I guess."
"So that would mean that all those one-night women would make me a bad person, huh?"
"You want me to be honest or you want me to be nice?"
"We're strangers. We probably never meet again anyway." Arizona chuckled, "Be honest."
"Okay. I think it's a pretty crappy move, using other hearts to heal the pain."
"I thought so. Although it's not always to heal anything. Sometimes, it's for the hell of it. Just to remind myself that I'm still alive, and that sex is good."
"Hm."
"That's worse, isn't it?"
"I don't how else to think of it," Callie said, jutting out her bottom lip slightly. "I like you as a person. You make me feel comfortable when we talk."
"Thanks?"
"Yeah." She paused for another bit, and then lifted one shoulder up high, letting it drop down wildly. She let themselves stay in that weird and comfortable silence. A patter on the windows made them both turn their heads. A couple slashes of rain greeted them in their continuous patter upon the panes.
"His name is Nick," Arizona whispered, "And we moved around our whole childhood to different military bases. He and my brother, they're my best friends."
Callie turned her head back to look at the empty ceiling. "Her name was Erica. She was older and wiser and cold to everyone. But she let me have the gentle side of her and I felt special."
"Are we bad people for doing these kinds of things for only one night?"
"I don't know." Callie bit her lip. "You're nice right now. Everything is too complicated. I don't want to think tonight."
Arizona slowly propped herself up on an elbow and looked down at Callie, her hair spread over the pale pillowcases, a red spot still adorning her neck. "Me neither."
Arizona looked down at Callie, and she wanted to forget about goodbye. And forget about tomorrow. And forget about their muddy pasts gripping at their ankles. There was this peculiar something floating between the hot air between their lips.
…
The blinds of the windows were only half closed, and corners of the moonlight were creeping in. Drawing a string of light across Callie's chest as she closed her eyes and arched back into Arizona, softly gasping. Arizona smiled into her shoulder, tightening her arms around Callie, pressing her front closer into Callie's pliant back.
This fast and furious feeling rushing through the gaps between their skin wouldn't ever slow down. Callie couldn't remember anything that happened before the moment Arizona brushed the underside of her breasts.
Arizona's hand kept trailing down her body, and her own hands grappled to find something. For something to hold onto before Arizona's gently demanding touches sent her into nothingness, with nowhere to come back to. She sat by the edge of the bed, into Arizona's arms, and she couldn't fathom any notion of time. This hotel room was all in existence.
A cold hand crept by her navel.
And goosebumps pushed their way out. Callie dug her nails into the arm around her chest that was holding her firmly against the body behind her. She quietly moaned. She didn't know how the slow fingers circling the skin under her hipbone could arise such intensity.
"Arizona…"
Arizona hummed against the back of her ear.
"Oh god."
Arizona hummed again, finally slipping a finger into the space between her tightly clenched thighs. And then her whole hand, spreading Callie's thighs wider and whispering a "they stay here" into her neck. Callie wasn't sure if she nodded or if she only just arched harder into the body pressed into her. Whatever she did, it must've gotten the message across, because in only a split of a red-hot second, Arizona lost her carefully wound-up control. Two fingers slammed into her, and Callie gave a sharp moan.
And before she could even move, they pulled out and slammed in again. And again. And again. And again. She could only give short, cut-off, choked, groans she felt Arizona's hot hands everywhere on her body. A hot breath against her ear. A hot chest against her back. A hot mouth trailing up her neck.
She could barely breathe.
…
Callie laid, curled around Arizona's side with Arizona's arm around her shoulders and the room was hot enough to not pull the thin sheets up over their bodies. They were gloriously naked in the confines of this lonely room, and staring at the ceiling, it was as much freeing as it was not. Callie watched her own finger trace paths from one freckle to another, and her eyebrows rose barely noticeably.
"What?"
Callie looked away from the bare shoulder to Arizona's eyes looking straight at her. She never knew someone who'd paid so much attention to her. She felt seen, and she didn't know what to do with that. "You have a tattoo."
"I do."
"It's pretty."
Arizona's mouth quirked upwards. "Thanks?"
Callie smiled, still tracing her finger over the edge of the thin lines of black ink that jumped out from the pale skin. "Does it mean something? The daisies?"
"I like to think that it does. But honestly? No."
"No?"
"I got it for the hell of it," Arizona replied, glancing at the petals of two small flowers that inch out from the backside of her shoulder. "I got it because I felt like it."
"That's nice." And Callie really meant it, Arizona could tell. "I think that's a very good reason to get a tattoo."
"I do too."
…
Callie pressed a finger to her closed eyelid and when she opened them, the motel room was the exact same as it was five seconds ago. A steady unchanging pace of the time ticking by, and this was the safest she had felt in months. She was somewhere very far away then what she was used to and she loved it.
She softly kissed Arizona's collarbone as she laid half on top of her, an arm slung across her waist and her face buried in her neck in a way that every time she breathed, a small lock of blonde hair would flutter. This was too intimate for a one-night stand, and Callie had been staring at the irregular fluttering of the tip of that piece of hair for the past half-hour.
She shifted away from Arizona a little and moved downwards. Arizona's skin tasted like sweat and the room smelled of sex. Callie licked and kissed from Arizona's ribs down to her navel, and she smiled up dorkily at Arizona when she threaded her fingers through her hair. She let Arizona's hand guide her lower, and she kissed the light skin and she felt although she was trying to swallow fire. Her tongue darted out and teased, and only teased more when she heard Arizona's deep groan of approval.
…
"These kinds of mornings feel sort of lonely."
Arizona looked over at Callie, who had her knees hugged up to her chest, gazing out the window of their room at the bare highway and the few shops that littered it.
"I can be lonely with you."
Callie turned her head and smiled. "Thanks."
…
This was sweet.
The sweetness, the lingering sweetness, it was all over Arizona. Clinging to her eyelashes and dripping from her chin, vibrating in the shudders of pleasure of Callie's body underneath her's.
"You can scream if you want," Arizona mumbled into her ear, her hand pressing onto Callie's hand, and their fingers entangled, planted on the sheets next to Callie's head. "Scream my name."
And Callie gave a small cry as Arizona forced her hips down onto her again. Everything was sweat and sex and moans, and Arizona had Callie pinned under her. And her hips were moving of their own accord, as if they are reaching out in an unfurling of desire. Pounding and thrusting.
Arizona moved a hand down, pressing roughly on Callie's clit.
And finally, Callie screamed, flinging herself over the edge.
Arizona barely had the time to smirk before stiffening too.
…
"I know I'm nothing special," Callie said quietly, after a while. "I'm not the prettiest girl there is or the sexiest. I'm twenty-four and I have no idea what to do with my life."
Arizona smiled proudly. "You're in med school. I'm an intern. We compliment each other well." She sat facing the dusty windows side by side with Callie and she said, "I like you this way."
Callie lifted her head up and smiled at Arizona when she heard. "I know I'm nothing special, but I hope you won't forget me."
Arizona cocked her head and smiled back sadly. She'd gone through enough girls since she'd heard from Nick, and she wasn't the best commitment kind of gal, but she didn't forget everyone either. She got what Callie was trying to say. "You shouldn't have to worry," she whispered, and moved closer. Like a routine, Callie put her head on her shoulder and Arizona passed her arm around her waist.
"But I think you will. You will always meet people. Funnier, prettier, calmer people who have a stable future and a good temper. And you'll forget all about me, and it's not that I want so desperately to be something great or remarkable… I just want you to remember me the way I'll remember you."
Callie turned her head slightly into Arizona's shoulder. She had no idea what just came out of her mouth. To her one-night-stand-now-kind-of friend, no less. But Arizona seemed to think differently, as she felt her smile into her hair.
"I think I'll remember you alright."
…
The plastic of the alarm clocking on the night stands was yellowing. It read eight o'clock.
The fact that Arizona was standing here and saying goodbye to Callie meant that she was already a better person.
"Come on," she said, "I can drive you home." And seeing the carefully incredulous look on Callie's face, she chuckled. "I mean, we're kind of friends."
Callie pursed her lips, clasping her bra. "Yeah. I think we could've even been very good friends. In another life. Or something."
I think we could've been very important to each other, in another life, Arizona thought. I think our bodies and souls already know each other. From another life.
She smiled. "Probably."
"Mhm."
Arizona watched Callie pull on her dress that laid previously in a crumpled mess on the floor. She had never had this bittersweet taste on her tongue before. This was so new. She looked down at her fingers and she was almost certain that they were melting into silver.
She was always so terribly sad, all the time, lately. But in the moment where Callie struggled with the zipper of her dress that was stretched in places it shouldn't have been from where Arizona ripped it off, she was feeling closer to okay in all her terrible normality. She moved forward, spinning Callie around slowly and zipped her dress up and stood nearer to her then she should have.
Arizona was sure that she was further away from tumbling into tears.
Walking down the dim hallways of the motel, Callie spoke up first. "This is weird."
"Kinda."
Getting into Arizona's small cramped car, she turned on the stereo and a pop song with too much swearing buzzes through the front seats. Arizona turned her keys in the ignition and asked, "Where to? Hotel?"
"I'm staying with a friend, actually."
"Okay."
Through the eerily quiet streets after Callie gave Arizona Mark's address, Arizona asked her again, "We'll stay in touch?"
And they both know what that really meant. It meant that they were friends that liked each other enough, but who won't keep in touch the way they meant to. They would exchange a few texts and emails and be friends on social media, and they will fade into nothingness, and they will barely remember each other's existence altogether in a few years.
"Yeah, of course," Callie replied. "Because we're friends."
They do not get to keep those they meet this young. Too young. Too dumb. Too oblivious on all these tiring logistics of trying to live properly.
"You were right," Arizona laughed as she stopped at a red light and glanced at Callie. "This is weird."
"I'm always right."
"Mhm."
"I am," Callie said indignantly, with a small smile.
"I mean, I do consider you my friend now."
"Except that we had sex."
"So…part-time lovers," Arizona said, smirking and shifting gears. "Part-time lovers and full-time friends."
Callie laughed, thinking of Mark. And then she stopped thinking about him because Arizona passed a hand through her hair, pushing it back, and coincidentally, Callie found it incredibly hot.
"I hope your friend gets better. Or that he'll find his peace soon."
Arizona nodded at Callie's words, turning around a corner. "And I hope you'll find someone or something or someplace…or whatever else that makes you happy."
The air conditioning of the car was broken, and it was stuffy. The front windows were down, and the wind chased the tips of their hair. All Callie knew that this moment was serene and that this moment wasn't theirs's to keep.
That violet stain on the edge of her vinyl seat was mocking her, Callie was sure of it. Mocking all her uncertain aspirations and messy feelings.
The car skittered to a stop by the pavement, Arizona giving her a small smile. "Here we are."
"Here we are."
And for a fraction of a second, Callie wishes that this was anything a bit more then only a temporary style of out of reach.
Arizona kept at least four pairs of earbuds tangled in one gigantic knot in the glove box that did not have a door that remained closed. Callie's cheap dress was weirdly angled off the small of her back from where it was ripped from her the night before.
Arizona blew a strand of hair from her eyes and Callie fumbled with the door handle.
She thought that they might just could have been a good fit for each other.
She finally got the door handle open and stepped out onto the hot pavement. Turning around and finding Arizona fixating her with a small, fond, smile, she smiled back. "Bye, I guess."
"I would rather settle for 'see you later'. We'll meet again, you know. Good people always do."
Callie chuckled. "See you later then."
"See you," Arizona replied, still smiling. It took her two tries to start up the car without messing up the movement into first gear. Callie saw her peering into the rear-view mirror, and she waved.
And then, like nothing had ever derailed from the monotonous rhythm of their lives, Arizona drove off, and finally was nothing more then a small rumble at the end of the road. She turned the corner and Callie sighed, smoothing out her dress.
It was like a fever dream.
And it was when Callie realised nothing could ever go back. This wasn't some transition period, always still waiting for something more exciting, something more interesting, something more.
Her life was happening. Her life was now. She just wasn't ready to live it, she just didn't know how to. Day in, day out, she was just an ordinary girl who never knew when to stop giving.