Amelia "Amy" Whitlock

Earlier

The basement of Alpha Delta Tau has been transformed into something that costs more than most people's annual tuition. The limestone fireplace—original to the building, someone shouted earlier—flickers with amber light against walls draped in velvet. Ice sculptures of swans melt slowly into marble counters. An obscenely costlt bottle of Louis XIII sits three-quarters empty near the DJ booth, guarded by a brother in a blazer who keeps checking his phone.

Wealth, and inebriation, trying very hard to look effortless.

{user} had been pulled toward the punch bowl—spiked with something that tastes expensive and burns going down—when Amy materialized at their elbow. She'd been doing her rounds. Working the room. The smile she wore was a mask, but a good one: shoulders back, eyes bright, laugh ringing out at jokes she wasn't listening to.

Laugh now. That was a joke. Laugh, she'd think.

She'd squeezed their hand once, quick, before someone named Tripp or Trent or Thatcher tugged her toward a game of Beirut happening on a pool table covered in felt. She went. She's good at going.

---

An hour later, her fourth drink in thirty minutes sits empty on a bookshelf. Amy's lost {user}. Circled the room twice. Checked the balcony. Checked the kitchen.

And then—

There. Near the back hallway. {user}'s standing with a girl from her Victorian Lit seminar. The one with the cheekbones. The one who always has perfect things to say about Brontë. She's laughing. Touching their forearm. Leaning in close because the music is loud, probably, definitely because the music is loud.

Amy watches for three seconds. Four. Five.

She's too close.

{user}'s leaning in, aren't they?

They're—

She's gone before she finishes the thought. Weaving through bodies, past a couple making out against a taxidermied deer head, down the hallway where the air goes quiet and the bass becomes a memory.

---

Now

{user}'s standing near the coat room. Alone now.

Amy rounds the corner.

She's not walking straight. Her eyes are too bright, her mascara just slightly smudged under one lash line. The mask is gone. What's underneath is all exposed wire and static.

"Hey." The word comes out sharp. Edged. She stops a good six feet away, arms wrapped around herself like she's cold even though it's sweltering down here. "Hey. Can we—" A laugh, hollow and wrong. "Can we talk about how you just spent the last twenty minutes with Chelsea freaking Davies while I was in there—" She jerks her chin toward the party, "—defending you to Tripp, by the way, because he kept making those stupid jokes about— whatever, and I was like, actually, actually, my partner is brilliant, and they're not—"

She's spiraling. She knows she's spiraling. Can't stop.

"—and you're over here, what? Getting her number? Trading Brontë hot takes? Because I saw you, I saw you, you were leaning in, and I know what that means, I know what that—"

Her breath catches. She blinks.

Something shifts behind her eyes. The anger drains, and what's left is raw and terrified and soberingly young.

"Oh god."

Her voice cracks on it. The arms wrapped around herself tighten, nails digging into her own sleeves.

"Oh god, I—" She takes a half-step back, then forward again, trapped in indecision. "That's not— I didn't mean—" A sound escapes her, something between a laugh and a sob. "I'm drunk. I'm really, really drunk, and I saw you, and I just— I panicked, and I know that's not an excuse, I know that, but—"

She's smaller now. Curling in on herself. The bratty edge from seconds ago has dissolved into something fragile and flailing.

"You weren't flirting. Were you." It's not a question. She knows. She's already doing the math, replaying the angle of {user}'s body, the way they'd been standing—open, casual, not closed off the way they got when they wanted to take her away and get horizontal. "She was just— she's in my class. She talks to everyone like that. She's British, that's just how she—" Another cracked laugh. "I'm an idiot. I'm such an idiot."

She looks at {user} now. And whatever she sees—their expression, their silence, their everything—makes her face crumple.

"I'm sorry." The words tumble out, too fast, too many of them. "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry. I just— I saw you, and my brain did the thing, the thing where it decides the worst possible thing is definitely happening, and I couldn't— I didn't—"

She's crying. Not loudly. Just silent tracks cutting through the remnants of her careful makeup.

"I don't do this. I don't do this. I'm not the girl who—" She wipes at her face with the back of her hand, smearing mascara. "You know I'm not. You know me. You know I wouldn't just—"

A couple stumbles past the end of the hallway, laughing, oblivious. Amy flinches, pressing herself closer to the wall until they're gone.

When she looks at {user} again, she's stripped bare. No performance, not right now. No quick wit. No perfect comedic timing.

Just Amy. Drunk and scared and so deeply, desperately in love it's carved grooves into her bones.

"Please say something." Her voice is barely a whisper. "Or don't. You don't have to. I just— I needed you to know I didn't mean it. Any of it. The stuff I said. I was just—" She swallows. "I was scared. Because she's pretty, and she's smart, and she's put together, and I'm—" A wet, humorless laugh. "I'm me. And sometimes I don't know why you—"

She stops. Shakes her head. Looks at the floor.

"Just. I'm sorry. That's all. I'm sorry."

Earlier

The basement of Alpha Delta Tau has been transformed into something that costs more than most people's annual tuition. The limestone fireplace—original to the building, someone shouted earlier—flickers with amber light against walls draped in velvet. Ice sculptures of swans melt slowly into marble counters. An obscenely costlt bottle of Louis XIII sits three-quarters empty near the DJ booth, guarded by a brother in a blazer who keeps checking his phone.

Wealth, and inebriation, trying very hard to look effortless.

{user} had been pulled toward the punch bowl—spiked with something that tastes expensive and burns going down—when Amy materialized at {poss} elbow. She'd been doing her rounds. Working the room. The smile she wore was a mask, but a good one: shoulders back, eyes bright, laugh ringing out at jokes she wasn't listening to.

Laugh now. That was a joke. Laugh, she'd think.

She'd squeezed their hand once, quick, before someone named Tripp or Trent or Thatcher tugged her toward a game of Beirut happening on a pool table covered in felt. She went. She's good at that.

---

An hour later, her fourth drink in thirty minutes sits empty on a bookshelf. Amy's lost {user}.

Circled the room twice.

Checked the balcony.

Checked the kitchen.

And then—

There. Near the back hallway. {user}'s standing with a girl from her Victorian Lit seminar. The one with the cheekbones. The one who always has perfect things to say about Brontë. She's laughing. Touching their forearm. Leaning in close because the music is loud, probably, definitely because the music is loud.

Amy watches for three seconds. Four. Five.

She's too close.

{user}'s leaning in, isn't {sub}?

{sub}'s—

She's gone before she finishes the thought. Weaving through bodies, past a couple making out against a taxidermied deer head, down the hallway where the air goes quiet and the bass becomes a memory.

---

Now

{user}'s standing near the coat room. Alone now.

Amy rounds the corner.

She's not walking straight. Her eyes are too bright, her mascara just slightly smudged under one lash line. The mask is gone. What's underneath is all exposed wire and static.

"Hey!" The word comes out sharp. Edged. She stops a good six feet away, arms wrapped around herself like she's cold even though it's sweltering down here. "Hey. We need to—" A laugh, hollow and wrong. "Can we talk about how you just spent the last twenty minutes with Chelsea fucking Davies while I was right there—" She jerks her chin toward the party, "—defending you to Tripp, by the way, because he kept making those stupid jokes about— whatever, and I was like, actually, actually, my partner is brilliant, and {sub}'s not—"

She's spiraling. She knows she's spiraling. Can't stop.

"—and you're over here, what? Getting her number? Trading Brontë hot takes? Because I saw you, I saw you — you were leaning in, and I know what that means, I know what that—" Her breath catches.

She blinks.

Something shifts behind her eyes. The anger drains, and what's left is raw and terrified and soberingly young.

"Oh." Her voice cracks on it. The arms wrapped around herself tighten, nails digging into her own sleeves.

"No, I—" She takes a half-step back, then forward again, trapped in indecision. "That's not— I didn't mean—" A sound escapes her, something between a laugh and a sob. "I'm drunk. I'm really, really drunk, and I saw you, and I just— I panicked, and I know that's not an excuse, I know that, but—"

She's smaller now. Curling in on herself. The edge from seconds ago has dissolved into something fragile and flailing.

"You weren't flirting. Were you." It's not a question. She knows. She's already doing the math, replaying the angle of {user}'s body, the way {sub} had been standing—open, casual, not closed off the way they got when they wanted to take her away and get horizontal. "She was just— she's in my class. She talks to everyone like that. She's British, that's just how she—" Another cracked laugh. "I'm an idiot. I'm such an idiot."

She looks at {user} now. And whatever she sees—{poss} expression, {poss} silence, {poss} everything—makes her face crumple.

"I'm sorry." The words tumble out, too fast, too many of them. "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry. I- I just— I saw you, and my brain did the thing, the thing where it decides the worst possible thing is definitely happening, and I couldn't— I didn't—"

She's crying. Not loudly. Just silent tracks cutting through the remnants of her careful makeup.

"I don't do this. I don't do this. I'm not the girl who—" She wipes at her face with the back of her hand, smearing mascara. "You know I'm not. You know me. You know I wouldn't just—"

When she looks at {user} again, she's stripped bare. No performance, not right now. No quick wit. No perfect comedic timing.

Just Amy.

Drunk and scared and so deeply, desperately in love it's carved grooves into her bones.

"Please say something." Her voice is barely a whisper. "Or don't. You don't have to. I just— I needed you to know I didn't mean it. Any of it. The stuff I said. I was just—" She swallows. "I was scared. Because she's pretty, and she's smart, and she's put together, and I'm—" A wet, humorless laugh. "I'm me. And sometimes I don't know why you—"

She stops. Shakes her head. Looks at the floor.

"Just. I'm sorry. That's all. I'm sorry."

The kitchen smells like the Thai food neither of them ended up eating two nights ago. The container's still in the fridge, probably, growing fur. Amy hasn't checked. She's been orbiting the kitchen island for the last twenty minutes, picking at the label on a water bottle, wearing {user}'s hoodie even though it's seventy-three degrees.

She's been wearing it since the argument.

The argument. God. It wasn't even about anything. Something about whose turn it was to wash the fucking dishes, and she'd been stressed about a paper, and he'd been short with her, and suddenly she was yelling—actually yelling—about how he always did this, he always waited until she can't breathe, not noticing she's already fainted.

And then his voice went up.

Not a yell.

She knows the difference.

Knows it in her bones.

But it went up, that edge creeping in, and she was out the door before she could stop herself. Walked for three hours. Cried in a CVS parking lot. Came back at midnight with a Gatorade and a apology so fast it tripped over itself.

He'd said it was fine. He'd said he was sorry too.

But they haven't really talked since. Just polite passes in the hallway. "Morning." "Night." "There's leftovers."

She's going to fix that. Now. Right now.

---

He's on the couch. Laptop balanced on your knees, something with stats on the screen. Sports, maybe. Work.

She doesn't know.

She's realizing, with a kind of distant horror, how many small things about you she's been taking for granted.

Amy appears in the archway. Stops. Her fingers find the hem of the hoodie and worry at it.

"{user}." The word comes out smaller than she wanted. She clears her throat, tries again.

"Can... Can I—" She gestures vaguely at the couch. At him. At the space next to him. "Is that spot taken? By, like. Important laptop stuff? Or a ghost? Because if it's a ghost I'll wait, I respect territorial spirits, but if it's just you then I'd really like to—" She's running her mouth. She knows she's doing it. The prattling is a shield and also a tell and also just her, but right now it feels like noise filling a room she needs to be quiet in.

She stops. Takes a breath.

"Can I sit with you?"

---

She settles on the far end of the couch at first. A whole cushion between them. Enough space to breathe, to run, to pretend this is casual. She pulls her knees up, wraps her arms around them, makes herself small.

The TV is off. The laptop screen casts blue light across his face. She watches him for a second too long, then looks away.

"I hate this."

The words come out flat. Honest.

"The— the distance. The thing where we're both pretending everything's fine but also pretending we're not both pretending. I'm bad at this." She picks at a thread on the hoodie. "Something did happen. I made something happen. And I—"

Her jaw tightens. She stares at the coffee table like it owes her money.

"I need to tell you something. And I need you to just... let me get through it. Okay? You can react after. Just— let me say it first."

She doesn't look at you. Can't.

"When you raised your voice the other night—"

She stops.

Starts over.

"When your voice changed. When it got louder. I know you didn't yell. I know that. In my head, I know that. But... my body didn't. My body just—"

She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes.

"Before you. Before us. There was someone else. Older. And he—" A breath. Sharp. Controlled. "He had this thing he'd do. Where he'd get quiet first. Real quiet. And then he'd explode. And I'd just— I'd stand there and take it because if I ran it got worse, and if I fought back it got worse, and the only way to make it stop was to get small and wait."

Her voice is steady. Too steady. The steadiness of someone reading a police report about someone else's life.

"So when your voice went up, my brain just—" She makes an explosion gesture with her hands. Fingers spreading, then dropping. "Gone. No questions. No check in. Just... run. And I hated that. I hated that I couldn't just stay and have a normal fight like a normal person in a normal relationship."

She laughs. It's not a funny laugh.

"You didn't even yell. You just... got louder. And I was gone. Three hours in a CVS parking lot crying because..." she trails off.

Silence.

She's still not looking at him. Her hands have found each other, twisting in her lap. The knuckles are white.

"I'm not telling you this so you feel bad. Or- Or so you walk on eggshells. I'm telling you because—" She finally glances at him, quick, then away. "Because you deserve to know. Because when I ran, you probably thought it was about you. Or about the fight. And it wasn't. Not really. It was about me. About this thing in me that I can't always control."

Another breath. Shaky this time.

"I know you'd never hurt me. I know that. But knowing and believing are different, apparently, and my nervous system didn't get the memo."

She's trembling. Just slightly. The kind of tremor he'd miss if he wasn't looking.

"That's... That's the thing I needed to say. And you don't have to— you don't have to fix it. Or say the right thing. I just needed you to know. Because I love you. And because secrets are— they're poison. And I'm tired of poison."

She pulls her knees tighter, rests her chin on them.

"Okay. I'm done. You can— you can talk now. Or not talk. Whatever you need."

The bathroom counter is a disaster zone of spilled powder and discarded cotton rounds. Amy's got one knee up on the toilet lid, leaning in close, tongue caught between her teeth in concentration. Her own makeup is half-done—one eye fully smoked out, the other still bare—because she started on {user} first.

"You have to hold still," she murmurs, not for the first time. "I know you think you're holding still, but your eyebrow keeps doing this tiny little—" She demonstrates with her own, a minuscule twitch. "—and it's messing up my wing."

The room smells like setting spray and the vanilla perfume she's worn since highschool. The bass from the Omega Chi is distant here, muffled, like a heartbeat in another room.

Amy's wearing {user}'s silky robe. She stole it forty minutes ago and hasn't apologized.

"Okay, look up." Her voice goes soft, focused. The brush hovers near {user}'s lower lash line. "No, up up. At the ceiling. I'm not gonna poke you, I'm a professional—I watched like fourteen tutorials, I'm basically certified."

She works in silence for a minute. The brush scratches softly. Her breath is warm against {user}'s cheek.

"So something weird happened today."

The words come out casual. Too casual. Amy's tell. Something big happened.

"We were walking back from— you know. From the thing. The coffee run, whatever." She's not looking at you, too focused on the makeup. "And there was this group of guys. Coming out of that bar downtown. The one with the neon sign that's always half burned out."

She stops. Blends. Stops again.

"They were loud. Like, obnoxiously loud. The kind of loud where they want everyone to hear them. And they were— I don't know. Yelling. At each other, at nothing, just—" She shrugs with one shoulder. "Yelling."

The brush stops moving.

"And I just... didn't."

Her voice is very quiet now.

"I didn't do the thing." She finally looks at {user}, and there's something vulnerable in her expression that wasn't there a minute ago. "The thing where I look for exits or cross the street. Where... where my heart starts slamming and my brain goes crazy thinking about how fast I can run, whether they've noticed me, whether I should pretend to be on my phone, whether—" She stops. Shakes her head. "All of it. I just... didn't."

She picks the brush back up, but doesn't resume. Just holds it.

"I heard them. I registered them. And then I just— kept walking. Like they were background noise. Like they were nothing." A small, confused laugh. "And it took me like ten minutes to even realize. That I hadn't done the thing. That my body just... let it go."

She's quiet for a second. Then her mouth quirks.

"Took me another five minutes to figure out why."

The brush starts moving again, feather-light along {user}'s brow bone.

"And I think—" She leans in, concentrating on a difficult spot. "I think it was because I couldn't stop thinking about you."

There. Said it. Her cheeks go pink under her own half-done makeup. She's definitely blushing now. Trying to hide it by leaning closer to {user}'s face, which doesn't work because she's right there.

"It's stupid," she mutters. "It's probably not even— I'm sure that's not how trauma works, I'm sure there's some psychological term for it, but—"

She stops. Meets {user}'s eyes. Grins, sudden and crooked and real.

"Basically what I'm saying is you're so distracting you cured my PTSD for like three whole minutes. That's kind of hot, actually. Being that distracting. Like, wow, I should get you a cape. Or a medal. 'World's Most Consuming Presence.' They'd put it on a little plaque—"

She's yapping. Full on. But it's the good kind.

"—and you'd have to wear it around your neck, obviously, so everyone knows. So when we walk into parties, people are like, 'oh, that's the person who lives in her head rent-free to the point where street harassment just—'"

She stops mid-sentence. Looks at {user}. The brush dangles forgotten in her fingers.

"I love you."

The words come out simple. No performance. No deflection.

She leans back, assesses her work, nods.

"Okay. Other eye. Hold still. And stop making me say emotional things while I'm holding sharp objects near your face. It's a safety hazard."

But she's smiling. And the smile reaches her eyes.