Sloane really tried to talk herself out of what she was doing right now. She really did. However, here she was climbing up Nancy Wheeler's roof with a bottle of bourbon she stole from her father's liquor cabinet. The girl was alone in her room, just like Sloane wanted as she knocked on the window. She stifled a laugh as Nancy jumped out of her skin, but contained it as the girl walked over to the window.

"How the hell do you know where I live?" was weirdly the first question Nancy asked, looking unimpressed with her arms crossed.

"That's your first question, really? Not "why are you climbing my house?" Interesting," Sloane said with a laugh as she sat on the windowsill and made herself comfortable, "Come on up, we're getting drunk."

"I am not getting drunk with you let alone on a rooftop," Nancy scoffed, but Sloane was already too busy climbing her way to the top. She hung down upside down in front of the window with a smile on her face, scaring Nancy half to death in the process.

She huffed at the girl, putting on a fake pout. "I didn't screw your ex-boyfriend, what grudge do you have against me? Come on, last time I was getting over a breakup I turned to a much less healthy coping mechanism. You should be thankful. Come on up, buttercup, we're gonna drink until you forget you ever even dated that loser."

"He's not a loser," Nancy mumbled to herself as she reluctantly placed one foot on the windowsill and began to pull herself up to the roof where the blonde girl was waiting for her and unscrewing the lid to the bourbon.

Sloane smiled and took a swig, saying to Nancy, "Took ya long enough. All right, let's play a game. Us girls gotta start sticking together, but you don't trust me at all. So, you tell me something I don't know about you and I'll do the same. If you won't talk, you drink."

Nancy looked skeptical as all hell as she settled down as comfortably as one could on a roof during an early November night. The stars were shining as the wind whistled softly in their ears. Besides that, it was deadly silent. She looked over at the girl next to her, noticing the glint of mischievousness and temptation in her eyes.

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Oh, you won't talk? Drink then," Sloane spoke satisfactorily, teasing Nancy with the bottle. Looking annoyed, Nancy took the bottle and took a sip before scrunching up her face at the burning sensation that came with any quality bourbon. "Don't act so prude, we all saw you totally shitfaced last night, Nance. All right, since you won't start us off, I will. Let's just scratch the surface, why don't we? Sloane is my middle name. Wanna guess my first?"

"I'm not going to play any games with you," Nancy rolled her eyes and grabbed the bottle again, taking a bigger swig this time.

Sloane sighed and rolled her eyes, "You're gonna be falling off this roof wasted if you don't start talking. Why don't you tell me what your problem with me is? Since it seems you need to be prompted."

"I don't have a problem with you, you just confuse me to no end," Nancy spoke with frustration filtering its way through her voice. She avoided Sloane's eyes like the plague. "You come sweeping into this little town all hot and mysterious and suddenly everyone's obsessed with you like they've never seen a bottle blonde before! God, with the shit I've been through, I wouldn't be surprised if you were a witch or something!"

"Now we're getting somewhere," the blonde spoke with the quirk of a smile on her lips, "By the way, this blonde is all natural, baby. The nose is fake, everything else is just what my mama gave me. Now, I'll forgo my turn. Did you just call me hot?"

As Sloane took a large sip, Nancy looked at her with disbelief, "Yes, because I have eyes. You had a nose job?"

"Is it my turn? Yes, I broke it and they offered and my mom would rather die than have an ugly daughter so, when opportunity strikes..." Sloane shrugged, "So, you mentioned shit. What have you been through?"

Nancy made direct eye contact with the girl as she ripped the bottle from her hands and took a drink. "Your turn. How'd you break your nose?"

"Car accident."

"How'd you get in an accident?"

"Not your turn, Wheeler," Sloane smirked as she thought of a question, "What are you thinking of right now?"

"How punchable your face it," the girl shrugged, but Sloane just shook her head.

"Real answer. Or drink."

Nancy scoffed, "At this exact moment, I am thinking about what bourbon might taste like on someone else's lips. Your turn. How'd you get in an accident?"

The blonde took a deep breath, trying to shoulder her facade as best she could. Giving Nancy a teasing look, she grabbed the bottle back and took a drink. However, after that, she leaned in to whisper in Nancy's ear, "I'll give you a freebie. I wanted to know what it felt like to fly."

"You're crazy. I'm sitting on a rooftop getting drunk with a psychopath, awesome," Nancy shook her head as she held her legs and put her head down, avoiding Sloane's eyes and not saying anything. After a moment, she took a deep breath and a drink. "Your turn again. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Absolutely nothing at the moment, but everyone's been through shit," Sloane shrugged as she leaned back and looked at the stars. Sighing, she mused, "I never saw the stars like this in San Francisco. There aren't many girls like you down in San Fran, everyone's either a bimbo or a punk. You're very refreshing you know."

Nancy looked unimpressed as she spread back out, looking up at the stars as well. "And you're probably crazy. Is it my turn?"

"Sure is. You think I'm a psychopath, but you kinda wanna kiss this psychopath. Right or wrong?"

"Morally? Absolutely wrong."

"You know that's not what I'm asking," Sloane laughed, disturbing the calming silence of the evening, "You wanna know why I crashed my car? Actually?"

The girl looked unsure, but she definitely noticed the lack of distance between her and Sloane. Choosing to ignore it and let her curiosity lead her, she nodded.

"Well, you see, my mom is a piece of shit who left her husband for dead in a hospital room, had another baby with a rich white man within the year and bam! I came along! Sixteen years later, she wants me to be this perfect beauty queen. Fall in love with the star quarterback, be prom queen, all that shit. She wanted to relive her high school days through her bubbly, blonde, daughter. I, however, was not the girl she wanted me to be. Rolling around under the covers with people I shouldn't be, using my best friend's older brother to fund my nicotine addiction, not to mention the bottles of beer mysteriously going missing from the fridge."

"Why are you telling me all of this?" Nancy asked, looking almost afraid. She was more afraid of the end of the story than she was of the girl next to her.

Sloane shrugged, "I am sick and tired of everyone thinking I'm just some easy bimbo from California. There's already rumors of me sleeping with a different guy every week. God, they couldn't be more wrong. Back to my story, please and thank you. Now, it's January of 1984. I forget to lock my door. My mom catches me and my best friend doing some unholy shit if you catch my drift. Friend climbs out my window and never talks to me again and my own mother screams about how I am not her daughter and how she's sending me to Catholic school as soon as she can. Ironic, she wanted to send me to an all girls school."

"Sloane, where is this going?"

"Oh, it's going to a very dark place, I can assure you," the girl smiled to herself in an almost morbid way. "I thought that if I was dead, she couldn't hate me. I thought she would regret everything she dared to say to me. So, at three in the morning during a record-breaking storm season, I decided to steal my rich daddy's car and see how fast it could go."

Nancy shook her head, "Sloane-"

"When I hit a hundred miles an hour, I turned right and hit the first tree I could see. I wasn't wearing a seat belt, so I went flying through the windshield. Impact gave me a concussion and totally shattered my nose. Not to mention the internal bleeding was a bitch," Sloane shrugged as if reliving this story wasn't tearing her apart with every word that found it's way past her lips. She had no idea why she was telling this story, but she had to get it out. It was going to claw its way out whether she liked it or not. "But since we live on cruel earth with a cruel God, I lived to see another day. My mom didn't want to send me away in fear of me trying again. So, we moved here as soon as I was recovered enough. A place where no one would know about the absolute wreck her daughter was. She really thinks I won't fuck up everywhere I go. Your turn."

"Why'd you really bring me up here, Sloane? This was never about Steve or anything that's going on, so what's the real reason? What? Did you want to tell me your sob story to seduce me or something? That's sick," Nancy shook her head as the words rushed past her lips in frantic fragments.

The girl didn't know what to say to that. Even her intentions were fuzzy in her own mind and the ability to explain them was lost on her. Words struggled to find their way to the tip of their tongue down. Head and eyes down, she says gently, "I just needed someone to know. It couldn't be Abby, she likes me because she thinks I'm like her. This would ruin that. Couldn't be Elliot, he still doesn't know the real reason and he would kick my ass as soon as he found out. I ruined everything for him when I did what I did. You don't know me enough to hate me for the things I do. But I know you well enough that you're just as broken inside as I am."

"Sloane, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have assumed."

She just shook her head, "Everyone's sorry once they hear what I have to say. This was a bad idea, I'm sorry. I'll go, keep the bourbon." The blonde went climbing down the roof as carefully as she could, but as soon as she tried to move, Nancy grabbed her wrist.

"Wait," Nancy spoke almost desperately, eye to eye with Sloane with minimal space between their faces.

Under the stars, their lips met.

okay so I wasnt going to have them kiss this chapter because it's kind of a sad chapter but then Strawberries And Cigarettes came on and I wanted some soft love anyway this seems out of nowhere because they don't really know each other, but they're pretty drunk and basically things are going to work out in... interesting ways later in the book, but this is thinly veiled angst so