SABLE

Sable shouldered past Ronnie Jensen and his pack of dim minions to get to the Better Than Revenge food truck to the side of the staging area for the after-game concert. His being anywhere near her team was irritating at best in her current mood, but this time he was here for Garvey, who'd been middle setter #2 in today's game, and since they were on again, she was putting up with it. That didn't mean she had to be nice. She wasn't up for nice. Ronnie Jensen never had to be nice.

Wild Girls didn't have to be nice.

She'd kill for a drink or a stretch of road without the cops at the end. She needed to get out of here, but if she left her girls would come looking for her. If they looked for her, if they asked, she'd tell them what was up, and she'd feel stupid all over again. Because she had been in this situation before and they all knew the script.

Alayna Hu had dumped her. Again. She'd lost count of how many times this made. Sable could already hear I told you so in all her friend's voices, sighed in perfect harmony, whether they'd say it out loud or not. Sable was an idiot. She was Alayna's idiot. Same crap, different toilet.

It had happened during the game, when Sable tapped out and swapped with another player. She and Alayna had planned it that way. Alayna had left the gym under the pretense of getting snacks from outside and Sable had snuck out to meet her.

They'd been kissing in the supply closet of the gymnasium where most of the miscellaneous sport equipment was kept between games. It was hot and sweaty and smelled terrible. That wasn't new. They'd spent years kissing in strange, smelly places when they weren't wrapped around each other in the backseat of Sable's car or in the dusty, disused treehouse at Alayna's house in the 'burbs.

Sable had been kissing Alayna since sophomore year at the winter dance. It had started with a dare from the school's quarterback, three red Polo cups deep into the spiked punch. Sable didn't even remember his name; he was that irrelevant to her day to day life (like most guys). Alayna had known Sable was a lesbian; it wasn't a secret. Alayna hadn't apparently known that Sable had a crush on her. Sable wished she'd never found out, wished they'd never kissed. Wished they hadn't kept kissing for two years. Maybe then when one of Jensen's minions stuck his head in to see if the makeout spot was free mid-game Alayna wouldn't have been there. If she wasn't there, she couldn't have frozen. If she weren't there, she couldn't have freaked out on Sable and run. She couldn't have dumped her by text. Blocked her number. Blocked her on every single social media website there was. Even when she was ghosting a girl, Alayna did everything right.

Alayna was perfect. Class president, in the running for valedictorian, the lead in more student orgs than Sable could count. She was gorgeous. She did community service. She volunteered at animal shelters. She raised money for kids in need. She was perfect—and she was so deep in the closet, dust bunnies saw more daylight. Because her parents wanted her to be perfect and in their eyes, gay wasn't perfect. Gay was a mess that needed cleaning, disorder that needed correcting.

Alayna lived and breathed perfection. It was Sable—messy, imperfect, kissable, infatuated Sable—that just didn't fit.

Two years of loving her—and Sable wasn't stupid, she knew her own feelings—hadn't convinced Alayna that they were really, deeply wrong. That all the bullies in the school who got their kicks spray-painting lesbo on Tré's locker and Phae's car were dumbasses who should be reported to the campus Keystone cops at best, dunked headfirst in to a porta-potty at worst. Sable couldn't convince her they weren't important because she knew, deep down, they were. So long as Alayna didn't feel safe, Alayna would run, and Sable would be left holding the bag.

The thing was, that bag was getting awful heavy, and Sable was so damned tired.

"What are you looking for?" asked a distracted voice.

Sable stepped back when she realized she'd come to the front of the Better Than Revenge food truck line. The green and yellow truck was enormous, about as long as three wooden picnic table sat end to end. Old but carefully maintained. A cornucopia of fruits and veggie spilled across the side of the truck. Hand painted, Sable thought. The menu propped outside the window was written in all kinds of colors on a chalkboard. It was all vegetarian and every bit of delicious. Although Sable hadn't been much for produce before Alayna had put her two cents in, she guessed the habit would stick. She wasn't going to let a bad breakup ruin falafel for her.

"Um." She sniffed and tried not to tear up. Tried not to think about how she swore she wasn't going down this road again. Same girl, same mess. Tearing up wasn't her M.O., not in public. No way was she about to ruin her reputation, or her eyeliner, now. "Something sweet." Forget falafel. Sable would cry if she got that right now.

Falafel would only remind her everything wrong. Today was going to be good. Her girls had won the game. They were going to rock out to whatever band Tré wanted them to hear so badly and then they were going to drag till the early hours of the morning. After that, she was going to go home and sleep till Monday, when she'd have to face a girl who would pretend they hadn't kissed each other everywhere and exchanged a thousand love notes, all of them screenshotted on Snapchat. They were going to pretend to be strangers. Total bullshit.

The person waiting to take her order pushed up a pair oversize glasses to squint down at Sable through the window. Wearing dark wash on overalls and a plaid shirt, a white gold necklace reading she/they hung from her neck. 

"You okay?"

Sable didn't have an answer. She rubbed the back of her over her cheek. Please don't let me cry. There were so many Webber students here, it would get back to everybody and if she didn't give a good story, they'd make one up. It didn't matter; some asshole would spray paint lezzie on her locker anyway. Usually, she didn't care. She might get herself expelled if it happened again, might destroy some expensive school property yanking that locker door off its hinges. Might get arrested dragging the guilty party face-first down the back stairs. She hated how much she cared.

She wasn't okay.

She swallowed. "I can't decide what I want. What's good?"

The cashier raised both thick eyebrows and began to list off a whole host of new menu items Sable hadn't noticed when she skimmed the menu. She and Alayna always ordered the same things. The samosas for Alayna and the falafel for her. They shared their food. Kissed between bites. Never finished anything because kissing was better than food, any day.

"I've never tried any of that."

The cashier, Vanity, her nametag read, winked and planted her chin on her hand. Her eyes were dark as speckled marble and her skin was deep brown. A coil of frizzy hair tumbled down her nose and she blew it out of the way. Sable peeped the wavy cowlicks of an undercut behind her ears. "First time for everything, right? Time to try something new."

Sable laughed. She sounded stupid, she knew, her nose stuffed and throat sore, but it was a laugh.

Vanity snorted and shook her head. "All right, babe. Let me get you some samples. Put some sparkle back in your eyes."

Sable sucked in a quick breath and smiled. She couldn't remember the last time someone had tried flirting with her. Hell, she couldn't remember the last time she'd noticed anybody else. Alayna had been her private sun for so long, nobody else compared.

Maybe someone else should.

"Sounds good," Sable said, trying to flirt and finding herself embarrassingly out of practice. "I'll take one of everything—including your number, if it's handy." It was so bad she wanted the ground to swallow her up, but Vanity didn't laugh at her.

Though Vanity pulled a 'you must be joking' face, she didn't refuse. Instead she offered Sable a cold glass of mango lassi with a rainbow straw. All the other straws Sable had seen had been red. She sipped her drink, enjoying how sweet it was and how it cooled the heat in her cheeks and started to calm her down. It was perfect. A different kind of perfect.

Vanity made a note on her order pad of everything Sable had requested. 'One of everything' was a lot, even for a food truck. "I'll give you my number, on one condition."

Sable propped herself up on the counter protruding from the window. "Name it."

"At least try the food first. We're not going out if you hate it." Another vegetarian. It was fine; Sable didn't miss meat anyway.

"I won't hate it."

Vanity was skeptical. This had pickup line written all over it. "I bet you say that to all the cute enbies you meet."

"Nope," Sable said, feeling a little softhearted and a little sad but not miserable, not right now. "Just you."

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This concludes the mini-prequel I posted for #WattpadBlockParty some time ago with quite a few additions and changes. Hope you enjoy it! Vote if you enjoyed it, comment if you want more! And thank you so much for reading.

Check out the external link to go read GIRLS LIKE GIRLS!

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