Chapter Text
Summer was just beginning, and after getting used to the flow of the days, to waking up late —at least as late as her internal clock would allow, after years of getting up early for dance classes— and indulging in the small luxury of letting her well-trained body do absolutely nothing, Daniela was almost dragged along, although in reality she also thought that the sun and exercise would do her good, by the erratic but absolute determination of her best friend, who in her own words, “was not going to allow her to waste her first summer at home in years”.
For at least the last three summers, Daniela couldn't remember if it had been more, she and Megan had signed up for the same dance camp on the other side of the country. It was a cute tradition, but it also helped her stay sharp and alert while classes and training were suspended. Daniela liked the ritual and discipline. Megan was her favorite person in the world and going away from home with her to do the thing they enjoyed the most, which had also been the founding reason for their relationship, while at the same time giving herself over to weeks of prefabricated structure, was literally her definition of a perfect vacation.
Megan, on the other hand, didn't entirely agree. She loved her best friend to death, at least that's what she swore to Daniela in every speech designed to convince her to stay in the city just for these vacations, which would be her last before college. Camp was fun, and of course she would miss her friends, whom she only saw once a year. But Adela wrote to her often, and they wouldn't lose touch by missing just one time. On the other hand, they would never have another last summer before college. From now on, their lives would move at the fast and hectic pace that Daniela enjoyed. She promised Daniela she would take all the intensive courses she wanted and travel with her on tour around the country to perform, if only she would stay with her this vacation and really let her have a vacation and not drag her to the studio or trick her into coming to her house only to end up dancing for hours. Dancing was fun and exciting and brought out the best in her. Daniela brought out the best in her, but that was precisely why she didn't want it to end up feeling like work.
Daniela didn't like the idea from the start. She wasn't particularly strict or organized about other aspects of her life. She did well in school, her teachers liked her, but she didn't have a schedule or a method, not really. She just did what she had to do to pass each year so she could focus on dancing. She was ambitious, yes, and hungry to be the center of attention (only on stage), but there was something else, darker and quieter, that she was sure Megan could read. She knew her too well not to.
When Daniela wasn't dancing, something inside her itched. It was a slight discomfort, not enough to hurt, but enough to make her self-conscious all the time. It was as if she were pretending. She didn't like to think of it in that way because it made her feel like a bad person. She felt like she was deceiving others with her smile, which had recently begun to bring her a kind of attention she wasn't used to, and the light movements of her body, which seemed to stretch with impossible flexibility, courtesy of all the years of training her muscles to perfection. She wasn't really sure why she lied or what exactly she was lying about, she just felt like she was in rehearsed posture all the time, except when she danced, as ironic as that sounds.
Anyway, because Megan was the only person in the world who made her feel like she could relax, and because over time she had learned that no matter how twisted and convoluted the way her brain worked might seem, she was usually right, she decided to listen to her this summer. Besides, Daniela knew that Megan had been spending time outside of school with this new girl she suddenly couldn't stop talking about, and she was a little touched by the idea that maybe she wanted to stay because she had a new friend.
The truth was that after finding each other, Daniela and Megan had spent years without talking much to anyone else. Their close-knit group of people was limited to Sophia, Megan's older sister, and in recent years, the occasional guy Daniela was flirting with.
In their early teens, both girls were too reserved to form meaningful bonds with their classmates, and when they entered their senior year of high school, despite the charisma and ease they developed as dancing boosted their self-confidence, and despite the fact that everyone in their classroom seemed to like them, they weren't really interested in deepening their connection with anyone else. At least that was the case until one day last semester, when Daniela stayed home because she had a cold that must have been terribly bad to force her to miss school, and Megan had to team up with other people in the lab to complete the class experiment.
Lara had always seemed cool to Megan in a slightly intimidating way. She had a much more distinctive style than other people her age, all black leather and texture, so when the teacher told her to sit next to her and Yoonchae for this class, she felt a knot in her stomach that she attributed to her social anxiety and cursed Daniela slightly for abandoning her at the mercy of the two coolest people in school. Up close, Lara was even prettier, but her smile, which had always seemed mocking to her, now just seemed funny, and when she complimented her outfit, it seemed genuine, as if she really liked Megan's more relaxed and comfortable style. Daniela vaguely remembered Lara saying something about liking it when someone with a pretty face dressed like a twelve-year-old skater boy, and as Daniela watched the streets go by through Megan's car window, she remembered her friend telling her about the interaction with a mixture of nervousness and excitement and let out a small laugh.
“What's so funny?”
“Nothing, it's just... I love you, Megan, thank you for being my friend, I promise to have fun with you this summer.”
Megan turned her head dangerously toward the passenger seat with a grimace, about to ask Daniela what the hell she was talking about and where that sudden display of affection had come from, but when she saw the hazel eyes full of honesty, she simply laughed to herself and said, “I mean, I love you too, just don't act like it's the last time we'll ever see each other, dumbass, you're scaring me”.
They got out of the car in the public pool parking lot onto the hot pavement. Daniela immediately regretted not bringing her sunscreen to reapply. She wanted to tan a little, not completely burn the surface of her skin. The thought took away the tenderness she had felt for her best friend during the car trip, and she turned to look at her with annoyance.
“What? I thought we were going to have fun,” she said, pulling her by the arm without waiting for a reply.
Megan was definitely going to have fun, Daniela thought, the moment she saw Lara standing in front of a slightly younger girl who seemed to be choosing a place to put her things.
“Omg, you're here, I'm so sorry, Yoonchae is taking forever to choose a chair.”
“Ugh, you don't understand, Lara, this one is burning in the sun, I can't lie down, and this one is completely covered by that stupid palm tree, and...” At that moment, Megan, who until then had been waving awkwardly, realized that she had been making the same gesture for a long time and must have looked like a fool, so she quickly lowered her hand, hitting the younger girl's waist in the process, who abruptly interrupted her speech. “Oh, hi, Megan.” The suddenly dry tone compared to the annoying but sweet complaints directed at Lara only made Megan's embarrassment feel a thousand times worse.
“It's okay,” Daniela interrupted, always composed and perfectly appropriate in social settings, like a second instinct that she didn't know exactly where it came from, just as she didn't know where the sudden tension in the air came from. “I brought an extra towel. We can use it to lie down on the hot chair and just move that one toward the sun. We'll be in the pool while it heats up, so...”
Suddenly, three beautiful, grateful faces stared at her, and she had to admit that made her a little nervous, but when Lara laughed surprisingly easily and grabbed Megan by the shoulder, saying, “Now I see why you don't leave her side, we all together are a little useless”
“it’s literally as if our brain power cancels each other out” Megan added, and Daniela felt the air clear when Yoonchae smile at that “Okay, so we can go to the pool now,” and as the three girls' giggles filled the air, Daniela felt the moment of tenderness return. Maybe spending the summer in the city hadn't been such a bad idea after all.
“You guys go ahead, I'll catch up with you in a minute. I'm going to read for a while before getting in the water.”
“Uh, you're all nerds under that cool exterior, I like it,” Lara said, winking and causing Megan to grimace.
“I've literally never seen you read that book, but okay.” Megan complained with a fake look of disgust.
“Haha, really funny.” and with tant they left, leaving Daniela with a slight smile that never quite faded, despite the strength of the sun beating down on her face.
The truth is that she isn't sure how long she spent reading before the interruption, somewhere between fifteen minutes and half an hour probably, at least long enough to find herself completely absorbed in her thriller, and in broad daylight, lying in front of strangers in swimsuits, feeling a little scared, too concerned about the future of the characters behind her sunglasses. No one can really blame her then for the slightly disproportionate reaction she had when an unfamiliar voice almost shouted at her from behind her book, in a place she had completely lost track of.
“Hello?”
“Oh, omg, what happened?” Daniela replied, too terrified for the nature of the interaction, which provoked a slight, confused laugh from the girl with braids who was looking down at her.
“I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to shout. I called you a couple of times.” She sounded both nervous and confident, with a deep voice and a slight accent that Daniela couldn't help but notice. “I'm Manon, Lara's friend? I don't think we've met.” And realizing that she had responded completely out of character in front of a stranger, Daniela felt the heat rise to her cheeks. “I think I scared you. I'm really sorry. Lara is always playing around, and she just told me to leave my stuff ‘over there with the hottest girl in the place.’ I know now that is dumb. I'm sorry. I'm not from around here.”
Something about that, the casual confession that she thought Daniela was “the hottest girl in the place,” or the tone she used, so innocent that she couldn't tell if it was fake, or perhaps the fact that she said it right after the most awkward interaction Daniela had had in months, or that a girl who looked so ethereal had been talking to her for so long and she still couldn't get a single word out of her mouth, made her blush completely and caused the panic she was feeling, fictitious just a couple of seconds ago, settle definitively in her chest with a seriousness that was too much for her liking. The worst part of it all: Manon definitely noticed.
“Are you okay? Your face is very red. Do you need sunscreen?” She raised a delicate hand holding a small white bottle, still smiling, a smile which didn't seem to waver even under the most unpredictable circumstances. That was her escape route. If she didn't recover now, this cool girl would go back and tell Lara that her friend couldn't talk, and Megan would surely kill her for embarrassing her like that.
“Yes, sorry about that, I was really focused on reading,” she said with an apologetic smile that, although not quite perfect, was going to work. "I'm Daniela. Lara sent you to the right place. You didn't scare some random girl, don't worry, although I'm not quite sure about those instructions," and she laughed as if to dispel the embarrassment she was feeling and regain control of the situation. But it didn't work.
“Oh, girl, you're beautiful. Lara is always extra, but she's never wrong. Just looking in your general direction, I was hooked: the pose, the book, the sunglasses covering half your face, the aura of mystery.” Manon had this je ne sais quoi about her, Daniela knew it just by looking at her a little more closely, a certain ease that was impossible to fake, and she was saying these things to her as if it were part of a joke they had both known for a long time. She had spent the first half of her teenage years observing girls like her with unbridled admiration, to copy them, she thought, to learn something from their gestures and charm and perhaps, if she managed to imitate them correctly, to go unnoticed.
So, even though she could feel the conversation shifting back out of balance, as Manon regained control of the interaction without even trying —Daniela developed that kind of sensitivity to the subtleties of body language through dance— and even though Manon's charisma was overwhelming and her face was distracting, and it seemed like this whole conversation was part of a carefully crafted plan to embarrass her, she thought she knew how to respond to this kind of thing. Compliments from other pretty girls were an old file in her brain, and she had it under control, so there's no logical explanation for what came out of her mouth two seconds later, without processing it, absolutely brazen and flirtatious?
“Well, if you don't mind applying sunscreen to this beautiful girl, maybe I can forgive you for scaring me earlier.” She said it all with a pout, shaking her head playfully to the rhythm of the words and turning her back, exposing her neck as an invitation. To her own surprise and Manon's amusement, who seemed just a little taken aback by the comment.
“It would be an honor.”
What the hell was that? Manon's hands were warm, but they felt refreshing against her burning skin. They were delicate and soft, and her movements felt strangely intentional. Everything in this conversation felt intentional and charged, and how could that be if Daniela had no hidden agenda?
As she tried to hide the chill that the touch caused her, she wondered if this was normal for the other girl, if this was her way of approaching strangers and she was simply copying her style for lack of a better strategy. She even wondered if she had applied sunscreen to other girls before with that rhythm that could only be practiced, as she ran her hand down her neck, and she felt something like annoyance at the idea that she was playing with her, a thoroughly irrational thought considering that she was the one who started the flirting, or perhaps it was Manon who mentioned Lara's supposed words about her, which, it must be said, she had no way of verifying, and why did it bother her if she was flirting with her? That had never been her reaction before.
Was she flirting with her? Was all this because she was a girl? Was she being homophobic? But girls had flirted with her before, half-jokingly, at parties, always in large social settings, with other people, and she had never taken it very seriously, but she never takes that kind of thing very seriously; she's not looking for a boyfriend out there and the girls were always so nice and commented on her physical appearance so easily...
“Oh, so you found the hottest girl in the place.” Just like that.
Lara was wet, but the smile on her face made her look radiant. “I guess you two already know each other then.”
“Not really, so far, I've just scared Daniela and tried to make up for it with silly compliments and putting sunscreen on her. I'm being a bit of a disaster.” Lara laughed and looked at them both strangely.
“Well, Manon, this is Daniela. She's Megan's best friend. She dances and is very cool, as I'm sure you've noticed. She's always effortlessly kind. Daniela, Manon” she said, pointing to her friend, “she's from Switzerland. She's spending the summer here because she might want to go to college in the United States. We're going to help her figure it out. She's a little cheeky and gay, but deep down she's very sweet. Don't let her get into your head.”
While Lara finished her presentation, which had certainly wiped the serene look off Manon's face—something that definitely pleased Daniela, though she couldn't quite understand why—Yoonchae appeared with her characteristic irritated expression, which, on the other hand, Daniela found adorable.
“I can't believe you left me alone with Megan. I literally hate you.”
“Calm down, babe. Manon is here, and I realized she had never met Daniela before. I had to be a good friend and introduce them.”
“Hi, Manon.” And just for her, Yoonchae did have an angelic expression.
“Hi, sweetheart, you look amazing today.” So, it was part of her usual charisma, which made Daniela even more angry with herself for feeling so out of place and even overthinking whether she was flirting with her. She was so dumb. Maybe in Switzerland everyone communicated like that and it was just a translation error.
“Can we play volleyball now that Manon is here?” Yoonchae asked, continuing in character as a good girl.
“Yes! Of course we can,” Lara said as she looked at Manon graciously.
“Just give me a moment, I’ll finish organizing my things and I’ll be right there.”
“I'm playing too, I'm just going to let the sunscreen take effect,” and when Yoonchae pulled Lara into the pool, Daniela had to face being alone with Manon again. “So, Switzerland, why are you considering coming to the United States to study then?” She thought that perhaps being cordial and normal for the first time since she met her would erase the tension she had unintentionally created. Manon simply copied her casual tone, as if nothing had happened, perhaps because for her, it hadn't.
“Well, I want to do something related to art. I like LA, I have friends here, and I'll probably have more opportunities, resources... I don't know, I'm still considering it.”
“Art? What kind of artistic are you?” That had genuinely piqued Daniela's curiosity, but Manon seemed embarrassed by the question.
“It's nothing, it's not like I'm any good at it, I just like being behind the camera. I've been involved in a few projects with my friends, and sometimes I write things.” She said the last part a little more quietly, and almost as if to hide it, she added, "Lara and I actually met on tiktok. One of my videos went viral and she contacted me. I'd been following her for a while and already thought she was cool, so we became friends very quickly." Was she talking faster because she had made her nervous?
“Are you on tiktok? That's so cool, I have to follow you."
“Omg, no, it's so embarrassing, I don't post anything interesting yet.”
“Come on, I dance, maybe we can do something together someday?”
“That's right, you dance, Lara mentioned it. I've always wanted to learn. Is that how you met Megan?” Daniela thought the change of subject felt cheeky and at the same time came out too naturally. It seemed to be a trait of Manon's, as if everything came easily to her, but she let it go because she didn't want to put pressure on anything and return to the uncomfortable ground they had reached before. Maybe she would bring it up again later if the opportunity came up.
“Yes, we've known each other since we were kids, same dance school.” Then a pause. “How did you know Megan dances too? Did you guys meet before?” Megan hadn't mentioned anything about a new girl from Switzerland.
“Oh, that, well, Lara won't stop talking about her. I think they like each other a little?”
“What” Daniela froze at the comment "what do you mean by that?”
“Oh, shit, did I say something I shouldn’t have? I don’t know, Lara hasn’t said anything to me about it, I just thought it was obvious, look at them, the way they get close to each other, I don’t know.” Megan had definitely not mentioned anything about liking Lara. But now that she thought about it, it made sense. Yeah, Daniela had always known that Megan was bisexual. It wasn't a big deal when she came out in the middle of telling her that she was also dyslexic and had psoriasis. From the beginning of their relationship, the girl had a tendency to overshare, but Daniela had never thought much about it. She believed that Megan had never liked anyone before, but now she felt like a bad friend for not noticing. They could even be dating, given the way Lara looked at her friend, but Daniela believed that Lara was like that with everyone and that they wouldn't go that far without Megan saying something. They were probably in the crush stage and nothing had happened yet, but she wanted her friend to say those kinds of things to her.
“Omg, Daniela, are you coming or not?” And there was the deserved complaint about her lack of attention to detail.
“Yes, we're coming,” she gave one last distracted look at Manon, who seemed concerned about what she had just said, and finally headed for the pool.