Chapter Text
It’s a Thursday when Deena knows she’s going to tell Sam Frasier how she feels about her. They'd met over the summer, both girls opting to spend the warm months as counselors at camp Nightwing.
Seeing Sam with the campers brought feeling back into Deena’s previously dead heart. She fell in love with being a counselor while she was falling for Sam. She’d never known that someone else could have so much passion it could become contagious.
Deena practices in front of her mirror so many times it’s embarrassing, but she wants this to be perfect. Or, if it can’t be perfect, she wants to make sure she gets it right. There are so many things she’s hoping to say to this girl and something in her chest tells Deena that Sam is only going to give her one shot.
She’s never felt for anyone the way she feels for Sam. And today, finally, she’s going to tell her. A feeling of relief washes over the brunette as she drinks in the information that this is the last night she’ll ever have to go to sleep wondering if Sam feels that way about her, too. Whether it’s a yes or a no, at least she’ll have an answer.
The question has been tormenting Deena for so long she can scarcely recall a time when it did not haunt her.
She gathers all her courage, along with the flowers Sam had mentioned she loved the other day, and knocks. Deena forces herself to keep still, her fingers nervously shifting around the flowers in her hands. The crinkle of paper is irritating, but it soothes her to watch the colors circulate.
After an eternity of waiting, the sound of footsteps approaching causes Deena to snap her head up. She’s expecting to see the tall, feminine figure she’s come to adore over the past few months, but instead she’s greeted with an oafish, caveman-looking boy with a bad haircut and an annoyed frown.
Before Deena has time to process any of this, the front door is yanked open and she’s standing face to face with the boy. He’s wearing a Sunnyvale High Devils sweatshirt, dark blue jeans, and Nike’s with the tackiest pattern Deena has ever seen.
“Who are you?” The boy asks bluntly, looking her up and down. Deena can see his judgement and disapproval a mile away.
“Where’s Sam?” Deena counters, rolling her shoulders back in an effort to look sturdier than she’s feeling.
Deena wants to give Sam the benefit of the doubt here, she really does. But Sam routinely tells her about how utterly intolerable the majority of her classmates are – so much so that the blonde had spent most of camp on the Shadyside side. The Sam Deena knew went out her way to avoid most Sunnyvalers, especially the ones who spoke and look like this jackass.
“She’s with her Mom right now,” he says casually, like Sam doesn’t hate spending time with her Mom more than anything on the planet.
Before Deena can say anything, he speaks again.
“Look I don’t know if you mixed up your days or what, but Sam and I have plans tonight.” Even his voice is irritating. “And who are those flowers for?”
Crap.
Every night this week, as she attempted to fall asleep, Deena prepared herself for all the ways that this could go wrong. She pictured Sam not feeling the same way, Sam telling her she was rushing things. She was prepared for a gentle speech about how they work better as friends, or for the blonde to tell her that Deena simply wasn’t her type. But not once did she prepare herself for anything like this.
“No one,” she grunts out. “Enjoy your date with Sam.” She emphasizes the word date, and hopes with all she has that he will correct her.
He doesn’t. The prick simply nods at her once and slams the door in the face, already back in his own world.
Deena stands there for a moment, entirely frozen because she can’t quite believe what just happened.
She does the only thing she can do: She tosses the bouquet of flowers in the nearest trashcan and, she goes home.
Sam has a boyfriend. Her Sam. The girl she talks to on the phone every day after school. Suddenly a lot of things fall into place for Deena; Sam has a busy schedule and she doesn’t press for details when she knows the Sunnyvaler is busy, but she’s never been offered them, either. It makes a lot of sense why Sam always turns her down to come over and watch a movie with her, Kate, and Simon. She understands now, why Sam always gets quite shy when she brings up relationships.
She has a fucking boyfriend. And she didn’t even bother to tell Deena.
Actually, worse than that, she very specifically told her that she was single when she had a boyfriend the entire time.
Who does that?
Maybe Sam isn’t the girl she thought she knew at all. Perhaps she never was.
The worst, most pathetic part about all of it is that Deena could have understood about the boyfriend. She would most likely have forgiven Sam for lying to her the instant she decided to tell the truth if it meant the blonde was choosing her.
But Deena has enough liars in her life between her alcoholic father and the mother who’s been out of her and Josh’s lives for a decade now. As badly as she wants to be with Sam, the part of her that knows it’s imperative to protect herself is stronger, and the last thing she wants to do now is give Sam the satisfaction of knowing that her actions had fractured her so deeply.
No, Deena is more the type to just completely disappear.