Audre & Bash Are Just Friends

by Tia Williams

“Sparrow, there’s someone out there dying to love you. Don’t ‘fix’ yourself before they get a chance to fall for the real you.”

In there, therapizing Sparrow, she was in control. At the height of her powers. But out here, surrounded by unselfconscious people giving in to Having a Good Time just for the sake of having a good time? She felt like an alien.

I could handle it if my mom still noticed me. But little by little, we’ve grown apart. It’s been a slow, painful untangling, but it’s final. I’ve been replaced. And now Mom, Shane, and Baby Alice live in their own happy little world.

Audre blinked several times. “But… but… I have an internship at a Malibu mental health clinic. They chose me over two hundred candidates.” “I know you’re disappointed. But guess what? You’re getting a baby brother!”

be serious…

Jennifer was so melodramatic. So self-centered. And unable to see the irony of working with abandoned children—when she’d abandoned one of her own.

yea she’s on my shit list already

Bash’s words had hit her somewhere—some melancholy, yearning place that longed for things not to change. For everything to go back to the way it used to be.

“So, how much will you charge?” She slid her glasses up her nose. “Can’t I just do it for free? An actual cash payment makes me feel… whorish.”

i giggled

He never mentioned his athlete past. No one had searchable info about him. Bash Henry wasn’t even his actual government name.

hello????

When Bash saw Audre sitting by herself in the park, it was like all the cells in his body started buzzing. He knew who she was: Audre Zora Maya Toni Mercy-Moore. She was brainy and confident, and had a wild best friend, an adorable set of dimples, and was a rising senior. She was earnest as hell and square in an adorable way. And extremely out of his league.

bye i love how he thinks of her

For the first time in ages, he forgot to check the time.

ㅠㅠ

Not good. Even worse? Kiki was twenty, and Reshma was sixteen and a half—an age-gap scandal punishable by jail time. So, they agreed to part before they were caught.

Slowly, she let her eyelids flutter open. And then she shrieked. Bash was sitting on the boardwalk, at her feet.

“Maybe. But also, I really want to hear your speech. You need someone to be proud of you. I’ll be proud.”

and if i cry

I know, he looked like he was actively decomposing.

BYE I LAUGHED SO HARD AT THIS

“But why do you think the only way Bash could like me back is if you removed an obstacle for me? Why do you think I need your help to get a guy?” “Because you do need my help. I mean, obviously.” Audre winced. “Excuse me?”

oh?

It was Sparrow. She was too far away to hear what Audre and Bash were saying, but their body language (and the sex toys) spoke loud enough. And she was outraged.

girl don’t pmo

Bash: smiles are contagious too. yours is, at least

this would work on me

Chilled to the bone, he walked back to his building in a near trance. He couldn’t forget what he already knew—that it only took seven minutes for everything to change.

How did Bash know she felt safest counseling people in bathrooms? It was true, but she’d never actually said that out loud, to anyone. Is this what it felt like to be seen? To be understood without words? A warm, potent feeling surged through her.

Ellison’s jaw went slack. “You saw the video? How? We deleted…” He never finished. Bash, in a white-hot rage, reared back and punched him in the jaw—putting all one-hundred-and-ninety pounds of lean, powerful muscle behind it.

omfg

“He saw something that you don’t show anyone. It was a privilege that he ever got to be that close to you. To see you like that. Why didn’t he make you feel better? Try to help, or comfort you, whatever. Why wasn’t he good to you? You deserve that. And now you’ll always remember your prom like that. I wish I could correct all your bad memories, Audre. Erase them and give you better ones. If I see him again, I fucking promise you, if I see him…”

Please tell me you like me as much as I like you; please tell me that Clio and all the other girls don’t matter; please tell me I haven’t imagined something between us; please please please don’t move all the way to Myrtle Beach.

i read in tears

“I’m not here because of an experiment thing. I’m here because of a you thing.”

Eva was so hard on her. She’d set unrealistic expectations for Audre, and the pressure had caught up to her. It was the reason for her panic attacks. Her constant anxiety. Her perfection addiction, with the bar rising higher and higher—to heights no normal teen could reach. What was the point of any of it?

In her hand was a battered, Smurf-shaped lunch box. Decades of saltwater erosion had faded the Smurf’s facial features to almost nothing. Jennifer handed it to him. He took it and just stood there, frozen solid, gawking at the lunch box like it had just burst into song. After a long pause, he found his voice. “Wh-where was this?” he stammered. “Propped outside the front door,” she said with a confused shrug. “It’s for you, apparently. There’s a note taped to the back. Incredibly odd, no? It looks a million years old.”

she ateeee

Offended, Jennifer huffed and threw up her arms. Her right one connected with the Smurf lunch box, sending it flying. It landed on the floor with a crash, cracking the delicate, decades-old plastic. He scrambled to pick it up, and it fell apart in his hands. The world stopped.

ur fucking lying

“He only hit me once. I was fourteen, and I’d had so many running injuries, my doctor told me I had the body of a forty-year-old athlete. I was fucking heated. Like, why am I ruining myself for him? What for? It was never enough. So, I felt all rebellious one day and got my brow pierced.” Bash shook his head, remembering. “I knew he’d hate it. But I didn’t think he’d punch me in the jaw.”

omfg

He checked the timer. Five minutes and three seconds. He’d beaten the time it had taken for Milton to disown him. He’d beaten it. From that moment on, Bash stopped obsessively timing things. The “seven minutes” spell had been broken.

me sobbing

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.” With that, she disentangled herself, pressed her lips against his cheek, and left him. Hours later, his skin still smarted where she had pecked him. He felt the burn of it, just as vividly as if he’d been kissed by fire.

make it stop

Losing him was excruciating. Hating her mom was almost as bad.

making the ‘right’ choices doesn’t guarantee you a happy ending. So, follow your own path. Take chances, be wild, make mistakes, get messy, be colorful. Be true to whoever you are.”

With that, it was official. Bash and Audre were definitely, absolutely, not just friends.

this was so cute