Chapter Text
When Andrew first asked Shelby to go to homecoming with him, junior year, she said no. She barely knew him, he was known as an asshole, and to top it all off, she was extremely gay. But she texted him later changing his mind because she didn’t want to be the only girl in her group without a date, the rumors about him could just be rumors, and she was deeply closeted.
She didn’t really think it would morph into a year long relationship, but somehow their friend groups became intertwined and she couldn’t see a way to separate from him without causing a ripple effect. He’d talk about sex, she’d laugh and deflect to the marriage excuse. When he talked about marriage, she changed the subject and thought about going far away for college instead.
To his credit, he did spend the first couple months of the relationship occasionally trying to connect on an emotional level, but the problem was he didn’t really know how, instead just info-dumping on her and not asking any questions to get to know her. (Unless you count a random 3 am text inquiring about her bra size)
It was in this early stage that Andrew revealed something about himself that, in his mind, was quite deep. Although he enjoyed the country music all his friends listened to, he secretly was a huge pop punk fan. In particular, he loved this band out of Minneapolis called Cutting Corners. “They barely have a million monthly listeners on Spotify, look” Andrew had texted her, like it was some sort of accomplishment for him to be listening to them. Shelby nearly ignored the accompanying screenshot, but couldn’t help but notice the girl standing among the four men in the band’s picture.
Shelby had never thought too much about her “type,” but holy shit there it was. Messy brown waves, a strong jaw, a fierce look in her eye. It was all part of the punk rock persona, surely, but it still sent some heat to Shelby’s cheeks. Before she knew it, Andrew’s text sat unanswered as she was on this girl-Toni’s-Instagram. She had very few pictures and most of them were just promoting the tour they’d done that summer, hitting a few major cities in the Midwest and some minor ones along the East coast. She also had a picture with her arms around a girl with the caption “sisters-some people are born with them, I chose mine #internationalsiblingsday #yourewelcomarty” Finally, there was a picture of her from 2 years prior, showing off a rainbow bracelet to the camera, captioned “Obviously.”
Shelby’s deep dive got deeper. She couldn’t find much information on google apart from the fact that the band was a high school band who had somehow made it big, but still attended school during the year, and that Toni Shalifoe was widely considered to be a gifted bassist, despite not starting lessons until she was 11. Her dive got deeper still, and before she knew it, she was on Toni’s chosen sister’s cousin’s account, scouring for any signs of those brown waves and that smile that so rarely appeared in pictures, or any information at all. She also, you know, listened to the band's music and although they weren’t bad, it wasn’t really her style either.
Shelby went back to check every couple days for a few weeks, desperately hoping for a new picture, especially one that shed any light on if she was gay or not. Shelby got the strong impression but also thought it would be nice to know for sure. Just to know. But Toni was not much into Instagram, it seemed, and not at all into other forms of social media, judging by the lack of accounts, so in time, Shelby mostly forgot about it and only checked occasionally.
By the time graduation rolled around, Shelby only checked Toni’s Instagram about once a month, only once seeing anything new, just picture of Martha, her sister, with a Happy Birthday message. Coincidentally, she posted it on November 3rd, the day Shelby broke up with Andrew, after she caught him, pants down, with Krista Findley. (Which absolved her of any guilt she might have felt about kissing Becca the night before. Thank God no one had caught her doing that.)
Shelby had no idea how Becca’s parents had convinced her own parents to let Shelby come with them to LA for a graduation trip (even though she was due to move there to college a couple months later). She just knew she was excited to spend some time with her best friend, on the beach, surrounded by people that weren’t like the conservatives of Fort Travis.
Becca (and only Becca) knew Shelby was gay, because of the whole kissing her and then having a panic attack thing. It had taken some time for things to feel normal, but over time, her feelings for Becca returned to platonic and she felt comfortable telling Becca about the gay shows she enjoyed watching and how she’d had her awakening to the scene of Jade counting in Take a Hint on Victorious. It was only ever discussed at sleepovers, in whispers, long after they were sure everyone else was sleeping. Things would be different in LA though, and for a week, they got to have a little preview of how things might be.
It was their first day there, Becca’s mom and step-dad were at a work conference and Becca and Shelby were at the beach, soaking in the sun and discussing plans for the week. Shelby looked at all the people around her, her eyes admittedly lingering from time to time, as she reminded herself not to feel guilty for experiencing normal human feelings.
Her eyes lingered on a head of brown waves falling over a gorgeous tanned back with dimples, and when the girl turned around and looked straight at her, Shelby was too shocked to look away. She looked JUST like Toni Shalifoe. Except, no. Because the girl by her side, that was Martha. Which meant...
“Holy crap.” Shelby whispered.
“What?” Becca’s asked. She followed Shelby’s line of sight to the girl who was now awkwardly looking at them and looking away.
“Oh!” Becca said, her smile growing. “She’s cute!”
Shelby tore her eyes away then. She was about to explain when Becca continued “You should go talk to her!”
“No no no, it’s not like that!” Shelby stammered, even though it pretty much was like that. “Just, I know who she is. She’s in Andrew’s favorite band.”
Becca shrugged “All the more reason to go talk to her.”
Toni continued looking at Shelby every few seconds, and Shelby realized she was doing the same thing.
She figured then that it would actually probably be less awkward at this point if she went over to explain that she recognized her, rather than letting her think she was just checking her out. (Which was also completely true.)
“Fine, I will then.” Shelby said, grabbing her phone and marching across the sand. In her very short walk, she started to realize that maybe Toni didn’t like interacting with fans, so presenting herself that way might not be the best idea, not to mention she could only vaguely remember the names of like two of their songs. Which is why, when she reached her, she looked her in the eyes and said, “Hi, I was wondering if you’d be willing to take a picture with me to make my ex jealous.”
Toni’s eyes widened, as did Martha’s beside her, and Shelby sensed that she had definitely mis-steped, but before she could figure out what she’d said wrong, Toni said “Is that something you ask of a lot of lesbians or am I special?”
Shelby’s mind swirled as she tried to formulate a response. She had figured Toni was gay but a confirmation, paired with a smirk directed right at her seemed to take away all her higher level thinking skills.
“No, I didn’t mean, it’s not...he’s a huge fan of your band and he’d be so jealous I got to meet you.”
“Oh, I got you.” Toni replied, her smile faltering a bit. “But anyway, yeah, we can take a picture, Marty, do you mind?”
Shelby gave her phone to Martha and sat beside Toni. She expected her to put an arm around her for the picture but she didn’t, so they just sat side-by-side awkwardly while Marty snapped a picture.
“So what’d he do that you wanna make him jealous?” Marty asked as she handed her phone back. “Oh nothing.” Shelby replied, because she didn’t really care about making him jealous, that had been a front. But then she realized she needed to keep up that front. “Well actually he cheated on me with some girl but I guess I technically did the same exact thing.” Realizing how bad that made her sound, Shelby quickly added “Not that I’m like that, because I’m not usually. I try to be a good person.”
Toni’s eyes narrowed and Shelby knew she was overstaying her welcome but before she could step away, Toni said, a little louder than necessary “Being gay and being a good person aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Shelby really couldn’t believe she’d managed to fuck things up so badly in one very short interaction. So, to avoid any possibility of any more awkward miscommunication, she took a deep breath and calmly explained “I meant I’m not a cheater. I know you can be gay and be a good person. I am.” She watched Toni digest the information for a second before she said “Thank you for the picture” and walked back to Becca.
“So? How’d it go?” Becca asked, smiling, the eternal optimist. “Horrible.” Shelby burried her face in her hands. “She thought I was trying to hit on her, then she thought I was just there to use her, then she thought I was homophobic, and then I just came out to two people who I don't even know.”
“All that happened in that span of time?”
“I’m hopeless. I can’t talk to girls to save my life apparently.”
“Hey, that’s not true. It’ll just take a bit more practice.” Becca assured her.
As Shelby took her hands away from her face, she noticed Becca kept looking back in the direction of Toni and Martha. “What are you looking at?” Shelby asked, but when Becca didn’t answer, she glanced over herself.
Toni and Martha were talking animatedly, and stealing glances over in her direction. Probably talking about how freaking weird she was. She considered deleting the photo from her phone so there would be no evidence of the whole, terrible encounter. She noticed then that Becca was still looking over there, only now she was smiling and subtly nodding. She looked in time to see Martha smiling back at Becca and attempting to push Toni in their direction while Toni appeared quite set on staying seated. Shelby looked back to Becca. “What’re you doing?” She hissed but Becca only smiled. “You’re fine. You got this.”
"What? No I certainly do not! Are they coming over here?" Shelby asked, too afraid to look back, and Becca hummed "Mhm."
Shelby looked over to see Toni standing over them, her eyes darting around the entire beach, and Martha standing several feet behind her.
“So um, I realized I never got your name and I probably should have. I guess you maybe already know this but my name’s Toni.”
“Shelby. Yes I did know.” Shelby attempted to put on her pageant persona but the butterflies in her stomach made it difficult.
“Cool. Well, it was nice meeting you, Shelby.”
“Do you want her number too?” Becca blurted out before Shelby could stop her.
Toni smiled and stared at the ground and Shelby couldn’t read what that meant, but Martha intervened, walking up to Toni and announcing “Yes, she does," while grabbing Toni’s wrist and shoving it towards Shelby. Apparently, she’d been holding her phone the whole time and Shelby hadn’t even noticed, caught between staring at her gorgeous face and looking everywhere else but her.
Shelby took the phone, very much feeling their fingers brush against each other. Interestingly enough, Toni already had the new contact page pulled up. As Shelby typed in her information, she connected the dots enough that when she handed the phone back she had the confidence to say “Don’t be a stranger.” It felt like a weird thing to say as they were very nearly strangers, but Toni’s response of "I won’t” was enough for her.
There was a silence that was on the verge of getting awkward when Martha cut in “We gotta get going, Toni’s off to the recording studio, but we’ll see you around?”
Shelby hoped every word of that was true.
It was a few hours later that she got the text: Hey, this is Toni. Sorry I was so awkward earlier. I guess you threw me off a little bit but I meant it when I said it was nice meeting you.
Shelby was still thinking of a response when another text came in.
I meant to also say that if you’d like, I wanna meet up with you again sometime.
Toni went to bed around 1, after a night of the two of them texting (which Becca relentlessly teased her for). Shelby tried to sleep but before she could, she pulled up the picture of the two of them on the beach. She wasn’t going to use it to make Andrew jealous-she didn’t want to post it, as she was squinting in the sun, looked pink from the heat, and her smile a little too forced. Toni looked stunning though.
(She came to love the picture, which sat framed on the mantle of the home they grew old together in.)