(A/N: Post-episode 1x06.)

The wedding dress wasn't necessarily ruined – but it was certainly worse for Ford's having worn it.

Not unexpected, given the girl's blood alcohol level and her drunken clumsiness. Brenna had done her best to clean up the mess, but it had been difficult given Greer's insistence they leave, and that they leave now.

It had been four days since the disastrous blue party, and three days since Brenna had heard from Greer.

There had been one text the day after the party. A brief exchange that had felt like a frigid breath of cold air wrapping itself around Brenna's heart.

Hey, I'm really sorry. Can we please talk?

It had been followed by a simple

No.

The period had felt particularly definite. Brenna had responded with what she hoped was maturity, poise, grace: she had pouted, but she had pouted silently.

But now, enough was enough.

Brenna typed another text – likely as futile as the first – and hit the send button with a feeling of great trepidation.

I'm going to be at the coffee shop in exactly one hour. Please come talk to me. I have a lot to stay. And I promise to start with an apology. Anyway, I'll be there regardless. Hope to see you.

She waited three agonizingly full minutes, but no '…' showed up to signify an imminent response. Brenna closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose. She willed the tears away, willed them to stay away so hard – but sometimes your best just isn't good enough.

The back of her hand was wet with moisture, wiped from her cheeks. They were tears tinged with regret and many other emotions: mostly anger, a bit of sadness, a pinch of frustration.

Brenna was angry that she had been so stupid as to even think about kissing Kieran in Greer's house – on Greer's bed! How insensitive could she be? Apparently, very. And the fact that he had shown up in the first place… It had been a disorienting swirl, a dangerous mix of the two lives she had been living recently. Brenna wasn't afraid of living her life, but she was keen to do it on her own terms. But why had she kissed him?

And what had Greer been about to say?

Brenna was also sad. It hurt her to see Greer hurting, and the pain was particularly sharp, achingly tangible, as she had been the one to cause said hurt. 'We hurt the ones we love', they say, but Brenna fell back onto her bed and groaned because that just seems like idiocy. It made her sick, the memory of Greer's upset face as she had run out of the room after Ford, a face so different from the one Greer had been wearing when they had been talking downstairs.

And then the interruption – but what had Greer been about to say?

The frustration though, a direct result of the amalgamation of emotions she'd been feeling, that was the part that had been making it difficult for Brenna to sleep the last few nights. What if she had introduced Kieran to Greer instead? What if she hadn't gone to the party at all? What if, what if, what if?

…What if they hadn't been interrupted in the first place – what words would have left Greer's lips, and how would that have changed…everything? Or…nothing?

Nothing, it currently was. But Brenna suspected it would have been everything, and so she hauled herself up out of bed and to her closet. A conversation had to be had.

She could only show up prepared and hope for the best.

\ \ \ \ \

Brenna sat down at a free tabletop early, of course. She initially sat facing the doorway, but that was too painful and anxiety-inducing. She turned her back, stirred her coffee, and waited. An identical drink sat across from her, mostly because Brenna had panicked as she was ordering, realizing that she didn't know how Greer took her coffee or even if she took it at all.

Another sigh. And still, she waited.

The hour mark came.

Thirty seconds.
Forty-five.
One minute.
Two.

The hour mark went.

With her fingertips pressed to her forehead, Brenna closed her eyes and tried to stave off an encore of waterworks. And just as her bottom lip was threatening to quiver, she felt someone settle down in the chair across from her. Her eyes snapped open to reveal Greer – big sunglasses hiding those baby blue-greys.

"Greer," she breathed.

Greer simply nodded, tight-lipped. Brenna rushed to fulfill her promise, the words spilling from her in a stream of built-up remorse.

"I am so sorry, for everything – that Kieran even showed up in the first place, that Ford was left alone in your wardrobe to wreak havoc, that we didn't get to finish our conversation. I'm sorry that I repaid your kindness by letting a friend ruin what was probably a family heirloom. I'm just... I'm so sorry, Greer."

The other girl's face had been utterly impassive, and it was killing Brenna. She wanted to grip the edge of the table, maybe give it a little shake. Scream, 'Say something, say anything!' But it wasn't that simple.

Maturity. Poise. Grace.

Brenna pulled on her bottom lip with her teeth. She remained silent, waiting.

Finally, Greer spoke. And Brenna honest to goodness thought it was going to be about Kieran – though she hoped it would be about the words that had been left unspoken. Instead, it was about—

"The dress was a complete mess."

"I know," Brenna replied understandingly, having chastised herself for days already. "Did you send it to the cleaners? Please give me the bill, it's absolutely the least I can do, and I'd do more if I could."

"The dress has been cleaned. That's beside the point."

"Ford was being ridiculous, I never should have left her alone. I really am sorry," Brenna tried again.

"You're just not getting it. That was supposed to be my dress."

By now, Brenna was acutely aware that Greer hadn't uttered her name once. It normally sounded so sweet as it slipped off of her tongue. Its absence was telling.

"It's still your dress," Brenna responded. Her voice was soft. She felt completely out of her element, whatever her element normally was.

Finally, Greer removed her sunglasses. Eyes as cold and sharp as steel met Brenna's, and Brenna found herself gulping once, hard.

"You don't understand," Greer sighed.

Brenna was afraid. She saw the blonde's façade threatening to crack.

"I want to understand, Greer. Please explain. I'm listening."

She must have imagined the slight tremble of Greer's chin, because the girl's voice was perfectly steady when next she spoke.

"Someday, I'll want to marry the person I'm with. I mean, I believe in love. It's bound to happen, right?" She carried on without waiting for a response. "I know the dress is still mine, I know that it can be cleaned a million and one times and it will still be as special as it was when my grandma wore it. But the physical dress is not the problem. I'll never be able to look at that dress again without picturing you on my bed with – with…" Her voice trailed away. She looked down at her hands. Brenna's brain was screaming at her to reach forward, to touch Greer's hand with her own, to share that connection with her – but she couldn't, she couldn't move. And finally, Greer finished her sentence with a softly breathed, "him."

'I'm sorry' didn't feel like the right thing to say. So Brenna was quiet for a moment, and then she chose to ask the question that had been killing her slowly.

"What were you going to say?" Greer's eyes connected with hers again. And this time, they shone with unshed tears. "Before you saw him across the room. What were you going to say?"

A shaky breath. "Brenna—"

Brenna tried not to be overtly pleased at the sound of her own name.

"Please, Greer."

A lifetime passed in the span of a few moments. And when Greer opened her mouth, something inside Brenna screamed that she would remember the words to come forever.

"I was going to say… That I like seeing you between classes. That I've only really been your friend for a little while, but I feel like I've seen your heart – and it is a strong heart, a kind heart, a heart worth knowing. That I didn't even really mind losing to you at tennis, because I got a shoulder to lean on for a while. That your smile is rare, but true. That I…that I don't like the thought of you kissing someone else, because I feel like you should be kissing me." Greer's eyes shone with such earnestness that it took all of Brenna's self-restraint not to leap the table. "That… Well, that's all, really."

Brenna swallowed and shook her head. "But, Greer," a sigh, this time laced with only a bit of disbelief but a great deal of awe, "that's everything."

"Thanks," Greer eventually said, speaking softly, "for the coffee." She smiled over the rim of the cup as she took a sip, and Brenna's heart beat a bit harder for a few beats.

"Thank you," Brenna replied, "you know, for talking to me again. Radio silence really sucks."

And when Brenna's fingers touched the back of Greer's hand, resting there comfortably between them, it felt like an awfully solid first step in the right direction.

Dresses could be replaced, after all, and desires could come and go. But this feeling Brenna was feeling, it felt a whole lot bigger than any of that.