Today is the day you, Roxy Lalonde, get to have a sleepover with your "bffsie 4ever", Jane Crocker. Your mother is away on a business trip, and you, like the good little alcoholic you are, have taken the liberty to pick the lock on the liquor cabinet and tequila that bitch up. "That bitch" being your stomach, of course. You don't want to be fully inebriated, though. This is your first sleepover in a very long time, as well as your your first sleepover with Jane. You need to remember at least some of it, right?

God knows how long you've actually loved this girl. What, with her goofy buckteeth that jut out a little when she laughs and her adorable smile – she's kind of chubby, but it's in all the right places as far as you've seen. You have only seen her from the waist up from the webcam, however. Today is the day you finally get to meet her in person. You've only been taking sips of your tequila for about a half hour when the doorbell rings. You squeal with joy as you carefully put the tequila back in the cabinet. Don't want to waste any by accidentally dropping it in your excitement or something.

You practically run to the door – okay, not practically, you do run. You're not nearly as drunk as usual and won't be for a while, since Janey specifically asked you to not drink around her. You usually tread lightly on your feet, but now your steps are heavy with excitement. The plush, purple carpeting helps to soften your sounds. After what seems like forever, you reach the ornately decorated door, turning the handle as fast as possible. The door slams into the wall with a huge wham.You see the shocked face of your precious Jane for all of two seconds before you're on her. She's a couple inches shorter than you, and even though you probably weigh less than her you manage to knock her off balance. Still, it's okay because she's here; she's in your arms. After her initial shock she puts her arms around you and she's laughing and oh God you may as well be drunk because there's barely a coherent thought in your head. You're tempted to cry out of happiness; somehow you manage to refrain from that. You just keep saying her name over and over, feeling her warmth on yours. It's really heavenly.

When you finally let go, you try to keep the touch as long as possible – try to let the heat linger on your skin until the last possible moment. Eventually you're fully off of her, standing in the doorway of your house, smiling like an idiot who just got free money. She's talking about something or other – possibly how lovely it is to be here and all that – yet you're just melting at the very sound of her voice, finally hearing it in person. To hell with making out words – who needs phrases –? Screw listening to anything other than the perfection that is her voice. You're staring at her lips at this point. It takes you far more than a couple seconds for you to realize they stopped moving. Her gorgeous cyan eyes are giving you a puzzled look over the rim of her glasses, since she has to look up a little to look at you in the eye. You smile and step aside, holding the door open. You offer a light hearted "Come on in, Mizz Crocker," with an over dramatic bow. Your shirt falls a little past your shoulders in the process. Your curls slightly bounce as gravity takes control of them. You look up to see Jane giggling, one hand over her mouth and the other now on her suitcase. You can make out words this time as you hear her say "Why thank you, mademoiselle. Don't mind if I do!" as she rolls her suitcase over the threshold of your residence.

You follow, gently closing the door, looking around frantically trying to figure out what you could show her first. There are so many things to choose from – wizards, mutant cats – you also told your mother to hide your most prized wizard statue, also to leave clues around the house so that Jane would have a real live mystery to solve. She is a gutsy gumshoe, and every gumshoe needs a mystery to solve, after all. You drag her around the house babbling about this and that, your usual stutter not so apparent because you're almost completely sober at this point.

You run out of things to show her downstairs, so you ask her if she would like to go upstairs to look around, as well as see where she's going to sleep. She nods her assent as she starts to ascend up the stairs with you following close behind.

And then you notice something.

You notice something big.

Namely, her ass.

Dirk, your friend who may as well be your brother, always talked about asses – you humored him because it was just something fun and silly to do. He talked about any kind of ass from smuppet booty to real badonkadonks. Dirk was an ass guy. That was his thing.

Now you know it runs in the family.

It kind of takes you by surprise, really. You do a double take, almost tripping up the stairs. You want to stop her and just stare at it but at the same time the way she's swinging her hips – the way it's swaying – is mesmerizing. She's still a little big up top– it just doesn't compare to downtown. You make a side note that she has a pear shaped body type for further use later. You can't seem to tear your eyes away from it – going as far as telling her directions for how to get to the guest room under the guise of helping her learn her way around the house to make her stay easier. She enters the room and you follow her behind – you mean, follow behind her. She wanders around the room, checking it out. In an effort to distract yourself from what's going on in your head you offhandedly mention that your "totes fave" wizard statue is missing. Jane turns to you, her skirt twirling with the momentum of her turn, and looks at you with that glint in her eye that she gets when she's excited. Her mouth curls into a mischievous smirk.

"Get your moustache, Ro-Lal. We've got a mystery."

You can't help but laugh. You accidentally snort; quickly lifting a hand to your nose like you could take back the noise. Then she's laughing with you and it's like the thoughts that preoccupied your mind – particularly the relatively kinky thoughts that involve hands and smacking sounds – didn't ever happen.

Except they did.

Even though you act normal, even though you can tell she isn't sensing anything different about you, you can tell. You can feel your eyes wander back down ever so slowly. You feel it every time you lick your lips without thinking about it. You resist as much as you can – yet it's so hard when she's on her knees looking for the next cleverly hidden clue. You curse your mother. Why did she have to put some of them on the floor? Soon enough Jane finds the statue and you genuinely grin at her while thanking her for her help, and offer her a high five. She goes to return it, except she almost misses. So of course you half-heartedly scold her, mock pointer finger wave included, informing her of the "look at the elbow" trick as she pouts. You tell her to give it one more go with the trick, and it works per the usual. She beams at you with her typical goof ball grin. She asks if you and she can just go chill in your room.

How could you say no to a face like that?

So you take her to your room, corners filled to the brim with wizard plushies, other corners filled to the brim with books about wizards, hacking, and your mother's literature. The carpet in here is light pink, with the walls being a deeper fuchsia. Mutie appeared to be napping on a shelf, but when you came in with Jane he woke up. You see him stretch, look at you, mewl, and leave the room before you shut the door. Jane asks about your mother's literature, specifically about Calmasis, so you sit on the bed with her, taking turns dramatically reading one paragraph after another. Making silly faces and voices, impersonating people you both know or celebrities, was just a blast. Your angel was right here with you, and your room may as well be the Pearly Gates. You never want this moment to end.

It starts to get really late, and by the time you realize it is, you've both been yawning as well as giggling tiredly. Janey is resting her head on your shoulder as you read the last sentence of the last paragraph. You put the book down on the floor and you tell her it's time for silly gumshoes to go to sleep. You offer to walk her to the guest room but she's practically asleep on your shoulder already, and your bed is pretty big. You tell her that you're going to get up and that she can sleep here if she wants, She nods with what may have actually been her nodding off to sleep. You carefully maneuver her so that she doesn't fall off the bed while you're getting into the other side of it. When you're settled in, you tell her to "hurry up and get your booty in this warm blanket before the Batter Witch gets here." Jane laughs a little, although you can tell she's too tired to muster up a real one. She climbs into your bed after putting her glasses on the nightstand along with shutting the light off.

You're very surprised when the first thing she does is kiss you on the cheek. For once you're glad about the darkness – you've never been too fond of it – because now she can't see you blush. She says something just about equivalent to "thank you for helping me have a fun day" and how she can't wait for tomorrow "to see what other shenanigans we can get up to". You manage to mumble out a "no probs" before she turns her back to you. Your mind starts to wander as you wonder if she would mind if you put your arms around her. It is kind of cold tonight, so it's a good excuse to. So you muster up the courage to do it, and you aren't rejected. Pretty soon she's asleep and, albeit you were tired before, you're wide awake. The positioning is kind of awkward for you, with one arm around her waist plus the other turning numb beneath you. The front of your legs are touching the back of hers, and her ass is right on your…

Oh God, no. Bad Roxy! Very bad Roxy! This is not a time to be thinking about that. Yet you can't help it because suddenly all your defenses are down. Suddenly all you want, in every sense of the word, is the girl in your arms.

It's at that point she mumbles something in her sleep.

It was barely audible; if you weren't right next to her you probably wouldn't have heard it. It couldn't even count as a whisper. But you heard it. You heard it loud and clear.

"Jake."

You feel a twinge of pain – a real, physical ache in your chest.

The pain and the guilt start coming in now with full force – and you can't do anything about it. You can't go get a drink because it would disturb Jane from her sleep if you moved that much – besides, you promised her you wouldn't drink while she was here. Even if you hate yourself so much that you can't stand to be with your thoughts, a promise is a promise – especially if it's one to her. You just wish you could understand why you loved her so much. You know she's straight. As far as she knows, you are too. All the thoughts that you had before suddenly become so dirty, so repugnant, that you wish you could throw your brain into a sink and wash all the thoughts away with bleach. You wish you could hate Jake. He has your brother in the palm of his hand; he has the girl you love in the other.

Yet you can't bring yourself to hate him.

He's done nothing wrong. Hell, at one point you had the slightest personality crush on him. Why in the ever living fuck did such a lovable guy have to exist?

You wonder why you can't be that lovable.

You wonder why you aren't good enough.

Tears threaten to come down your face – the temptation to sob is so great that you almost do it. If you did though, Janey would wake up and ask what's wrong. She would wake up and be concerned, try to wipe your tears away like a good friend, and you wouldn't have the heart to lie to her. You wouldn't have the heart to not tell her what she means to you, and how you love her more than you love your own mother. How talking with her on webcam or on Pesterchum is often the only thing that gets you through the day – because you're always alone. You can't manage to grab the slightest bit of attention in your own group of friends.

So you don't cry. You bite your lip. You suck it up. Your eyes are heavy with wanna-be tears, so it's easy to do that trick where you tell yourself you have to stay awake for something or other so your eyelids get heavy, closing on their own. It's a trick that you use in the most desperate of times to try to get yourself to sleep. Thankfully, it works. Just not before a couple of thoughts have their last say so.

You hate being sober.

Tomorrow is going to be hell.

With that, you drift off into a dreamless sleep.