girl, you're like a weird vacation, 1/3, adam/kris
Title: girl, you're like a weird vacation
Author: moirariordan
Fandom: american idol rpf
Pairings/Characters: adam lambert/kris allen, unrequited kris/katy, kris/ofc, brief adam/tommy, + assorted other characters
Rating: pg13
Word Count: ~22,000
Summary: Dear Adam Lambert. Hello! My name is Kristina Allen, and I live in Conway, Arkansas. My parents are Kim and Neil Allen, and I am a lesbian. What about you?
Beta shout out: dansetheblues, woot! Title from Like a Luminous Girl by my rock god idol, Mike Doughty. Listen to it now! Or download it. For au_bingo.
The assignment is one of the by-products of the school’s new guidance counselor, Miss Ashby, and her new policies that Kris’s brother calls “touchy-feely bullshit.” Kris hasn’t actually minded any of it so far - there were the mandatory meetings with the college recruiters, the career fair, the big rack of pamphlets in the front office for stuff like what to do when your parents are alcoholics or suicide hotline information and things like that. And the new sex-ed seminar for the tenth grade classes - not that it applies to Kris, who is a senior now, or that if it did she’d need it anyway (a horrifying conversation with her parents in ninth grade took care of that) but she thinks it’s a really good step forward. Some of the things Kris has heard the other girls saying in the locker room, sometimes, make her head spin. (You can’t get pregnant standing up? How does that even - like, honestly.)
This one, she’s not so sure about, though. What exactly do pen pals have to do with anything related to school and/or guidance counseling? Like, at all?
“In these envelopes,” Miss Ashby is saying, sitting on Mr. Wolf’s desk (because she’s hip!), leaning in like she’s informing them on sensitive government secrets, “are the names and hometowns of your assigned pen pals. Pick one out of the pile - randomly!”
Katy, sitting in the desk next to Kris’s, turns and makes a face, tapping her pencil impatiently on her Spanish book. A Stephen King novel is shoved underneath it, and Kris would be willing to bet anything that Katy is just waiting for Ashby to quit talking so she can pull it out and start reading it again.
“The first letter will be mailed through the school,” Miss Ashby continues, readjusting herself on the desk and ignoring Mr. Wolf’s venomous glare. “If you hit it off with your pen pal and would like to continue contact, you are very welcome to do so, but it will have to be on your own time. And your own postage cost.” She grins, a little goofily.
Charles Browder, sitting in the back row, raises his hand. Without waiting to be called on, he calls out, “is this graded?”
“No,” Miss Ashby says, “it’s for fun!”
Charles snorts rudely, and Kris rolls her eyes.
“I’ve started a couple sample letters for you guys,” Miss Ashby says, ignoring Charles and handing another stack of papers to pass around to Mr. Wolf. “Just a place to start. But write whatever you’d like, make it as long or short as you want - these letters will not be read by anybody but your pen pal. You have my word on that.”
Katy perks up at that, eyebrow rising, and Kris grins to herself. Katy’s a little bit of a conspiracy nut. Not that she’d admit it.
“This is a great opportunity to meet someone from a completely different worldview than you,” Miss Ashby says, eyes wide and sparkling behind her glasses. “These people are all volunteers, from places all over the world. You might get someone from right here in the US, or from someone all the way across the globe in Tokyo. They might be older than you, or younger. You never know.” She smiles kindly, making eye contact with a bunch of different people, one by one, something that Kris has noticed her doing before. It’s a bit unnerving, in a way. “I ask only this: that you keep an open mind, and make an attempt to be honest. Sometimes, the best person to talk to is an absolute stranger.”
Beside her, Kara Roberts hands Kris the tray of envelopes, and Kris takes it, snatching one off the top before handing to over to Katy. Sliding the small piece of paper out, she sees Adam Lambert, San Diego, United States printed in purple block letters.
“Who’d you get?” Katy says excitedly, once the bell has rung. Kris holds up her card for her to see. “California? Cool! Mine’s from Greece.” Katy holds up her own card to compare, Aleksandrya Kosta, Santorini, Greece, it reads.
“At least you got a girl,” Kris says, pushing her hair behind her ear with an impatient hand. “What am I supposed to talk about to some random guy from California?”
“Uh, tanning? Oranges? Arnold Schwarzenegger?” Katy grins. “What’s some other California stuff?”
Kris rolls her eyes. “Yeah, okay. I’ll just write him a big long letter about how Arnold Schwarzenegger loves my orange-scented suntan lotion.”
“Sexy,” Katy says, waggling her eyebrows at Kris and giggling, turning the corner towards her next class. “Hey, you’re still coming over this weekend, right?”
“You know it,” Kris calls back, grinning. Katy throws her a thumbs up.
She watches as Katy disappears down the hallway, bright blond hair bobbing among the crowd of students, a little spot of sunlight. Shaking herself, Kris turns away, clutching her books to her chest a little tighter, sighing.
Kris has really crappy organization skills, this is something she’s learned about herself. So because the whole pen pal thing had been like, a special assignment and not really apart of English class, technically, Kris kinda forgets about it until like, twenty minutes before it’s due. As usual.
“You have got to get a planner or something,” Katy comments, watching in amusement as Kris sits sullenly with a blank notebook, wracking her brain and throwing irritated glances at the clock.
“No I don’t,” Kris replies, just to be contrary. The study hall monitor looks over sharply, so Katy just pulls one of Ashby’s sample letters out of her folder and slides it over, smirking.
Dear Pen Pal, it reads. Hello! My name is Jane Doe, and I live in Hometown, Home State. My parents are Jack and Ruth Doe, and I am a Presbyterian. What about you?
Kris snorts. Time crunch or not, she can do better than that.
Turns out, no she can’t, and five minutes before the bell rings, Kris flips to the blank side of the sample and scribbles something out of pure desperation.
Dear Adam Lambert, because she doesn’t know the guy, but “Mr. Lambert” seems weird, but so does just calling him Adam, right? Hello! My name is Kristina Allen, and I live in Conway, Arkansas. My parents are Kim and Neil Allen, and I am a lesbian. What about you?
The bell trills just as Kris scrawls the last word. She winces at her handwriting and grabs the envelope that Katy had tracked down for her, stuffing it in and sticking it in her book quickly. It’ll have to do - the guy probably wouldn’t even reply anyway.
“What’d you end up writing?” Katy asks, falling in step with her in the hallway. “Must’ve been inspiring. Looked like a whole two sentences.”
Kris flushes hotly, ducking her chin so her hair falls over her face. “Nothing,” she mumbles.
“Can I read it?”
“No,” Kris says sharply, and Katy’s mouth closes with a snap, taken aback.
“Okay,” she says, obviously a bit hurt, and Kris’s heart lurches.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, and Katy smiles a bit in response.
“I didn’t mean to make fun of you,” she says, reaching out and squeezing Kris’s forearm. Kris feels her pulse stutter at the touch, and she swallows, subtly backing up a step so that Katy’s hand falls away.
“It’s okay,” she says. “Come on, we’re gonna be late.”
--
Kris has a moment of complete panic as she drops her letter onto the pile on Mr. Wolf’s desk, but there isn’t much she can do about it. She doesn’t have time to write another one, and - well, whatever, anyway. It’s just some guy she doesn’t know. She doesn’t give a crap what Adam Lambert, San Diego, United States thinks.
Well, she amends, privately to herself. She cares a little.
She mostly forgets about it, though, after a bit. So, maybe that’d been the first time she’d ever admitted it out loud - or on paper, whatever. It doesn’t really count as coming out. Her parents still don’t know, Daniel still doesn’t know. Katy still doesn’t know, God. So whatever.
So it comes as kind of a surprise one day when Mr. Wolf hands her a bright-green envelope before class starts, her name scrawled across the front and a stamp with a picture of a tiny Buddha in the upper right-hand corner.
“From your pen pal,” Mr. Wolf says cheerily. “Looks like you’re the first to get a reply, Kris.”
“Cool,” Kris says weakly, out loud. Shit, she thinks, in her head.
She waits to open it until late that night, after her parents and Daniel have gone to bed, shut up in her room with only a small lamp for light. Turning the envelope over in her hands, she tries to imagine the worst-case scenario - a long letter, a sermon maybe, about the evils of unnatural desires - or no. Worse would be if the guy liked the idea and like, asked for pictures of Kris’s slumber parties or something.
Taking a deep breath, she slides a fingernail beneath the flap, tearing it open without further ado. There’s only one way to find out.
Oh my God! is the first thing she reads, at the top where the greeting usually is. That was so funny! Was that like, an example or something? Who wrote that? Jesus!
So I laughed for like ten minutes when I read that, it was hilarious. And I’d been having kind of a crappy day, so thanks for that. Certainly not something I’d expected from somebody in Arkansas. ;)
(Is that an insult, Kris wonders, or a compliment?)
Anyway so, my name is Adam, I live in San Diego, my parents are Eber and Leila, and I am a girl. Just so you know. And it’s okay if you thought I was a guy, most people do. So don’t feel bad or anything. It’s weird, I know, but my parents are hippie-intellectuals and so if you ever want a lecture on gender roles and the sexual and cultural repression of women, let me know.
I just turned 21 the other day (wild. Seriously, oh my God. But that’s a whole other letter!) and I’m planning on moving to LA soon - I want to be a singer. Maybe an actress - but mostly a singer. I’ve been doing some theatre stuff here in San Diego - I’ve done some gigs and stuff, too, but LA’s just where you gotta be if you wanna do it for real, you know? So right now I’m just saving up for the move, trying to find a car that doesn’t suck, et cetera, et cetera. What about you? Are you still in high school? What do you wanna do with your life? (Oh, did that sound too guidance counselor-y? Feel free to ignore that and pretend I wrote something much cooler.)
I won’t ramble on forever, pretty sure I’ve freaked you out enough already. But feel free to email me - I think that might be a little easier than regular mail, right? Plus, my handwriting is atrocious.
Anyway, toodles!
Adam.
Next to the ridiculously loopy signature is a little sketch of a heart, with a music note inside. Tracing the email address added at the bottom of the page, Kris grins, relieved and surprised, all at once.
She floats on the letter for the rest of the night, falling asleep with a light, bubbly feeling in her chest. It isn’t until the harsh light of morning that her trademark insecurity sets in.
Adam’s older, 21, even. And she’s a musician, a real one, who does gigs, and is moving to Los Angeles. If it’d been anything else but music, maybe Kris wouldn’t feel so intimidated, but it’s exactly what Kris dreams about, when she thinks to dream about something. Plus, Adam has “hippie-intellectual” parents, and Buddha stamps, and says stuff like “toodles” unironically - she is as far apart from Kris’s life as it can possibly, possibly get.
(And, the little nasty voice in her head whispers, Adam didn’t say anything about the lesbian thing. What if she thought Kris was joking? She could still send a sermon, maybe. Like Kris doesn’t think that someone like Adam would be homophobic, but - still. You never know, with people.)
She goes back and forth with herself about emailing back for almost a week, debating the pros and cons in her head whenever she has a free minute. She rereads the letter constantly, committing whole sentences to memory, finds herself imagining what Adam could look like, what kind of place she lives in, what her voice sounds like. What happened on her 21st birthday that was so wild, what kind of crappy car she drives that she’s trying to replace. What jobs she’s doing to raise money.
She finally decides to just go for it, remembering Miss Ashby’s words - sometimes the best person to talk to is an absolute stranger. She ends up retyping her message like six times, finally clicking send and instantly regretting it the split second after. Clicking into the ‘sent’ folder, she rereads it for the millionth time, wincing at how stupid she sounds.
Hey, Adam, it’s Kris, from the pen pal thing. Or Kristina, I guess, but everyone calls me Kris. So we’ve both got guy names, hey? (Besides, Adam isn’t that weird of a name. There’s a guy at my church named Shadoe, so - yeah, it could be worse.)
Thanks for your letter, I liked it a lot. It was pretty much what I would expect from someone in California. :)
Anyway, this is my email, so if you wanna talk this way, that’s fine. Though I don’t really know what else to say, my life is pretty much boring as paper compared to yours. I’m in high school, a senior, and - that’s pretty much it, haha. Apart from being a lesbian. Which is probably the most interesting thing about me, so I guess I shouldn’t have played that card right away in my first letter, huh?
Anyway, I’d like to hear about your wild 21st birthday party. I can live vicariously, or something.
- Kris
Kris rolls her eyes. “Could I have used the word ‘anyway’ any more?” she mutters to herself.
She ends up checking her email nervously every half hour for the rest of the night, wearing out the F5 button until Daniel kicks her off the computer to play World of Warcraft. She isn’t able to log back on until the next morning, before school, stealing a few minutes while her mom fries eggs in the kitchen for breakfast. Her heart is in her throat as she pulls up her email, and sure enough there’s a new message in her inbox.
Clicking through to open it, a long flood of text greets her eyes, and she grins on autopilot. Casting a surreptitious look over her shoulder, Kris leans in and begins to read.
It feels a lot like the first conversation Kris really ever had with Katy, back in sophomore year when they’d gotten paired up for a science project. Like there’s something intrinsically there in the way that Adam speaks (types) that Kris can somehow relate to, and everything she says just reels Kris in a little bit more.
Adam’s funny, and a little bit ramblier on the computer apparently, and spends a huge paragraph talking about how anyone with a sense of humor like Kris’s couldn’t possibly be boring, and then about some guy who apparently is boring, and how Kris obviously isn’t like that guy at all. Then she goes on to describe her wild “debauchery” on her birthday, a long tale of - well, debauchery, that makes Kris blush and laugh in equal measures.
But Kris’s favorite part is this:
I just want to say, though, how relieved I am that you told me that you’re gay. I mean, not that it’d be a bad thing if you were straight or anything. I’m gay too - or I guess I am. Well, I’ve dated girls and guys, actually. Like if you were to look at a list of my romantic history, it’d probably be about 50/50 - but I don’t like labels, so I usually just try not to box myself in. But anyway - that you told me that right off, that kinda takes the pressure off, you know? Like usually when I meet someone new and it doesn’t come up for awhile, it turns into this whole thing where I get nervous about telling them, and then start thinking oh, maybe I don’t have to tell them at all, but then that’s stupid because it’s sort of like denying who I am, in a way. I don’t know. I’m just glad you told me.
Kris’s heart is full when she finally logs off, and her grin stays firmly in place for hours.
--
It goes on like that, emails back and forth, talking about anything that happens to come up in their rambling conversations. Adam sends a couple mp3s of demos she’s recorded, and Kris puts them on her iPod, and it makes her happy whenever she scrolls through the artist list and sees Adam Lambert, right next to Adele and the Across the Universe soundtrack - like Adam’s a real musician. It’s silly, but whatever. She tells Kris about her weird, awesome family - her mother, tough as nails but a total softie when nobody’s looking, her activist dad, her crazy-smart but over the top cynical brother. Her crazy cast of friends, all sounding more like comic book characters than real people to Kris, and her money-raising efforts, which pretty much take the term “odd jobs” to a whole other level.
Kris tells her about her own music, in return, how she plays the viola in the orchestra but hates it, how she’s been teaching herself the guitar since she was twelve, how she wants to learn piano. Adam finds this ridiculously exciting, and demands a recording of her playing, but the best Kris can do is a YouTube video of the orchestra’s spring concert from the year before, when Kris had done a solo.
That is so awesome, Adam sends back. You’re super cute, by the way! Love the skirt. It makes Kris blush hotly, for some reason.
They also talk a lot about sexuality - in particular, Kris’s. Adam is talkative in her emails, sharing information casually, like it’s nothing. It seems as if there’s nothing she’s holding back, and Kris responds in kind, feeling more and more comfortable with talking about her life with each new thing Adam reveals about herself. Her longest email to Adam yet is the result of a really horrible family dinner, when Daniel had made a homophobic joke about two guys on the football team, and Kris had expected their mom to scold him, but she didn’t, and so Kris had just sat there, feeling sick and scared and hopeless. She tells Adam all of this, typing without thinking, just letting it all out, about that, and every other little clue she’s gathered over the last few years, comments from her parents, her friends, little hints that make Kris absolutely terrified of coming out, to anyone, ever.
Well you came out to me, Adam reasons in her reply. And I know you didn’t know me, but it’s still a big deal. It’s just the act of telling someone, right? Plus. It’s one thing to make a gay joke and a whole other thing to like, disown your kid or something because she’s a lesbian. It all comes down to - do you trust your family to back you up? Because if you do, then that’s a lot more important than them just letting a couple ignorant jokes slide.
It makes a whole lot of sense to Kris. Certainly a lot more sense than anything in the “So, You Think You Might Be Gay” pamphlet Kris had snuck out of the guidance office.
Kris tells her about Katy, too.
I don’t think I’m in love with her, she writes, wanting to clear it up right away. We’ve just been friends forever. I think maybe it’s a proximity thing, like I’m tricking myself into it, you know? Because she’s the closest friend I have, and I don’t really hang out with girls, really. I have some guy friends - but I just don’t really click with many of the girls here. It’s just Katy and me, really, and we started to get really close right around the time that I started figuring all this stuff out, so I think maybe it’s just me - latching onto her, kind of. Still doesn’t make it easy, though.
The most refreshing thing about Adam’s reply to that is that it’s so casual. And perfect.
It happens. Hey, you should tell her. About everything. Because even if you’re not in love with her, it’s still important.
Kris cries a little after she reads that. She hates crying, hates to do it, but she kind of has to.
There’s a two-week period in which Adam is mostly out of contact as she moves into her new apartment in Los Angeles, and Kris is twitchy and snappy the whole time. She nearly bites Daniel’s head off one night when he asks her to toss him the TV remote, and he rolls his eyes, says something idiotic about her PMSing and Kris has to go get her guitar and practice for awhile to calm down.
Adam finally sends her a long email, complete with pictures. The apartment isn’t anything special, but it’s the first time that Kris has seen what Adam actually looks like, and Kris spends a stupid amount of time staring at the snapshots of Adam posing cheesily under the Hollywood sign, standing in her new kitchen with her mom, smiling widely, making faces with her brother in a car.
(Adam’s totally hot, Kris can admit this. She’s got black hair - dyed, Kris knows - that curls around her chin, messy bangs falling over her eyes. In the picture with her brother, it’s wound into tight, bouncy curls, a blue streak shooting through the tips, like some kind of punk rock Pollyanna doll. Strong nose, sharp jaw line, freckles, bright blue eyes - she’s beautiful. There’s also a tattoo on her wrist that Kris can see in the Hollywood picture, too, but she can’t quite make out what it is, and she’s a little embarrassed to ask.)
“Okay, spill,” Katy says, finally confronting her one afternoon when Kris is glued to her computer, chatting with Adam on AIM. “Seriously, you’ve been talking to this Adam guy like, constantly. Are you guys like, dating or something?” Katy’s on her stomach on Kris’s bed, history homework spread out before her.
Kris jerks slightly, hands fumbling on the keyboard. “Um,” she says, bashful. “No.”
“Is that him you’re talking to?” Katy asks, grinning. “Can I say something?”
“Hell no,” Kris says. Katy deflates a little, pouting.
“Well, tell me about him,” she urges. “What’s he like? What do you guys talk about all the time?” She grins suggestively.
Kris isn’t sure why she hasn’t told Katy anything about Adam - even the fact that Adam is a she, not a he - but she knows for certain that it makes her uncomfortable, somehow, like two worlds colliding, or something. “It’s not a big deal,” she mumbles, typing out a quick “be back later” message to Adam and minimizing the window. “Let’s just work on homework, okay? I should stop procrastinating anyway.”
Katy pokes Kris in the shoulder with the eraser end of her pencil as she climbs up on the bed, tongue poking out between her teeth. “Like you could,” she teases. “You’re worse than your brother, honestly. I’m constantly gobsmacked that you manage to pass your classes.”
Kris rolls her eyes. “Nobody is worse than Daniel,” she says, flopping down onto her stomach and dragging her notebook over.
“Right.” Katy props her chin on her hand, smiling softly to herself, eyes turning back down to the textbook, hair falling across her eyes. Her free hand plays with the choker around her neck, pulling it out and letting it snap back against her skin idly, beads rattling with every twist.
Kris feels a churning ache in her stomach, unsure if she wants to kick Katy out of the room or just pounce on her. Taking a deep breath, she bites at her lip, fragments of Adam’s emails running through her head. “Katy.”
Katy hums distractedly. “Hmm?”
“Kate.” Katy looks up, eyebrows creasing. Kris never calls her Kate. “I’m gay.”
Katy’s face drops into a cartoonish picture of shock, jaw dropping open and eyes widening. “W-what?”
Kris sits up abruptly, crossing her arms over her chest protectively, breath shortening in anxiety. “Um. I’m gay. I - ” Kris trails off; Katy’s staring at her, frozen, one hand still on her choker, holding it away from her neck in mid-snap. “I figured it out a while ago, I just - didn’t tell anyone, and - my family doesn’t know yet. I wanted to tell you first.” Kris takes a deep breath. “So, uh, yeah. There it is.”
Katy lets go of her choker and it snaps back in place sharply, the slap loud in the dead quiet room. Scrambling off her stomach, she mirrors Kris’s position, kneeling across from her on the small twin bed. “Are you - ” she starts, voice a little shaky. Stopping, she takes a breath and shakes herself visibly. “Oh my God, Kristy. You’re serious.”
“Yeah,” Kris says shortly, unable to keep the defensive tone from her voice. “And don’t call me Kristy.”
“Oh my God,” Katy repeats, tears in her eyes. Lurching forward, she throws her arms around Kris’s neck, hugging her tightly. “Oh my God, Kris. Kris.”
Kris sags into her grip, relief nearly making her dizzy. “Katy,” she says wobbily, and Katy squeezes her tighter. “You don’t - I mean, do you - “
“Of course not!” Katy says passionately. “I mean, of course I do. Or whatever - you know what I mean. This is - “ she stops, pulling back, but keeping her arms on Kris’s shoulders, squeezing firmly. “Well, wow. A shock. But oh my God, I would never - like you’re my best friend in the whole world, and - I love you so much. So, so much, and I’m totally here for you, no matter what. Okay?”
Kris nods, smiling tentatively. “I wanted to tell you,” she says apologetically. “So many times. I just - ”
“It’s okay. God, it’s okay.” Katy shakes her head, hair swinging frantically. “Your family doesn’t know? Am I the first person you told?”
“No. And - well, technically.” Kris feels another faint pang of guilt, ducking her chin. “I told Adam. Well, accidentally, I guess, I didn’t really expect a reply - ” she blushes. “And Adam is uh, a girl. By the way.”
Katy’s eyes widen, and she cocks her head. “Adam’s a - wait, but - “
“She has hippie parents?” Kris says, shrugging.
“Oh.” Katy blinks. “Well, that’s kinda cool. So I guess that explains why you guys have been talking so much, huh?” She smiles.
“Yeah,” Kris replies, fidgeting.
“Are you guys - ” Katy trails off, looking a little hesitant.
“No,” Kris says quickly. “No, we’re just friends.”
Katy nods, sniffling a little, leaning forward and pulling Kris back into a hug. “I’m sorry,” she says, watery and high-pitched. “I’m just - wow, Kris. I love you so much.”
Kris feels a strange kind of push in her chest, like her heart is trying to escape her body. “I love you too,” she says, her own tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. Thank you, she wants to say, but she can’t quite make the words come out.
They talk for a little bit longer, crumbling into incoherent, teary sentences every two minutes before Katy’s brother arrives to pick her up. Katy offers to wrangle permission to sleep over, but Kris just tells her to go, needing a little space.
Katy clutches on tight when she hugs Kris goodbye, whispering a fierce promise to talk more the next chance they get, and Kris is left feeling wrung-out, shaky on her feet as she climbs back up to her room, the O’Connell family car fading into the distance down the street.
Beelining to her computer, she brings up the chat window with Adam, seeing the little ‘online’ icon still present. Seeing the barrage of messages that Adam’s sent in Kris’s absence, Kris smiles wobbily.
kriskross: be back later
diva_bitch: k
diva_bitch: hey what’s seven times twelve?
diva_bitch: never mind
diva_bitch: you back yet?
diva_bitch: omg adam levine is so hot. tattoos totally turn me on, is that weird? Their hotter on girls tho I think
diva_bitch: goin to sing lyrics at you until you come back, hope u don’t mind
diva_bitch: ITS NOT MY FAULT THAT SHE LEFT YOU FOR MY SHINY TONGUE
diva_bitch: ITS NOT MY FAULT THIS IS HOW MY DADDY MADE ME
diva_bitch: just imagine my voice singing that :P
Kris laughs softly, shaking her head. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she types out a reply, folding up one knee in her desk chair.
kriskross: stop yelling, you’re hurting my ears
diva_bitch: I CANT PAY MY RENT BUT IM FUCKING GORGEOUS
diva_bitch: oh youre back ;)
Kris laughs, a little choked, feeling a hard knot of emotion sitting in her throat stubbornly. Wiping at her eyes harshly, she sits up a little straighter in her chair, jumping off the edge before she can second-guess herself.
kriskross: can I call you? Or you call me?
kriskross: only if you want to, no pressure
diva_bitch: sure, is something wrong?
kriskross: I told katy
Kris holds her breath, clasping her fingers tightly. When Adam’s reply pops up, she lets it go in a rush.
diva_bitch: !!!! whats ur number
Kris sags in relief, typing it out quickly and sending it off. Not more than a minute later, her cell phone rings with an unfamiliar number. Flipping it open with shaky fingers, Kris brings it to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Kris? Oh my God.” The voice on the other end is deeper than she’d expected, a little throaty. She can hear music playing in the background, the same song that Adam had been quoting to her, and it all seems very surreal. “It’s you! On my phone! I can’t believe we haven’t exchanged numbers already!”
Kris blinks, a little taken aback. “Um,” she says, and has to clear her throat before she can continue. “Yeah, it’s me. Hi,” she finishes feebly, and Adam laughs, lilting and musical.
“This is so weird. Like - I know all this stuff about you but I’ve never heard your voice before. But anyway. Oh my God. Are you okay? You sound a little wobbly.”
Kris lets out a laugh that turns into a sob, bringing one hand up to her mouth to try and muffle the sound.
“Oh, baby,” Adam says, “oh, honey, are you crying? Did it not go well?”
“No,” Kris chokes out, “no, nothing like that. Katy was - she was great, it was great. I just - “ Kris breaks off, unable to put it into words.
“I know,” Adam says understandingly. “It’s a lot. I know.” Kris hears a faint rustling, and the music shuts off. “Do you wanna talk?”
Kris tries to reply, shaking her head mindlessly, unable to stop the stream of tears.
“Okay,” Adam says steadily, “that’s fine. We’ll just sit here until you’re okay.” Kris lets out another sob, and Adam hums soothingly. “I’m here. Just picture me sitting next to you, yeah? I’m right there with you, baby.”
Kris tips forward and lays her forehead on the cool desktop, her free hand wrapped around her torso, feeling the hitches of her breath as she lets go, crying until the knot in her throat is unraveled and her eyes are puffy and swollen, Adam making comforting noises in her ear.
When she finally calms, a wave of embarrassment washes over her as she sits up, wiping her cheeks with the edge of her sleeve. “I’m sorry,” she says hoarsely. “I don’t know what - I never cry. Like, ever.”
“I do,” Adam says, “a lot. It makes you feel better, doesn’t it?”
Kris takes a cleansing breath, letting it go slowly. “Yeah.”
“Good,” Adam replies in satisfaction. “You okay now?”
“Yeah. I am.” Kris swallows. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” Adam enthuses. “Oh my God. You don’t even - I mean okay, save my number, okay? And call me anytime. And text, too! It’s ridiculous that we’ve been talking so much and never actually - talking, you know?” Adam’s voice quiets, chuckling softly. “So seriously, any time at all, if I don’t answer then I will call back, I promise.”
“I don’t want to,” Kris says, unsure. “I mean, I don’t wanna distract you or anything, from rehearsals and stuff.”
“Please,” Adam says dismissively. “Don’t even. Look - we’re friends, right?”
“Right,” Kris replies obediently.
“And this is what friends do,” Adam continues decisively. “Maybe it’s a little weird, how we met, but - this is what they wanted for us, isn’t it? For us to be make connections, or whatever? Be friends?”
Kris laughs shortly. “I don’t think my guidance counselor had - exactly this situation in mind. But the general idea, probably.”
Adam laughs. “The one with the sample letter? Hells yeah.” Kris grins, painfully wide. “But okay. Tell me what happened. Leave no detail out! Did you just tell her, did you work up to it, or what?”
Kris’s grin dims, but stays firmly in existence, and she leans back in her chair and settles in.
--
Things change, after that - email and AIM is nearly abandoned in favor of calling and texting, and Kris becomes even more glued to her phone than usual. She even starts sneaking it into class, keeping it on silent so she can send off surreptitious texts beneath her desk.
She’s never had anyone to share her more snarky thoughts with before - Katy laughs but she’s too nice to really get into it, and forget about any of Kris’s other friends, most of whom she met through church. But Adam is the perfect candidate to appreciate Kris’s theory on her math teacher’s secret coke habit (what else could it be? Seriously) and her scathing diatribes on the science teacher’s hateful, ultra-conservative muttered comments during class. Adam always responds in kind, sending back her own random observations about her fellow cast mates in whatever show she happens to be in at the time, as well as the crazy and awesome, but mostly crazy, side effects of living in LA.
(just saw a guy walking down my street with a puppet. And he was like, talking to it, LIKE IT WAS A PERSON, Adam sends one morning, halfway through Kris’s study hall, and Kris has to clamp her hand over her mouth to muffle her laugh.)
It might be weird, if it didn’t all feel so natural, like they’d known each other for forever. And it’s not like they met in like, an internet chat room or something - it was totally school sanctioned (at first) and so Kris feels comfortable telling her parents about Adam - little details, of course, nothing too scandalous (which, it’s harder than Kris thought it would be to come up with non-scandalous, parent-safe details about Adam’s life to share) and they seem happy that Kris has made a good friend. They’re a little miffed when the first phone bill comes, but Kris promises to pay for the long-distance calls and they seem okay with that.
She also starts telling Katy about Adam, bit by bit. Katy is enthusiastic, falling all over herself to assure Kris that she’s totally okay with the gay thing, completely, one hundred percent, really really. It gets kind of old, but Kris can’t deny that her heart’s in the right place. Of course, she believes unwaveringly that Kris and Adam are meant for each other, and the more Kris tells her about Adam, the more Katy becomes devoted to the idea.
“She’s a singer? Like you?” Katy squeals excitedly. “That is so destiny. God, Kris, all I got for my pen pal was some boring girl who wants to be an accountant, but you got like, a girlfriend!“
Kris just rolls her eyes and tries to ignore her. It works, maybe, half the time.
For Christmas, Adam sends her a big package, wrapped in plain brown paper and a warning, hidden in small letters underneath the address label: OPEN ALONE, SENSITIVE MATERIAL! Kris opens it in her room, safely locked away from her parents, and inside finds another, more colorful box, covered in paper with sparkly penises on it. Kris laughs hysterically for like, five minutes straight.
The actual present is even better - a book that Adam had recommended, a mix CD, a program from Ten Commandments, and a deep blue scarf, silky and long and prettier than everything in Kris’s closet combined.
You spoiled me! Kris sends to Adam, grinning madly. The scarf is amazing. All of it is amazing, it’s too much. Beat out my lame present by a mile.
i want a picture, Adam demands, and shut ur mouth, I love my rock star teddy bear. :) and Kris blushes. Wrapping the scarf around her neck, she strikes a pose and snaps a picture of herself in the mirror, putting on her biggest pair of sunglasses for effect. So glam! is Adam’s reply. Look out, Britney!
Kris giggles, collapsing on her bed and fingering the slinky material, rubbing her chin into it and sighing to herself happily.
It’s a few days later when Kris finally comes out to her parents. Katy and Adam have somehow turned into a tag team without her noticing (“What?” Katy asks innocently, “so I may have stolen her number from your phone when you weren’t looking - don’t hit me, ow! What if she was a serial killer or something? I’m just looking out for you!”) and have been subtly, but firmly, nagging her about it for weeks.
Telling Katy is nothing compared to her mom and dad though, and worse, Daniel - and she’s a nervous wreck when she finally works up the nerve to actually do it, blurting it out over dinner and resisting the urge to scamper away and hide in her room. Her mother bursts into tears, which is the most terrifying thing Kris has ever experienced, but a split second later she leaps up from her place and hugs Kris so tightly she totally cuts off her air supply.
“I’m so proud of you!” she exclaims tearily. “I thought you’d never tell us!”
Kris’s jaw drops open, and her voice is a little shrill when she answers. “What?!”
“Oh, honey,” is all her mom says, hugging her again and leaking mascara onto Kris’s shirt.
Her dad hugs her for just as long, giving her a long speech on how he wants her to be happy no matter what, and whatever she decides to do with her life is fine by him, and how she shouldn’t worry about church or religion or anything because God loves her just the way she is, and so does he. Kris has never been more grateful for him in her life, a feeling that lasts a whole five minutes before he starts to talk about his cousin’s husband’s best friend, who is also a lesbian and maybe Kris could go out to lunch with her sometime, because it might help to have someone to talk to.
“Dad,” Kris says, annoyed, “I don’t need a gay mentor.” If anyone’s her gay mentor, it’s Adam anyway, she thinks wryly.
“Okay, sweetie,” Neil says, smiling. “I’ll just give you her number anyway. No, just in case! You never know. Right?”
“You’re such a dork,” Kris complains, but takes it anyway.
Daniel is a bit harder; he kind of shifts away uncomfortably while their parents have their big scene with Kris, and disappears for the rest of the night. Kris finally finds him in the attic, smoking the pack of cigarettes he doesn’t think anyone knows about. He’s got the window cracked, blowing the smoke out into the wintry air, and he chokes when Kris walks in.
“Jesus, Kristy,” he says, hacking. “Warn a guy.”
“Jesus, Danny,” Kris says back mockingly. “Shut the window.”
“Bite me,” Daniel says casually, opening it wider just to be contrary.
Kris heaves a sigh. “So,” she says tentatively. “You, uh. Heard me down there, right?”
“Yeah,” Daniel says neutrally, looking away.
Kris feels a surge of anger. “And you don’t have any reaction at all?” Daniel shrugs. “You do know what ‘lesbian’ means, right? I like to kiss girls, Dan.”
“I know,” Daniel snaps. “Jeez, Kris.”
“Well,” Kris says impatiently. “You’re just gonna sit there?” Daniel shrugs again. “Fine,” Kris snaps, turning to leave, anger propelling her movements.
“No,” Daniel says abruptly, holding out one hand. “Wait.” Kris turns around, raising an eyebrow. “Sorry,” he mumbles, stubbing out the cigarette into a Dr. Pepper can, sitting on the table next to him. “It’s just - kind of weird,” he says, after a strained silence. “I mean, you’re my sister, okay, and I love you and everything, I just - ” he trails off. “Sorry,” he says again, avoiding her gaze.
Kris bites her lip. “It’s okay,” she says. “I guess. I mean. It’ll take some getting used to, I get that.”
“I don’t want you to think - whatever.” Daniel occupies himself with the window, pulling it closed against the winter air. “I’m not gonna - disown you or anything. Like - you know what I mean.”
Kris studies his jerky movements, trying to decide the best way to react. She settles on a hug, wrapping her arms around his shoulders from behind, ignoring the way he stiffens beneath her touch. “Yeah,” she says, a little sadly. “I know what you mean.”
Daniel relaxes, patting her hand awkwardly, and Kris pulls away, heart throbbing painfully.
“It’s really the best I could’ve expected from him,” Kris says later, on the phone to Adam. “He’s really touchy about that stuff. Like, he’s not homophobic or anything, not really - he has this friend that’s gay, but - I don’t know. I think it still makes him uncomfortable.”
“He’ll come around,” Adam says sensibly. “It’s hard for people sometimes, I think. Like a ‘not in my backyard’ thing - hey, it’s hot when Lady Gaga does it, but oh my God, my sister? No way.”
Kris laughs despite herself. “I don’t think Daniel even knows who Lady Gaga is,” she muses.
Adam makes a noise of utter outrage. “Well, who cares what he thinks anyway, then,” she says.
A couple weeks after she goes back to school, she starts getting letters back from colleges. She’d applied early admission to her whole list, all of them out of state to her parents’ dismay. She gets rejected from most of the more prestigious places (long shots, anyway, honestly) but gets a fair amount of acceptance letters, too - including UCLA.
It’s not like it’s about Adam, okay, she’d applied way before Adam had even sent back that first letter, in kind of a wistful attempt to “follow her dreams,” or whatever. She’d never expected to actually get in (her grades are so not the best, okay) but now she is in, and suddenly faced with the very real possibility of living in the same city as Adam.
“Well, of course you’re gonna go,” Katy says, as if this is an established fact. “You’ve been talking about moving to California forever, Kris. And can you imagine the kind of opportunities that music students in Los Angeles get? It’s gotta be a lot better than the University of Arkansas.“
“It’s so far away, though,” Kris says weakly.
“So?” Katy says, snapping her gum.
If Kris is honest with herself, she does want to go. A lot. And it is a desire that is mostly independent of Adam, though she does make Kris feel a bit better about the idea of moving there. She even has a binder from tenth grade to prove it - pictures of the LA landscape, some of the more famous recording studios, the palm trees and sandy beaches printed out and taped to the back cover. She’s all but made up her mind when she talks to her mom about it, who displays her uncanny and creepy ability to know things about Kris’s life before she does, yet again.
“Oh,” she muses, “I thought that was a done deal already? Because I already started looking up prices for plane tickets, sweetie.” Kris just sighs, resigned.
She doesn’t tell Adam, though. Not right away, anyway. She thinks it might be creepy, like Adam might think that Kris is like, following her there or something. It isn’t until Adam starts bugging her about college and where she’s going that she finally caves, during a late-night conversation.
“Oh my God,” Adam says, so loudly that Kris has to pull the phone away from her ear with a wince. “Oh my fucking God, Kristina Allen, you are fucking kidding me.”
“Uh, no?” Kris says. “I applied like, in September, and then I got in, so - I’m going?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?!” Adam all but shrieks. “Holy shit, oh my God, you’re going to live here! In the same city! Oh my God!”
Kris starts to smile, her anxiety ebbing away. “I thought you might think I was creepy, or something,” she says sheepishly. “Like I was moving to like, stalk you.”
“Oh? Oh.” Adam huffs. “Well, now that you mention it, yes. I’m pissed as hell. Goddamn it, Kris, how dare you come to LA to follow your dreams of fame and fortune?”
Kris laughs. “Shut up!”
“No, seriously, I’m really mad. Now I’m gonna have to take you shopping, and introduce you to all my friends, and see you like, in person and stuff, and spend time with you. You are so selfish.“
“Okay, okay,” Kris says, grinning. “I get it.”
Adam laughs, breaking character, and starts babbling about all the things she’s going to take Kris to see and do once she arrives, mouth moving a mile a minute, and Kris just listens, bubbly with happiness.
part two | part three
Author: moirariordan
Fandom: american idol rpf
Pairings/Characters: adam lambert/kris allen, unrequited kris/katy, kris/ofc, brief adam/tommy, + assorted other characters
Rating: pg13
Word Count: ~22,000
Summary: Dear Adam Lambert. Hello! My name is Kristina Allen, and I live in Conway, Arkansas. My parents are Kim and Neil Allen, and I am a lesbian. What about you?
Beta shout out: dansetheblues, woot! Title from Like a Luminous Girl by my rock god idol, Mike Doughty. Listen to it now! Or download it. For au_bingo.
The assignment is one of the by-products of the school’s new guidance counselor, Miss Ashby, and her new policies that Kris’s brother calls “touchy-feely bullshit.” Kris hasn’t actually minded any of it so far - there were the mandatory meetings with the college recruiters, the career fair, the big rack of pamphlets in the front office for stuff like what to do when your parents are alcoholics or suicide hotline information and things like that. And the new sex-ed seminar for the tenth grade classes - not that it applies to Kris, who is a senior now, or that if it did she’d need it anyway (a horrifying conversation with her parents in ninth grade took care of that) but she thinks it’s a really good step forward. Some of the things Kris has heard the other girls saying in the locker room, sometimes, make her head spin. (You can’t get pregnant standing up? How does that even - like, honestly.)
This one, she’s not so sure about, though. What exactly do pen pals have to do with anything related to school and/or guidance counseling? Like, at all?
“In these envelopes,” Miss Ashby is saying, sitting on Mr. Wolf’s desk (because she’s hip!), leaning in like she’s informing them on sensitive government secrets, “are the names and hometowns of your assigned pen pals. Pick one out of the pile - randomly!”
Katy, sitting in the desk next to Kris’s, turns and makes a face, tapping her pencil impatiently on her Spanish book. A Stephen King novel is shoved underneath it, and Kris would be willing to bet anything that Katy is just waiting for Ashby to quit talking so she can pull it out and start reading it again.
“The first letter will be mailed through the school,” Miss Ashby continues, readjusting herself on the desk and ignoring Mr. Wolf’s venomous glare. “If you hit it off with your pen pal and would like to continue contact, you are very welcome to do so, but it will have to be on your own time. And your own postage cost.” She grins, a little goofily.
Charles Browder, sitting in the back row, raises his hand. Without waiting to be called on, he calls out, “is this graded?”
“No,” Miss Ashby says, “it’s for fun!”
Charles snorts rudely, and Kris rolls her eyes.
“I’ve started a couple sample letters for you guys,” Miss Ashby says, ignoring Charles and handing another stack of papers to pass around to Mr. Wolf. “Just a place to start. But write whatever you’d like, make it as long or short as you want - these letters will not be read by anybody but your pen pal. You have my word on that.”
Katy perks up at that, eyebrow rising, and Kris grins to herself. Katy’s a little bit of a conspiracy nut. Not that she’d admit it.
“This is a great opportunity to meet someone from a completely different worldview than you,” Miss Ashby says, eyes wide and sparkling behind her glasses. “These people are all volunteers, from places all over the world. You might get someone from right here in the US, or from someone all the way across the globe in Tokyo. They might be older than you, or younger. You never know.” She smiles kindly, making eye contact with a bunch of different people, one by one, something that Kris has noticed her doing before. It’s a bit unnerving, in a way. “I ask only this: that you keep an open mind, and make an attempt to be honest. Sometimes, the best person to talk to is an absolute stranger.”
Beside her, Kara Roberts hands Kris the tray of envelopes, and Kris takes it, snatching one off the top before handing to over to Katy. Sliding the small piece of paper out, she sees Adam Lambert, San Diego, United States printed in purple block letters.
“Who’d you get?” Katy says excitedly, once the bell has rung. Kris holds up her card for her to see. “California? Cool! Mine’s from Greece.” Katy holds up her own card to compare, Aleksandrya Kosta, Santorini, Greece, it reads.
“At least you got a girl,” Kris says, pushing her hair behind her ear with an impatient hand. “What am I supposed to talk about to some random guy from California?”
“Uh, tanning? Oranges? Arnold Schwarzenegger?” Katy grins. “What’s some other California stuff?”
Kris rolls her eyes. “Yeah, okay. I’ll just write him a big long letter about how Arnold Schwarzenegger loves my orange-scented suntan lotion.”
“Sexy,” Katy says, waggling her eyebrows at Kris and giggling, turning the corner towards her next class. “Hey, you’re still coming over this weekend, right?”
“You know it,” Kris calls back, grinning. Katy throws her a thumbs up.
She watches as Katy disappears down the hallway, bright blond hair bobbing among the crowd of students, a little spot of sunlight. Shaking herself, Kris turns away, clutching her books to her chest a little tighter, sighing.
Kris has really crappy organization skills, this is something she’s learned about herself. So because the whole pen pal thing had been like, a special assignment and not really apart of English class, technically, Kris kinda forgets about it until like, twenty minutes before it’s due. As usual.
“You have got to get a planner or something,” Katy comments, watching in amusement as Kris sits sullenly with a blank notebook, wracking her brain and throwing irritated glances at the clock.
“No I don’t,” Kris replies, just to be contrary. The study hall monitor looks over sharply, so Katy just pulls one of Ashby’s sample letters out of her folder and slides it over, smirking.
Dear Pen Pal, it reads. Hello! My name is Jane Doe, and I live in Hometown, Home State. My parents are Jack and Ruth Doe, and I am a Presbyterian. What about you?
Kris snorts. Time crunch or not, she can do better than that.
Turns out, no she can’t, and five minutes before the bell rings, Kris flips to the blank side of the sample and scribbles something out of pure desperation.
Dear Adam Lambert, because she doesn’t know the guy, but “Mr. Lambert” seems weird, but so does just calling him Adam, right? Hello! My name is Kristina Allen, and I live in Conway, Arkansas. My parents are Kim and Neil Allen, and I am a lesbian. What about you?
The bell trills just as Kris scrawls the last word. She winces at her handwriting and grabs the envelope that Katy had tracked down for her, stuffing it in and sticking it in her book quickly. It’ll have to do - the guy probably wouldn’t even reply anyway.
“What’d you end up writing?” Katy asks, falling in step with her in the hallway. “Must’ve been inspiring. Looked like a whole two sentences.”
Kris flushes hotly, ducking her chin so her hair falls over her face. “Nothing,” she mumbles.
“Can I read it?”
“No,” Kris says sharply, and Katy’s mouth closes with a snap, taken aback.
“Okay,” she says, obviously a bit hurt, and Kris’s heart lurches.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, and Katy smiles a bit in response.
“I didn’t mean to make fun of you,” she says, reaching out and squeezing Kris’s forearm. Kris feels her pulse stutter at the touch, and she swallows, subtly backing up a step so that Katy’s hand falls away.
“It’s okay,” she says. “Come on, we’re gonna be late.”
--
Kris has a moment of complete panic as she drops her letter onto the pile on Mr. Wolf’s desk, but there isn’t much she can do about it. She doesn’t have time to write another one, and - well, whatever, anyway. It’s just some guy she doesn’t know. She doesn’t give a crap what Adam Lambert, San Diego, United States thinks.
Well, she amends, privately to herself. She cares a little.
She mostly forgets about it, though, after a bit. So, maybe that’d been the first time she’d ever admitted it out loud - or on paper, whatever. It doesn’t really count as coming out. Her parents still don’t know, Daniel still doesn’t know. Katy still doesn’t know, God. So whatever.
So it comes as kind of a surprise one day when Mr. Wolf hands her a bright-green envelope before class starts, her name scrawled across the front and a stamp with a picture of a tiny Buddha in the upper right-hand corner.
“From your pen pal,” Mr. Wolf says cheerily. “Looks like you’re the first to get a reply, Kris.”
“Cool,” Kris says weakly, out loud. Shit, she thinks, in her head.
She waits to open it until late that night, after her parents and Daniel have gone to bed, shut up in her room with only a small lamp for light. Turning the envelope over in her hands, she tries to imagine the worst-case scenario - a long letter, a sermon maybe, about the evils of unnatural desires - or no. Worse would be if the guy liked the idea and like, asked for pictures of Kris’s slumber parties or something.
Taking a deep breath, she slides a fingernail beneath the flap, tearing it open without further ado. There’s only one way to find out.
Oh my God! is the first thing she reads, at the top where the greeting usually is. That was so funny! Was that like, an example or something? Who wrote that? Jesus!
So I laughed for like ten minutes when I read that, it was hilarious. And I’d been having kind of a crappy day, so thanks for that. Certainly not something I’d expected from somebody in Arkansas. ;)
(Is that an insult, Kris wonders, or a compliment?)
Anyway so, my name is Adam, I live in San Diego, my parents are Eber and Leila, and I am a girl. Just so you know. And it’s okay if you thought I was a guy, most people do. So don’t feel bad or anything. It’s weird, I know, but my parents are hippie-intellectuals and so if you ever want a lecture on gender roles and the sexual and cultural repression of women, let me know.
I just turned 21 the other day (wild. Seriously, oh my God. But that’s a whole other letter!) and I’m planning on moving to LA soon - I want to be a singer. Maybe an actress - but mostly a singer. I’ve been doing some theatre stuff here in San Diego - I’ve done some gigs and stuff, too, but LA’s just where you gotta be if you wanna do it for real, you know? So right now I’m just saving up for the move, trying to find a car that doesn’t suck, et cetera, et cetera. What about you? Are you still in high school? What do you wanna do with your life? (Oh, did that sound too guidance counselor-y? Feel free to ignore that and pretend I wrote something much cooler.)
I won’t ramble on forever, pretty sure I’ve freaked you out enough already. But feel free to email me - I think that might be a little easier than regular mail, right? Plus, my handwriting is atrocious.
Anyway, toodles!
Adam.
Next to the ridiculously loopy signature is a little sketch of a heart, with a music note inside. Tracing the email address added at the bottom of the page, Kris grins, relieved and surprised, all at once.
She floats on the letter for the rest of the night, falling asleep with a light, bubbly feeling in her chest. It isn’t until the harsh light of morning that her trademark insecurity sets in.
Adam’s older, 21, even. And she’s a musician, a real one, who does gigs, and is moving to Los Angeles. If it’d been anything else but music, maybe Kris wouldn’t feel so intimidated, but it’s exactly what Kris dreams about, when she thinks to dream about something. Plus, Adam has “hippie-intellectual” parents, and Buddha stamps, and says stuff like “toodles” unironically - she is as far apart from Kris’s life as it can possibly, possibly get.
(And, the little nasty voice in her head whispers, Adam didn’t say anything about the lesbian thing. What if she thought Kris was joking? She could still send a sermon, maybe. Like Kris doesn’t think that someone like Adam would be homophobic, but - still. You never know, with people.)
She goes back and forth with herself about emailing back for almost a week, debating the pros and cons in her head whenever she has a free minute. She rereads the letter constantly, committing whole sentences to memory, finds herself imagining what Adam could look like, what kind of place she lives in, what her voice sounds like. What happened on her 21st birthday that was so wild, what kind of crappy car she drives that she’s trying to replace. What jobs she’s doing to raise money.
She finally decides to just go for it, remembering Miss Ashby’s words - sometimes the best person to talk to is an absolute stranger. She ends up retyping her message like six times, finally clicking send and instantly regretting it the split second after. Clicking into the ‘sent’ folder, she rereads it for the millionth time, wincing at how stupid she sounds.
Hey, Adam, it’s Kris, from the pen pal thing. Or Kristina, I guess, but everyone calls me Kris. So we’ve both got guy names, hey? (Besides, Adam isn’t that weird of a name. There’s a guy at my church named Shadoe, so - yeah, it could be worse.)
Thanks for your letter, I liked it a lot. It was pretty much what I would expect from someone in California. :)
Anyway, this is my email, so if you wanna talk this way, that’s fine. Though I don’t really know what else to say, my life is pretty much boring as paper compared to yours. I’m in high school, a senior, and - that’s pretty much it, haha. Apart from being a lesbian. Which is probably the most interesting thing about me, so I guess I shouldn’t have played that card right away in my first letter, huh?
Anyway, I’d like to hear about your wild 21st birthday party. I can live vicariously, or something.
- Kris
Kris rolls her eyes. “Could I have used the word ‘anyway’ any more?” she mutters to herself.
She ends up checking her email nervously every half hour for the rest of the night, wearing out the F5 button until Daniel kicks her off the computer to play World of Warcraft. She isn’t able to log back on until the next morning, before school, stealing a few minutes while her mom fries eggs in the kitchen for breakfast. Her heart is in her throat as she pulls up her email, and sure enough there’s a new message in her inbox.
Clicking through to open it, a long flood of text greets her eyes, and she grins on autopilot. Casting a surreptitious look over her shoulder, Kris leans in and begins to read.
It feels a lot like the first conversation Kris really ever had with Katy, back in sophomore year when they’d gotten paired up for a science project. Like there’s something intrinsically there in the way that Adam speaks (types) that Kris can somehow relate to, and everything she says just reels Kris in a little bit more.
Adam’s funny, and a little bit ramblier on the computer apparently, and spends a huge paragraph talking about how anyone with a sense of humor like Kris’s couldn’t possibly be boring, and then about some guy who apparently is boring, and how Kris obviously isn’t like that guy at all. Then she goes on to describe her wild “debauchery” on her birthday, a long tale of - well, debauchery, that makes Kris blush and laugh in equal measures.
But Kris’s favorite part is this:
I just want to say, though, how relieved I am that you told me that you’re gay. I mean, not that it’d be a bad thing if you were straight or anything. I’m gay too - or I guess I am. Well, I’ve dated girls and guys, actually. Like if you were to look at a list of my romantic history, it’d probably be about 50/50 - but I don’t like labels, so I usually just try not to box myself in. But anyway - that you told me that right off, that kinda takes the pressure off, you know? Like usually when I meet someone new and it doesn’t come up for awhile, it turns into this whole thing where I get nervous about telling them, and then start thinking oh, maybe I don’t have to tell them at all, but then that’s stupid because it’s sort of like denying who I am, in a way. I don’t know. I’m just glad you told me.
Kris’s heart is full when she finally logs off, and her grin stays firmly in place for hours.
--
It goes on like that, emails back and forth, talking about anything that happens to come up in their rambling conversations. Adam sends a couple mp3s of demos she’s recorded, and Kris puts them on her iPod, and it makes her happy whenever she scrolls through the artist list and sees Adam Lambert, right next to Adele and the Across the Universe soundtrack - like Adam’s a real musician. It’s silly, but whatever. She tells Kris about her weird, awesome family - her mother, tough as nails but a total softie when nobody’s looking, her activist dad, her crazy-smart but over the top cynical brother. Her crazy cast of friends, all sounding more like comic book characters than real people to Kris, and her money-raising efforts, which pretty much take the term “odd jobs” to a whole other level.
Kris tells her about her own music, in return, how she plays the viola in the orchestra but hates it, how she’s been teaching herself the guitar since she was twelve, how she wants to learn piano. Adam finds this ridiculously exciting, and demands a recording of her playing, but the best Kris can do is a YouTube video of the orchestra’s spring concert from the year before, when Kris had done a solo.
That is so awesome, Adam sends back. You’re super cute, by the way! Love the skirt. It makes Kris blush hotly, for some reason.
They also talk a lot about sexuality - in particular, Kris’s. Adam is talkative in her emails, sharing information casually, like it’s nothing. It seems as if there’s nothing she’s holding back, and Kris responds in kind, feeling more and more comfortable with talking about her life with each new thing Adam reveals about herself. Her longest email to Adam yet is the result of a really horrible family dinner, when Daniel had made a homophobic joke about two guys on the football team, and Kris had expected their mom to scold him, but she didn’t, and so Kris had just sat there, feeling sick and scared and hopeless. She tells Adam all of this, typing without thinking, just letting it all out, about that, and every other little clue she’s gathered over the last few years, comments from her parents, her friends, little hints that make Kris absolutely terrified of coming out, to anyone, ever.
Well you came out to me, Adam reasons in her reply. And I know you didn’t know me, but it’s still a big deal. It’s just the act of telling someone, right? Plus. It’s one thing to make a gay joke and a whole other thing to like, disown your kid or something because she’s a lesbian. It all comes down to - do you trust your family to back you up? Because if you do, then that’s a lot more important than them just letting a couple ignorant jokes slide.
It makes a whole lot of sense to Kris. Certainly a lot more sense than anything in the “So, You Think You Might Be Gay” pamphlet Kris had snuck out of the guidance office.
Kris tells her about Katy, too.
I don’t think I’m in love with her, she writes, wanting to clear it up right away. We’ve just been friends forever. I think maybe it’s a proximity thing, like I’m tricking myself into it, you know? Because she’s the closest friend I have, and I don’t really hang out with girls, really. I have some guy friends - but I just don’t really click with many of the girls here. It’s just Katy and me, really, and we started to get really close right around the time that I started figuring all this stuff out, so I think maybe it’s just me - latching onto her, kind of. Still doesn’t make it easy, though.
The most refreshing thing about Adam’s reply to that is that it’s so casual. And perfect.
It happens. Hey, you should tell her. About everything. Because even if you’re not in love with her, it’s still important.
Kris cries a little after she reads that. She hates crying, hates to do it, but she kind of has to.
There’s a two-week period in which Adam is mostly out of contact as she moves into her new apartment in Los Angeles, and Kris is twitchy and snappy the whole time. She nearly bites Daniel’s head off one night when he asks her to toss him the TV remote, and he rolls his eyes, says something idiotic about her PMSing and Kris has to go get her guitar and practice for awhile to calm down.
Adam finally sends her a long email, complete with pictures. The apartment isn’t anything special, but it’s the first time that Kris has seen what Adam actually looks like, and Kris spends a stupid amount of time staring at the snapshots of Adam posing cheesily under the Hollywood sign, standing in her new kitchen with her mom, smiling widely, making faces with her brother in a car.
(Adam’s totally hot, Kris can admit this. She’s got black hair - dyed, Kris knows - that curls around her chin, messy bangs falling over her eyes. In the picture with her brother, it’s wound into tight, bouncy curls, a blue streak shooting through the tips, like some kind of punk rock Pollyanna doll. Strong nose, sharp jaw line, freckles, bright blue eyes - she’s beautiful. There’s also a tattoo on her wrist that Kris can see in the Hollywood picture, too, but she can’t quite make out what it is, and she’s a little embarrassed to ask.)
“Okay, spill,” Katy says, finally confronting her one afternoon when Kris is glued to her computer, chatting with Adam on AIM. “Seriously, you’ve been talking to this Adam guy like, constantly. Are you guys like, dating or something?” Katy’s on her stomach on Kris’s bed, history homework spread out before her.
Kris jerks slightly, hands fumbling on the keyboard. “Um,” she says, bashful. “No.”
“Is that him you’re talking to?” Katy asks, grinning. “Can I say something?”
“Hell no,” Kris says. Katy deflates a little, pouting.
“Well, tell me about him,” she urges. “What’s he like? What do you guys talk about all the time?” She grins suggestively.
Kris isn’t sure why she hasn’t told Katy anything about Adam - even the fact that Adam is a she, not a he - but she knows for certain that it makes her uncomfortable, somehow, like two worlds colliding, or something. “It’s not a big deal,” she mumbles, typing out a quick “be back later” message to Adam and minimizing the window. “Let’s just work on homework, okay? I should stop procrastinating anyway.”
Katy pokes Kris in the shoulder with the eraser end of her pencil as she climbs up on the bed, tongue poking out between her teeth. “Like you could,” she teases. “You’re worse than your brother, honestly. I’m constantly gobsmacked that you manage to pass your classes.”
Kris rolls her eyes. “Nobody is worse than Daniel,” she says, flopping down onto her stomach and dragging her notebook over.
“Right.” Katy props her chin on her hand, smiling softly to herself, eyes turning back down to the textbook, hair falling across her eyes. Her free hand plays with the choker around her neck, pulling it out and letting it snap back against her skin idly, beads rattling with every twist.
Kris feels a churning ache in her stomach, unsure if she wants to kick Katy out of the room or just pounce on her. Taking a deep breath, she bites at her lip, fragments of Adam’s emails running through her head. “Katy.”
Katy hums distractedly. “Hmm?”
“Kate.” Katy looks up, eyebrows creasing. Kris never calls her Kate. “I’m gay.”
Katy’s face drops into a cartoonish picture of shock, jaw dropping open and eyes widening. “W-what?”
Kris sits up abruptly, crossing her arms over her chest protectively, breath shortening in anxiety. “Um. I’m gay. I - ” Kris trails off; Katy’s staring at her, frozen, one hand still on her choker, holding it away from her neck in mid-snap. “I figured it out a while ago, I just - didn’t tell anyone, and - my family doesn’t know yet. I wanted to tell you first.” Kris takes a deep breath. “So, uh, yeah. There it is.”
Katy lets go of her choker and it snaps back in place sharply, the slap loud in the dead quiet room. Scrambling off her stomach, she mirrors Kris’s position, kneeling across from her on the small twin bed. “Are you - ” she starts, voice a little shaky. Stopping, she takes a breath and shakes herself visibly. “Oh my God, Kristy. You’re serious.”
“Yeah,” Kris says shortly, unable to keep the defensive tone from her voice. “And don’t call me Kristy.”
“Oh my God,” Katy repeats, tears in her eyes. Lurching forward, she throws her arms around Kris’s neck, hugging her tightly. “Oh my God, Kris. Kris.”
Kris sags into her grip, relief nearly making her dizzy. “Katy,” she says wobbily, and Katy squeezes her tighter. “You don’t - I mean, do you - “
“Of course not!” Katy says passionately. “I mean, of course I do. Or whatever - you know what I mean. This is - “ she stops, pulling back, but keeping her arms on Kris’s shoulders, squeezing firmly. “Well, wow. A shock. But oh my God, I would never - like you’re my best friend in the whole world, and - I love you so much. So, so much, and I’m totally here for you, no matter what. Okay?”
Kris nods, smiling tentatively. “I wanted to tell you,” she says apologetically. “So many times. I just - ”
“It’s okay. God, it’s okay.” Katy shakes her head, hair swinging frantically. “Your family doesn’t know? Am I the first person you told?”
“No. And - well, technically.” Kris feels another faint pang of guilt, ducking her chin. “I told Adam. Well, accidentally, I guess, I didn’t really expect a reply - ” she blushes. “And Adam is uh, a girl. By the way.”
Katy’s eyes widen, and she cocks her head. “Adam’s a - wait, but - “
“She has hippie parents?” Kris says, shrugging.
“Oh.” Katy blinks. “Well, that’s kinda cool. So I guess that explains why you guys have been talking so much, huh?” She smiles.
“Yeah,” Kris replies, fidgeting.
“Are you guys - ” Katy trails off, looking a little hesitant.
“No,” Kris says quickly. “No, we’re just friends.”
Katy nods, sniffling a little, leaning forward and pulling Kris back into a hug. “I’m sorry,” she says, watery and high-pitched. “I’m just - wow, Kris. I love you so much.”
Kris feels a strange kind of push in her chest, like her heart is trying to escape her body. “I love you too,” she says, her own tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. Thank you, she wants to say, but she can’t quite make the words come out.
They talk for a little bit longer, crumbling into incoherent, teary sentences every two minutes before Katy’s brother arrives to pick her up. Katy offers to wrangle permission to sleep over, but Kris just tells her to go, needing a little space.
Katy clutches on tight when she hugs Kris goodbye, whispering a fierce promise to talk more the next chance they get, and Kris is left feeling wrung-out, shaky on her feet as she climbs back up to her room, the O’Connell family car fading into the distance down the street.
Beelining to her computer, she brings up the chat window with Adam, seeing the little ‘online’ icon still present. Seeing the barrage of messages that Adam’s sent in Kris’s absence, Kris smiles wobbily.
kriskross: be back later
diva_bitch: k
diva_bitch: hey what’s seven times twelve?
diva_bitch: never mind
diva_bitch: you back yet?
diva_bitch: omg adam levine is so hot. tattoos totally turn me on, is that weird? Their hotter on girls tho I think
diva_bitch: goin to sing lyrics at you until you come back, hope u don’t mind
diva_bitch: ITS NOT MY FAULT THAT SHE LEFT YOU FOR MY SHINY TONGUE
diva_bitch: ITS NOT MY FAULT THIS IS HOW MY DADDY MADE ME
diva_bitch: just imagine my voice singing that :P
Kris laughs softly, shaking her head. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she types out a reply, folding up one knee in her desk chair.
kriskross: stop yelling, you’re hurting my ears
diva_bitch: I CANT PAY MY RENT BUT IM FUCKING GORGEOUS
diva_bitch: oh youre back ;)
Kris laughs, a little choked, feeling a hard knot of emotion sitting in her throat stubbornly. Wiping at her eyes harshly, she sits up a little straighter in her chair, jumping off the edge before she can second-guess herself.
kriskross: can I call you? Or you call me?
kriskross: only if you want to, no pressure
diva_bitch: sure, is something wrong?
kriskross: I told katy
Kris holds her breath, clasping her fingers tightly. When Adam’s reply pops up, she lets it go in a rush.
diva_bitch: !!!! whats ur number
Kris sags in relief, typing it out quickly and sending it off. Not more than a minute later, her cell phone rings with an unfamiliar number. Flipping it open with shaky fingers, Kris brings it to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Kris? Oh my God.” The voice on the other end is deeper than she’d expected, a little throaty. She can hear music playing in the background, the same song that Adam had been quoting to her, and it all seems very surreal. “It’s you! On my phone! I can’t believe we haven’t exchanged numbers already!”
Kris blinks, a little taken aback. “Um,” she says, and has to clear her throat before she can continue. “Yeah, it’s me. Hi,” she finishes feebly, and Adam laughs, lilting and musical.
“This is so weird. Like - I know all this stuff about you but I’ve never heard your voice before. But anyway. Oh my God. Are you okay? You sound a little wobbly.”
Kris lets out a laugh that turns into a sob, bringing one hand up to her mouth to try and muffle the sound.
“Oh, baby,” Adam says, “oh, honey, are you crying? Did it not go well?”
“No,” Kris chokes out, “no, nothing like that. Katy was - she was great, it was great. I just - “ Kris breaks off, unable to put it into words.
“I know,” Adam says understandingly. “It’s a lot. I know.” Kris hears a faint rustling, and the music shuts off. “Do you wanna talk?”
Kris tries to reply, shaking her head mindlessly, unable to stop the stream of tears.
“Okay,” Adam says steadily, “that’s fine. We’ll just sit here until you’re okay.” Kris lets out another sob, and Adam hums soothingly. “I’m here. Just picture me sitting next to you, yeah? I’m right there with you, baby.”
Kris tips forward and lays her forehead on the cool desktop, her free hand wrapped around her torso, feeling the hitches of her breath as she lets go, crying until the knot in her throat is unraveled and her eyes are puffy and swollen, Adam making comforting noises in her ear.
When she finally calms, a wave of embarrassment washes over her as she sits up, wiping her cheeks with the edge of her sleeve. “I’m sorry,” she says hoarsely. “I don’t know what - I never cry. Like, ever.”
“I do,” Adam says, “a lot. It makes you feel better, doesn’t it?”
Kris takes a cleansing breath, letting it go slowly. “Yeah.”
“Good,” Adam replies in satisfaction. “You okay now?”
“Yeah. I am.” Kris swallows. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” Adam enthuses. “Oh my God. You don’t even - I mean okay, save my number, okay? And call me anytime. And text, too! It’s ridiculous that we’ve been talking so much and never actually - talking, you know?” Adam’s voice quiets, chuckling softly. “So seriously, any time at all, if I don’t answer then I will call back, I promise.”
“I don’t want to,” Kris says, unsure. “I mean, I don’t wanna distract you or anything, from rehearsals and stuff.”
“Please,” Adam says dismissively. “Don’t even. Look - we’re friends, right?”
“Right,” Kris replies obediently.
“And this is what friends do,” Adam continues decisively. “Maybe it’s a little weird, how we met, but - this is what they wanted for us, isn’t it? For us to be make connections, or whatever? Be friends?”
Kris laughs shortly. “I don’t think my guidance counselor had - exactly this situation in mind. But the general idea, probably.”
Adam laughs. “The one with the sample letter? Hells yeah.” Kris grins, painfully wide. “But okay. Tell me what happened. Leave no detail out! Did you just tell her, did you work up to it, or what?”
Kris’s grin dims, but stays firmly in existence, and she leans back in her chair and settles in.
--
Things change, after that - email and AIM is nearly abandoned in favor of calling and texting, and Kris becomes even more glued to her phone than usual. She even starts sneaking it into class, keeping it on silent so she can send off surreptitious texts beneath her desk.
She’s never had anyone to share her more snarky thoughts with before - Katy laughs but she’s too nice to really get into it, and forget about any of Kris’s other friends, most of whom she met through church. But Adam is the perfect candidate to appreciate Kris’s theory on her math teacher’s secret coke habit (what else could it be? Seriously) and her scathing diatribes on the science teacher’s hateful, ultra-conservative muttered comments during class. Adam always responds in kind, sending back her own random observations about her fellow cast mates in whatever show she happens to be in at the time, as well as the crazy and awesome, but mostly crazy, side effects of living in LA.
(just saw a guy walking down my street with a puppet. And he was like, talking to it, LIKE IT WAS A PERSON, Adam sends one morning, halfway through Kris’s study hall, and Kris has to clamp her hand over her mouth to muffle her laugh.)
It might be weird, if it didn’t all feel so natural, like they’d known each other for forever. And it’s not like they met in like, an internet chat room or something - it was totally school sanctioned (at first) and so Kris feels comfortable telling her parents about Adam - little details, of course, nothing too scandalous (which, it’s harder than Kris thought it would be to come up with non-scandalous, parent-safe details about Adam’s life to share) and they seem happy that Kris has made a good friend. They’re a little miffed when the first phone bill comes, but Kris promises to pay for the long-distance calls and they seem okay with that.
She also starts telling Katy about Adam, bit by bit. Katy is enthusiastic, falling all over herself to assure Kris that she’s totally okay with the gay thing, completely, one hundred percent, really really. It gets kind of old, but Kris can’t deny that her heart’s in the right place. Of course, she believes unwaveringly that Kris and Adam are meant for each other, and the more Kris tells her about Adam, the more Katy becomes devoted to the idea.
“She’s a singer? Like you?” Katy squeals excitedly. “That is so destiny. God, Kris, all I got for my pen pal was some boring girl who wants to be an accountant, but you got like, a girlfriend!“
Kris just rolls her eyes and tries to ignore her. It works, maybe, half the time.
For Christmas, Adam sends her a big package, wrapped in plain brown paper and a warning, hidden in small letters underneath the address label: OPEN ALONE, SENSITIVE MATERIAL! Kris opens it in her room, safely locked away from her parents, and inside finds another, more colorful box, covered in paper with sparkly penises on it. Kris laughs hysterically for like, five minutes straight.
The actual present is even better - a book that Adam had recommended, a mix CD, a program from Ten Commandments, and a deep blue scarf, silky and long and prettier than everything in Kris’s closet combined.
You spoiled me! Kris sends to Adam, grinning madly. The scarf is amazing. All of it is amazing, it’s too much. Beat out my lame present by a mile.
i want a picture, Adam demands, and shut ur mouth, I love my rock star teddy bear. :) and Kris blushes. Wrapping the scarf around her neck, she strikes a pose and snaps a picture of herself in the mirror, putting on her biggest pair of sunglasses for effect. So glam! is Adam’s reply. Look out, Britney!
Kris giggles, collapsing on her bed and fingering the slinky material, rubbing her chin into it and sighing to herself happily.
It’s a few days later when Kris finally comes out to her parents. Katy and Adam have somehow turned into a tag team without her noticing (“What?” Katy asks innocently, “so I may have stolen her number from your phone when you weren’t looking - don’t hit me, ow! What if she was a serial killer or something? I’m just looking out for you!”) and have been subtly, but firmly, nagging her about it for weeks.
Telling Katy is nothing compared to her mom and dad though, and worse, Daniel - and she’s a nervous wreck when she finally works up the nerve to actually do it, blurting it out over dinner and resisting the urge to scamper away and hide in her room. Her mother bursts into tears, which is the most terrifying thing Kris has ever experienced, but a split second later she leaps up from her place and hugs Kris so tightly she totally cuts off her air supply.
“I’m so proud of you!” she exclaims tearily. “I thought you’d never tell us!”
Kris’s jaw drops open, and her voice is a little shrill when she answers. “What?!”
“Oh, honey,” is all her mom says, hugging her again and leaking mascara onto Kris’s shirt.
Her dad hugs her for just as long, giving her a long speech on how he wants her to be happy no matter what, and whatever she decides to do with her life is fine by him, and how she shouldn’t worry about church or religion or anything because God loves her just the way she is, and so does he. Kris has never been more grateful for him in her life, a feeling that lasts a whole five minutes before he starts to talk about his cousin’s husband’s best friend, who is also a lesbian and maybe Kris could go out to lunch with her sometime, because it might help to have someone to talk to.
“Dad,” Kris says, annoyed, “I don’t need a gay mentor.” If anyone’s her gay mentor, it’s Adam anyway, she thinks wryly.
“Okay, sweetie,” Neil says, smiling. “I’ll just give you her number anyway. No, just in case! You never know. Right?”
“You’re such a dork,” Kris complains, but takes it anyway.
Daniel is a bit harder; he kind of shifts away uncomfortably while their parents have their big scene with Kris, and disappears for the rest of the night. Kris finally finds him in the attic, smoking the pack of cigarettes he doesn’t think anyone knows about. He’s got the window cracked, blowing the smoke out into the wintry air, and he chokes when Kris walks in.
“Jesus, Kristy,” he says, hacking. “Warn a guy.”
“Jesus, Danny,” Kris says back mockingly. “Shut the window.”
“Bite me,” Daniel says casually, opening it wider just to be contrary.
Kris heaves a sigh. “So,” she says tentatively. “You, uh. Heard me down there, right?”
“Yeah,” Daniel says neutrally, looking away.
Kris feels a surge of anger. “And you don’t have any reaction at all?” Daniel shrugs. “You do know what ‘lesbian’ means, right? I like to kiss girls, Dan.”
“I know,” Daniel snaps. “Jeez, Kris.”
“Well,” Kris says impatiently. “You’re just gonna sit there?” Daniel shrugs again. “Fine,” Kris snaps, turning to leave, anger propelling her movements.
“No,” Daniel says abruptly, holding out one hand. “Wait.” Kris turns around, raising an eyebrow. “Sorry,” he mumbles, stubbing out the cigarette into a Dr. Pepper can, sitting on the table next to him. “It’s just - kind of weird,” he says, after a strained silence. “I mean, you’re my sister, okay, and I love you and everything, I just - ” he trails off. “Sorry,” he says again, avoiding her gaze.
Kris bites her lip. “It’s okay,” she says. “I guess. I mean. It’ll take some getting used to, I get that.”
“I don’t want you to think - whatever.” Daniel occupies himself with the window, pulling it closed against the winter air. “I’m not gonna - disown you or anything. Like - you know what I mean.”
Kris studies his jerky movements, trying to decide the best way to react. She settles on a hug, wrapping her arms around his shoulders from behind, ignoring the way he stiffens beneath her touch. “Yeah,” she says, a little sadly. “I know what you mean.”
Daniel relaxes, patting her hand awkwardly, and Kris pulls away, heart throbbing painfully.
“It’s really the best I could’ve expected from him,” Kris says later, on the phone to Adam. “He’s really touchy about that stuff. Like, he’s not homophobic or anything, not really - he has this friend that’s gay, but - I don’t know. I think it still makes him uncomfortable.”
“He’ll come around,” Adam says sensibly. “It’s hard for people sometimes, I think. Like a ‘not in my backyard’ thing - hey, it’s hot when Lady Gaga does it, but oh my God, my sister? No way.”
Kris laughs despite herself. “I don’t think Daniel even knows who Lady Gaga is,” she muses.
Adam makes a noise of utter outrage. “Well, who cares what he thinks anyway, then,” she says.
A couple weeks after she goes back to school, she starts getting letters back from colleges. She’d applied early admission to her whole list, all of them out of state to her parents’ dismay. She gets rejected from most of the more prestigious places (long shots, anyway, honestly) but gets a fair amount of acceptance letters, too - including UCLA.
It’s not like it’s about Adam, okay, she’d applied way before Adam had even sent back that first letter, in kind of a wistful attempt to “follow her dreams,” or whatever. She’d never expected to actually get in (her grades are so not the best, okay) but now she is in, and suddenly faced with the very real possibility of living in the same city as Adam.
“Well, of course you’re gonna go,” Katy says, as if this is an established fact. “You’ve been talking about moving to California forever, Kris. And can you imagine the kind of opportunities that music students in Los Angeles get? It’s gotta be a lot better than the University of Arkansas.“
“It’s so far away, though,” Kris says weakly.
“So?” Katy says, snapping her gum.
If Kris is honest with herself, she does want to go. A lot. And it is a desire that is mostly independent of Adam, though she does make Kris feel a bit better about the idea of moving there. She even has a binder from tenth grade to prove it - pictures of the LA landscape, some of the more famous recording studios, the palm trees and sandy beaches printed out and taped to the back cover. She’s all but made up her mind when she talks to her mom about it, who displays her uncanny and creepy ability to know things about Kris’s life before she does, yet again.
“Oh,” she muses, “I thought that was a done deal already? Because I already started looking up prices for plane tickets, sweetie.” Kris just sighs, resigned.
She doesn’t tell Adam, though. Not right away, anyway. She thinks it might be creepy, like Adam might think that Kris is like, following her there or something. It isn’t until Adam starts bugging her about college and where she’s going that she finally caves, during a late-night conversation.
“Oh my God,” Adam says, so loudly that Kris has to pull the phone away from her ear with a wince. “Oh my fucking God, Kristina Allen, you are fucking kidding me.”
“Uh, no?” Kris says. “I applied like, in September, and then I got in, so - I’m going?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?!” Adam all but shrieks. “Holy shit, oh my God, you’re going to live here! In the same city! Oh my God!”
Kris starts to smile, her anxiety ebbing away. “I thought you might think I was creepy, or something,” she says sheepishly. “Like I was moving to like, stalk you.”
“Oh? Oh.” Adam huffs. “Well, now that you mention it, yes. I’m pissed as hell. Goddamn it, Kris, how dare you come to LA to follow your dreams of fame and fortune?”
Kris laughs. “Shut up!”
“No, seriously, I’m really mad. Now I’m gonna have to take you shopping, and introduce you to all my friends, and see you like, in person and stuff, and spend time with you. You are so selfish.“
“Okay, okay,” Kris says, grinning. “I get it.”
Adam laughs, breaking character, and starts babbling about all the things she’s going to take Kris to see and do once she arrives, mouth moving a mile a minute, and Kris just listens, bubbly with happiness.
part two | part three