Part 19

Peaches: Ryan I'm sorry, please don't shut me out

Ryan got back home and raided Brooklyns snack cabinet — that girl always had the best snacks. Besides it was both their mom's fault that she even felt like this so who cared if she ate her snacks? It was the least Brooklyn could do to make up for her mom.

When Ryan left she realised that part of her bad mood was due to her own family and maybe she'd taken some of it out on Beyoncé.

She said hi to Zendaya and sat on the other sofa trying to distract herself with whatever was on the tv. It wasn't really working but it gave her background noise for all of her thoughts. She had already done most of her paper but it was still in the back of her mind.

And then Brooke came into the living room and sat down right beside her. "Are those mine?" She asked looking at the packet of chips in Ryan's hands. She was the only one who really bought the sharing sized bags.

Ryan just nodded trying her best not to roll her eyes. Zendaya was already watching tv so she didn't want to disturb her. And she had no real reason to be mad at Brooklyn, she just was.

Brooklyn didn't say anything but raised a brow before she stuck her hand in the bag of chips. She even had the same stupid eyebrow as her mom, Ryan noticed inwardly groaning to herself.

"You good?" Brooke asked. Ryan was clearly in a mood.

"Mhm" she lied and then the tears started falling. She wasn't even mad at Brooke but it felt like she was.

"Oh my god, what's wrong?" Brooke immediately hugged her. She smelled familiar, that was weird, but why was Ryan crying? "What's going on?"

Zendaya paused the show wondering the same thing and making her way over to the other sofa. "Ry?"

Ryan couldn't exactly tell them what happened with her roommates mom so instead she started talking about her parents and just how much pressure they put on her.

"Ryan I'm not gonna lie, your parents are kind of assholes," Zendaya said plainly, not bothering to dress it up.

"I didn't wanna say it but..." Brooke trailed off agreeing with Zendaya. "They literally bully you."

Ryan frowned. They weren't perfect but they weren't bad people either. She knew that they loved her. "I know but..." she trailed off.

"Look all of our parents can be kind of annoying but yours go out of their way to make you feel bad."

"Right like I'm mad at my mom but at least she makes the effort to try and get me to forgive her and doesn't make me feel bad for her own shit," Brooke added.

Ryan tucked in her lips thinking about what they had said. "Wait why are you mad at your mom?" She'd been wanting to ask for a while but it had never come up.

Brooklyn swallowed. She didn't know how to answer that without sounding like a spoiled brat. Besides, it was kind of personal. She hadn't told anyone before, even her mom didn't fully know the reason. "She just fucked up really badly," she said looking away. It had been over 2 years and maybe she should be over it by now but she just couldn't believe her mom would do that. And the way she acted like it was nothing, like she didn't know what she'd done...

Ryan didn't want to push it so she just nodded as if that was a real answer. "I just feel so shit and I hate that I still have to do this work so I don't fail. Like I don't even wanna do it anymore," she sniffled trying to stop crying now.

"Ry, don't cry. Itll be okay," Brooklyn wiped at the corners of her eyes.

"How's your paper? You want me to bully Justine into finishing it for you?" Zendaya asked and Ryan knew that she really would.

Ryan smiled wiping her eyes. "It's okay I just have to do the conclusion, I'll do it tomorrow."

"Oh, do you wanna come to the library with me and Chloe tomorrow?" Zendaya offered. Chloe was making her go and study for her test so she might as well bring Ryan.

Ryan wiped her face a final time, feeling a little better now. "Yeah lemme get Chloe's number, she's so pretty" Ryan tucked in her lips to see how Zendaya would react.

"Yo?"

"So yall are dating?" Brooke quickly jumped in. Zendaya knew about everyone else's love life, it was about time she told them about her own.

A slow smile stretched across Zendayas face. She was actually excited to talk about it, "not officially." She said and Brooke squealed.

Her and Ryan spent the next couple hours interrogating Zendaya about her love life and she was surprisingly happy to talk about it. She was going to ask Chloe out next Friday. She wanted the date to be special and the 8th was her favourite number so that's when she was going to do it.

She'd been crushing on Chloe for a while and they flirted so much, she was sure it was mutual. Then about a month ago they ended up sleeping together. They'd only done it once since and Zendaya couldn't stop thinking about her.

The three of them talked late into the night and the next morning Ryan woke up to more messages from Beyoncé.

Peaches: I miss you honey, we should talk about this

Peaches: Stop ignoring me

Peaches: You have to see me on Wednesday anyway, you might as well say something

Beyoncé was trying not to be pissed off at Ryan. She'd gotten so used to talking to her, used to being with her. And now Ryan wasn't even texting her back. It was frustrating when Ryan had been fine with things for the past 4 weeks. What suddenly changed?

Had she really messed things up that badly? It wasn't like she lied to her or didn't tell her what this was from the beginning. Nothing about their situation was ideal, the age difference for one, but that was negligible at the end of the day. They were both grown.

But Beyoncé hated that Ryan was acting like she'd done something wrong when it was Ryan's friendship with Brooke that made things complicated.

She had been trying so hard to get her relationship with Brooke to a stable place and there was no way that happened if Brooke found out about her and Ryan. She would probably never forgive her.

The two were best friends now, according to Brooke, though Beyoncé wondered how much that had to do with proximity. They barely had anything in common but they spent a lot of time together. Maybe they wouldn't be so close under normal circumstances.

Now, with Ryan actively ignoring her, she felt like she should've just stayed home for the weekend. She could've just got the flight on Monday to spend time with her kid and then did her thing at the university on Tuesday and Wednesday as usual.

Beyoncé had called her twice already since she woke up but Ryan wouldn't answer. She just declined the calls.

Ryan ended up taking Zendaya up on her offer and going to the library with both of them. It ended up being really productive. She managed to finish her assignment and get started on another two. Eventually, Zendaya and Chloe left to get food but Ryan stayed since she was in a groove.

She was finally in the right mood to get some work done, so she was going to take as much advantage of that as possible. She sat in the library, phone on do not disturb, completing as much of her work as possible before she physically had to get up and eat something.

When she got home later, she found her roommates all sat around playing Spin The Bottle and it smelled like incense letting her know that someone had been smoking. Some of them were drinking and now there was a bottle in the middle of the room. Zendaya had bought Chloe with her, who was quiet compared to the other girls, probably because she didn't know her roommates that well.

"Hey Ry, you wanna play?" Zendaya asked.

"You're playing," Justine said and that was that. Ryan got a drink and took her seat as the bottle spun.

"Truth," Brooklyn said when it landed on her.

"How many guys are you talking to right now?" Justine asked. Brooklyn never spoke to anyone about her love life and sometimes they truly believed she just didn't have one but no one had ever actually asked.

Brooklyn tucked her lips before replying. "Like five," she shrugged as if she genuinely wasn't sure. Everyone looked at her surprised because she literally never talked about that stuff. Zendaya was the only one who nodded like she already knew while Justine asked for details and for pictures of each one. Brooklyn pulled up pictures of two of them, telling her the others looked better in person. But they were just "talking" so it didn't matter that much.

The game continued for a little bit and finally, it landed on Ryan.

"Dare," she said and they all rolled their eyes. Clearly they had a truth question they wanted to ask.

The dare ended up being to the kiss the prettiest person in the room. Ryan rolled her eyes and hesitated between Brooke and Chloe before she planted a kiss on Chloe's cheek, still pissed off with Beyoncé and by extension with Brooklyn. Besides, Brooke looked a little too much like her dad sometimes and not enough like her mom.

Then it was Zendayas turn. She also picked a dare and had to post something embarrassing on her Instagram story and leave it up for at least an hour. Then it landed on Zendaya again and this time she picked truth.

"How did you know you were gay?" Chloe asked causing Zendaya to snort laugh. Anyone else would've got the boring answer but Chloe had been bugging her for a while since she knew there was a story.

"Okay so, I'm like 14 or 15. Me and my friend were on her laptop watching videos. Regular stuff at first but then there were some of those like viral porn ones too. It was like all those videos everyone's seen — 2 girls 1 cup, that one gang bang video, the one of the girl in Dunkin', you know all that?" Zendaya explained, trying not to remember the trauma of 2 girls 1 cup and instead remembering exactly how they were sat on her friend's butterfly bedsheets, legs crossed with the laptop between them.

"So then we kind of got curious and we started watching real porn. Straight stuff at first and I was watching all the girls. It was my first time seeing real porn and it made me curious about what my friend looked like, or what it would feel like to do that stuff to her but I wasn't about to say anything. And then we got onto the lesbian stuff and she said she wanted to know what it felt like and I said I did too. I really just wanted to see her naked because she was so hot... I'd never thought about shit like that before but I felt like, I dunno. It was like I was horny for the first time," Zendaya shrugged. "So we copied the video and yeah that's how I knew."

Everyone gaped at her and Zendaya shrugged. "I literally couldn't stop thinking about her after that. And we did it every time we hung out after that... What? Y'all never did stuff with your friends?"

Everyone shook their heads before Zendaya looked at Chloe and then at Ryan. "Seriously? I thought it was at least a gay thing. How did yall know you were gay then?"

"What?" Ryan laughed. "I just knew."

"I just like girls" Chloe added.

"What about with a guy?" Zendaya asked Ryan. Maybe she had the same story but with a boy.

"Wait? I thought you were a lesbian."

Ryan shrugged. She wasn't anything. She liked who she liked and that was it. And right now she really liked Beyoncé and that was pissing her off more than anything. "What about yall?"

"Don't change the subject. Tell us your first time story."

"It's not even interesting," Ryan rolled her eyes. "It was this guy at my school. He played basketball, we were friends kind of... we were kind of dating— I don't know. It's not the same! It's more like we just knew each other and we flirted a lot. Anyways, I was curious and he said he could show me." Ryan scoffed remembering all the fumbling and awkwardness. It wasn't good at all. Multiple times she thought about just stopping and putting her clothes back on. But he was slow and he took his time with her, telling her all the things that she needed to hear — how pretty she was, how much he wanted to do this, all these things that made her want to keep trying.

But he wasn't exactly good at what he was doing. He fumbled with her bra for so long she ended up just taking it off herself. The whole thing was just awkward and uncomfortable. "Turns out it was his first time too but he didn't wanna say anything. It was a little better the second time we tried but..." she shrugged.

"Did yall get together?"

Ryan shook her head, "nope, I think I like pretty people. He was just a guy... Can we go back to the game now?"

The bottle spun a couple more times and then it landed on Brooklyn. "Truth."

"How many people have you fucked this year?" Justine asked her getting back to Brooke's first answer.

Brooklyn bit her lip, "I don't know..." She said gritting her teeth and actually trying to think. A chorus of oooooh's went around the room as she genuinely tried to think of the answer. Just because she didn't talk about it, didn't mean she didn't do it.

"Damn girl.""Not Brooke being a slut, I love that for you.""New Brooke lore"

"Wait what?" She said as if she hadn't made it obvious. "I'm not! It's not that many." She pressed her thumb into her palm. "I would never. I don't... Y'all need to shut up."

The whole room dissolved into laughter before the game continued for a while moving on to other people and more truths and more dares. Chloe was asked if she liked Zendaya to which she blushed and said yes.

Ryan was asked if she was dating and shook her head, this time convincingly. Because she really wasn't dating anyone. At least not anymore. Brooke chose dares for the rest of the game. And Justine was all up in everyone's business.

On Monday, Brooklyn was supposed to be spending the day with her mom but Beyoncé was late to pick her up which made her worry a little bit. Brooke was in her apartment wondering what was going on when finally the door rang.

"Hey Brooke Brooke" Beyoncé grinned when she got downstairs.

Brooklyn just frowned, "you're late."

Beyoncé glanced at her watch, "it's only like 10 minutes."

"You're never late though," her frown settled in. She was pissed off now because she'd actually started to worry. Her mom was quite literally never late so this was extremely out of character for her

Beyoncé huffed, "I'm sorry my love. I just lost track of time and you know I'm staying at a different hotel now." Brooklyn just got into the car saying nothing as she took her seat, clearly in a bad mood. She wanted to ask why her mom changed hotels, where she was staying, but she also didn't want to talk to her. She had pissed her off.

"I was thinking maybe... do you wanna get some ice cream?" Beyoncé asked, trying to ease the tension in the car. It was starting to feel like everyone was suddenly mad at her.

"I'm not twelve" Brooke rolled her eyes tapping on her phone and scrolling through instagram.

Her mom looked over at her and sighed. Brooke was extra snappy today and she didn't know if this was even about her anymore. Sometimes it seemed like Brooke was just mad at the world and took it out on her. But Beyoncé would keep trying. That was her kid.

Brooke sighed, tapping through Instagram stories and seeing Ryan's. She looked over at her mom who was chewing her lip. "Actually yeah mom, ice cream would be nice"

The smile that lit up Beyoncé's face was instant. When Brooke was young, she used to take her for ice cream every week after her dance classes. Brooklyn hated dance but the ice cream after was the best part. After 8 months of Brooklyn complaining and saying she hated dance and had no coordination, Beyoncé finally allowed her to quit but they kept up going for ice cream. That was their thing. Up until the time when it wasn't.

"Okay don't be weird about it," Brooke said noticing her mom's gummy smile.

Beyoncé tried to hide her smile but that just made her smile more and Brooke rolled her eyes.

"Do you wanna go somewhere specific or should I just drive until we find somewhere?"

"Just drive," Brooke resisted the urge to smile as well. She missed doing this stuff with her mom sometimes. She wasn't a bad mom.

The two spent the day together and Brooklyn was noticeably less standoffish than usual. Beyoncé had no idea why but she loved it. She missed this side of Brooklyn, she rarely saw this side of her these days. She finally felt like maybe Brooke was finally done punishing her. She could only hope.

————————————[A/N]Okay, yall got a tiny bit of Brooke and her relationship with her mom. Any theories?

Thoughts on Bey being late for Brooke? Her texting Ryan?

Random question: what's yalls favourite ice cream flavour? Mine is all of them 🙂‍↕️