Work Text:
Katie slumped, hunched away from her like her gaze was an icy breeze. Lori's mind whirred ticking over the last couple of weeks. Katie shying away from hugs, retreating behind her phone whenever Edith was around. The way she had flinched at her mum's obvious disapproval, even though it hadn't been aimed at her. Even further back, hazy mornings over coffee in the kitchen, sleepovers so frequent that their breakfast routine was second nature. Awkward silences when she had mentioned boys she had crushes on, and the whole weekend of radio silence when she had first started talking to (Niall). A now rather obvious childhood obsession with rainbows. Patches of memory twined together by an undercurrent of unspoken secrets.
"God Katie, why couldn't you just tell me? Your crush couldn't be that weird, you know I'll love you no matter who the unworthy lady is" (hitching breaths puffed from her friend) "Come on Kate, just tell me. How bad could it be?"
"It's you, you idiot!" The final blow caused the dam to break open wide "It's you alright. For years now. Oh God Lori, it's you! I'm a goddamn cliche! The loner with a stupid crush on someone out of their league, the creepy lesbian in lo- in love with their straight best friend, the one too scared to think about it, let alone act on it. How could I have told you? How? I could barely admit it to myself."
Lori jerked her hand forward, pulled it back, and shaking let it rest on the bench halfway between them, palm up. Heart in throat she scrambled for words to say. "I'm sorry." wait a sec, that wasn't right - Katie looked up, wounded.
"It's not your fault I'm so stupi-"
"Stop right there." Lori felt her heart clench. "That's my best friend you're insulting." Looking down at where her hand still lay awkwardly on the bench between them. "She's pretty cool you know. Smart, brave, so stupidly pretty it's unfair. I guess you could say I've had a bit of a crush on her for, I don't know, months now?. Never told her. I've been struggling with accepting being bi you see, and I didn't think she needed the stress of worrying about my unrequited feelings when she should have been focusing on her exams so that she can do everything she deserves and more."