Chapter Text
Lily didn’t hate Harper. At least, not for any good reason.
Harper was a decent student, certainly not top form but not a slacker. She was honestly the only reason Lily hadn’t failed chemistry yet. Not that she’d ever admit it.
There was just, something about her. Something…needling.
Maybe it was the sharp scent of salt that always seemed to cling to her, or the bits of sand and chunks of shell that sometimes flew out of her pockets when she fished out her phone. Or perhaps it was just the ubiquitous beanie that looked like it needed a wash sitting constant guard over dirty-blonde hair that definitely needed a wash. Harper’s lazy drawl certainly didn’t help things: she always sounded annoyed, too cool for school.
Or maybe it was the way she slouched and dressed constantly in formless overalls, like she didn’t care what she looked like or who was looking at her. Or how openly and loudly she laughed with her two best friends, like she was rubbing their lifelong friendship in Lily’s face.
But, Lily reasoned, it really wasn’t any of those things. Those things she could tolerate, learn to find endearing or nudge the girl to fix perhaps (if she were unfortunate enough to spend a long amount of time with Harper Coleman that was).
No, the real reason revealed itself two days into their tenuous chem lab partnership. Harper had dropped her pencil, the implement clattering to the floor after an accidental nudge from Lily’s elbow. Before Lily had even realized what had happened, let alone made a move towards retrieving it, Harper was huffing and rolling her eyes as she bent to pick it up.
“Watch your radius…” She quipped, setting the pencil back down and returning to her work.
And as Lily drew herself up to snark back — mostly about Harper respecting the zones they’d established to keep their things from mixing — she saw it.
Teeth marks.
Harper’s pencil was covered in neat little bite marks from a hundred anxious nibbles.
It hit Lily like a punch to the face.
She could not stop looking at that pencil. A stupid, dull, gnawed-on stick of wood.
Suddenly her chest felt very tight, her nose stinging. She excused herself to the lavatory, not caring if Harper thought she was running away at her radius comment. She could feel Harper’s eyes on her as she left.
Lily locked herself inside the first bathroom stall, bracing herself against the door as she tried to remember to breathe, images of those teeth marks burning behind her eyelids.
She’d forgotten that mum used to bite her pencils.
A sob tried to escape and she swallowed it down with a choking huff. One little tear made its escape, stuck in the corner of her eye as she screwed up her face. How could she have forgotten that? Even two years later, it was the littlest things that brought her mum right back to her. And it still hurt just as much.
And while logically, she knew it wasn’t Harper’s fault, a seed of resentment was still sprouting anyway. Because she couldn’t accept that she had forgotten so she had to blame something. Someone.
If only Harper hadn’t chewed her pencil, she wouldn’t feel this way.
She leaned her head back, trying to breathe the way her therapist had taught her.
It was only a few months. Then they’d be done with chemistry and never need to interact again. In the meantime, they just had to stay civil enough to pass.
Lily nodded, smearing away that one rebellious tear. She could do that.
Tolerate Harper Coleman.
And maybe replace all her pencils with pens.
But of course, since life hated her, she could not escape Harper Coleman and her chewed pencils and unflattering beanies (there had to be more than one, right? She prayed that was the case).
And almost as soon as her dad decided to date Harper’s mom, Lily found herself unable to escape Harper’s family as well.
They were all always around. And weirdly invested in every detail of Harper’s life.
Anna was alright she supposed. She didn’t pretend like she wanted to be Lily’s new parent, instead taking an arm’s length approach that Lily oddly found herself respecting. She didn’t like it, but at least her dad’s girlfriend wasn’t asking her to call her ‘mum’ or awkwardly trying to relate to her or anything. She had a semblance of fashion sense that seemed to have missed Harper completely.
It was Harper’s Gran that Lily couldn’t stand. She got that the woman was some best-selling literary psychologist but that didn’t mean she knew anything about Lily’s life. Or Lily’s mum. Still, Dr. Coleman had apparently decided Lily was her second granddaughter now and just kept butting in. Asking her probing questions about how she felt, trying to feed her mediocre cookies, and hugging her like she was already a member of the family.
Lily avoided her like the plague. No, thank you. She had a gran. She was just in London. And couldn’t hug her.
Harper’s Grandpa was pretty chill. He at least recognized the futility of trying to relate to her and usually settled for a short nod or a brief chat about the weather as he tailed after Dr. Coleman.
But then there were Harper’s weird Chinese ‘aunties’ who were one fortune cookie short of a stereotype. They were weirdly invested in a family they had no blood relation to. Lily stayed away from them however she could. They always tried to push way too much food on her and didn't take no for an answer.
She put up with the Colemans etc. mainly because her dad was happy and she wanted him to be happy. His girlfriends never lasted long. Either they grew upset that he wouldn’t introduce them to her and left or her dad broke it off, citing that he needed to focus on his work or on her. Besides, he'd promised once the LA restaurant was up and running, they'd go back to London. She could wait it out.
But then he proposed.
Her dad, Eric Reyes, took Anna Coleman out to the Hollywood sign and proposed. Barely six months after meeting her. And she’d said yes.
Did all the Colemans have such bad judgement?
Worst of all, her dad did all this without asking her. Without even giving her a heads up that they were joining this mad house of a family. Or a choice in that decision.
So now she was trapped. Trapped in LA. Trapped among the Colemans etc. And stubbornly stuck spending all her free time with one Harper Coleman.
Harper Coleman was going to be in her life. One way or another.
And all her dirty beanies, fashion-crime overalls, and chewed pencils with her.