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Chapter Text

“If one thing had been different, would everything be different today?”

Meredith Grey had a way of watching people as though she were standing outside a glass house. She noticed the little things most people overlooked — the flicker of a smile, the drop of a shoulder, the way silence weighed heavier than words.

She sat under the bleachers that afternoon, notebook open on her knees, pretending to sketch equations for chemistry class but really writing thoughts no teacher would ever see. The field stretched out before her, thick with August heat even though school had already started. The football team was practicing; whistles blew, cleats tore into grass, sweat shone in the sun.

But Meredith’s eyes weren’t on the field.

They were on three people who, whether they knew it or not, had already set something in motion.

Callie Torres.
Arizona Robbins.
Mark Sloan.

Callie Torres walked across the field like she belonged everywhere. She wasn’t the quarterback or the head cheerleader, but she didn’t need the titles. Her laugh was a title all on its own. Loud, reckless, unafraid. It carried over the noise of practice, making people turn their heads.

Callie had that charisma — the kind that made teachers sigh in frustration even as they secretly admired her boldness. She leaned into people’s space when she talked, brushed shoulders without asking, and somehow it never felt invasive. It felt like gravity.

And then there was Arizona Robbins.

Trailing a step behind, holding a water bottle against her hip, blonde ponytail bouncing as she tried to keep up. Arizona had a different kind of light. Sunlit and sharp, with an easy smile that she gave out sparingly. When she laughed, it was smaller than Callie’s, but it stuck longer. People liked her without knowing why — maybe because she made them feel seen.

But when Callie turned her way, when Callie said something only she could hear, Arizona’s whole body shifted. Her smile changed into something vulnerable, like a secret cardigan pulled from the back of a closet.

Mark Sloan leaned against his car at the edge of the curb, the hood still hot from the drive. He wasn’t even supposed to be there — he wasn’t on the team, wasn’t in any club. He just liked watching.

Or rather, he liked watching Callie.

The smirk he wore was practiced, honed. Everyone thought he was trouble, and he liked them thinking that. Trouble made him interesting. Trouble made people look twice.

When Callie glanced his way, just for a second, he felt it in his chest like a victory.

Meredith scribbled into her notebook:

“It would’ve been fun if you would’ve been the one.”

She didn’t know who she meant it for. Maybe Callie. Maybe Arizona. Maybe Mark. Maybe herself.

Because once, not long ago, she’d thought Derek Shepherd was the one. He was golden boy, perfect, football captain, charming smile, dimples that made teachers forgive late assignments. They’d been something last year, until they weren’t. Until they broke so completely that now he couldn’t even look at her in the halls.

It haunted her. “If one thing had been different, would everything be different today?”

Cristina Yang dropped beside her, as graceless and abrupt as always. “You’re writing about them again?”

Meredith closed her notebook halfway. “I’m just…observing.”

Cristina snorted. “That’s code for brooding.” She dug into a bag of pretzels, crunching loudly. “You’re staring at Torres and Robbins like they’re the lead characters in a tragic indie movie.”

“Maybe they are,” Meredith said.

Cristina followed her gaze. “Torres is chaos. Robbins is sunshine. Sloan is a grenade. Yeah, sounds about right.”

“You think Arizona knows?” Meredith asked quietly.

“Knows what?”

“That she’s the only one who doesn’t get to choose how this ends.”

Cristina didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

In the cafeteria later, the triangle rearranged itself again.

Callie slammed her tray down at the table, half a sandwich balanced on top. Arizona slid in beside her, nudging Callie’s shoulder with her own, their voices falling into easy banter.

At the next table over, Mark tipped his chair back, tossing a grape in the air and catching it in his mouth. His eyes never left Callie.

And Teddy Altman sat two rows down, peeling an orange with surgical precision, gaze sharp and knowing. She always knew.

Meredith tucked her notebook away, but the words still echoed in her chest.

“In my defense, I have none, for digging up the grave another time.”

She thought about how everything in high school felt like it mattered forever, even though everyone said it wouldn’t. About how love could feel like fire in one moment and ashes in the next.

She thought about Callie’s laughter ringing across the room, about Arizona’s quiet smile softening every edge, about Mark’s smirk hiding something raw.

She thought about Derek passing her in the hall, their shoulders brushing like strangers.

And she thought: “If you never bleed, you’re never gonna grow. But it’s alright now.”

Meredith leaned back in her chair, watching the storm gather around her classmates, waiting to break.

Somewhere deep down, she already knew: this year, none of them were getting out unscarred.

Chapter Text

It was February of freshman year first time Arizona Robbins noticed for the first time Callie Torres staring at her, even if Callie had being doing that since the first day of school. She had paint on her hands, Fresh acrylic smeared across her fingers, bright blues and soft yellows, evidence of the obsession that kept Callie in the art studio long after everyone else had left. Arizona had tried not to look, not to let her curiosity betray her, but that curiosity had its own gravity.

Callie leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, smirk teasing at the corners of her mouth. “You’re really good at that,” she said, voice soft and deliberate, as though she was letting Arizona in on a secret meant for no one else.

Arizona’s stomach did that same flip it had done years later at her spring break party, standing across the crowded house while the music thumped like a pulse in her chest, scanning the doorway with the certainty that Callie would eventually come through. “Thanks,” she murmured, her attention splitting between her canvas and the feeling that this was the start of everything.

Arizona wasn’t exactly popular: she was the smart one, the golden one, the smiling one, the cheerleader who attended every party, even the ones thrown by popular seniors like Miranda Bailey and Richard Webber; the one who consoled April Kepner crying in the school bathroom and visited Amelia Shepherd in rehab. She was there for everyone, but no one, until Callie, was there for her when she was the one bent over the bathroom sink, staring with disgust at her reflection in the mirror, crying over her self hate for liking girls, sinking in ghosts she would years later recognize as bulimia and self harm. But when Callie arrived in her life, everything shifted.

“A friend to all is a friend to none.”

With Callie it was always the little moments that made her feel special, whole— the hallway glances, the parked car confessions, the way their hands met and lingered, the first kiss during spring break in Callie’s backyard that made Arizona feel butterflies in her stomach and the first time in Arizona’s bedroom at her beach house down in California. Arizona remembered the first time Callie traced the faint scar on her wrist on a quiet afternoon of September in sophomore year, when they had already become officially a thing, her pen drawing stars around the edges. It was a gesture that felt eternal even as it passed, a recognition of the broken and the beautiful. Months later, at the party, Arizona would feel that same recognition in reverse: she knew the moment Callie would slip through the crowd, a ghost in jeans and a hoodie, and that when she did, the world would tilt just a little.

“You drew stars around my scars but now I’m bleeding”

The city smelled of rain and asphalt. Back then, they had parked the car near the empty streetlights, leaning into each other like the whole world could wait. Callie’s hand brushed Arizona’s across the dashboard, casual and certain. “You always do that,” Arizona whispered. “You make everything feel…important.”

“You don’t notice, but you do it too,” Callie replied, fingers curling into hers, unknowingly echoing the tiny certainty Arizona carried years later. At that spring break party, the music loud and unforgiving, Arizona had scanned the room and felt the same certainty again — that Callie would find her, that there was a possibility that their orbit could been restored.

Every reckless laugh, every whispered secret, every touch that left bruises on her heart, Arizona remembered it all. She knew how the bridge would come — the part where people drift and disappear — but she also hoped, deep down, that Callie would have always returned. The knowledge was quiet, patient, like a pulse beneath the noise of the party.

“And I knew you would come back to me”

High school nights at the boardwalk, head resting on Callie’s shoulder as waves broke at their feet while Arizona confessed her darkest secrets waiting for rejection, mirrored the loneliness Arizona felt in later years when she waited, just a little, at the edge of the crowd. She remembered Callie saying softly, “I see you,” in the dark. Later, in the crowded chaos of junior year, that same phrase echoed in her mind: I see you.

Callie’s fingers had traced hers, hesitant but sure. The same certainty hummed through Arizona at the party — a knowing smile, a small shrug that meant she had always understood this rhythm: people leave, but the ones that matter always find their way back.

She remembered when, before senior prom, though she was just a sophomore, Lauren Boswell had asked her to go to the prom with her and Callie slid in the conversation with her usual casual charming, calling Arizona with names they both hated, like “babe” and “honey”, and then starting making out in front of Lauren, who went away cursing Callie. Later that evening Arizona whispered “Don’t do that anymore. I know how to say no. And I was going to say no” even though deep down she was feeling a strange kind of relief, knowing that she was special to Callie and not just a temporary solution, waiting to find someone more interesting and less… messed up.

“Hand under my sweatshirt, baby, kiss it better.”

“And when I felt like I was an old cardigan under someone's bed, you put me on and said I was your favorite”

One night, at the beginning of junior year, Arizona waited on her front porch, shadows pooling around her, warm light spilling behind. Callie appeared, hesitant, and Arizona smiled, recognizing a rhythm she would never forget. “You’re late,” she said softly. She didn’t know that the storm had already begun.

Even the ordinary moments after their breakup mattered. Callie fiddling with her backpack in the grocery line, Arizona caught staring, felt the same as seeing her slip through the party doors years later. The ordinary became extraordinary because it carried weight. Arizona understood, even then, that some connections left marks like smoke — lingering, unshakeable, inevitable.

“I knew I’d curse you for the longest time, chasing shadows in the grocery line”

At the spring break party, she felt the same tension dissolve in anticipation. Across the room, Callie would appear exactly when she was meant to — never early, never late. The world might swirl, hearts might falter, but the bridge they shared remained constant. Arizona didn’t need words; she had known this from the start. She always would.

And like then, she leaned in. Because she had always known Callie, and knowing her had always been worth every ache, every bruise, every mark left behind.

Meredith’s words floated softly, notebook open under the bleachers, a tether across time:

“And when you are young, they assume you know nothing. But I knew everything when I was young.”

And Arizona had. She had known the sparks and the certainty, the pain and the return — she had always known.

Chapter Text

Addison Montgomery arrived in the middle of a very hot August, on the very first day of junior year like a storm in perfect makeup. Nobody knew much about her except that her family had money — real money — and that her parents were never home. Some said she’d been expelled from a prep school in Connecticut. Others swore she was secretly dating a Yale professor. Every rumor contradicted the last, but that didn’t matter. Addison didn’t deny them. She just smiled with that slow, deliberate tilt of her head that made you believe she might actually be dangerous.

By the time August turned cooler, Addison had carved herself into the school’s mythology. And when she announced she was throwing the first party of the school year, everyone knew they had to be there. Even Callie. Especially Callie.

It wasn’t that Callie would’ve died to go to the party; she would’ve loved to spend the evening with her beautiful girlfriend in the quiet of her car parked somewhere with an ocean view. But she also would’ve loved to see Arizona not think about her shadows, even if only for a couple of hours. She thought the party was the perfect occasion. And she also wanted to go to the party because, she had to admit, she wanted to be friends with Addison.

Addison’s house looked like something stolen from a design magazine, or a tv show for teenagers: white pillars, glass windows, music pulsing from speakers so expensive you could feel the bass in your teeth. The driveway was lined with cars; kids spilled onto the lawn, red cups in their hands, laughter echoing into the night.

Arizona clung to Callie’s hand when they walked in. Crowds weren’t her favorite, she could feel herself disappearing, but Callie thrived in them. Callie was born for crowds. Arizona hadn’t still understood how Callie managed to convince her to go to the party, but she had a strange feeling, like both excitement and fear. Callie’s energy filled the room like fire, like she belonged everywhere at once.

“Don’t let me get lost,” Arizona whispered, leaning close.

Callie kissed her lips quickly. “Never.”

And for a while, it was true. They danced in the living room, Callie twirling Arizona clumsily, laughter breaking between them. For that brief moment, the chaos melted away.

But parties had a way of shifting everything.

At some point, Callie drifted to get drinks, and Arizona found herself cornered near the kitchen. Addison, flawless in a silk blouse that caught the light, leaned against the counter with her usual composure. Beside her, Amelia Shepherd — Derek’s younger sister — perched on a stool, glitter in her eyes. Or maybe just sparkle used as a shield.

“So you’re Arizona Robbins,” Addison said, like she was sizing her up. “Callie’s shadow.”

Arizona blinked, surprised. “Excuse me?”

Amelia snorted. “Ignore her. She’s being dramatic.”

Addison sipped from her cup, gaze unrelenting. “You’re cute. Quiet. You look like the kind of girl people underestimate.” Her smile turned sharper. “That’s dangerous. Don’t let Callie take you for granted.”

The words stung, not because they weren’t true, but because Arizona had already thought them herself.

Across the room, Callie reappeared with two cups in her hands, even though she already knew Arizona would decline hers. Since school started she was having a hard time again. She froze in the doorway, eyes narrowing.

There was Arizona, laughing nervously at something Addison said, Amelia grinning beside her. Addison leaned in, whispering into Arizona’s ear — too close, too intimate.

Jealousy hit Callie like a fist. The cups in her hands trembled. For a second, she thought about storming over, like she did with Lauren, but pride, or maybe the echo of Arizona’s voice saying she knew how to handle a situation, kept her still. Instead, she turned away, heart pounding with something she couldn’t quite name.

That was the minute it all shifted.

Mark Sloan was leaning against the banister upstairs, drink in hand, his tie undone just so. He spotted Callie immediately, like he’d been waiting for her.

“You look pissed,” he said, smirk widening.

Callie rolled her eyes, but she didn’t leave. “I’m fine.”

Mark tilted his head, following her gaze back to the kitchen where Arizona was still talking to Addison and Amelia. “Doesn’t look fine to me.”

Callie downed half her drink in one swallow. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mark leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Maybe not. But I know what it feels like to be overlooked.” His eyes lingered on hers, steady and unflinching.

Something unspoken passed between them — a spark lit by anger, by hurt, by need. Callie didn’t mean to close the distance, didn’t mean to let her shoulder brush his, didn’t mean to laugh at his stupid joke. But she did.

And then Mark kissed her.

It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t planned. It was messy, charged, fueled by everything Callie didn’t want to admit.

For one breathless second, she let herself fall into it.

Downstairs, Arizona still stood in the kitchen, cheeks flushed, half-smile lingering at something Amelia had said. She hadn’t noticed Callie was gone. She hadn’t seen Mark lean in.

But Teddy had. From across the room, perched on the arm of a couch, Teddy Altman’s sharp eyes caught everything. The way Callie’s lips brushed against Mark’s, the way her hands clenched like she already regretted it.

Teddy didn’t say a word. Not yet.

But she filed it away, knowing it would come out eventually. It always did.

Meredith watched it unfold from her corner, notebook hidden in her bag. She didn’t need to write it down to know the story was shifting, tilting toward tragedy.

She thought: “And then it was bought by me. The most notorious woman this town has ever seen.”

Because Addison’s party would be remembered for one thing — the night the triangle stopped being invisible and started bleeding into everything.

And though no one else realized it yet, the dynasty had already been ruined.

Chapter Text

The Monday after Addison’s party, the hallways felt heavier. Maybe it was the flicker of fluorescent lights, or maybe it was the way whispers carried faster than footsteps. Everyone knew something had happened that night — they just didn’t know what.

Arizona arrived early, clutching her books against her chest, the weight of Addison’s words still sharp in her mind. Don’t let Callie take you for granted. She tried to push it away, tried to believe that Addison was just stirring trouble. But as she passed the lockers, she couldn’t ignore the way Callie avoided her eyes.

“Hey,” Arizona said softly, when she finally caught Callie by the water fountains.

Callie forced a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Hey.”

Arizona tilted her head. “You disappeared at the party. I looked for you.”

“I… got caught up talking to people,” Callie muttered.

Something in her voice rang false. Arizona felt it — like a door closing between them. Callie had break her promise: not to leave her alone at the party, and Arizona couldn’t imagine why her girlfriend disappeared while taking drinks. But she didn’t press, not yet. Instead, she said, “We should sit together at lunch.”

Callie nodded, but the hesitation lingered.

Meanwhile, Meredith sat on the bleachers behind the gym, Derek beside her. They weren’t fighting, exactly — they were too tired for that — but there was distance. Meredith chewed on her pencil, notebook open on her lap.

“You’re not listening to me,” Derek said finally.

Meredith didn’t look up. “I’m writing.”

“You’re always writing.”

“Better than running away to another girl.”

His silence pressed down between them.

Meredith finally turned, eyes sharp. “You can’t have it both ways, Derek. You can’t disappear whenever it’s convenient and then expect me to wait.”

He looked at her like he didn’t recognize her anymore. And she thought of the song in her head, words she hadn’t written yet:

“I think I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like the ending.”

In the back stairwell, Callie found Mark leaning against the railing, grin lazy but eyes too intent.

“You’re avoiding me,” he said.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

Callie crossed her arms. “What happened at Addison’s… it was a mistake.”

Mark shrugged. “Didn’t feel like one.”

Her chest tightened. “I love Arizona.”

“Then why’d you kiss me?” His voice was quiet now, almost kind “Why didn’t you stop me?”

Callie didn’t answer. She didn’t have one.

Mark leaned in closer, not touching her, but near enough to burn. “You can keep pretending, Torres. But secrets have a way of getting out.”

And, without knowing it, Mark was right. Because Teddy Altman had just heard everything.

At lunch, Callie didn’t show up. Arizona thought that it was wrong, Callie would have never left her alone for a meal. Not after everything. Trying not to think about it, Arizona went towards Meredith’s table, where Callie and her would sometimes sit, when Arizona felt like eating in public. She set between Alex and Teddy, not because she was a close friend of them but because they’d always been in the same schools, so at least they were familiar faces. Plus she didn’t want to be alone.

Fate wanted that that day, besides Meredith and her group, there was also Teddy at the table. Apparently she begged Cristina for days to help her with her maths exercises and Cristina agreed, expecting back juicy gossip.

When Arizona set down they were talking about the party.

“So basically Torres had this funeral face and when Sloan approached her, she followed him in the hallway.” Teddy said before realizing that Arizona was there too.

“What do you think has happened?” Arizona asked cautious.

Teddy blinked. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t talk about people when others are involved. And… well, I think it’s Callie’s job.”

Arizona’s jaw went rigid. “What do you know?”

Teddy swallowed hard. Cristina stared. Meredith stopped talking with Alex. Suddenly him hooking up with her half sister wasn’t important anymore. Everyone knew what happened, not because they knew but because Teddy’s words spoke for themselves.

“This really isn’t my job to say.” Teddy said, hoping that someone or something could swallow her immediately.

“I need you to tell me, Teddy.” Arizona was on the verge of tears. “Please.”

Teddy looked at her in the eyes before dropping the sentence.

“Arizona… at the party… well…” she paused, not exactly knowing how to break the heart of someone so bright yet fragile like Arizona. But she also knew that Arizona deserved the truth.

“Callie and Mark hooked up at Addison’s party.”

Arizona went still, then backed away before they could say anything.

Her throat ached, but she kept moving, steps fast, almost a run.

She skipped the rest of the classes that day. Arizona sat alone outside, knees drawn to her chest. The words circled her head, relentless:

“You didn’t even hear me out (you didn’t even hear me out)
You didn’t even hear me out (you didn’t even hear me out).”

She thought about kissing Callie in cars, holding her hand in downtown bars, the way it had been enough. The way Callie had once drawn stars around every scar, making her feel like more than the quiet, underestimated girl Addison claimed she was.

But now Arizona felt like she was bleeding, and she didn’t know how to stop it.

“I think I’ve seen this film before and I didn’t like the ending.”

Inside, Callie sat with Mark, trying too hard to look fine. Teddy’s eyes flicked from one to the other, catching every glance, every nervous laugh.

That night, Arizona sat by her bedroom window, lights off, watching the quiet street. She imagined Callie standing at her porch light, like in some alternate world where none of this had happened. A world where they hadn’t begun to fracture.

She whispered to herself, “We always walked a very thin line.”

And for the first time, she wasn’t sure if they’d make it across.

Chapter Text

The night after Teddy told Arizona, in Arizona’s bedroom sleep refused to come. The clock ticked past midnight, then two, then three. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Callie leaning close to Mark, whispering things that should’ve been hers.

When morning finally came, Arizona’s reflection looked older, sharper. Like grief had stolen a piece of her softness overnight.

Walking through the halls felt like walking through a funeral no one else attended. People laughed, slammed lockers, exchanged gossip — but to Arizona, the air was too still, too heavy.

She found herself glancing at Callie, then looking away, then looking again. And each time, Callie’s smile cut deeper because it didn’t reach her eyes anymore.

“I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace.”

At lunch, Arizona sat with Meredith, Cristina, and Alex. Their table was noisy — Alex teasing, Cristina rolling her eyes, Meredith quietly sketching lyrics on the back of her notebook — but Arizona barely heard them.

She caught Callie entering the cafeteria, talking with Mark, laughing at something he said. Arizona’s fork clattered against her tray.

Cristina raised an eyebrow. “You’re stabbing your mashed potatoes. They already lost.”

Arizona flushed. “Sorry.”

But she didn’t stop staring at Callie.

When Arizona finally found the courage to talk to Callie, it was the next day. It happened after school, in the parking lot, when the crowd had thinned and the orange light of dusk stretched shadows long across the asphalt. Callie was shoving books into her bag when Arizona finally walked up, words sharp as broken glass, shakier than she wanted.

“So… are you going to tell me, or should I just keep hearing it from Teddy Altman?”

Callie froze. “What?”

“Don’t play dumb, Callie.” Arizona’s voice cracked but didn’t soften. “I know what happened. You and Mark.”

Callie’s glance went down, staring at the floor.

Arizona stood frozen. “This is the part when you should tell me it’s not true. That Teddy is exaggerating.”

Callie’s words were struggling their way out of her throat. “I’m sorry…it wasn’t an…it didn’t mean-”

Arizona cut her off. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare say it didn’t mean anything.” Her eyes burned, tears already falling down her cheeks, mascara melting. “Because it meant everything to me. Every late-night drive, every stupid doodle in the margins of your notebooks, every time you kissed me in your car and promised it was enough. That meant everything. And now?”

Callie’s voice dropped, almost pleading. “Arizona—”

But Arizona’s tears slipped free, unflinching, fierce. “I can go anywhere I want, anywhere I want — just not home.”

Of course, Teddy saw. She always did. And where Teddy went, Addison wasn’t far behind. Within minutes, people had slowed their steps, pretending to check their phones while listening.

Arizona noticed, but she didn’t care. Let them watch. Let them see her burn.

“Do you know what it feels like?” Arizona asked, voice rising. “To finally believe someone loves you just as you are, with all the flaws and the problems and the relapses, making you believe that maybe you’re not completely broken, only to find out they’re writing another love story with someone else? With him?” Arizona pointed at Mark with a shaky arm.

Callie flinched at the emphasis.

Mark, appearing from nowhere, stepped closer. “Hey, don’t drag me into this.”

Arizona turned, fury blazing. “Oh, you’re already in it, Sloan.”

”I trusted you, more than anyone in my life and you did this” her voice trembled now, breaking open with the words she couldn’t stop.

“I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace
And you, the hero flying around, saving face
And if I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake?
Cursing my name, wishing I stayed
Look at how my tears ricochet.”

The words weren’t just words in that moment — they were Arizona’s heart, raw and unpolished.

Callie didn’t fight back. She just stood there, tears brimming, as if silence might save her. But silence was worse. It made Arizona feel invisible, erased, like everything they had was slipping into a void where no one would remember it existed.

Finally, Arizona shook her head, backing away, arms wrapped around herself. “You’ll regret this,” she whispered. “Maybe not today. But you will. And when you do, I hope it haunts you.”

She turned and left before Callie could answer, footsteps sharp against the pavement, echoing like gunfire.

That night, Arizona lay on her bed, phone on her chest, staring at the ceiling. Every vibration, every notification, she hoped it was Callie.

But Callie never texted. Never called.

And the silence, heavier than words, was the cruelest ricochet of all.

Chapter Text

The week after the parking lot confrontation, Arizona perfected her smile.
It wasn’t born out of joy; it was crafted like a weapon. Polished edges, dazzling enough to distract anyone from looking too close. She wore it to class like armor, a sharp curve of lips that dared anyone to guess how hollow it was.
She kept her hand in the air before the teacher finished the question, her answers crisp, flawless, proof that she wasn’t broken. At lunch, she slid into Meredith and Cristina’s table without hesitation, her laughter bubbling over Karev’s dumb jokes, as if her entire world hadn’t split wide open a week ago. She knew the eyes on her — curious, pitying, hungry for gossip — and she refused to give them anything real.

“I’m a mirrorball, I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight.”

Cheer practice became her stage. Arizona threw herself higher, spun faster, stretched until her muscles screamed. The squad clapped when she landed her flips with surgical precision, the coach beaming with pride. Under the fluorescent gym lights, her reflection sparkled in the wall-length mirrors: radiant, untouchable. A girl made of glitter, dazzling, unbreakable.
But when the last laugh faded, when the others streamed out of the locker room, Arizona stayed behind. She pressed her forehead against the cold metal of her locker, chest heaving, throat burning. Her stomach twisted — not from nerves but from what she’d forced down earlier, forced up 20 minutes later, flushed away, leaving only shame and emptiness. She wiped her mouth, rubbed her knuckles against her damp cheeks, and painted the smile back on. A mask, fixed in place. One crack, she thought, and she’d shatter across the tiles.

Across the school, Amelia Shepherd was starring in her own performance.

She commanded her table like it was a throne, Addison to her right, Teddy to her left, and a crowd leaning in. Eyeliner sharp, hair perfectly styled, she spun gossip into gold, stories into laughter. People orbited her like planets around a star, feeding off her shine.

But Amelia had her secrets too. She’d fought her way out of the woods, dragged herself through the mire of pills and powders, and now she wore sobriety like a tight-fitting dress — beautiful but restrictive, suffocating at times. When she slipped into the bathroom between classes, she lingered too long at the sink, staring at her reflection. The ghosts were there in the mirror: the nights she couldn’t remember, the mornings she regretted. She blinked them back, reapplied lip gloss with steady hands, and walked out smiling like nothing had happened.

Arizona and Amelia weren’t close. Not yet. Not then. But one afternoon, their eyes met across the hallway, and something sparked. Arizona noticed the way Amelia’s laugh missed its mark by half a beat, the way her hand clutched Addison’s arm too tightly. Amelia saw the strain behind Arizona’s grin, the way her eyes dimmed when no one was looking. Recognition. Two performers on different stages, playing the same role.

“I’m still on that trapeze, I’m still trying everything to keep you looking at me.”

On friday night, Addison’s house glowed with string lights and music. The infamous parties where reputations were made and destroyed, where everyone danced like they had something to prove.
Arizona wore her brightest dress, spun under the lights until her hair clung damp to her forehead. She laughed, clinked cups, posed for pictures. Every smile wider than the last, every spin a dare to notice her. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and the dizziness that came when she twirled felt almost euphoric, like flying.
Amelia dominated the living room. She climbed onto a chair, glass in hand, spinning a story so outrageous that the crowd roared with laughter. She was incandescent, magnetic, a constellation pulling everyone’s gaze. And yet, Arizona noticed the tightness in her jaw, the way her fingers trembled just slightly when she gestured.

Later, Amelia slipped outside for air. The music pulsed through the walls, muffled, like a heartbeat behind plaster. Arizona followed without thinking, her heels clicking against the porch wood.
They stood side by side in the cool night. Arizona hugged her arms around herself. The silence stretched, not awkward, but taut with unspoken weight.

“Do you ever feel like,” Arizona began, her voice catching, “if you stop shining for even one second, no one will bother to look at you anymore?”

Amelia let out a short, sharp laugh — defensive, brittle. But her eyes betrayed her, wide and soft in the glow of the porch light.

“All the time.”

For a moment, their reflections danced in each other’s eyes. Amelia, sober but always craving the edge of oblivion. Arizona, stomach raw, throat burning, each relapse buried under a glittering smile. Both dazzling. Both breaking.

Back inside, Amelia reclaimed her stage, arms out wide, teetering like she might fall. Arizona rejoined the dancers, her face glowing, her body hollow.

“Hush, when no one is around, my dear, you’ll find me on my tallest tiptoes, spinning in my highest heels, love, shining just for you.”

Hours later, Arizona lay in bed, phone in hand. She scrolled through photos from the party: twinkling lights, sequined dresses, faces stretched into joy. Her own grin appeared in frame after frame — wide, perfect, convincing. She wanted to believe the girl in those photos was her. She wanted it so badly it ached. She turned the screen off, rolled onto her side, and whispered into the dark, “Please… just notice me.”
And across town, Amelia lay awake too, staring at the ceiling. The streetlight outside painted pale stripes across her sheets. Her chest felt tight, her mind restless. She closed her eyes and whispered the same thing into the night.

The next week blurred into a cycle of performance.

Arizona skipped meals, telling herself she wasn’t hungry, that the ache in her stomach was proof of control. But when she did eat — when someone was watching, when refusing would draw questions — the panic came fast, spiraling until she was bent over porcelain, purging until her eyes watered. She washed her face, reapplied gloss, and went back out smiling.

Amelia counted days like beads on a rosary: how many since she’d last let temptation whisper too close, how many since she’d thought about the cool, numbing release of relapse. She told herself she was fine, that sobriety meant freedom. But she still stayed too long in the bathroom, gripping the sink until her knuckles turned white, whispering pep talks to her reflection.

Their paths crossed more often now — glances in the hallway, quick exchanges at lunch, a nod during practice. Each time, there was recognition. Two girls spinning faster and faster, terrified of stopping.

At another party, Amelia found herself laughing too loudly, voice just slightly too sharp. Arizona danced until her knees trembled, vision blurring. Later, both of them ended up outside again, shoulders brushing in the dark.
Amelia lit a cigarette she didn’t smoke, holding it between her fingers just for something to do. Arizona hugged her knees, eyes fixed on the ground.

“You look perfect in there,” Amelia said suddenly, flicking ash into the dirt. “Like nothing ever touches you.”

Arizona barked out a laugh, hollow and humorless. “Yeah, well. That’s the point, isn’t it?”

Amelia studied her, lips parting like she wanted to say more, but didn’t. Instead, she offered the cigarette. Arizona shook her head.

“I’ve got my own poison,” she whispered.

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was heavy, almost suffocating, but honest in a way neither of them had allowed themselves to be all week.

Back inside, they returned to their roles. Amelia climbed back into the light, spinning stories. Arizona spun across the floor, dazzling, untouchable.
But the truth clung to them both: when the music stopped, when the lights went out, they weren’t constellations. They were glass — fragile, cracked, and one wrong step away from shattering.

“I’m a mirrorball… and I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight.”

And as the city fell quiet, two girls lay awake in separate rooms, whispering the same plea into the night.
“Please… just notice me.”

Chapter Text

Arizona Robbins had always been someone who carried memories like photographs tucked in her pocket. They lived inside her with startling clarity, edges sharp and colors bright, surfacing when she least expected them. Sometimes it was a smell, sometimes a song, sometimes the quality of light at dusk that summoned them back. That week, walking home from school alone, her backpack heavy against her shoulders and the Seattle sky pressing low with late-spring haze, the air carried a sticky sweetness. It smelled like the summers of her childhood.

She slowed her pace, breathing it in. The air pulled her backward, far away from the sidewalks of Seattle, to Bethesda, Maryland, when she was seven. Barefoot in the backyard, knees scraped raw and hair tangled, Arizona had believed the world was small enough to fit inside her neighborhood. She remembered her father in his uniform, the smell of starch and aftershave, lifting her high into the air while her mother called from the porch, half-laughing, half-warning him not to toss her so recklessly. She remembered the cicadas humming their endless song, the creak of the swing set, popsicles that melted faster than she could eat them.

Back then, love had seemed simple. Love was her father’s steady arms catching her when she leapt, her mother brushing the hair out of her eyes, her brother running beside her in the grass. Love was someone holding her hand while she balanced on the log over the creek, swearing they wouldn’t let her fall. She thought it would always be that way.

Now, in high school, love felt like a wound. It felt like whispers in hallways, like Addison Montgomery’s crowded parties where the air smelled like perfume and beer, like triangles and heartbreak and eyes that looked past her. Arizona, with her quick smile and careful posture, missed the version of love that had been safe. She missed believing it couldn’t hurt her.

Sometimes she caught herself humming a tune without realizing, half-formed words sticking in her throat.

“Please picture me in the trees, I hit my peak at seven.”

And she did. She pictured herself at seven, climbing high, feet swinging over the creek, too afraid to jump in but thrilled to be up there anyway. She wished she could hold that girl’s hand again, tell her to stay a little longer in that place where love didn’t ache.

She remembered her first crush. A neighbor girl—brown hair flying behind her, legs pumping furiously on her bike as they raced down the street. They’d lie in the grass afterward, breathless, watching clouds tumble past. Arizona hadn’t had words for it then. She only knew her heart beat differently when that girl smiled at her, when their knees brushed, when they promised to never grow up. The girl had moved away before Arizona ever figured out what it meant, but the memory stayed: two little girls side by side, laughing like time was infinite.

“Love you to the Moon and to Saturn”

It was in middle school that the innocence cracked. Arizona realized something one afternoon in gym class, watching the way other girls whispered and giggled about boys. She laughed along, but her laughter was hollow. Because when her stomach flipped, it wasn’t for the boys who jostled one another on the basketball court. It was for the curve of a girl’s smile, the way a ponytail swished, the brush of a hand during a game of volleyball.

She did what every other teenager does at a certain point: the “am I gay” quiz. Read articles. Did researches. And when she had a word for what she had been feeling her entire life she tried to tell it at her reflection in the mirror.

“Lesbian.” And it felt awfully right, like it fitted perfectly.

That realization came with shame so heavy it left her breathless. She didn’t tell anyone. Couldn’t. She carried it like a secret bruise, one that grew darker each year. On Sundays, sitting stiff in church pews, she listened to words that made her chest tighten. She knew her parents expected something else from her: a future where she smiled beside a boy, where the Robbins daughter fit neatly into the picture frame. She started biting her nails until they bled.

By high school, the shame had twined itself around her ribs. When she caught Callie Torres smiling at her across the art room, Arizona felt the world split open—bright, terrifying. It was the closest she had come to that seven-year-old feeling, when everything was easy, when love meant lightness. But it was tangled now. Callie’s smile made her heart soar, but it also made her throat close. Because what if someone saw? What if someone knew?

“Cross your heart, don’t tell no other.”
At night, at her desk, Arizona opened her notebook. Homework sat untouched as she began to scribble instead, words tumbling out like letters to her younger self.

“You thought love was safe,” she wrote. “You thought no one could break you. Hold onto that a little longer. High school will try to take it away.”

Her pen hovered. She wanted to say more, to tell that barefoot, wild-haired girl that the world would demand she carry secrets, that she would learn to shrink herself in crowded hallways. But she didn’t want to crush her. So she wrote gently, as though to protect her:

“Don’t be afraid of what you feel. It’s not wrong. It’s not shame. It’s love.”

The words shook her. She crossed out “not wrong” three times, then rewrote it smaller, as if whispering.

The next day at lunch, she doodled stars in the margins of her notebook while Callie walked by with Mark Sloan. Their laughter rang out sharp and heavy. Arizona lowered her head, the ache inside her unbearable. She thought of the girl who used to race her down the street, the girl who never asked her to be anything but exactly who she was.

She closed her eyes and whispered to herself: Please, picture me as I was. Just seven. Just safe.

Her imagination carried her. She saw herself again on the swing set, toes brushing leaves, sunlight making her squint. She saw her hands sticky with popsicle juice, saw the fireflies sparking in the evening air. She heard her father calling her “Robby,” his voice warm, certain. She saw the neighbor girl running barefoot in the grass, hair tangled, laughter spilling out like music.

“Pack your dolls and a sweater. We’ll move to India forever.”

The child she had been believed in forever. Believed in running away to someplace magical where no one asked you to explain who you loved, where it was enough to laugh side by side in the grass.

Arizona clung to that vision. Because in a world where shame pressed in, she needed a memory strong enough to outlast it.

She sat up straighter at her desk that night, pen moving again. This time she wrote not just to her younger self, but to her future one.

“Someday, you won’t have to hide. Someday, love will be simple again. It will last, the way the fireflies lasted in your memory.”

“Passed down like folk songs, our love lasts so long.”

She dropped her pen, pressed her forehead to her arm, and breathed. For just a moment, she believed herself. She believed that the girl on the swing and the teenager drowning in shame could both exist inside her, and that love—though complicated, though bruised—was still waiting to be safe again.

And for that breath, it was enough.