Chapter Text
Alicia and Leighton inevitably break up in the middle of sophom*ore year. Honestly, a lot of people called it out before it happened. Whitney was the first to say it. Sure, Leighton was very happy in the first few weeks - she was out of the closet, she was in good terms with her family, she had friends she could trust and her first love, the one she cried over for months on end, wanted her back.
But it is never just that simple to come back together out of the blue with someone you haven’t spoke with in almost a year.
They quickly discovered that there was a lot more to a relationship than just liking each other. For instance, there was a lot they didn’t know about one another. Quirks, how Alicia absolutely would prefere to die than to have to sit through another dinner with Leighton’s family (“the peak of nonsense white privilege”, as she would say), how Alicia’s idea of a fun weekend hiking and spending the night at a cabin in the woods was Leighton’s personal nightmare. How Leighton’s idea of a fun weekend of Frat Parties and shopping was Alicia’s personal nightmare. Alicia was a K-pop heavy metal girl, and Leighton was Broadway and pop-divas.
She couldn’t care less about vegetarianism. And Alicia didn’t seem at all interested in the straight-drama Leighton’s friends were going through (“but what is the problem of hooking up with your friends ex? Literally all lesbians do”). Leighton couldn’t relate to Alicia’s dream of having a small organic farm, planting her own food and living quietly in Vermont for the rest of her life. And Alicia couldn’t relate to Leighton’s existential questions on weather she should major in Econ, get an MBA and go to Investment Banking in New York or Engineering, get a PhD and go to Software Development somewhere in the Silicon Valley. Leighton wanted to get married and have two or three kids. Alicia didn’t believe in reproducing “patriarcal institutions to control women” and thought the world was overpopulated.
At some point, Alicia started being annoyed by Leighton getting her surprise gifts that costed three times more than what her parents would make in a month and always wanting to go to expensive restaurant dates that she would always inevitably have to pay. It was fun at the begging but eventually Alicia just vetoed them at all.
At some point, their thing together was basically hooking up. And even that was becoming less and less frequent. Something was off. So they called it quits. It was amicable and peaceful. Leighton still went to the woman’s centre and they both teased each other on their dating app pictures once they inevitably saw each other there a few weeks after the break up.
Leighton was enjoying single life quite a bit - she definitely wasn’t going on a ton of dates and hooking up with all the campus girls like she used to. She was taking the time to get to know herself more. She did more extra credits, spent time at the library and even went to a few hackathons and actually embraced being a nerd - not that she would admit it. She got herself into Sunday morning yoga and got a quite nice two bedroom off-campus apartment with Whitney after she couldn’t take living at Kappa for more than two months. But more importantly, Leighton specially decided that dating would happen only if she saw real potential.
So that’s how on a Friday night she found herself at the Essex Athletic Association building, which frankly she had never been to, as Whitney’s plus one for the Sporting Awards. She had never even knew this was a thing, but apparently it was big deal. As Whitney tried all night to explain, all sporting categories, male and female, had a best player award and the main event was the “athlete of the season” award, which looked at overall performance and picked the best athlete amongst all sporting categories. All very jock and niche. But Leighton had to admit that a party with a lot of athletic people wearing black tie and drinking fancy co*cktails wasn’t too bad, so she would survive it.
They made a lot of fun of weirdly emotional speeches delivered by muscular frat bros and laughed at sporting categories they didn’t even knew existed. She and Willow cheered very hard when Whitney’s name was called to the stage to pick up the Female Football Best Player Award. And by the end of the night, Leighton had already prepared a joke to deliver as soon as they heard some mediocre dude name being announced Athlete of the Season. But instead, a very familiar name that she hadn’t heard in quite a bit was called onto the stage.
As they said, the captain of the tennis team had had yet another perfect season, winning 12 singles tournaments, including the NCAA, and staying for 30 consecutive weeks as the top-ranked collegiate player in the US. Her points single-handedly made Essex 1st place in Woman’s Tennis for the first time in history. Amidst very loud cheers, Tatum made her way gracefully to the stage. Her long blonde hair was softly falling into perfect waves as she moved in a dark green sparkly dress that made her look like she was winning an Oscar instead of a university award. It was hard to tell if the dress was the one sparkling or it was her. That big, dimpled smile. A simple yet charming acceptance speech. Leighton could help but hold her breath. How on earth had she once landed that?
“She is not my type but f*ck me.” Willow said next to her
“I had no idea Tatum was that good. That’s probably like pre-pro sh*t.” Whitney said a bit surprised at the list of achievements
“Why did you guys break up again?” Willow turned to Leighton very directly
“It’s - complicated.”
“Leave her alone, Willow.” Whitney intervened before Leighton got into any further detail.
She couldn’t help but take a few glimpses at Tatum during the following party. Not only was she absolutely gorgeous but she seemed to be quite happy - there were a lot of people approaching her to congratulate, and she was all smiles and politeness. She didn’t look at Leighton once. Not that Leighton cared, obviously.
They still followed each other on Instagram, and although Tatum had never watched her stories after the break up, Leighton did watch her’s all the time - there were parties, restaurants, travels with friends, yoga retreats, tennis tournaments, an abnormal bunch of cat pictures and eventual suspect comments from girls at her selfies. Not that Leighton was stalking, of course. But Tatum did seem to be having a quite good life, at least.
Since their breakup, that basically consisted of a “we’re done” text from Leighton that Tatum never responded, there have been only a few in-person run-ins. Once at a sips line, three times walking around campus, two at the corridors and once at Essex’s only decent hair salon. In all of those occasions, there were no eye rolling or sarcastic comments - Tatum just didn’t acknowledge her presence at all, as if she was a ghost. So Leighton wasn’t surprised by her not noticing her presence today. In fact, it didn’t make a difference. They broke up because Tatum was kinda bitchy and that was it. She had a good run with Alicia and didn’t need that around anyways.
But saying that to herself didn’t make Leighton hold her breath any less when after too many co*cktails she walked out of a bathroom stall and saw her, in all her mighty, focused reapplying red lipstick. Through the mirror, their eyes met for the first time in months. That icy piercing eyes looking at her like they could cut her skin. The sweet perfume that filled the whole room. Leighton looked away first, and the sudden silence of the bathroom became too much.
“- hi” She said awakardly and proceeded to wash her hands on the spot next to the other girl.
She didn’t say hi back. Instead, Tatum locked her eyes again at Leighton, still trough the mirror and still in silence, as if she was carefully analysing the situation and ultimately looked away. Leighton finished washing her hands. When she turned her back to get out of the bathroom, Tatum turned to her and spoke.
“You haven’t thought about it, have you?” She said very seriously.
Leighton turner back to face her.
“What do you mean?”
“When you broke up with me. You didn’t think that I would be heart broken, right?” Tatum was looking at her almost genuinely puzzled, as if this was lingering in her head for months. “I’m cool, or a bitch, so I don’t have feelings, right?”
Leighton honestly wasn’t expecting that and frankly didn’t know exactly what to say.
“That’s not what -“
“Well, I had. I had feelings, I had feelings for you and I had my hopes up. And you broke up with me over text because of me doing a wrong comment in like 10 seconds. And then I was automatically a bitch and you assumed I didn’t have any feelings because that is what bitches do, right?”
Leighton stayed in silence.
“Who on earth introduces for the first time someone as their girlfriend to their father and break up the next day because they said a pot was ugly? 10 seconds. I didn’t get a chance to apologize, to try and understand why that was such a big deal to you. And of course I would have at least tried. I made it clear I really liked you. But a chance would have really been too much to ask when I didn’t even get a proper break up talk.” Tatum was very calm, very rational, while Leighton’s words were still stuck on her throat. “But it wasn’t about that, was it? You wanted to go back to your ex and needed to find an excuse to break up with me asap instead of just being normal and telling me. I could have handled it. I just expected you would at least treat me like a human being.”
“I’m sorry, Tatum.”
Tatum just shaked her head.
“I don’t want to know that you’re sorry. I want you to know I that I did have feelings and you broke my heart. And I want to know if I was ever anything more to you than just a hot girl you wanted to f*ck? Because I’ve been replaying everything in my head for months now and honestly I still can’t figure that part out. I’m fine with both, I just need the truth to finally close this.”
“You were. I really liked you but I needed to see where it would go with her.”
Tatum nodded, as if she was talking to herself in her own head.
“There is my answer. Thank you.” She looked away for the first time and put the lipstick back in her purse calmly. “Have a nice life, Leighton.“ As she started to march out of the bathroom, Leighton suddenly held her arm. Tatum stoped and looked deep into her eyes with her most piercing gaze - and Leighton was unsure if she was about to kill her or something.
But instead, less than a second later, their lips were desperately crashing together. Neither of them knew exactly who started it - perhaps both. Their hands traveled forcefully through each others bodies closing even more the almost inexistent space between them. At the same time Leighton grabbed Tatum’s ass, Tatum’s hand found Leighton’s bare tight through her dress slit and her lips started exploring her neck. Soon enough, they moved to the inside of a stall, where Tatum immediately pushed Leighton against the door as she ravished her neck and pushed her dress up, her fingers finding their way to work where Leighton needed them the most. Leighton’s moans were abruptly interrupted by the sound of someone entering the bathroom, which made them abruptly stop in their position for a second, looking deep into each others eyes as if they were silently discussing what to do. Tatum used her free hand to cover Leighton’s mount and continued what she was doing, but this time looking deep into her eyes, which somehow made Leighton come faster than she already would. The sound of the person leaving the bathroom slowly faded away as Tatum helped Leighton out of her high, taking her hand off from her mount. They exchanged another long, passionate kiss before disconnecting their bodies. Tatum was the first to leave the stall, in silence, and proceeded to wash her hands and carefully tidy up her herself in the mirror, re-applying the red lipstick again. Leighton tried to capture her eyes to try and read whatever the f*ck had just happened, but Tatum didn’t look back. As soon as she was done, she left the bathroom without saying a word. It was like Leighton was a ghost again.
When she finally collected herself enough to go back to the party, Tatum already looked like a completely different person than she was a few seconds ago, giggling and sipping champagne gracefully at the centre of a group of people.
“You okay? You look pale as sh*t” Whitney approached Leighton handing her a drink.
“Hey, do you think I might have been the one that was a bitch to Tatum and not the other way around?”
“Where is that coming from now?”
“We might have just had hate sex in the bathroom.”
“YOU WHAT?”
“Shhhh, calm down”
“In those 15 minutes I didn’t see you, you had f*cking sex? With Tatum?” Whitney said almost whispering, still shocked
“Do I look okay?”
Whitney nodded and smiled trying to contain a laugh
“You are unbelievable, Leighton Murray”
She did her best to keep up appearances for the rest of the night, but it was in vain. Soon after, she ordered an Uber and went home alone while Whitney disappeared to hook up with some muscular guy. After taking a shower and spending a few hours in her bed in the dark replaying for the million time in her head everything Tatum said, everything Tatum made her feel, her phone lighted up.
Now, the “We’re done” message finally had a reply.
Tatum: 506 Main Street, apartment 5.
