Audre & Bash Are Just Friends
Tia Williams
For Carolina May, my favorite girl
in the world
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Chapter 1
“Let’s get back to your issue, Sparrow.” Audre sat perched atop a toilet, resting her chin on her hand.
“Wait, which one?” asked Sparrow. She was splayed out in an empty bathtub, gulping vodka from a motivational water bottle. (STAY HYDRATED! NO EXCUSES! KEEP DRINKING!)
“Well… your love life,” she reminded her gently.
“Oh. Right.”
It was the last day of school, which always felt like a holiday. A day when all previous beefs and dramas were put to bed. No matter who they were—emo boys, anime girls, theater heads, full-glam baddies, fake thugs, K-pop queens, rich kids, scholarship kids, and people of all sexual preferences, genders, and astrological affiliations—everyone got along. It was only 4 PM, but almost every Cheshire Prep junior she knew was wasted, and hanging out at Reshma Wells’s multimillion-dollar house. It was one of the bougiest brownstones in one of Brooklyn’s bougiest neighborhoods, Park Slope.
As usual, Audre Mercy-Moore was at the party, but she wasn’t partying. In fact, she only heard the muffled party sounds (Ice Spice and screechy laughter) through the walls. But she could imagine the rest. No doubt the air was thick with the scent of fruity vape smoke, Sol de Janeiro perfume, and pizza. Assorted sixteen-and seventeen-year-olds were hooking up all over Reshma’s parents’ furniture. Her classmates were wearing a copy-paste blur of Brandy Melville and white Air Force Ones. This party was identical to every other party.
Honestly, all Audre Mercy-Moore wanted to do was go home and pack for “Dadifornia”—that is, her annual summerlong stay with her dad and stepmom in Malibu Beach, California. The trip was her heaven, her summertime reward for busting her ass all year to be a model student. Her dad’s cottage was so cozy, with its sun-faded teal exterior and seaside deck. Audre’s bedroom window faced the beach, where the roar of the ocean lulled her to sleep every night.
Yes, she was a born-and-bred city girl. But Dadifornia was her happy place. For many reasons, she couldn’t get there fast enough. But right now, she had a job to do.
Focus, thought Audre. This is about Sparrow. Are you doing your “active listening” face?
She snuck a quick glance in the floor-length wall mirror—doe eyes, dimples, a tousled tumble of gold-streaked goddess braids. Thrifted slip dress and Adidas. She was cute, and honestly? She’d earned it after years of acne treatments, braces, and a brutal keratin “treatment” that destroyed her natural curls in tenth grade. (On the bright side, without that keratin trauma, she wouldn’t have started the Protective Styles Club, which was a hit among all five of the Black girls at Cheshire Prep.) Her only pieces of jewelry were gold hoops and a cameo ring—the good luck charm that had belonged to her great-great-grandma.
On a good day, she felt above average. But she would’ve killed to be dangerously sexy. Hot. Unfortunately, she landed just on the outskirts of hot. The suburbs of hot.
It’s fine, she thought. College is when my life will start. When my sexy chapter begins. Now focus on Sparrow!
On any other day, Audre would’ve loved helping Sparrow through her latest mental health crisis. She was one of her favorite lifers. At Cheshire Prep, “lifers” were the kids who’d started Lower School in kindergarten. They’d witnessed every stage of each other’s lives. Identities were established early, and they stuck like glue. Audre’s identity? The person you hoped to run into in the school bathroom if you needed to cry, vomit, reapply lip gloss, anything.
She wasn’t just junior class president, she was also the unofficial therapist of Cheshire Prep—a title she’d given herself back in middle school, when she used to charge classmates twenty-five dollars a session. (These days, she demanded forty-five. Cash only.) For as long as she could remember, people were drawn to her, dying to share their troubles. And Audre loved “therapizing” her friends. She had every intention of becoming a world-famous psychologist one day, so she needed the practice. Who better to study human behavior on than kids she’d literally grown up with?
Audre was everyone’s rock.
The thing about rocks, though? They’re hard on the outside and on the inside. They don’t have insecurities. Or doubts. Or panic attacks, like the one she’d had earlier that day.
“Talk to me, Sparrow,” said Audre in her kind-but-firm professional voice.
“So, I’m at the diner on Monday after school.” As she spoke, Sparrow was peeling off her press-on nails and dropping them into the tub. “At the register, I realized I forgot my ATM card. And then this guy… this angel… shows up and pays for my bacon-egg-and-cheese.”
Sparrow paused to sip her vodka. After a moment, Audre realized she wanted her to guess. “Who was the guy?”
“Bash Henry. That new senior at Hillcrest Prep? Moved to Brooklyn in February? Well, he’s not a senior anymore—he must’ve graduated today. He’s. So. Fine. Do you know him?”
Audre knew of Bash Henry. Hillcrest and Cheshire Prep were rival schools—and Black private school kids were always on each other’s radar, since there weren’t a ton of them. At most, they were friends. At the very least, they’d nod at each other in Silent African American Solidarity. But she hadn’t met Bash yet. Rumor had it, he’d hooked up with three people at Rae Drake’s Sweet Sixteen (with no official invite). And that some Hillcrest kid had a psychotic break in health class while tripping off mushrooms Bash gave him. For a new kid, he already had a wild reputation.