The awkwardness that comes along with walking with your crush to go hunt some food is killing you. It's making you wish you'd never participated in that whole coin-gun game. You don't know how you even beat it in the first place, all you know is that you defeated Travis so badly that Jackie offered to cover your chores for you for a whole week because she was happy to see his ass get kicked. It left you and Natalie as the designated hunters of the group. Which, for you, was a total nightmare.

You've had a crush on her since before you were on the soccer team with her. You go to the same school so of course you've seen her around, but you never interacted with her. Not that you would've been able to anyway. Your communication skills, no matter how hard you tried to mask, are shit. You have no idea when it's your turn to speak or what to say or how to keep a conversation going, so you know talking with Nat would be a disaster. After you joined the team though, it wasn't that bad. Soccer is a really big interest for you, so it wasn't hard at all to yell at her across the field for a pass or for her to get her head in the game, which she always responded to with a little look and a twinkle in her eye in the locker room afterward. But other than kind of interacting with her during soccer, you didn't know her at all. None of the girls, really.

"You're pretty good with a gun." Nat's gruff voice breaks you out of your thoughts, and you blink a couple of times before realizing she's addressing you. It's simple praise, but coming from her, it's enough to make you feel a happy stim coming on. You clench your fists to try to stop it but you blush and cup your ears, tugging gently on your earlobes as you turn to smile at her.

"Thanks." your face immediately turns sour as you make eye contact and you start masking again, feeling something deep settle in the pit of your stomach.

"How come you've never talked to me—to us?" Nat quickly corrects herself, blinking away the blonde strands in her eyes.