[no silent readers please]

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗮 Lestari walks into the main entrance of the police department the next morning, she finds four people spread across a line of seats. Monty has his head on Fezcoʼs lap as he quietly sleeps with the comfort of his brand new stuffed animal in his arms, Fezco sits on his phone oblivious to the world around him, Ashtray has his eyes shut, his head back and the collar of his jacket raised above his nose to hide the fact he's sleeping, and Lexi...Lexiʼs eyes are red and her leg bounces up and down on the floor in anxiety. All four of them stayed here all night, cancelled all their plans because they were so worried about a girl who didn't give a shit about anything or anyone.

"You have five minutes," the officer behind her says and stands behind a desk.

At the sudden sound, Lexi lifts her head up to face Montana, whose eyes are tired and hair is a mess. Neither one says anything.

When Fezco finally takes his eyes off the light of his phone screen, he looks at the girl standing in front of them blankly. "Yo, what the fuck, Montana?" he says, breaking the ice.

She doesn't respond, nor does she look back at him.

"Ima pay for your bail, then you're gon' sit at my place n wait for the social worker." He stands up and heads towards the desk, some random personʼs bank card in his hand.

Montana turns around as he goes. "Thank you, Fez," she says quietly. "For everything."

He nods. "I really fucking care about you, bruh. You doin' shit like that fucks me up."

And within seconds, he's out of eye sight. It's a really risky thing for him to be doing — talking and paying the police with the job he has — but he'd take any risk to help out family. He may look scary, he may have a pretty rough job, but Fezco is the most loyal person Montana has ever met. Even with all the crap she starts, he sticks by her until the end. And until today, she's never really acknowledged that.

Montana turns back around to face the chairs, where Lexi still sits. "Listen, Lex —"

"You can't just go and do fucked up shit like that, Tana," the girl cuts in before Montana can explain. "Like, seriously, that was terrifying."

"Please, can I just —"

"A gun, Tana, you had a gun."

"Lexi!" Montana snaps loudly, growing frustrated by the rambling, which makes the Howard girlʼs mouth slam shut, and Tana can see genuine fear in her eyes. Her stomach clenches and Montana isn't sure if she's ever felt worse in her entire life. "While I'm still a little high, can you just let me explain?" Her eyes are desperate, vulnerable in a way Lexi has never seem them before. "Please? I need you to understand. I want to tell you everything."

The brunette sighs. This is all she wanted to hear. Montana is finally opening up. For the first time ever. She nods, lost for words. "Um...yeah — yeah, sure."

Montana points to an empty glass room beside them and nods her head towards it. "In there, I don't want young ears hearing this," she says, gesturing to the sleeping boys on the chairs.

And so Montana Lestari usues her up her time to tell a story she has never told before. After five minutes, she is interrupted by her probation officer, who tells her she's free to go whenever she's ready, as Nyla and Brian aren't pressing charges and her bail has been paid.

She starts from the beginning — her mom being a cunt and her dad killing himself. She tells Lexi how much she loved her dad, how much he loved her and Monty, but he couldn't cope with the demons in his mind, he couldn't cope with her momʼs abuse and affairs. How he did it right in front of her. How she watched her own father bleed to death and stood there and did nothing. She tells Lexi that she blames herself, that maybe he would've survived if she moved, if she didn't freeze out.

She moves onto the new boyfriend Brian, what he did to her, how he filmed it, how even with all the evidence he got away with it. She admits to Lexi that there was a time she thought what he did was normal, how she thought she deserved it. But she then had a breakthrough/breakdown and set his house on fire. Little did she know back then, it was only the first of many. She tells Lexi all about the trial, how nobody believed her, how Nateʼs dad threatened her, how she stabbed him, how her whole family abandoned her. She explains what it was like expiriencing a mental facility for the first time at eleven years old.

She goes on to list all the crimes she started committing, all the fights she had with her mom, all the times she fantasised about taking her own life. She tells Lexi about the first time she tried. She was thirteen, Monty was three, and she took forty aspirins and drowned herself in her momʼs wine. She tells her how this was the first time she was brought into foster care.

Her experiences in group homes, her experiences with foster families, her experiences in psych wards, juvie, regular hospitals. She tells Lexi all about her self harming problem, when she began binging, when the dentist outed her to her social worker. She even says that the first time they spoke — the morning on the swings — was a failed attempt.

She explains the feeling she gets before she runs away. How the world goes blurry and she needs an escape, how disappearing makes her feel more seen.

She mentions all the drugs she has taken, how Fezco and Ash took her and Monty in like family, how they are the only people in the world she has ever cared about before.

She admits to Lexi that when people get close to her, when she starts to feel things, she runs away from them. That when people start to like her, she has to make them hate her. That her mind tells her they'll hate her in the end anyway, so she might as well give them an excuse. She tells her about all the fights she gets into, how the rush of it brings her comfort, how she protects herself from loving another human. How she doesn't believe she's worthy of love. How she wants to scream and shout and tell everybody how she feels but her mind stops her. How she sometimes feels like she's not human, that she's a ghost trapped in anotherʼs body, stuck with somebody elseʼs mind.

Lexi listens and takes in every single word. Her soft brown eyes melt into her story and she can see Montanaʼs life flash through her mind like a picture wheel. And she's so fucking proud that this girl — this girl who is so misunderstood by the whole world — is finally able to tell somebody what's going on inside her head. And she's so fucking happy that she is lucky enough to be that person.

"But I love you, Lexi," Montana finally adds at the end, eyes filled with tears. "I really fucking love you."

Lexi Howard, who has been crying this whole time like she's just read a Colleen Hoover book, nods. "I love you, too, Tana," she says, and takes a step forward to cup her jaw in her hands. She leans down and presses her lips to Montanaʼs.

The kiss is soft, sweet, and nothing at all like Montana has felt before. Her stomach flutters and she stands up on her toes to deepen it.

"You're my favourite person. I can't wait to tell my therapist about you."

Lexi giggles lightly and wraps her arms around the girl.

(a/n: idk how to feel about this)