Fiction: Country Matters
Mar. 11th, 2012 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clare_dragonflyTitle: Country Matters
Word count: 5,612
Rating: hard R? for sexual activities between two characters who are both under 18 and some profanity
Prompt:![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rainbowfic Tyrian Purple 10, the face that sailed a thousand ships and Heart Gold 17, Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable. - Henry Ward Beecher
Notes: Written for therainbowfic Canvas challenge.
Maggie ducked into the school, darted into the girls’ bathroom, locked herself in a stall and pulled off her backpack. She changed quickly; she’d gotten pretty good at this, the last few years, since she’d begun to properly assert her independence and not actually wear what her mother picked out for her at school.
Of course, she couldn’t wear her real clothes out of the house. There’d been enough screaming matches over that. Maggie was learning to pick her battles.
Emerging, dressed in black satin pants, a black turtleneck, black dangling earrings, and black lipstick (all of which she found made a very striking picture with her pale, freckled skin and red hair), she instantly felt more comfortable and more herself. She grinned at the football players who wolf-whistled her and laughed back at the blonde pretty girls who snickered at her. What did she care what anyone else thought? She was her own person. She was fifteen years old and she was her own person.
She found her friends and slipped in with them comfortably, happily. Everyone was admiring Johanna’s new cameo and she joined in. It was gorgeous—real Victorian, as Johanna proudly claimed. Maggie didn’t care about anything else.
Okay. So maybe she cared about one other thing. She was studiously not looking at him, but she kept hoping he was looking at her. He probably was. She hoped.
His name was Theo Forman. He was sixteen and he was perfect. He always dressed so elegantly—black dress shoes, pressed black slacks, black button-down shirts, black vests (or, occasionally, bow ties). He had perfect black hair and perfect black eyeliner. He was the prettiest boy in the school. Maggie was fairly certain that all of her female friends were in love with him, just as she was. But she wasn’t going to let that stop her.
This afternoon, he was trying out for the school play. And therefore, so was she.
—
The play was Hamlet. As though you could come up with any play more perfect for Theo. Maggie had read the script four times, making sure there was no argument anyone could make against a redhead playing Ophelia, and there wasn’t. She could act better than most of the seniors. She could get this part.
The audition, however, did not go so well. That was because everyone auditioning for the parts of Hamlet and Ophelia were paired up and asked to act out at least the beginning of their dialogue in Act Three, starting with Ophelia’s entrance. Maggie was paired with Theo. This should have been perfect. This would have been perfect except that every time Maggie looked at Theo, she blushed and forgot her lines. She kept tripping over her tongue. And yeah, Ophelia was supposed to be in love with Hamlet, and freaked out, and embarrassed, and worried about her father watching her… but that wasn’t the same thing as trying desperately to impress both Hamlet and her audience, and it definitely wasn’t the way she was supposed to act during the rest of the play. Once the teachers in charge sent them back to their seats, Maggie hid under her backpack and wished it were possible to die of embarrassment.
However, she felt a little better now that she was being hidden by her backpack, and she glanced around. To her horror, she saw that Theo was headed straight for her. His hair hid his face in the most elegant way, so she couldn’t see his face, but she was sure he must be furious. She hadn’t screwed up his chances for the part of Hamlet… had she? That would be even worse than just losing out on her chance to be Ophelia. No, she was a saboteur, and she was doomed to social ostracism for the rest of her life. She shrank down further behind her backpack.
Theo sat down next to her. He was smiling. Smiling? Oh, no, he was going to laugh at her. Maybe it really was possible to die from embarrassment. If so, it was going to happen any minute. She should probably have replaced the earrings she’d borrowed from her sister the other day.
He poked her gently in the side. “Hey. That was pretty good.”
Slowly, she peeked over the backpack and managed to look at him. He didn’t sound like he was joking, but obviously he was. It was impossible for him to be serious. “What?” she asked. She had to stick to one syllable, because if she used more than one, the rest of them would be squeaks.
He nodded. “You were fun to play against. I think you might get the part.”
Her heart was hammering loudly in her ears. She still managed to be a little bit cool. “Please, are you kidding? Anything I did right up there was only because of you. I’ve never had such stage fright in my life.”
He laughed. “I’m not a good enough actor to make other people look good. And you did. Didn’t you notice how they had us do almost the whole scene?”
She had, actually, but she was pretty sure that was for him. He was definitely going to get the part of Hamlet. She was not going to get the part of Ophelia. “Yeah, well, I guess we won’t find out until next week when they post the results anyway.” She looked at her backpack, wondered why she still had it in her lap, and put it on the floor.
“Yeah, that’s true.” He shrugged. “They probably have to give the parts to seniors. No point in worrying about it anyway. Did you hear about Noreen’s party on Saturday?”
“Yeah,” she said, grateful to have something else to talk about. Maybe she could take her mind off that horrible audition. But she could definitely not take her mind—or her eyes—off Theo. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to go. I’ll have to come up with something for my parents.”
“Can’t you just tell them that Noreen’s parents will be there? Will they really check?”
Maggie shook her head, preventing herself from laughing bitterly out loud. “They wouldn’t let me go to any party unless it was just three girls, no guys at all. And we haven’t had parties like that since elementary school.”
“Huh.” Theo sat quietly for a moment, actually seeming to ponder the problem. “Well, what if you told them you were going to Noreen’s to study?”
“That might work, but they would still insist on taking me. Maybe if I came a little bit early, so that nobody else was there yet…”
They spent the rest of the audition period working out plans. Noreen wasn’t at school anymore, but Maggie could talk to her in the morning. She almost did forget about the terrible audition. In fact, she felt so good leaving the auditorium and thinking about fooling her parents that she didn’t realize until she was halfway home that Theo might have actually been helping her figure out a plan because he wanted to spend time with her. She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, turned around, and stared back. If he was in sight… but no, she’d promised herself she would never try to do anything to his mind. It wouldn’t work, anyway.
—
Miraculously, the plan worked. Once Maggie had Noreen’s support, she laid out the fake plan to her parents. She was going to Noreen’s to study for a big algebra test they had coming up (that part was true, but Maggie didn’t really care if she passed or not), and then she was going to spend the night. That would account for the fact that Maggie couldn’t allow her parents to come get her at any point that night. Maggie hadn’t been sure Noreen would be enthusiastic enough about her presence at the party, but she told her parents the same thing, so they both had excuses.
The parents bought it. Maggie’s parents brought her to Noreen’s house on Saturday afternoon, but they didn’t walk her in the door, nor insist on speaking to Noreen’s parents. Maggie stopped on the stoop, turned to wave to her parents, then walked in. As Noreen shut the door behind them, Maggie let out a sigh of contentment and flopped down on the couch.
“Oh, get up,” said Noreen with an amused snort. “If you’re going to be here early you may as well help me get ready.”
Maggie laughed and got up. “I guess that’s fair.”
They spent the next hour cleaning up, hiding breakable things in a small, lockable room, and picking the lock on the liquor cabinet. (Maggie may have cheated slightly by looking into the lock with her magical senses, but it was worth it for how impressed Noreen was when it clicked open.) When people started showing up, Noreen let them in, and Maggie hung back.
Within a couple of hours half the school seemed to be there, even people who normally stayed far away from Noreen, Maggie, and the rest of their crowd. Maggie figured the promise of an empty house and plenty of booze (quite a few people brought their own, even though none of them were old enough to buy alcohol—though there were a few guests she didn’t recognize) trumped the usual coolness levels.
Maggie knew from experience that alcohol gave her a headache, so after very slowly getting through a single beer, she quietly refilled the bottle with cola and rejoined the party, pretending to drink like the rest of them. She was having a pretty good time; it was loud, her parents were out of her hair, and most of her friends were there.
But Theo still hadn’t shown up.
“Hey,” said one of the guys she didn’t recognize, sitting down on the couch next to her. He had a bottle of beer in his hand and from the smell, it wasn’t his first or even his second. “What’s your name?”
“Maggie,” she said, automatically polite even when she wasn’t looking at him, her eyes on the door. Butterflies flapped in her stomach. Surely Theo meant to come, right? He’d be here any minute? Or maybe he’d decided she was too lame for him and wanted to ditch the whole party?
The guy leaned over her. He was definitely older than most of the people there. “I’m Josh.”
Maggie glanced at him. He was sort of cute, in a boring, clean-cut way, with wavy blond hair and a Roman nose. “That’s nice.”
“Hey, come on, I’m trying to make friends here.” He inched closer, pressing his thigh against hers.
Ugh. Friends was definitely not what he was going for here. She got up, pushing him away. “Pick on somebody your own age,” she told him before stalking away.
Of course, she couldn’t stalk very quickly or effectively—it was too crowded. But she managed to insert herself into a different group, and when she looked back, he at least wasn’t following her. He probably wouldn’t take her advice, but she was glad to have gotten away.
Unfortunately she’d left her disguised cola behind, and before too long somebody pushed a beer into her hand. She tried to refuse it, saying she’d drunk enough already, but no one believed her. When the suggestion was made that she be forced to chug it, she finally took the beer, deciding that a headache was better than making a scene.
So she was slightly buzzed, and her temples were throbbing, and she was slightly nauseous when Theo finally arrived—but arrive he did. To great shouts of welcome, because his older sister was with him, and they’d brought pizza and vodka. Maggie shoved her way through the crowd to greet them (it wasn’t easy) and managed to give Theo a bright grin despite being unsure whether she should still be standing. “Hey. I thought you were never coming.” At least she was still being cool. He would not suspect how worried she’d been that he was abandoning her.
He laughed and pulled her along with him as he followed his sister to the dining room table. “Sorry. I had to wait for my sister to get home. I promised her she could come if she brought alcohol.”
Maggie laughed. The sound rung in her ears. “Well, nobody’s going to complain.”
“Of course not. But I’m starving.” He flung open one of the pizza boxes and grabbed two slices, then thrust one into Maggie’s hand.
“Thanks,” she said, really grateful, and tore into it. It didn’t help with the nausea, but at least the headache was fading.
Soon it was getting dark outside, and with some cheering and roaring, most of the party went out to the backyard. Theo and Maggie stayed behind. As the crowd thinned, Maggie’s headache eased slightly, and she saw with relief that the couch was no longer occupied. She wandered over to it and sat down, Theo only a step behind her. He had two plastic cups in his hand and pushed one into her hand.
“What is this?” she asked, even as she was smelling it. Vodka. “Ew, it smells like paint thinner.”
Theo laughed. “Better drink it fast, then.” He held his up, then tipped his head back and drank it.
After being briefly fascinated by the movement of his Adam’s apple, Maggie was quick to follow suit. It tasted like it smelled but it warmed her, and while the buzzing in her head increased, the headache didn’t. Maybe it was the crowd and not the alcohol after all.
She didn’t have much time to analyze her own reactions, though, because suddenly Theo was putting an arm around her and kissing her. His lips were warm and insistent, and before she could put enough neurons together to even realize what was going on, she was kissing him back. When she did work things out, she definitely didn’t want anything to change. She kept kissing him, then put her arms around his neck. He pulled her closer until she could feel his heart beating against hers. He shifted slightly on his couch, and his knee pressed between her legs.
Then the door opened and there was a burst of loud laughter and chatter. Theo pulled away suddenly. Maggie’s eyes flew open and she looked around, confused. It was his sister and the guy who’d bugged Maggie earlier. They went to the table to get some pizza and drinks, but before they left again, Theo’s sister paused to give him a narrow glare. Then the door slammed behind them.
Maggie exhaled sharply. “What, does she hate me or something?”
Theo laughed. “She doesn’t know you. She’s just being overprotective of me. Whatever.” He pulled her close and kissed her again. She closed her eyes and went back to her enjoyment.
—
After the majority of the guests, including Theo, had left, Maggie fell asleep on the couch. She didn’t see Noreen until the next morning, when Maggie woke up to light coming in the front windows, and rushed around trying to figure out what time it was and get dressed in the change of clothes her mother had packed for her. Noreen was in the kitchen, sitting with her head in one hand and her eyes red, eating a bowl of cereal. Maggie said good morning to her, but didn’t even get a grunt in response.
This didn’t seem so strange—Maggie was hung over too, and she’d been really careful not to drink much—except that on Monday, Noreen still wasn’t speaking to her. Neither was Johanna or Claudia. Maggie was hurt and confused until Theo showed up, held Maggie’s hand, and kissed her, and all three girls turned away and started talking loudly about their history homework.
Then she just felt proud.
She felt so good about her new status as Theo’s girlfriend (it was official—he referred to her that way at lunch) that she almost forgot that the audition results would be posted that day. She’d managed to mostly put her awful performance out of her mind, and was no longer invested in the results—she just hoped that whoever got cast as Ophelia would do a good job. There were some decent actors among the seniors.
Of course, once Theo mentioned it, she was interested again. She couldn’t wait to congratulate him on his starring role. So once classes were over, holding hands again, they hurried over to the auditorium, where the casting would be posted on the room to backstage.
There was a crowd, of course; everyone who had tried out had rushed over from their last classes, whether they thought they had a chance or not. After all, there were a bunch of minor roles—the Players would need to look reasonably filled out, and Mrs. Lenore, the teacher in charge of the play, had said that they would want a bunch of random members of the court to wander around the stage from time to time. Maybe Maggie would get one of those roles. Then she might be able to watch Theo’s acting from behind.
Theo, holding her hand, pushed through the crowd. A few people stepped aside for them. They must recognize Theo, Maggie thought, and figure they should let him go to see his name at the top of the list. She was still looking around at the crowd when they stopped suddenly; it took her a minute to realize that Theo had reached the list, and the only reason she couldn’t see it was because she was so short, Theo and everyone else was blocking it from her.
She gave him a minute to let it sink in, grinning with anticipation as his hand tightened on hers. Then she poked him in the side with her free hand. “Well? I know what you got, but did I get anything?”
“Uh, yeah,” he finally said, stepping aside and letting go of her hand. She was about to reach for his hand again, slightly confused, but he (and someone else behind her—the other people were crowding her) pushed her forward, closer to the list so she could see.
At first she was just confused. There was Hamlet, at the top of the list—but Theo’s name wasn’t on it. It was some guy named Anthony Trikopolis. A senior. Well, that was really disappointing. Maybe they’d had to give all the main roles to seniors. He’d probably gotten Rosencrantz or Guildenstern or something. Frowning now, she skimmed the list hastily for his name. It was so low down it was nearly at her actual eye level. “Player King?” she read out loud, astonished. That was… barely a part at all!
Theo let out a bark of a laugh. “I thought you said you knew,” he teased.
She shook her head ruefully. “I was so sure you’d get Hamlet.”
“Well, you were wrong. Really, really wrong.”
“I’m sorry.” Her gut churned. He didn’t really sound angry, but he did sound a little bitter. Maybe she shouldn’t have teased him about it so much. He wasn’t going to be upset about this, was he? She turned toward him, reaching for his hand again, trying to come up with some way to make him feel better.
“Come on.” He lifted his hand and pushed lightly on her shoulder. “You forgot to find yourself.”
“Oh. Right.” He did say she’d gotten a part, didn’t she? She bent her head and started at the bottom of the list. If he’d gotten Player King, maybe she’d gotten Player Queen. That would be pretty cool. Then they could be sort of married on stage. But she wasn’t in the list of players, or even in the extras, listed all together at the bottom of the list. She read it twice to make sure, then glanced at Theo, her brows scrunched together in confusion. He grinned and gestured at the list again. She went back to looking, reading from the bottom up again. Had she gotten a male part? That would be hard to costume, but probably fun to play. She wasn’t Rosencrantz, or Guildenstern, or Prince Fortinbras…
She’d reached nearly to the top of the list when her eyes and heart stopped at the same time.
There it was. Ophelia—Margaret McNaughton.
When she could breathe again, she sucked in air and turned to Theo. Her eyes felt comically wide, and like she could never get them properly closed again. “Holy shit,” she said.
He laughed. “Holy shit indeed.”
Somebody smacked her on the shoulder. “Congratulations, Maggie.”
She turned, bewildered, feeling like she could barely get her feet. It was Anthony, who’d gotten the part of Hamlet. Anthony, who she’d have to play Ophelia against, who she’d have to pretend to love.
But that was acting, right? And she did love acting. That was why she’d tried out for the part. She might have tried out even if Theo hadn’t been. “Thanks, Anthony,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound too entirely astonished by the news. “I really wasn’t expecting it.”
Theo laughed again. “I’d like to thank the Academy…”
Anthony grinned at her. “Well, you should have been. I saw your audition, and you were definitely the best. I’m looking forward to rehearsing with you.”
“Wow. Thanks.” Maggie tried to come up with something else to say—she’d be spending many afternoons with this guy, and she should stop being so intimidated by him—but Theo finally grabbed her hand, and he pulled her away from the crowd. She was glad to get out of the press, even as people kept shouting congratulations at her as they walked away.
Finally, they escaped from the theater area, then down a mostly-empty hallway and to where the tenth-grade lockers were. Everyone who was still in school were either at sports practice (or other stuff like yearbook) or back at the theater door, so they had the hallway to themselves now. It was quiet, their footsteps echoing.
Maggie finally let herself feel the excitement. She laughed out loud, then flung her arms around Theo’s neck and kissed him hard. “I can’t believe it!” she cried.
He grinned down at her. “Next time you should listen to me.”
She shook her head, still grinning. “I guess so. You must always be right.” She kissed him again, and kept kissing him.
—
The next few months were kind of a blur. Not only did she have a lot of lines to learn, but she was at school after classes ended for hours, which gave her extra excuses to avoid her parents—she was at rehearsal, and when she got home she had homework to do. It was kind of glorious.
Theo showed up at almost all the rehearsals, too, even though he was only needed for a few. And he coached her on her lines, which gave her exactly the perfect excuse for her parents. They didn’t exactly approve of her acting, but they thought it was better than her hanging around the house, going to the mall, or practicing her levitation skills. She knew better than to even mention the possibility that Theo could be her boyfriend, and they seemed to go along with that, probably seeing her as too young still to think about boys that way. The longer she could keep them thinking that, the safer she would be.
They were a pretty conspicuous couple at school, too, which Maggie was only too happy about, even if Noreen and Johanna continued to be snotty and ignore her. (Claudia seemed to have gotten over it, which was a bit of a relief.) Actually, they were a bit of a celebrity couple; Maggie had one of the starring roles in the school play, and Theo was simply gorgeous. His having a girlfriend didn’t stop all the other girls from flirting with him, though Maggie’s sarcasm did drive a few away. Maggie had never been so popular in her life. Of course, it wasn’t real popularity, not like if she was a brainless blonde cheerleader, but she was just as happy with that. She got so many party invitations that she had to turn down more than half of them, not wanting her parents to get suspicious with all these sudden weekend rehearsals and study sessions.
The play went beautifully, despite the actors playing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern forgetting nearly half their lines. Maggie’s parents came to opening night and even bought her flowers. Everyone was clapping for her. Theo was back there somewhere, behind her on the stage, smiling at her. She didn’t think she’d ever been so happy in her life.
After the final night of the play, there was a party that even Maggie’s parents couldn’t say no to. She explained that they were all going to a diner, and would probably be out late, so she’d crash for the night with Melissa, the senior who’d played Gertrude. She even managed to get Melissa to play along. In the morning, she said, Theo, the friend who’d helped her so much with her lines, would drive her home.
They swallowed it. The diner part was true. The part about Theo driving her was true. But she never went to Melissa’s house. She’d thought Theo was going to take her to his, but instead they drove out to a field on the edge of a bad part of town. “I want to wait until my parents are definitely asleep to get home,” he explained as he put the car into park and turned off the engine. “They wouldn’t exactly approve of me bringing you home.”
Maggie wasn’t sure she was really happy about being in this field—it was pretty, with stuff growing wild all over the place, but still kind of close to danger—but she shrugged. “I guess I can’t blame you. I know my parents wouldn’t approve of me going to your place, either.”
“I bet they wouldn’t approve of us sitting in this car either,” he said, turning to her with a grin and a sparkle in his eye.
A frisson went down her spine, a thrill of danger. “You’re absolutely right.”
Clearly, they’d both had the same thought, because they reached for each other and began kissing at nearly the same time. In between kisses, Theo somehow managed to adjust his seat forward so that they could climb into the back, where he pressed her against the cushions. His hands started wandering over her body, and if she hadn’t been excited before, she would be now. What could be a better celebration of a successful run of playing Ophelia, after all, than having sex with her boyfriend for the first time?
Unfortunately, as her body (and Theo’s) got more excited, her senses seemed to wander all over the place. She knew that when she was feeling some strong emotion she had to work harder to keep her strange magic under control, but she wouldn’t have expected this. Her senses were telling her about everything that was now living or had been. True, there was Theo, but there was also a dead mouse in the wheel well, trees and vines growing in the field, small creatures skittering all over the place…
She clamped down on her mind as hard as she could. Now was not the time. Now, as Theo pulled her shirt over her head and kissed his way down her neck, she wanted to focus on her body, and on him.
The problem was, her control was never that great to begin with, and it was really hard to focus on keeping her mind under control when her body was demanding so much of her attention with all these pleasant new sensations. She wrapped her arms around Theo, but her mind insisted on informing her of what was happening outside the car. There was something moving. Coming toward them. Something big—
She didn’t do it on purpose. She didn’t even know she was doing it until after it was over. But just as Theo was taking his pants off, she shouted, flung her arms up, and apparently let loose a blast of bright white light.
The living thing, probably a human, that had been coming toward them fled almost instantly. But so did Theo. He screamed, scrabbling for the handle of the car door, and toppled backwards onto the ground, his pants and underwear tangled around his legs. Maggie cursed and sat up, crawled awkwardly out of the car, and reached for Theo’s hand to pull him up. “I’m sorry,” she babbled desperately, saying whatever came to mind. “I really don’t know what just happened, I mean, what was that?” She laughed nervously, wondering if he realized she’d been the one that made that white light. Of course, the fact that she’d said she was sorry probably gave it away. Also, there was the fact that despite his mostly-naked state, he was backing away from her on the ground, staring at her with huge, wild eyes.
“Come on, it’s okay,” she said. “There was—there was somebody behind us, coming for us, I mean, I was afraid it was one of our parents, I couldn’t get caught, are you okay? I mean, there—”
He cut her off with a stream of profanity, seeming to have finally found his tongue. When actual words emerged, they were extremely disheartening. “What the hell is with you, you freak?! Get away from me! Don’t touch me!”
She backed toward the car, feeling sick and angry. “I didn’t mean to do it. I’m sorry.”
“What the hell even was that?” He was getting shakily to his feet. When he was up, he glared at her and turned around, pulling up his pants.
She couldn’t stop to admire his ass (and in fact, it wasn’t that interesting now that she saw it). She turned as well and retrieved her shirt and skirt from the car, then marched around it to get dressed on the other side, where he couldn’t look at her. If he was going to be pissed at her, well, she was going to be pissed right back at him. She might have just saved them from a hook-wielding murderer who liked to slaughter teenage couples in cars.
When she was fully dressed, she climbed into the front seat of his car and folded her arms. It took him a few minutes longer, but he eventually got into the driver’s seat. He wouldn’t even look at her. “Take me home,” she said. “Wait. No. Fuck. Take me to Melissa’s.”
He shook his head, but started the car. They drove in silence. She waited for him to apologize for overreacting; after all, she’d already apologized multiple times for the only thing she’d done wrong. But he didn’t say anything until he pulled up in front of Melissa’s house, where, thankfully, the lights were still on.
“I never want to see you again,” he said.
Maggie was in the middle of unbuckling her seatbelt. She turned, slowly, and stared at him in disbelief. He still wouldn’t look at her, but he was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. “Are you serious?” she finally said. “How exactly do you expect to pull that off? We still go to the same school.”
He sighed loudly. “Whatever. Just leave me alone, okay? We are completely over.”
“Yeah? You’re going to dump me as soon as I’m not interesting anymore, is that it?”
“Just get out of my car, you fucking bitch, and leave me the fuck alone.”
She got out of his car. Her hands were trembling. “Yeah, well, fuck you too,” she said before she slammed the car door. He drove off without even waiting for her to move away from the car.
Maggie stared nervously up at the house. She would really rather crawl into bed and hide there for the next twenty-four hours than deal with any other people today, but even if she did figure out some way to get home from here, her parents would want to have some words with her. She groaned to herself, then crept closer, as quietly as she could. At least she could put this damn magic to some use. Assuming she could control it… yes. There it was. She extended her senses into the living room. There was only one person there, and by the feel, it was probably Melissa.
She took a deep breath and knocked on the door. After a moment, Melissa answered it. “Hi,” said Maggie, ready to launch into a long explanation as to why she needed the excuse she’d given her parents to become the truth, but before she could get another word out, Melissa smiled sympathetically and opened the door wider for her.
“He dumped you, didn’t he?” Melissa said, gesturing Maggie in.
“Yeah,” said Maggie. “How’d you know?”
“He’s a jerk,” Melissa said succinctly. “Come on, watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 with me. I’ve got ice cream, too, if you want it.”
Maggie sighed with relief. “Ice cream sounds pretty awesome, actually. Thanks.”
“No problem.” Melissa pointed her toward the couch. “You sit. I’ll get it. And some tissues, in case you need them.”
Reflecting on the course their relationship had taken, Maggie wasn’t entirely sure she would need those tissues. The more she thought about it, the more she thought saying goodbye to Theo was good riddance to bad rubbish. And Melissa was walking into the kitchen. Now that was a nice ass…
Did you enjoy this story? You can read more stories in this world or see all my fiction posted at Dreamwidth!
Word count: 5,612
Rating: hard R? for sexual activities between two characters who are both under 18 and some profanity
Prompt:
rainbowfic Tyrian Purple 10, the face that sailed a thousand ships and Heart Gold 17, Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable. - Henry Ward BeecherNotes: Written for the
rainbowfic Canvas challenge.Maggie ducked into the school, darted into the girls’ bathroom, locked herself in a stall and pulled off her backpack. She changed quickly; she’d gotten pretty good at this, the last few years, since she’d begun to properly assert her independence and not actually wear what her mother picked out for her at school.
Of course, she couldn’t wear her real clothes out of the house. There’d been enough screaming matches over that. Maggie was learning to pick her battles.
Emerging, dressed in black satin pants, a black turtleneck, black dangling earrings, and black lipstick (all of which she found made a very striking picture with her pale, freckled skin and red hair), she instantly felt more comfortable and more herself. She grinned at the football players who wolf-whistled her and laughed back at the blonde pretty girls who snickered at her. What did she care what anyone else thought? She was her own person. She was fifteen years old and she was her own person.
She found her friends and slipped in with them comfortably, happily. Everyone was admiring Johanna’s new cameo and she joined in. It was gorgeous—real Victorian, as Johanna proudly claimed. Maggie didn’t care about anything else.
Okay. So maybe she cared about one other thing. She was studiously not looking at him, but she kept hoping he was looking at her. He probably was. She hoped.
His name was Theo Forman. He was sixteen and he was perfect. He always dressed so elegantly—black dress shoes, pressed black slacks, black button-down shirts, black vests (or, occasionally, bow ties). He had perfect black hair and perfect black eyeliner. He was the prettiest boy in the school. Maggie was fairly certain that all of her female friends were in love with him, just as she was. But she wasn’t going to let that stop her.
This afternoon, he was trying out for the school play. And therefore, so was she.
—
The play was Hamlet. As though you could come up with any play more perfect for Theo. Maggie had read the script four times, making sure there was no argument anyone could make against a redhead playing Ophelia, and there wasn’t. She could act better than most of the seniors. She could get this part.
The audition, however, did not go so well. That was because everyone auditioning for the parts of Hamlet and Ophelia were paired up and asked to act out at least the beginning of their dialogue in Act Three, starting with Ophelia’s entrance. Maggie was paired with Theo. This should have been perfect. This would have been perfect except that every time Maggie looked at Theo, she blushed and forgot her lines. She kept tripping over her tongue. And yeah, Ophelia was supposed to be in love with Hamlet, and freaked out, and embarrassed, and worried about her father watching her… but that wasn’t the same thing as trying desperately to impress both Hamlet and her audience, and it definitely wasn’t the way she was supposed to act during the rest of the play. Once the teachers in charge sent them back to their seats, Maggie hid under her backpack and wished it were possible to die of embarrassment.
However, she felt a little better now that she was being hidden by her backpack, and she glanced around. To her horror, she saw that Theo was headed straight for her. His hair hid his face in the most elegant way, so she couldn’t see his face, but she was sure he must be furious. She hadn’t screwed up his chances for the part of Hamlet… had she? That would be even worse than just losing out on her chance to be Ophelia. No, she was a saboteur, and she was doomed to social ostracism for the rest of her life. She shrank down further behind her backpack.
Theo sat down next to her. He was smiling. Smiling? Oh, no, he was going to laugh at her. Maybe it really was possible to die from embarrassment. If so, it was going to happen any minute. She should probably have replaced the earrings she’d borrowed from her sister the other day.
He poked her gently in the side. “Hey. That was pretty good.”
Slowly, she peeked over the backpack and managed to look at him. He didn’t sound like he was joking, but obviously he was. It was impossible for him to be serious. “What?” she asked. She had to stick to one syllable, because if she used more than one, the rest of them would be squeaks.
He nodded. “You were fun to play against. I think you might get the part.”
Her heart was hammering loudly in her ears. She still managed to be a little bit cool. “Please, are you kidding? Anything I did right up there was only because of you. I’ve never had such stage fright in my life.”
He laughed. “I’m not a good enough actor to make other people look good. And you did. Didn’t you notice how they had us do almost the whole scene?”
She had, actually, but she was pretty sure that was for him. He was definitely going to get the part of Hamlet. She was not going to get the part of Ophelia. “Yeah, well, I guess we won’t find out until next week when they post the results anyway.” She looked at her backpack, wondered why she still had it in her lap, and put it on the floor.
“Yeah, that’s true.” He shrugged. “They probably have to give the parts to seniors. No point in worrying about it anyway. Did you hear about Noreen’s party on Saturday?”
“Yeah,” she said, grateful to have something else to talk about. Maybe she could take her mind off that horrible audition. But she could definitely not take her mind—or her eyes—off Theo. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to go. I’ll have to come up with something for my parents.”
“Can’t you just tell them that Noreen’s parents will be there? Will they really check?”
Maggie shook her head, preventing herself from laughing bitterly out loud. “They wouldn’t let me go to any party unless it was just three girls, no guys at all. And we haven’t had parties like that since elementary school.”
“Huh.” Theo sat quietly for a moment, actually seeming to ponder the problem. “Well, what if you told them you were going to Noreen’s to study?”
“That might work, but they would still insist on taking me. Maybe if I came a little bit early, so that nobody else was there yet…”
They spent the rest of the audition period working out plans. Noreen wasn’t at school anymore, but Maggie could talk to her in the morning. She almost did forget about the terrible audition. In fact, she felt so good leaving the auditorium and thinking about fooling her parents that she didn’t realize until she was halfway home that Theo might have actually been helping her figure out a plan because he wanted to spend time with her. She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, turned around, and stared back. If he was in sight… but no, she’d promised herself she would never try to do anything to his mind. It wouldn’t work, anyway.
—
Miraculously, the plan worked. Once Maggie had Noreen’s support, she laid out the fake plan to her parents. She was going to Noreen’s to study for a big algebra test they had coming up (that part was true, but Maggie didn’t really care if she passed or not), and then she was going to spend the night. That would account for the fact that Maggie couldn’t allow her parents to come get her at any point that night. Maggie hadn’t been sure Noreen would be enthusiastic enough about her presence at the party, but she told her parents the same thing, so they both had excuses.
The parents bought it. Maggie’s parents brought her to Noreen’s house on Saturday afternoon, but they didn’t walk her in the door, nor insist on speaking to Noreen’s parents. Maggie stopped on the stoop, turned to wave to her parents, then walked in. As Noreen shut the door behind them, Maggie let out a sigh of contentment and flopped down on the couch.
“Oh, get up,” said Noreen with an amused snort. “If you’re going to be here early you may as well help me get ready.”
Maggie laughed and got up. “I guess that’s fair.”
They spent the next hour cleaning up, hiding breakable things in a small, lockable room, and picking the lock on the liquor cabinet. (Maggie may have cheated slightly by looking into the lock with her magical senses, but it was worth it for how impressed Noreen was when it clicked open.) When people started showing up, Noreen let them in, and Maggie hung back.
Within a couple of hours half the school seemed to be there, even people who normally stayed far away from Noreen, Maggie, and the rest of their crowd. Maggie figured the promise of an empty house and plenty of booze (quite a few people brought their own, even though none of them were old enough to buy alcohol—though there were a few guests she didn’t recognize) trumped the usual coolness levels.
Maggie knew from experience that alcohol gave her a headache, so after very slowly getting through a single beer, she quietly refilled the bottle with cola and rejoined the party, pretending to drink like the rest of them. She was having a pretty good time; it was loud, her parents were out of her hair, and most of her friends were there.
But Theo still hadn’t shown up.
“Hey,” said one of the guys she didn’t recognize, sitting down on the couch next to her. He had a bottle of beer in his hand and from the smell, it wasn’t his first or even his second. “What’s your name?”
“Maggie,” she said, automatically polite even when she wasn’t looking at him, her eyes on the door. Butterflies flapped in her stomach. Surely Theo meant to come, right? He’d be here any minute? Or maybe he’d decided she was too lame for him and wanted to ditch the whole party?
The guy leaned over her. He was definitely older than most of the people there. “I’m Josh.”
Maggie glanced at him. He was sort of cute, in a boring, clean-cut way, with wavy blond hair and a Roman nose. “That’s nice.”
“Hey, come on, I’m trying to make friends here.” He inched closer, pressing his thigh against hers.
Ugh. Friends was definitely not what he was going for here. She got up, pushing him away. “Pick on somebody your own age,” she told him before stalking away.
Of course, she couldn’t stalk very quickly or effectively—it was too crowded. But she managed to insert herself into a different group, and when she looked back, he at least wasn’t following her. He probably wouldn’t take her advice, but she was glad to have gotten away.
Unfortunately she’d left her disguised cola behind, and before too long somebody pushed a beer into her hand. She tried to refuse it, saying she’d drunk enough already, but no one believed her. When the suggestion was made that she be forced to chug it, she finally took the beer, deciding that a headache was better than making a scene.
So she was slightly buzzed, and her temples were throbbing, and she was slightly nauseous when Theo finally arrived—but arrive he did. To great shouts of welcome, because his older sister was with him, and they’d brought pizza and vodka. Maggie shoved her way through the crowd to greet them (it wasn’t easy) and managed to give Theo a bright grin despite being unsure whether she should still be standing. “Hey. I thought you were never coming.” At least she was still being cool. He would not suspect how worried she’d been that he was abandoning her.
He laughed and pulled her along with him as he followed his sister to the dining room table. “Sorry. I had to wait for my sister to get home. I promised her she could come if she brought alcohol.”
Maggie laughed. The sound rung in her ears. “Well, nobody’s going to complain.”
“Of course not. But I’m starving.” He flung open one of the pizza boxes and grabbed two slices, then thrust one into Maggie’s hand.
“Thanks,” she said, really grateful, and tore into it. It didn’t help with the nausea, but at least the headache was fading.
Soon it was getting dark outside, and with some cheering and roaring, most of the party went out to the backyard. Theo and Maggie stayed behind. As the crowd thinned, Maggie’s headache eased slightly, and she saw with relief that the couch was no longer occupied. She wandered over to it and sat down, Theo only a step behind her. He had two plastic cups in his hand and pushed one into her hand.
“What is this?” she asked, even as she was smelling it. Vodka. “Ew, it smells like paint thinner.”
Theo laughed. “Better drink it fast, then.” He held his up, then tipped his head back and drank it.
After being briefly fascinated by the movement of his Adam’s apple, Maggie was quick to follow suit. It tasted like it smelled but it warmed her, and while the buzzing in her head increased, the headache didn’t. Maybe it was the crowd and not the alcohol after all.
She didn’t have much time to analyze her own reactions, though, because suddenly Theo was putting an arm around her and kissing her. His lips were warm and insistent, and before she could put enough neurons together to even realize what was going on, she was kissing him back. When she did work things out, she definitely didn’t want anything to change. She kept kissing him, then put her arms around his neck. He pulled her closer until she could feel his heart beating against hers. He shifted slightly on his couch, and his knee pressed between her legs.
Then the door opened and there was a burst of loud laughter and chatter. Theo pulled away suddenly. Maggie’s eyes flew open and she looked around, confused. It was his sister and the guy who’d bugged Maggie earlier. They went to the table to get some pizza and drinks, but before they left again, Theo’s sister paused to give him a narrow glare. Then the door slammed behind them.
Maggie exhaled sharply. “What, does she hate me or something?”
Theo laughed. “She doesn’t know you. She’s just being overprotective of me. Whatever.” He pulled her close and kissed her again. She closed her eyes and went back to her enjoyment.
—
After the majority of the guests, including Theo, had left, Maggie fell asleep on the couch. She didn’t see Noreen until the next morning, when Maggie woke up to light coming in the front windows, and rushed around trying to figure out what time it was and get dressed in the change of clothes her mother had packed for her. Noreen was in the kitchen, sitting with her head in one hand and her eyes red, eating a bowl of cereal. Maggie said good morning to her, but didn’t even get a grunt in response.
This didn’t seem so strange—Maggie was hung over too, and she’d been really careful not to drink much—except that on Monday, Noreen still wasn’t speaking to her. Neither was Johanna or Claudia. Maggie was hurt and confused until Theo showed up, held Maggie’s hand, and kissed her, and all three girls turned away and started talking loudly about their history homework.
Then she just felt proud.
She felt so good about her new status as Theo’s girlfriend (it was official—he referred to her that way at lunch) that she almost forgot that the audition results would be posted that day. She’d managed to mostly put her awful performance out of her mind, and was no longer invested in the results—she just hoped that whoever got cast as Ophelia would do a good job. There were some decent actors among the seniors.
Of course, once Theo mentioned it, she was interested again. She couldn’t wait to congratulate him on his starring role. So once classes were over, holding hands again, they hurried over to the auditorium, where the casting would be posted on the room to backstage.
There was a crowd, of course; everyone who had tried out had rushed over from their last classes, whether they thought they had a chance or not. After all, there were a bunch of minor roles—the Players would need to look reasonably filled out, and Mrs. Lenore, the teacher in charge of the play, had said that they would want a bunch of random members of the court to wander around the stage from time to time. Maybe Maggie would get one of those roles. Then she might be able to watch Theo’s acting from behind.
Theo, holding her hand, pushed through the crowd. A few people stepped aside for them. They must recognize Theo, Maggie thought, and figure they should let him go to see his name at the top of the list. She was still looking around at the crowd when they stopped suddenly; it took her a minute to realize that Theo had reached the list, and the only reason she couldn’t see it was because she was so short, Theo and everyone else was blocking it from her.
She gave him a minute to let it sink in, grinning with anticipation as his hand tightened on hers. Then she poked him in the side with her free hand. “Well? I know what you got, but did I get anything?”
“Uh, yeah,” he finally said, stepping aside and letting go of her hand. She was about to reach for his hand again, slightly confused, but he (and someone else behind her—the other people were crowding her) pushed her forward, closer to the list so she could see.
At first she was just confused. There was Hamlet, at the top of the list—but Theo’s name wasn’t on it. It was some guy named Anthony Trikopolis. A senior. Well, that was really disappointing. Maybe they’d had to give all the main roles to seniors. He’d probably gotten Rosencrantz or Guildenstern or something. Frowning now, she skimmed the list hastily for his name. It was so low down it was nearly at her actual eye level. “Player King?” she read out loud, astonished. That was… barely a part at all!
Theo let out a bark of a laugh. “I thought you said you knew,” he teased.
She shook her head ruefully. “I was so sure you’d get Hamlet.”
“Well, you were wrong. Really, really wrong.”
“I’m sorry.” Her gut churned. He didn’t really sound angry, but he did sound a little bitter. Maybe she shouldn’t have teased him about it so much. He wasn’t going to be upset about this, was he? She turned toward him, reaching for his hand again, trying to come up with some way to make him feel better.
“Come on.” He lifted his hand and pushed lightly on her shoulder. “You forgot to find yourself.”
“Oh. Right.” He did say she’d gotten a part, didn’t she? She bent her head and started at the bottom of the list. If he’d gotten Player King, maybe she’d gotten Player Queen. That would be pretty cool. Then they could be sort of married on stage. But she wasn’t in the list of players, or even in the extras, listed all together at the bottom of the list. She read it twice to make sure, then glanced at Theo, her brows scrunched together in confusion. He grinned and gestured at the list again. She went back to looking, reading from the bottom up again. Had she gotten a male part? That would be hard to costume, but probably fun to play. She wasn’t Rosencrantz, or Guildenstern, or Prince Fortinbras…
She’d reached nearly to the top of the list when her eyes and heart stopped at the same time.
There it was. Ophelia—Margaret McNaughton.
When she could breathe again, she sucked in air and turned to Theo. Her eyes felt comically wide, and like she could never get them properly closed again. “Holy shit,” she said.
He laughed. “Holy shit indeed.”
Somebody smacked her on the shoulder. “Congratulations, Maggie.”
She turned, bewildered, feeling like she could barely get her feet. It was Anthony, who’d gotten the part of Hamlet. Anthony, who she’d have to play Ophelia against, who she’d have to pretend to love.
But that was acting, right? And she did love acting. That was why she’d tried out for the part. She might have tried out even if Theo hadn’t been. “Thanks, Anthony,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound too entirely astonished by the news. “I really wasn’t expecting it.”
Theo laughed again. “I’d like to thank the Academy…”
Anthony grinned at her. “Well, you should have been. I saw your audition, and you were definitely the best. I’m looking forward to rehearsing with you.”
“Wow. Thanks.” Maggie tried to come up with something else to say—she’d be spending many afternoons with this guy, and she should stop being so intimidated by him—but Theo finally grabbed her hand, and he pulled her away from the crowd. She was glad to get out of the press, even as people kept shouting congratulations at her as they walked away.
Finally, they escaped from the theater area, then down a mostly-empty hallway and to where the tenth-grade lockers were. Everyone who was still in school were either at sports practice (or other stuff like yearbook) or back at the theater door, so they had the hallway to themselves now. It was quiet, their footsteps echoing.
Maggie finally let herself feel the excitement. She laughed out loud, then flung her arms around Theo’s neck and kissed him hard. “I can’t believe it!” she cried.
He grinned down at her. “Next time you should listen to me.”
She shook her head, still grinning. “I guess so. You must always be right.” She kissed him again, and kept kissing him.
—
The next few months were kind of a blur. Not only did she have a lot of lines to learn, but she was at school after classes ended for hours, which gave her extra excuses to avoid her parents—she was at rehearsal, and when she got home she had homework to do. It was kind of glorious.
Theo showed up at almost all the rehearsals, too, even though he was only needed for a few. And he coached her on her lines, which gave her exactly the perfect excuse for her parents. They didn’t exactly approve of her acting, but they thought it was better than her hanging around the house, going to the mall, or practicing her levitation skills. She knew better than to even mention the possibility that Theo could be her boyfriend, and they seemed to go along with that, probably seeing her as too young still to think about boys that way. The longer she could keep them thinking that, the safer she would be.
They were a pretty conspicuous couple at school, too, which Maggie was only too happy about, even if Noreen and Johanna continued to be snotty and ignore her. (Claudia seemed to have gotten over it, which was a bit of a relief.) Actually, they were a bit of a celebrity couple; Maggie had one of the starring roles in the school play, and Theo was simply gorgeous. His having a girlfriend didn’t stop all the other girls from flirting with him, though Maggie’s sarcasm did drive a few away. Maggie had never been so popular in her life. Of course, it wasn’t real popularity, not like if she was a brainless blonde cheerleader, but she was just as happy with that. She got so many party invitations that she had to turn down more than half of them, not wanting her parents to get suspicious with all these sudden weekend rehearsals and study sessions.
The play went beautifully, despite the actors playing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern forgetting nearly half their lines. Maggie’s parents came to opening night and even bought her flowers. Everyone was clapping for her. Theo was back there somewhere, behind her on the stage, smiling at her. She didn’t think she’d ever been so happy in her life.
After the final night of the play, there was a party that even Maggie’s parents couldn’t say no to. She explained that they were all going to a diner, and would probably be out late, so she’d crash for the night with Melissa, the senior who’d played Gertrude. She even managed to get Melissa to play along. In the morning, she said, Theo, the friend who’d helped her so much with her lines, would drive her home.
They swallowed it. The diner part was true. The part about Theo driving her was true. But she never went to Melissa’s house. She’d thought Theo was going to take her to his, but instead they drove out to a field on the edge of a bad part of town. “I want to wait until my parents are definitely asleep to get home,” he explained as he put the car into park and turned off the engine. “They wouldn’t exactly approve of me bringing you home.”
Maggie wasn’t sure she was really happy about being in this field—it was pretty, with stuff growing wild all over the place, but still kind of close to danger—but she shrugged. “I guess I can’t blame you. I know my parents wouldn’t approve of me going to your place, either.”
“I bet they wouldn’t approve of us sitting in this car either,” he said, turning to her with a grin and a sparkle in his eye.
A frisson went down her spine, a thrill of danger. “You’re absolutely right.”
Clearly, they’d both had the same thought, because they reached for each other and began kissing at nearly the same time. In between kisses, Theo somehow managed to adjust his seat forward so that they could climb into the back, where he pressed her against the cushions. His hands started wandering over her body, and if she hadn’t been excited before, she would be now. What could be a better celebration of a successful run of playing Ophelia, after all, than having sex with her boyfriend for the first time?
Unfortunately, as her body (and Theo’s) got more excited, her senses seemed to wander all over the place. She knew that when she was feeling some strong emotion she had to work harder to keep her strange magic under control, but she wouldn’t have expected this. Her senses were telling her about everything that was now living or had been. True, there was Theo, but there was also a dead mouse in the wheel well, trees and vines growing in the field, small creatures skittering all over the place…
She clamped down on her mind as hard as she could. Now was not the time. Now, as Theo pulled her shirt over her head and kissed his way down her neck, she wanted to focus on her body, and on him.
The problem was, her control was never that great to begin with, and it was really hard to focus on keeping her mind under control when her body was demanding so much of her attention with all these pleasant new sensations. She wrapped her arms around Theo, but her mind insisted on informing her of what was happening outside the car. There was something moving. Coming toward them. Something big—
She didn’t do it on purpose. She didn’t even know she was doing it until after it was over. But just as Theo was taking his pants off, she shouted, flung her arms up, and apparently let loose a blast of bright white light.
The living thing, probably a human, that had been coming toward them fled almost instantly. But so did Theo. He screamed, scrabbling for the handle of the car door, and toppled backwards onto the ground, his pants and underwear tangled around his legs. Maggie cursed and sat up, crawled awkwardly out of the car, and reached for Theo’s hand to pull him up. “I’m sorry,” she babbled desperately, saying whatever came to mind. “I really don’t know what just happened, I mean, what was that?” She laughed nervously, wondering if he realized she’d been the one that made that white light. Of course, the fact that she’d said she was sorry probably gave it away. Also, there was the fact that despite his mostly-naked state, he was backing away from her on the ground, staring at her with huge, wild eyes.
“Come on, it’s okay,” she said. “There was—there was somebody behind us, coming for us, I mean, I was afraid it was one of our parents, I couldn’t get caught, are you okay? I mean, there—”
He cut her off with a stream of profanity, seeming to have finally found his tongue. When actual words emerged, they were extremely disheartening. “What the hell is with you, you freak?! Get away from me! Don’t touch me!”
She backed toward the car, feeling sick and angry. “I didn’t mean to do it. I’m sorry.”
“What the hell even was that?” He was getting shakily to his feet. When he was up, he glared at her and turned around, pulling up his pants.
She couldn’t stop to admire his ass (and in fact, it wasn’t that interesting now that she saw it). She turned as well and retrieved her shirt and skirt from the car, then marched around it to get dressed on the other side, where he couldn’t look at her. If he was going to be pissed at her, well, she was going to be pissed right back at him. She might have just saved them from a hook-wielding murderer who liked to slaughter teenage couples in cars.
When she was fully dressed, she climbed into the front seat of his car and folded her arms. It took him a few minutes longer, but he eventually got into the driver’s seat. He wouldn’t even look at her. “Take me home,” she said. “Wait. No. Fuck. Take me to Melissa’s.”
He shook his head, but started the car. They drove in silence. She waited for him to apologize for overreacting; after all, she’d already apologized multiple times for the only thing she’d done wrong. But he didn’t say anything until he pulled up in front of Melissa’s house, where, thankfully, the lights were still on.
“I never want to see you again,” he said.
Maggie was in the middle of unbuckling her seatbelt. She turned, slowly, and stared at him in disbelief. He still wouldn’t look at her, but he was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. “Are you serious?” she finally said. “How exactly do you expect to pull that off? We still go to the same school.”
He sighed loudly. “Whatever. Just leave me alone, okay? We are completely over.”
“Yeah? You’re going to dump me as soon as I’m not interesting anymore, is that it?”
“Just get out of my car, you fucking bitch, and leave me the fuck alone.”
She got out of his car. Her hands were trembling. “Yeah, well, fuck you too,” she said before she slammed the car door. He drove off without even waiting for her to move away from the car.
Maggie stared nervously up at the house. She would really rather crawl into bed and hide there for the next twenty-four hours than deal with any other people today, but even if she did figure out some way to get home from here, her parents would want to have some words with her. She groaned to herself, then crept closer, as quietly as she could. At least she could put this damn magic to some use. Assuming she could control it… yes. There it was. She extended her senses into the living room. There was only one person there, and by the feel, it was probably Melissa.
She took a deep breath and knocked on the door. After a moment, Melissa answered it. “Hi,” said Maggie, ready to launch into a long explanation as to why she needed the excuse she’d given her parents to become the truth, but before she could get another word out, Melissa smiled sympathetically and opened the door wider for her.
“He dumped you, didn’t he?” Melissa said, gesturing Maggie in.
“Yeah,” said Maggie. “How’d you know?”
“He’s a jerk,” Melissa said succinctly. “Come on, watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 with me. I’ve got ice cream, too, if you want it.”
Maggie sighed with relief. “Ice cream sounds pretty awesome, actually. Thanks.”
“No problem.” Melissa pointed her toward the couch. “You sit. I’ll get it. And some tissues, in case you need them.”
Reflecting on the course their relationship had taken, Maggie wasn’t entirely sure she would need those tissues. The more she thought about it, the more she thought saying goodbye to Theo was good riddance to bad rubbish. And Melissa was walking into the kitchen. Now that was a nice ass…
Did you enjoy this story? You can read more stories in this world or see all my fiction posted at Dreamwidth!