Off Limits (Christoffer Schistad - Skam)

Part 1

Some things are simply not meant to be. Even when people maximized their chances by doing everything in their power to achieve their goal, it wasn't always enough. Like in this maddening scene in Titanic where Jack can't get on the floating door, and after everything he has gone through to be with Rose, he just dies. Well, maybe this was a little bit dramatic, chances are you won't die in real life, you will just be really, really frustrated because all your efforts are thrown into the trash. But she was drifting from the subject.

Somehow, Mara's brother had befriended the one guy who was simultaneously the absolute worst and the best thing that has ever happened to her. William and Chris were inseparable friends since- since always. As far as her memory goes, Chris has always been in their lives. He was like family to a certain extent – and that was precisely her problem.

Mara didn't want Chris to be family, Mara wanted Chris to wreck her body, to put it nicely. Not getting what she wanted was a foreign feeling for the only female Magnusson child. William and Nikolai had always been in competition and the weight of the entire family's future laid on their shoulders since they were kids. Mara had a form a freedom that her brothers would never truly grasp or experience, and that gave her power. Being the cherished only daughter of rich parents was a perk she appreciated too.

Therefore when she hit puberty and when he body morphed into a more womanly shape, drawing the attention of her male counterparts, she was already fully equipped to deal with this new found magnetism. Used to get what she wanted, familiar with her brother's way of life (was it weird for Mara to feel part of the Penetrators after assisting to so many of their meetings at her and William's place?) and not shy in the least, she embraced her new body and the benefits that came from it. Self-confidence was basically a birthright in the Magnusson family and blowing people away with their good looks was tradition. And like lightening, a Magnusson never stroke twice on the same spot, that is to say, they didn't do dating.

Another, more likely, explanation than the lightening theory was that both William and Mara had mad game when it came to everybody except the one person who mattered. For a while now the young girl watched her brother chase after a girl from her class, Noora, and she didn't know how to react at first. She knew Noora was a kind, smart and genuinely good person, and that made it even more unbelievable – that William of all people fell for someone who might actually be able to make him happy.

Mara, knowing better than to mind her brother's business, silently rooted for them, discretely spying of them from the corner of her eye whenever she could and trying not to give it all away when William dared mentioned Noora outside of school.

"The smile is betraying you," someone said and plopped down next to Mara on the bench.

It was Christoffer – and his infamous, girl-swooning, heart-melting smirk that worked on everybody but Mara, who witnessed the very birth of 'Penetrator Chris'. He was sitting one leg each side of the bench, his back to William and Noora who tried and failed at being subtle at glancing toward each other from across the room. Mara had his full attention, but she kept her gaze locked on the paper on the table that she had to finish before next period.

"It would only betray me if they bothered to look my way but they can't even detach their eyes from each other," Mara replied and shrugged, not even looking at Chris.

"Someone needs to tell them to just go for it. Everybody knows anyway," Chris added.

He then grabbed Mara's papers so she would stop working and finally look up. The way her jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed gave away how annoyed she was at that, but he wasn't sorry in the least.

"I don't think that's true. Noora hasn't told her friends from what I've heard. Vilde is still constantly rambling about how dreamy William is!" Mara couldn't help the eye-roll that followed. 3

"Ouch," Chris said, clasping his hand over his heart while still holding Mara's homework in the other, out of her reach. "Must be really shitty to not be good enough for your girlfriend to tell her friends about you."

"They're not together!" Mara said before poking Chris' side and quickly stealing her papers back from him when he lowered his hand to cover his side. "Noora is being smart! I wouldn't tell anyone either if a notorious heart-breaker was suddenly running after me and I somehow returned the feelings."

Chris put his elbow on the table and used his fist as support for his head while he thought about what Mara just said. He seemed to seriously ponder the issue. Mara had always disapproved of the Penetrators' ill treatment of girls while also knowing that her brother and his friends weren't fundamentally bad people. Her status of member by proxy of an exclusively male group of playboys with commitment issues set her apart from the rest of the girls. She often wondered if it wasn't unfortunate for her to be born female. Never filly accepted by the other groups of girls, she was too close to the Penetrators to be trusted, and yet she couldn't claim to belong to the boy's group either. As time flew by, Mara developed an immunity to loneliness. She liked her solitude, she grew independent and self-reliant. And above all, she cherish was few friends she had, and that included Chris.

"I can't find anything to argue with that," Chris eventually declared. "But it's getting old seeing them drool over themselves like this. Although I've got to say Noora is holding herself together rather gracefully-"

"-a contrario to Will," Mara finished in a sigh.

Both of them directed their gaze toward William, whose face was twisted in a fond smile only Mara had been the receptacle of until Noora came into his life. She wasn't mad in the least, she was happy for her brother, and glad some of his attention was on another person than her for once – it allowed her a little more freedom of movement.

"Look, I really have to finish this before class begins," she then said, pointing to her half-finished homework. "So if you don't mind-"

She didn't finish her sentence but instead gestured Chris to walk away. It was a long shot, the guy literally never did anything he didn't want to or decide to do by himself. As expected, he didn't initiate any movement that would lead her to think he'd leave, instead he leaned over the table to get a closer look at her work.

"What is it? I'll help you if I can..." He suggested, earning a playful smile.

"Careful there, I might think you're finding excuses to spend time with me," Mara teased him, her lips forming that mischievous smile that matched Chris' smirk.

That was the story of Mara's life. Chris and her flirted harmlessly with each other since they were fifteen, and no one ever said anything, not even William because he trusted them and knew it was just their way to communicate. Mara had no recollection of when exactly it lost its fun and harmless dimension and turned into passive-aggressive desperate pay-attention-to-me flirting.

There was no doubt that Chris would not take the first step, whether it was out of respect for William or because he was too stubborn to admit he actually had a fully-functioning heart, thus reducing his reputation of emotionally detached player to dust. The solution was simple really, there wasn't a thousand different ways to deal with this issue: Mara would have to take matters into her own hands.

So far she had never settled for anything in her life; when she wanted something she did everything in her power to obtain it, one way or another, and Christoffer Schistad was no exception to the rule. She was determined to not be the only one struggling to keep it together when he was around, that was unfair and no fun. From now on, Mara would make sure to be both Chris' worst nightmare and his greatest fantasy.