2022 AN- barely edited this chapter bc its a slay idc .. lets go girls
cw- light drug use
Helena
Men, as a whole, are terrifying.
But where men lacked tenderness, Noah was soft and sweet and unlike any other boy I'd ever met.
We'd kissed the night of my party, so when news spread of Jace Jackson's very own gathering, I had every intention of kissing him again.
"You look... um, different," I said when I saw him, stammering like a lovestruck idiot. "Good different, though." I had to admit- the smokey eye look on a male face was something else.
He thanked me, and I wanted to drag him off somewhere. I wanted to ask if the kiss meant anything to him. If we could-
"Who are you?"
Marcella was speaking. Marcella was looking at me.
And so it began.
~~~
After she'd stared at me like that, like I was the only person alive in the room, I'd fled. Jace nearly beating up his best friend and then chasing a very pissed Noah out of the kitchen served as the perfect distraction, no matter how confused I was towards the whole ordeal, and I desperately needed distracting. I didn't like the way Marcella looked. Something about her intimidatingly beautiful face made my skin itch, as if it wanted to crawl from my body just to escape her dark gaze. But of course, I couldn't hide for long.
"He's gone, y'know."
I was outside, standing on my tip toes and scanning the edge of the vineyards to see if Noah was around. I hadn't seen him since Jace's outburst, and I wanted to. I had to, because Marcella was so close, and being around her was like watching an asteroid head straight for you. In every direction, she was crashing into me.
"Who?" I quipped back, pretending to be uninterested.
She scoffed, her red lips curling to flash those infuriatingly perfect teeth. "The one that doesn't like you back. Who else?"
"We kissed," I snapped, whirling on her with indignation. "Why wouldn't he like me?"
"God, you popular girls are all the same. So full of yourselves. Astounded by the thought that not everyone's in love with you."
I frowned as she shook her head mockingly. And here I was thinking she was nice. Now I know why she and Jace are friends.
"You're popular," I accused.
"Not like you." She looked so confident, so cocky that I forgot about my kind, cool tempered nature. I wanted her to stop looking at me like that. I wanted her to stop.
"And what's so bad about me?" I said, head held high as I stepped towards her. "I mean, there must be a reason why you've been following me around all night."
Marcella laughed, and I hated how she looked while doing it. "There's also a reason that you're friends with Regina George." Before I could snap at her, she chuckled and continued speaking. "Hey, hey. Calm down, Your Majesty. I never said I didn't like you." Huh? "I'm just saying that Noah never will. Not in the way you want."
Her opinion didn't matter. It had no reason to. But for some reason, that last sentence sent a pang of hurt stabbing through me.
"Well. Thank you for your concern towards my love life, but if you don't mind, I have places to be." Nose turned up, I started to walk away.
I heard her snort behind me, and I fought the urge to groan. "Oh yeah? What places?"
"Wherever's furthest from you," I muttered. As my luck would have it, she heard.
Marcella stepped in front of me, her tall form easily dwarfing my steps. "If you're in love with Noah, then I'm not sure you know what you want."
My eyes snapped to hers, confusion and the briefest hint of anger coursing through my vision. "Then what do I want? Seeing as you know me so well."
For a second, I thought she was going to say something real, something meaningful, because her eyes were gazing into mine with a kind of heat that I didn't recognize. But then, she was smirking again. Cocky as ever.
"Figure it out. And when you do, you know where to find me."
With that cryptic message, she stuck her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket and sauntered off like we were on the set of fucking Grease, or something. Good riddance, I thought bitterly, ready to continue my search for Noah. Which, of course, would be unsuccessful. Fate had other plans. And perfect cheekbones.
Ten minutes later, and I was a mess. Maybe I drank too much. Maybe, I was just an idiot, crying over a crush that I'd only had for a few fucking days. He wasn't like, my soulmate or anything. I was just lonely, and tired, and I was pretty sure I'd have grey hairs by the end of the night. So I sat, rather unceremoniously, inside the empty tub of one of the many Jackson bathroom's, crying my eyes out for no reason at all.
And that was when Marcella decided to pay me a visit for the millionth time that night. While there was mascara running down my face. Naturally.
"This is starting to look like stalking," I sniffed.
"Yeah. It's not like I needed to pee, or anything." She sighed, looking down at me from the doorway. "What are you doing in the bathtub, dare I ask?"
My breath hitched as I inhaled. "I think I might be a little drunk. And hormonal."
"It's okay, babe. PMS is just something ugly boys made up, anyway." And then, a little softer, she added, "you need a tampon?"
Babe. Where the hell Marcella got her confidence, I didn't know. It was like everything just came naturally to her. Granted, that was probably how other people saw me. She'd called me popular like it was a bad word, like I was bad. Maybe she was right. I didn't have anything to be crying about. Well, other than my choice in best friends.
"...Yeah."
only in my dreams- the marías
So I sat on the toilet, watching a girl I barely knew light up a joint. She took a deep drag, casting her calculating gaze across my mascara streaked features, before exhaling. It furled into silver plumes, a smokescreen between our bodies. I felt like I was waiting for something. Like Elizabeth, searching for Mr Darcy through the early morning fog.
I forced myself out of my trance by drying off, pulling up my underwear and washing my hands. And then, because I was an idiot and didn't know what to do, I said, "thanks for the tampon."
When I turned around, Marcella was already there. She breathed a cloud of smoke towards my face. I wasn't high from a few puffs of second hand weed, but something in me was giddy at her closeness. At how tall she was.
Her eyes flickered down my body and then up again, and I was reminded of a nature documentary I'd seen once; the way a lion looks before it devours. "Girls help girls. Right?"
"Right," I replied, and my voice was a little shakier than I'd have liked. She turned to leave, and I did something I couldn't explain away. I grabbed the crook of her arm and pulled her gently back. Back to me. "Can I... can I try that?"
Marcella's gaze was on my hand, and when I dropped her like a hot coal, she didn't look as pleased as I thought she would. Whatever uncertain, wavering emotion I'd fooled myself into seeing was gone in a second. The cool mask was back up, and was raising a dark eyebrow at me. "Chang," she said, in a mock gasp. "You've never smoked before? A pretty girl like you?"
I swallowed, annoyed and whirling with thoughts about the word pretty. "Don't make fun of me."
She stepped closer, caging me against the sink. "I wouldn't dream of it." And then, a little more than a murmur-
"Open your mouth."
Like following a siren's call, I obeyed. And I resented myself for it.
Smoke curled from her red lips like a promise, and I leaned forward to catch it. The silver melted onto my tongue. Mercury. She was close, so close, the warmth of her mouth only a breath away, and I was high on something else entirely. Drag after drag, she sent sweet, sprawling letters to my lungs, all wrapped up in an envelope of something dark and desperate and wanting. This wasn't going to be good for me- not because it was a drug. Because it was her, and because those two things weren't so different at all.
Marcella stepped back, and I staggered forward chasing her, like waking from a dream of falling. She chuckled, and my cheeks burned. It had only been a minute, but I felt like she'd been pulling me under her spell for hours. I wanted to break something. I needed coffee.
"Easy cowboy." When all I could do was blink dumbly, she dragged a teasing finger from my collarbone to the curve of my jaw. "You okay? Looking a little dazed there, Chang."
I snapped to attention, slapping her arm away with a small scowl. "I'm not high."
She laughed loudly, beautifully, and I wondered with a pang of humiliation if she really had been smoking into my mouth for only a minute. And in which case, I obviously couldn't be stoned. I knew that. I wasn't stupid. I just honestly thought I'd been there, trapped by her every breath, for a small eternity.
"Oh, gorgeous. I know. I haven't done anything to you, yet."
Her words (I was pretty sure she wasn't talking about weed anymore) stunned me, like walking into a cloud and seeing, in every direction, white. Emptiness. I was so stunned that I didn't even notice her leave until she was gone, and then there was only the sound of a door closing to prove that she'd ever been there at all. But she was there, and she'd looked at me, and she'd called me gorgeous like I deserved it. Like a star, looking at a flame and calling it bright.
She had no right to do things to my insides, (that bitch, that conniving, evil-) and I wasn't going to let her. So I didn't think about her when I went to bed that night, or when I waited for a text from a boy that never came, or when I brushed my teeth in the morning as if it could wash away the shape of her mouth, a mere inch away from mine.
I didn't think about her at all.
AN- jace/noahs party was insane fr literally everyone was hooking up in different parts of the house lmaoooo
i only just remembered that bluejay also had a smoking scene filled with sexual tension and now i feel like im advocating teenage substance abuse LMAO im sorry dont smoke or do drugs guys 💋
also hi this is unrelated but i watched cruel summer on amazon bc i was bored and wanted to laugh at something terrible but it wasnt terrible at all wtf the final episode had such a big plot twist im?? it's not amazing or anything BUT it has a 10/10 trope, the popular girl x the emo girl <3 (its canon for like 5 minutes but whatever they're in love)
P.S im hoping to continue the marcy n hels bonus chapters (wtf is their ship name um helsa? helsy? lmfao idfk u decide) but updates might be a little less regular bc of university and also im starting work on a new project for u all mwhahahahah BUT ANYWAY I HOPE U ENJOYED THIS TELL ME UR THOUGHTS IM SORRY ITS SHORT ILY ALL MWAH
-beler