We are halfway through watching the movie now, or at least the others are. I couldn't tell you anything about the plotline, for I don't think Evie and I have watched a single second of it. Who wants to watch a rom com when I could be braiding Evie's hair while she traces shapes on my palm and makes my heart sing?
"You're really good at hair braiding," She compliments.
"Thanks! Oh you're gonna look SO beautiful once I'm finished here," I reply, weaving my fingers in and out of her soft hair.
"You're getting my hair tangled in my necklace," She remarks.
"Oh, sorry," I say sarcastically. "You know what I'll just take it off." I undo the clasp at the back for her, letting her necklace disappear into her pyjama shirt, on purpose, mind you.
"You're so stupid, it's lost now!" Evie sighs, faking disappointment.
"Let me try and find it," I say playfully. She giggles as I start to unbutton her shirt, blushing when my fingers hit her cleavage.
Suddenly, the lights flick on out of nowhere. Evie and I look away from each other for the first time tonight, and see that Ben is standing by the light switch, and Jay and Carlos are staring at us from where they're seated on their beanbags. I button up Evie's shirt and raise an eyebrow at them all.
"Why are you guys looking at us like that?" I ask, weirded out.
"Because you two are talking over the movie and it's ANNOYING, plus you aren't even watching it which defeats the purpose of having it on!" Jay explains.
"We are SO watching it," I reply with a roll of my eyes.
"What's the main characters' name?" Ben interrogates.
"Isn't it like...Stephanie...or something?" I answer nervously.
"Stephanie is the fucking dog," Carlos sighs.
I have to laugh at that mistake, and Evie turns to look at me. "You have the cutest laugh," She says, before giving me a kiss right beside my mouth. I smirk at her, and that's when Ben starts to grumble.
"Alright I suggest a break, get some drink refills, go to the bathroom and whatever, and while you're doing that...Evie, can I talk to you?" He requests.
Evie looks quite pissed off at the idea of us parting, yet she reluctantly climbs off of me and onto the carpet. As the others busy themselves with jobs, Ben beckons her out into the hallway. Once they're outside he closes the dorm room door behind them. Huh, I wonder what he has to talk to her about.
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Evie's POV:
I follow Ben out into the hallway, and after quietly shutting the door, we both stand in silence. I lean up against the doorframe, folding my arms, and he stands opposite me, brushing his hand against a poster. I avoid eye contact with him, until finally, I gather the courage to speak.
"What is this about?" I ask, even though I already know.
"Hmm, I don't know Evie, what IS this about?" Ben says. "You know what actually, I wanna see if you know. Take a wild guess at what you think it is, go on."
I look at him tediously and click my tongue silently from nerves, then begin to speak. "It's about...how I'm acting with Mal..." I mumble.
"Correct, congratulations," Ben smiles, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He moves closer to me.
"Didn't we have a little chat a while ago about this exact situation?"
I nod. "Yeah, I remember."
It's true. It was just a few days before Mal ran back to the Isle, I remember it clear as day.
"GO JAY!" Mal and I shriek in unison, trying to raise our voices above the already screaming crowd. It's fucking LOUD here, but after watching many a Tourney game since moving to Auradon my ears have adjusted slightly.
I'm sitting on the bleachers next to Mal, her arm around my shoulders and my legs draped across her lap. Ben is on the bleacher bench just below us. He's Mal's boyfriend, so I'm not really sure why he's banished to there instead of me, but I don't mind at all if I'm being totally honest.
"Jay's a lucky guy. Do I get a scream from my favourite cheerleader?" He jokes, turning around to face Mal.
"Hmm, maybe later. You're out for this round though. Carlos is the team's alternate but you gave up your spot for one round so he could have a chance, so technically you're not a player right now," Mal shrugs.
"Listen to you," I grin, and lean forward slightly, giving her a kiss on her forehead. Ben looks quite disappointed, but I'm not too sure why. Mal's right, he IS out for this round, what's the big deal?
"Someone has certainly been paying attention to the rules," I compliment her.
"Nah, I used a spell to memorise them. My REAL attention has been on somebody else," She replies, while picking up a French fry and then holding it up to my mouth. I open for her, and we both giggle when I take it and start to chew.
"I didn't know you still had your spell book," Ben comments. I watch as Mal's cheeks heat up, suddenly looking panicked.
"Oh yeah, it's just for...emergencies, you know? It's not like I actually use it that much, it's just like a backup thing," She says with a nervous laugh.
She's lying, she uses her spell book almost every day. I'm not sure why, I've confronted her about it before, even suggested she put it in the museum, but she wasn't having it. However, it's not my business, it's hers, so I'll leave it alone for her to figure out. Ben, however, doesn't seem to have that attitude.
"Knowing sports rules isn't an emergency, though," Ben says.
Mal looks at me, then back at Ben, and clears her throat. "Um, yeah but today is just such a big game for the team so I wanted to understand it. I just studied up a little last night with a speed reading spell, that's all. I mean, nothing too crazy," She explains.
"You could've just asked me about how the game works, I wasn't busy yesterday," Ben points out.
God, does he really have to interrogate her like this? I mean I know he hates the idea of Mal's spell book, but is all this really necessary?
"Well you might not have been busy yesterday, but she was, so a small speed reading spell is perfectly valid in my opinion," I step in, trying to keep my cool. I know he wasn't talking to me but I don't care, I care about Mal and he's not being fair to her right now.
Ben glares at me slightly, then goes on to say, "Busy doing what?"
"Oh, we were hanging out together," I reply, as I clutch her neck tightly and rest my head on her shoulder, causing her to turn her attention to me, smiling. I catch Ben rolling his eyes out the corner of my eye. Mal doesn't notice, she is now too busy adjusting the front strands of my hair, but I do notice him, and I'm fucking pissed about it.
"Wait a minute, you cancelled on me yesterday because you told me you weren't feeling well," Ben states, puzzled.
"Yeah, I wasn't."
"So then how did you guys hang out together?"
I pick my head up and look into Mal's eyes, then begin to talk. "Well, I decided it would be a good idea to give her the sick treatment, you know, make her soup and get her ice cream, and lay with her and watch all our favourite movies," I explain happily, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Yup, she's an angel," Mal grins, and I nod and intertwine our fingers together, silently agreeing.
"Right," Ben says, in a slightly annoyed tone.
"Oh my God it's so COLD," I groan, even though it's probably 85 degrees outside.
Ben's letterman jacket is draped around Mal's shoulders, and she easily takes it off. "Here, take this," She offers, and wraps it around my shoulders instead.
"Thank you babe," I smile, and peck her now bare shoulder. Unfortunately, just as I've done this, Ben's annoying voice speaks up. AGAIN.
"Isn't that my jacket?" He asks.
"Yeah, Evie was cold," Mal replies, as I wrap my arm around her and let the jacket lay over both of us.
"It's burning hot, what are you talking about?" Ben queries.
"Jesus, who cares Ben? It's a fucking jacket," I sigh.
Ben finally glares at me. ''Evie can I talk to you for a second? Alone?" He requests, standing up.
I turn to Mal and she gives me a nod of approval. At this I take the jacket off and follow Ben. He leads me down the stairs of the stadium benches, and then down behind the bleachers.
"Gosh, we're far away. What's this about?" I ask, leaning against a pole.
"I wanna talk about you and Mal, and the way you behave with each other whenever you're together," Ben replies sharply.
"What are you talking about?" I say, playing dumb.
"Oh I don't know, maybe the fact that you two act like girlfriends every time you see each other? Whenever we meet up, within five seconds of saying hi one of you is practically on top of the other. You guys can't go five minutes without kissing and flirting, and that's not normal behaviour for best friends. Sure, I get a kiss on the cheek once in a while for a joke makes sense. But you two LITERALLY act like you're dating each other all the time! Heck, she acts like more of a girlfriend to you than she does to me, and it's not fair. You are ALL over her every chance you get! God, anyone would think you like her or something!"
I look down at the dirty, grassy ground. I can feel my eyes stinging with tears, but I don't want him to see. I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do, so I simply stay silent. After a few moments, I look up at him, and his face changes when he sees my watery eyes, and my quivering lips. He blinks at me, suddenly looking completely taken aback.
"Evie, do you actually have feelings for Mal?" He whispers.
A tear spills down my cheek. I'm not even going to bother hiding this from him, because I know if I try he simply won't believe me. He's officially caught me. I sniff and nod, ever so slightly.
"Oh, Evie," He sighs, then pulls me into a hug. I cry onto his chest softly, letting the tears pour out all over his Tourney jersey. "How long?"
"Since the day I met her, when we were just tiny little kids on the Isle," I choke out. I cry for a little more, until eventually I'm able to compose myself. I pull away and lean against the grimy pole again, then begin to explain myself. "And as we got older, my feelings got stronger, and I was actually contemplating telling her or not. But then she met you, and fell in love, and now us will never happen. It got so hard to deal with my crush once you guys started dating, I guess I just started executing the romantic behaviours I wanted with her. I'm sorry," I rant, my voice now hoarse.
Ben pulls away from our hug. "It's fine. I just, I didn't even know you were gay," He says, still stunned.
"Neither did I, until I met her. And she still doesn't know I'm not straight, so please don't tell her! Or anyone!" I beg, wiping some fresh tears from my cheeks.
"Don't worry, I won't," He reassures me. "But Evie, you have to understand that Mal is MY girlfriend, not yours. I think you being a part of the LGBTQIA+ community is wonderful, and I respect your crush on her, but you have to keep your feelings to yourself. As her boyfriend it's not fun watching someone else flirt with her."
"She does it to me too, I'm not always the one who starts it!"
"But you're the one who finishes it. When she flirts with you, you flirt back and then a whole cycle starts. If she does it I would really appreciate it if you could just shut it down straight away. As much as it may break your heart, she's not your girlfriend. She's mine."
Ben walks away after that, leaving me standing under the bleachers, alone. A tear rolls down my cheek as I process what he just said to me.
"She's not your girlfriend. She's mine."
The worst part is that I know that, but I just really don't want it to be true. However, I have to accept that she is not mine to hold and love, she will never love me in the way I love her and that's that.
And so with that now in mind, I wipe my tears, take a deep breath and put on a brave face as I walk out from behind the bleachers and ascend the stairs, stepping over other people settled on the benches, crumpled candy wrappers scattered everywhere, lost flags and pom poms, the usual stuff you would find in a Tourney audience. Ben is already back in his seat in front of us when I finally reach Mal. Usually, I would jump into her lap and probably accompany the gesture with a kiss, but this time, I stick to Ben's rules. I simply sit beside her and fold my hands in my lap, directing my attention to the game on the field in front of us.
"Evie!" Mal says. I turn my head to face her and see that she has her arms outstretched, beckoning me to come sit with her. Her smile is wide and her eyes are shining. I want to embrace her so badly, but I can't. I shake my head and turn away.
Mal immediately drops her arms and grabs my hands. "Honey, what's wrong?" She asks me, concerned.
I look at her, and then down at Ben, who's watching me carefully, waiting for my next move. I take a deep breath, trying my hardest not to cry, and then look her straight in the eyes. "My name is Evie," I say. Ben looks satisfied at this, smiling smugly. But I can see that Mal's heart just smashed into a million pieces.
She slowly backs away from me and sits back in her place, looking...lost.
That was the ONLY time Ben has ever been slightly empathetic towards me with my crush, and even then it was questionable. After that day he's just been angry at me about it, probably because I went back to flirting with Mal, the whole leaving her alone thing didn't even last a day because of what happened that night.
We went out for victory pizza with the Tourney team and our friend group after the game, then went out for a movie. I stayed away from Mal the whole time. Normally at a restaurant, I would have my arm around her the entire time and we'd be sharing our food, whenever we go out to eat her and I only ever order one meal and we share it together. Sometimes we even ask for two straws for one drink. We tell the others it's because we want to save money, but her and I both know we just love doing everything together. It's how we always do it. But this time I sat as far away from her as I possibly could and didn't say a word to her. She looked thoroughly confused, and tried to talk to me about it, but I pushed her away and took up a conversation with Carlos instead.
When we got to the cinemas I also played my cards differently. Normally at the movies I would be leaned up against her shoulder, bundled up in a hug, and we'd be feeding each other sweets and popcorn, while being told by the others to shut up as we are in our own little world of talking to each other over the movie. But this time I take a seat in the centre, and when she tries to sit next to me I immediately get up and move away, taking the furthest seat from her that I can. The movie is boring without her touch and magical voice, but I have to do this.
During car rides with Mal she's almost always snuggled up against my chest, my arms around her waist and her stroking my hair. The others always tell us a million times to sit in our own seats so that we can wear our seatbelts, but we wave them off, not caring at all. Who cares about safety? She is my safety. She is all I need. But this time I don't get that luxury. I sit in the passenger seat, put my earphones in and try to drown out everything around me.
When we finally arrive home at around seven PM, Mal starts to grill me the second we walk in the door. She slams it shut behind us and leans up against it, her face resembling something of anger, sadness, and most of all confusion.
"Talk. Now," She snaps, as I set my heart purse down on my sewing desk and then take a seat on my bed.
"About what?" I ask, playing dumb, yet again.
"You know exactly what. What is happening? You have been avoiding me all afternoon! What is going on?"
I offer her a small shrug and begin to trace the outlines of the flowers on my blanket. I fiddle a lot when I'm anxious. It's something I've done since I was a kid and never worked out how to stop it.
"Don't you shrug at me, Evie. You were perfectly fine before Ben pulled you away for that little chat," Mal counters.
"What do you mean perfectly fine?!" I suddenly cry out. "What does perfectly fine mean? What, that I was play flirting with you and then I wasn't?!"
"Well...yeah," Mal says gently, taken aback by my sudden switch in attitude. "We always do it, and then suddenly it was like you hated the idea of me altogether."
I bite my lip, trying my hardest not to cry, because it's the opposite of that. I LOVE the idea of her. I ADORE her. She is my world, and I want her so badly, but I can never, ever have her.
Mal approaches me and bends down to match my level where I'm sitting. "Evie, right before you talked to Ben, you and I were simply hanging out and hugging and cuddling like we always do. When we were doing that, did I touch you somewhere that made you uncomfortable? Or did I say something that crossed the line and bothered you?" She asks softly. She's so caring of things like this, it's so admirable.
"No, of course not!" I reply.
"Then what is the problem?"
"We just shouldn't play flirt."
"Why not?"
"We just shouldn't," I respond bitterly, my eyes brimming with tears.
Mal notices my tears forming, and so she takes my hands in hers and kisses my knuckles, then guides them back to my lap. "Evie, please tell me what is going on," She begs.
Oh, the pain of feeling her kisses and knowing they can never mean anything more than friendly. I can't hold it in any longer. I let my face fall into my hands as I break down into tears, absolutely sobbing my heart out. Mal immediately jumps to her feet and tackles me into a hug. I cry and cry over her shoulder, and after a while my throat feels raw after spilling so many tears onto her purple mid drift. She eventually pulls away, cupping my chin with her pointer finger to meet her beautiful eyes and asks me, "Gorgeous, what in the world is wrong?"
"I-I jus-st l-love you so m-much," I hiccup, grabbing her hand and gripping it tightly. I look at her face and she now looks quite surprised.
"That's...that's what you're crying for?" She ponders.
I nod, and she pulls me into her shoulder and rubs my back, humming to me softly until I finally quiet down enough for her to talk. "Well if you love me so much then why did you avoid me all afternoon? And why are you saying we shouldn't play flirt?"
"Is it OK if I don't tell you? Please?" I ask, my voice still shaky.
"Of course. I'm here if you need me, but gone if you don't want me," She explains.
I immediately clutch her tightly. "NO! I...I do want you. I just don't want to talk about it. Please stay with me," I cry. I know I'm disobeying Ben's orders, but I can't help it. I need her.
She takes my hand and pulls me down onto the bed with her, laying us gently together across the pillows and wrapping her arms around me. "I love you so, so much. More than you will ever know," She whispers into my ear. I nod, and we spend the night like this, snuggled into each others grasp. She kisses my salty tears goodbye when fresh ones fall, and smooths her fingers through my hair as I hiccup and shake, hushing me gently and soothing me all the while. Not once does she let go of me for anything. At almost two in the morning, I can see that her eyes are extremely tired, but she's refusing to fall asleep before me. I'm assuming she wants to make sure I'm safe and sound before she drifts off. When I finally do start to, just as I'm about to fall asleep, I make a decision in my head.
I do not care what Ben says. I will do what I want with the girl I love.
And since then I have. I get a lot of glares and sighs from Ben, but he's never actually brought it up with me...until now. And now I'm not really feeling in that "I don't care" mood that I adopted in that moment with her. I'm feeling in a state of guilt. He's finally confronting me about it, and I'm not sure what to do with myself.
"You remember our conversation, huh? OK well if you remember it then WHY are you STILL flirting with her?! I asked you politely to stop. You did for barely one afternoon, and then it was back to being girlfriends again. I've held my tongue for long enough since I started noticing you doing it with her again, but after watching that whole charade in there, I'm snapping. WHAT are you doing, Evie?" Ben rants.
"I'm sorry Ben, it just happens when we're together, OK? We just connect, and..."
Ben cuts me off. "No, you don't 'connect'. Because you aren't dating and she doesn't like you. You have no connection. You're just starting things because you like her."
I raise an eyebrow at him, now offended. "Wow Ben, thanks for the empathy. Means a lot," I hiss.
"Hmm, I forgot the part where I cared," He smirks sarcastically. "Leave her alone."
I fold my arms and stare him down fiercely. "What if I don't?" I ask, with an undeniable hint of aggressiveness in my tone.
He looks at me, stunned that I've dared to challenge him. Stumped, he says, "Then I'll, I'll...I'll have to, um..." He's racking his brain for a punishment, but he can't think of one. I mean, he's the same age as me, what is he supposed to do?
"That's what I thought," I smirk. "I said yes in our first conversation about this, but now I see that you're just a controlling jerk. You don't deserve her, so don't tell me or her what to do." I flip my hair and turn back to the door. I rest my hand on the handle and spin it clockwise, making my entrance into the room with a victorious look on my face. Mal is waiting for me when I walk back inside. I immediately make my way over to her and lay myself down on top of her in the big red beanbag again. I can see Ben watching us from the other room, shaking his head in annoyance at us. Upon noticing this, I smile at him smugly, then wrap my arms around her neck and kiss her hair right in front of him. He looks even more pissed now. Good.
I turn my attention back to my purple dragon. "I missed you," I whisper to her.
"Missed you more."
"How are you feeling?" I ask, noticing her eyes are closed.
"I'm sleepy," She mumbles in a baby voice, and it's so adorable.
I pull her into a soft hug. "Me too."