FicWad

  The group of surrogate friends that I attracted began to gather around our usual tree during lunch the following days. The fragrant late-summer-early-fall breeze gently tousled our hair and clothes.

"Well, this year is interesting," Owen remarked, "It looks like along with all the new freshman, they got Snape from Harry Potter, too."

"Snape?" I questioned for a moment. "Oh! You mean… That guy," I stammered as I tried to sound casual, looking over in his direction from across the campus. I found myself caressing those words in my mouth before they were released despite the fact that I had not yet learned his name.

"Yep," he confirmed, "the tall one that sticks out like a sore thumb." I knew it. They were talking about the Gorgeous Boy.

Alexa, a girl from a few of my classes, scurried over to us once she detected that we may have been gossiping about him. "You mean the new hottie? Omigod. I'm totally gonna jump his bone."

I lifted my head. "Really?" I asked in my best attempt to sound normal, but after it came out of my mouth, I realized I sounded mortified and furious.

Devilishly, she eyed him, sweeping her gaze all over his body, "It's not like everybody doesn't want to. I'm practically gonna have to beat girls off of him." I could feel anger swell up inside my body at those words. No matter what he looked like, nothing could change the fact that he was a human being. She spoke as if he couldn't feel any emotion… as if love and attraction held no merit. Couldn't they tell by the pensive way he spoke, the careful way he stepped, the way his stylish hair cascaded down his scalp to brush his shoulders, and his dapper wardrobe that this boy and I existed for one another? Couldn't they see that his is an artistic soul, a wondrous mind, and an intense individual who might actually love to have a meaningful relationship rather than sleep around? Couldn't they notice that all it would take would be for us to meet; for he and I to realize that we belong together?

Even though I couldn't pretend I didn't think the same thing the day before… That I want him.

"Well, what do /you /think, Cassie?" Owen asked.

I venomously thought that Alexa prevailed as the Head Bitch. I thought that she saw his beauty and wanted it all to herself when she couldn't recognize that she doesn't deserve that brand of allure. But I knew it would sound stupid if I shared any of my real thoughts, so I hit my personal panic button. "He seems cool, I guess." My reply hopefully sounded the way I wanted it to sound. After all, the opposite of love is actually indifference. Besides, if they only knew the extent of my new found passion, I would earn myself some brand new, ruthless enemies that would have been more than happy to tear me asunder because I existed and was therefore, a threat.

"Yeah," Owen remarked snidely, "Cassie doesn't care anyways because she has a boyfriend. Remember?" I couldn't help but think that he could smell my fear just as well as the girls. If not better. Any chance I stood with this lovely boy disintegrated at the mention of my slimy boyfriend. Alexa just received her ammo for that moment when she'll slobber all over that Gorgeous Boy and mercilessly execute me with a snotty "Why are you asking about Cassie? She has a boyfriend." She'll use this even if he's uninterested in her, the likely situation since Alexa's no prize. He won't bother to get to know that my boyfriend had recently loosened his clutches on me. I could easily have been stolen. It would only take a conversation, a hug, a kiss. Especially since he had me even before "hello." But perhaps Owen hadn't set me up for failure, but instead…

"That's right," I sighed. "Oh, I forgot to tell you guys, speaking of my boyfriend," I uttered urgently, darkly. "It's the worst."

"Aw, what is it, sweetie?" Owen crooned. "Her boyfriend lives in California, Alexa. I don't know if you know that."

I dropped my facial muscles in my best impression of despair. In hindsight, the staggering simplicity of mimicking despair came easily since my life continuously simmered in it. "He's being such an asshole/," I whimpered. I glanced up. Like physics, so many concerned (or convincing mock-concerned) eyes glanced back and their gaze seemed to beg for what it is that could be wrong in my little universe. "There's /some bitch or something that he's friends with. She's all he can talk about. She's the one that he broke up with me for that one time, by the way. There's probably something going on since he doesn't call as much anymore and he degrades me all the time now. He even gets pissed off if I even talk to any /guy. Even /Owen." No one could deny my little sob story (which actually, sadly, and quite unfortunately was 100% true and unembellished) of my rocky relationship. Now, on the off chance that the boy asked about me, the truth as everyone would know it would be "Yes, Cassie is taken, but the poor girl's relationship is going down the toilet. Her boyfriend doesn't treat her very well."  I gambled with the fact that the relentless skanks would likely offer my head before the truth. They could easily omit that last part. Horrid girl politics at work.

Because he possessed hypersensitive girl powers, Owen recognized that this would be when I needed him the most since he might have been the only thing synonymous with my "best friend" in the entire time zone. "Oh, honey… I'm sorry," he sympathized as he rubbed my shoulder. "He's an asshole. You don't deserve to be treated that way."

Alexa wrinkled her nose. "Well, whatever," she hissed.

I saw a hand reaching over my shoulder and yielded to it. Clementine snatched my phone from me from behind. "Cassie, lemme see your phone," she demanded urgently, even though she had already taken it.

"Why?" I marveled.

Clementine punched a few buttons, stared at the phone in horror, then tossed it back to me as if we were playing hot potato. "I just sent him a text!" she giggled.

"Why?" I groaned. Then I realized… she just gave him my number. And I now knew his just because Clementine had to play her frivolous game. She's that girl who will creepily use anonymous numbers to send random texts to a guy she likes. Even so, I could see no threat in her. She paled in the radiance of my beauty, but not because my beauty is incomparable. No. She resembled a frumpy drag queen who refused to wear anything apart from baggy flannel shirts and shapeless pants. No man would tolerate such immaturity and insecurity. "I guess I'll save his number just in case," I sighed nonchalantly as I scrolled through the text history and pulled his number into a new contact, which promptly asked for a name.

"Whose number?" Owen asked as if he was unaware of the current conversation.

I still didn't know the boy's name. "Duh," I remarked, "Snape." I punched in S-N-A-P-E as the contact name.

My phone sprang alive with a new message. From "Snape." My heart skipped a beat. "Who is this?" the message read.

I quickly opened up a response message. "Sorry," I typed feverishly, "That previous message was from Clementine. She stole my phone for a second. This is Cassie." 

After a quick minute, I received another message. "Oh. Haha. She's being weird."

"Yeah. She's a strange one. Anyways, she probably won't do it again since you now know that this is my phone."

" ~nods~ Yeah. Probably not. At least I got to talk to you, though."

"Have you been wanting to?"

"You seemed cool when we met."

"Yeah, thanks," I typed back enthusiastically, "You're pretty cool, too."

Owen looked at me suspiciously. "Who are you texting?" he asked slyly.

I felt my face grow hot. "Why do you ask?"

"You just seem… giggly," he pointed out.

"Oh, but aren't I always?" I hadn't actually noticed, but my face ached as if I had been smiling. "It's just Snape. He's texting me now." Then it hit me that this happened before. I created a nickname for another boy before Snape. Justin. But I created a nickname for him just so that I could push him away. To cover up the fact that the air between us constantly filled with sexual tension. And now…

"What's he saying?" Owen asked.

I shifted. "It's nothing important." The soul-rattling cry of the bell sounded across the front lawn. "Well, Owen and I have a drawing class to go to. So, we'll be seeing you guys."

Owen scrambled to catch up with me. Elegantly, we linked arms and stepped gingerly across the grass. Owen always made sure that I avoided the same mud puddles. After my return from France, I decked myself out in all the clothes I bought there, including my soft-soled velvet ballet flats that I went through great pains to not get muddy. 

I never feared that anyone would assume that Owen and I were dating, so I saw no endangerment towards my reputation with Snape. Owen has been described as my "twin brother." While I dressed in elaborate petticoats and corsets, he would dress in the male equivalent. There may have been kids at the school who were "popular," but he and I maintained a constant status as the school royalty… or, rather, the school Illuminati since the entire school could secretly bend to our whim from the shadows. School newspapers, fashion shows, and countless photography pieces shamelessly featured us to no end. A handful of our peers worshipped the ground we walked on. But the source of our power lied in our close relationship. We shared our secrets, giggled over gossip, and swooned over the same guys; the ones we wanted and the ones that we lamented that we could never have. We shared a closeness, but nothing that could be mistaken as dating. Snape could watch me walk with Owen all he wanted, but never would he assume that Owen and I would jump each other if my relationship with my boyfriend should fall through. 

"So what was he texting about?" Owen eagerly pressed, "Snape. What was he texting you about?"

I could feel my face grow hot again. "It really isn't important. He just told me that he thinks I'm cool from that one time that we briefly spoke," I divulged.

Owen led me up the stairs towards our class. "When did you guys actually meet?"

"It was just while I was with Clementine. She took me to meet Ryan. He and Snape hang out, I guess, so he was there and we talked about our departments and /stuff/." I half-whispered.

Owen's eyes widened. "What kind of… stuff?"

"It's not important," I dismissed.

"Like hell it's not," Owen ragged.

"Owen," I groaned, "fine. If you want, I'll tell you, but it can't become common knowledge unless Snape shares it with everyone himself. I don't want him to think that the Prince and Princess are a couple of bitches." It often occurred to me that he and I sounded pretentious when we referred to ourselves in this way, but it was originally an inside joke and became widely accepted within the school.

"Okay, fine," he accepted.

"But, if I tell you now, you won't want to go to class," I sighed.

"Bitch, are you saying that you want to go to that class?" he gasped.

I thought about it for a moment. On one hand, I didn't want my GPA to drop. But on the other, that teacher tortured us to no end. I constantly faced his misogynistic views and both of us suffered because we did not perfectly match his black male ideal. True, Owen may have been male, but this teacher didn't care. He treated both of us equally as shitty. We both had his class the previous couple years, so we knew very well the consequences of being in that class. "Well. No. Let's go to the theater," I suggested. Before anyone could see us, we scurried up to the second floor to sneak in the balcony. "So the thing about Snape," I addressed, "he basically said that to him, knives are a turn-on"

Owen gave me a blank stare. "Wait. Like. /Sexually/?" he asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "But I don't think he's ashamed or anything. He volunteered that information pretty easily, so I don't think this is actually scandalous information. But at the same time, it's not something that you go around telling people about."

Once we approached the top theater door by the soundbox, we soundlessly pulled the door open to reveal the cool darkness of the empty theater and crawled in just in case someone stood on the stage. Once we deemed that we were alone, we relaxed. "You don't think that him saying that was a cry for help, right?" he inquired.

"I'm not sure I follow…" I began.

"Bitch please," he interrupted, "maybe he needs a freaky nasty bitch to satiate his wet dream."

I felt my face grow hot. "Um. I don't think it's like that. He doesn't seem like the type," I protested.

"What do you mean?" he pressed. "Why would he say anything, then?"

"I don't know," I groaned. "He just seems like…" I wracked my brain for an example. "I don't know how to explain it," I confessed. "I guess," I began, "he seems like he's sexual, but not /slutty/."

Owen looked puzzled for a moment. "I guess I see what you're saying."

I made it my goal to keep my attraction to Snape a secret, even from Owen. Owen wandered amongst his other friends, my enemies. I couldn't risk having Owen turn into a double agent. "Yeah, so I don't know how much luck Alexa's gonna have trying to get with him," I sighed, "or anyone for that matter."

"Well, they'll have some trouble going through his girlfriend, too," Owen replied.

My heart sank. "Snape has a girlfriend?" I asked, trying to mask my horror.

"You didn't know?" Owen gasped.

My eyes narrowed. "I met him /a few days ago/. And I only talked to him for a /couple minutes/," I stressed. "His girlfriend never came up in conversation." Much like my boyfriend never came up in conversation.

"Oh," Owen responded, "she didn't? Well, I guess it's not that big of a deal. He dates that little one with the emo glasses."

"The little mallgoth chick?" I asked to make sure we were on the same page.

"Yeah," Owen confirmed.

I saw this little girl a few times before and even met her once. I suppose I just assumed that they were friends kind of like Owen and I. I seethed over their relationship. I couldn't take her seriously and predicted that their relationship wouldn't last long. He was quiet and refined. She was obnoxious and somewhat trashy. "Ah, okay. I know who you're talking about. Sweet girl."

"She idolizes you, you know," he confided.

"Really?"

He nodded. "It's kind of adorable. She always says that she wants to be you when she grows up."

My heart softened just a tad. "That is adorable," I agreed. But I still had the heart to pray their bond away and worm my way in.

I tried to be civil to others when I met this boy. I tried to tell myself that my attraction to him meant nothing and I would just ignore it until it disappeared. Soon, misty mornings rolled on by and burned off into sunny pollenated noons where he and little Miss Mallgoth went for lunchtime strolls. She always unconsciously taunted me, waved him in my face, traipsed around with him hand-in-hand as she broadcasted that they would be making out later in the day during a free period. Although I'm sure now that I imagined that part. She managed to always turn my stomach in knots and I would try so hard to be just as civil as before and hold back from throwing punches, bitch slaps, names, anything. But I didn't have the heart to think completely ill of her. Maybe we would have been friends had she dated someone- anyone- else. Why should I even care? There was no logical reason for me to be this invested. My boyfriend of five years always picked up the phone when I called. He may have lived three timezones away and may have lacked the intense beauty that graced this wonderful boy, but he had been around longer. This boy, however beautiful and however much I wanted him, was meant to be only a phase, I continuously told myself. Especially after last time I got a crush on someone who wasn't my boyfriend. But he continuously persisted even if by accident.  He wore on me like a strange hunger, gnawing at my heart and devouring me bit by bit.

I began to feel a strange need. Yes, maybe I wanted him, but there seemed to be another pull atypical of what people normally aspire to do with the object of their affections. I felt a strange need to want to be by his side, always there for him. I wanted to be able to hold him in my arms if ever he became upset. I wanted to show him all the beauty that I knew to exist in this world. Because providing him with these wonders would in turn, supply me with endless joy, if only he would have me. But he would, I could tell. He would because I wanted him to. Because I knew how to make him want me.