Chapter Text
“I want,” she says. “That’s my problem. I want and I want and I want.”
“What do you want?” (...)
“ Everything. Charm me. Rip me open. Ruin me. Go too far.”
—Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne.
Chapter 1: These violent delights
Becky
“Now, you two, split up!”
Linda and I were both covered in blood as the teacher gave this shout and interfered between us. She jolted while trying to avoid our attempts to still reach one another to do something like rip our hair off, but even then an elbow -she couldn’t determine of which one of us and of course we didn’t want to assume responsibility on it neither- hit her nose, inadvertently throwing her to the floor as well.
“What the hell is wrong with you two?” Ten minutes later, miss Guiterrez, the gym teacher, was placing an ice pack on her face. Her expression was way too calmed for it to be nothing but severely contained anger. I’ve seen it on way too many people in my lifetime by now to know that.
My face was mildly stiff because of the dry blood, and by one quick glance at Linda I was able to tell that hers was too. We were both silently looking down to the floor and the teacher was not having it.
We got startled by the sound of the ice pack being thrown to the table of her office.
“I want someone to start answering me now.”
“Professor, we’re sorry.”
I practically didn’t notice the way my jaw dropped as I turned my head to my right to look at her. Was Linda Murray actually apologizing?
“It’s never going to happen again.” She continued, “We promise.”
The teacher seemed to balance the outcomes in her head to know how much trouble this was going to cost her in the future, but there was a final sigh of resignation as she placed the ice on her nose again.
“What about you, Barnes?”
I blinked. “Oh, of course, professor. We… promise.”
The teacher rolled her eyes. “Get out of here and go wash your faces, for God’s sake.”
I couldn’t believe that we got out of that situation that easily, and I wondered if these would be the benefits of associating myself with Linda Murray, even if it just was in this particularly strange and circumstantial period in time.
Linda Murray. There is a certain rhythm in the pronunciation and calligraphy of that name that I cannot believe I’m allowing myself to notice. A certain aura, if you will. Being around her is like being surrounded by some holy smoke you can’t describe and least catch in a bottle. Then you wake up and you realize you were but in a fever dream.
Except this isn’t a fever dream, but I am actually and purposely feeding these thoughts about Linda.
Did I just call her Linda and not Linda Murray?
Fuck.
But I tried to remind myself, at times like these, that we were spending way too much time together against our will. Was it really that surprising we ended up having a physical fight in the detention room? Can’t blame a cat for walking on fours and meowing.
Still, I tried to reach for Linda while we were getting out of the teacher’s office. But she was fast and determined to avoid me.
“Hey, I—” I stepped backwards while sensing the door of the bathroom being shut on my face.
The sound of the drain reached my ears while I waited, resting my shoulder on the wall.
Linda stared at me when she opened the door to get out of the toilet. That look seemed eternal, and I couldn’t determine one single thing behind her dead rock expression. Then she started to wash the blood out of her face and hands in the lavatory.
I walked to her, “So you’re not speaking to me?”
She looked at me and shrugged with a gesture that said, what does it seem?
The anger settled for a while in my chest before gathering the courage to let it out, and she was already by the door, on her way out, when I did it:
“Fuck you!”
She turned around almost in slow motion after hearing it. For a moment I feared that — oh God this girl could actually fucking kill me, but when she talked her voice sounded even gentle:
“You know what, Becks? This is the best for both you and me and you know it. Let’s stop trying to pretend this Breakfast Club meets Grease or whatever the fuck we were doing, and just ignore each other until this nightmare is over.”
“What if I don’t want to?” I asked. I was unsure if I had decided to give that step towards her or if it was some strange gravitational phenomenon suddenly affecting us.
She breathed deeply once before saying something. Her eyes were dancing around before laying on mine.
“We can’t always get what we want.” It upset me that she sounded so upset — redundancy needed. But before I could reply, she looked down for a sec and added, “You got some of my blood on your shirt, I think.”
I clang to the look of her long after she was gone of the room. And I couldn’t really process her words and start to wash myself until minutes later. Did I just really say that? What if I don’t want to?
What did I precisely not want?
And what did I want?
Of course, this was only the beginning of a realization I wasn’t even remotely close to admit yet, and it was that I was falling in love with Linda Murray. And that she was falling in love with me.
But Linda was smarter than me and she realized this before I could find the words to express it, and as anyone can imagine out of such a situation, violent delights can only have violent ends. But there is something beautiful in not being able to look away from a car crash, isn’t it?
And who am I to defy love?