Note: it's so weird coming back after...years of being away. Everything I write is nearly completely AU. This is a rework of Heart of Glass because I don't really want to pick it up again after five years, so instead I'm starting over. I'm also a huge crackshipper.
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When opposites attract, chemicals react. -— Cassie
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Walking through the halls and having everyone watching her was something that Massie Block had grown accustomed to, though it used to be for a very different reason. People used to envy her, but now they just pitied her. Massie pretended not to notice a particular pair of girls standing at the end of the hall in front of a locker that she knew was hers. She was a senior at Westchester Academy, the high school that everyone from Briarwood Academy and Octavian County Day School usually attended unless they got accepted into some other private, east coast high school where the tuition was even higher than Westerchester's. Most of the students at Westchester Academy kept the same locker throughout all of their schooling, but Massie hadn't been so keen to keep the locker that was rigged to be right in the middle of the group of her old friends — The Pretty Committee, they called themselves.
"Hey Olivia," Massie says quickly as she spots the blond making her down the hallway, throwing out her arm in an attempt to stop the girl as her eyes refuse to move from the white iPhone screen that she seems to have glued to her hand.
"Watch out, Massie!" Olivia says as they collides with her, appearing deeply offended. "Oh my gosh, I almost died. What do you want?"
"I heard that Claire let you in their little group," Massie replies coolly, purposely avoiding calling it 'The Pretty Committee' for obvious reasons. "Wouldn't it be cool to have a locker near them?"
"Oh my gosh, yes!" Olivia's eyes are lit with excitement and she begins to look at Massie expectantly. Olivia Ryan had never been the brightest tool in the shed, but she was by far one of the prettiest with her all-American bright blond hair, sparkling blue eyes, and pouty pink lips. Massie had never really paid any attention to her because Olivia never seemed to be a person with actual substance, but she did have her uses.
"Did you want to switch?" But Olivia was already nodding her head rapidly before the question even left her lips, which was a relief to Massie. Olivia quickly scribbled down her locker number and combination whilst Massie did the same and took off not long after towards the growing group of girls where Massie's locker used to be. Where she used to meet with her friends every morning. But right then Massie did not feel the longing that she had harbored in her chest all summer, but she did feel a growing sense of dislike for the group of girls. She could feel their eyes watching her as she slowly walked past them and up the stairwell that led to the second floor.
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The funny thing about breaking up is that it happens all of the time, but Cam Fisher never thought that it was going to happen to him. He had been a really good boyfriend, if his opinion was asked, anyway. Cam was attentive, passionate, loving, and he cherished Claire like he was sure Derrick didn't. But after nearly three years together, she left him like shit on a doorstep. The reason had been simple: she didn't feel the same about him anymore. But the truth was, he wasn't sure if she thought that he had ever been good enough for her, or if he had been a part of her master plan to take over the world or something along those lines.
"It's been like a year, dude," Josh Hotz tells him, clapping Cam on the shoulder roughly. "Things will be better this year, I promise."
"I'm over it," Cam says to him with a small eye roll, but Josh knows better. Cam thought that he was over Claire, but that was before she started throwing herself all over Derrick Harrington, his best friend at the time, and her best friend's boyfriend at the time. At the time, Cam had mostly been angry. Derrick had asked Cam about whether or not it was okay to start dating Claire, and of course he couldn't refuse. At least he'd tried to be a good friend.
"Come on, I don't want us to be late on the first day," laughed Josh as he took up the steps of Westchester Academy. Cam quickly followed suit and pushed Claire out of his mind as he made his way to the second floor just behind Josh and nearly tripped over the last step, spilling some of the contents of his bag. "Don't die on me now, Fisher," Josh chuckles as he continues on down the hallway with a grin on his face.
"I'll meet you in first period, Hotz." Cam reached down to pick up the few folders, notebooks, and pens that people usually brought on their first day of school, but not before he heard the sound of something else falling to the floor beside him. It wasn't something that he had been expecting, but the owner seemed to not notice that it had fallen since she continued on down the hallway with her chestnut colored hair waving like a flag in the wind behind her as she rushed up the second half of the stairs at a trot. The object — a keychain by the look of it — was silver and had just enough room for a small, circular picture that held the small, black face of a pug that he'd come to know over the last couple of years.
"Hey!" he shouts as soon as he's collected all of his papers haphazardly in his arms, but the girl that he knows to be Massie Block is already at the other end of the hall, fiddling with a locker that he knows doesn't belong to her. He checks his leather G-Shock — he has a couple minutes to spare, he decides, and makes his way towards her. "Excuse me," he says, tapping on her shoulder. She spins to face him, seemingly surprised that someone would bother her at this time. Of course, he knows what happened between her and the rest of her friends — the whole school, knows in fact — but he's still surprised to see that she's not with the rest of them downstairs. "Breaking into Olivia's locker?"
"We switched lockers," Massie said matter-of-factly, giving him a rather curious look, almost as if she didn't completely trust him. Cam didn't blame her either, especially after what happened last semester. For some reason, it didn't surprise him that she switched lockers with the only person who would have wanted to switch with her. "Why do you care?"
"Mine's here too." Cam makes a show of putting in the combination to his locker, which is only one down from hers, and yanks it open as if to say, 'I'm not lying.'
"Cool." Massie turns her back to him and continues to take down the pictures that Olivia had taped on the inside of the locker door. She looks tense, he can see that much. She doesn't look really look like she wants to interact with him — or anybody, for that matter — at all.
"Hey, I found this," Cam says to her suddenly, holding out the keychain that she dropped earlier as she closes the door to her locker. She looks down at his hand almost as if she can't decide if she wants the picture of her prized pug or not, but ultimately, slowly, takes it from him.
"Thank you." He can barely hear her voice over the roar of the swelling crowd but tells her that it was no problem. Cam isn't sure if he heard her either, though, because as soon as he gets a word out, her back it facing him once again and she's already making her way down the hall to her first class of the day. He doesn't mean to stare, but he can't help but think that Massie looks a little bit out of place. She used to be the Alpha of the school with girls following her down the hallways and wanting to copy everything that she did, but over the course of a few short months, Massie was walking down the hallways of Westchester Academy alone, clutching the books in her arms with her head slightly bowed as if she doesn't want anybody to notice her. It kind of reminds him of someone he used to be.
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The first three periods of the day pass without much event. She hides in the bathroom during lunch because she knows that if she walks out into the café, she would have nowhere to sit. It would mostly just be a painful reminder than nothing is permanent. Massie knows that her luck can't last forever, and she soon finds that all of her old best friends were in her final class of the day: AP English Literature. Massie elects to sit somewhere in the middle of the classroom near the windows. She knows that if she sits in the back, the new 'Pretty Committee' will surround her and make her suffer for it, and if she sits in the front, she'll get called on for questions more than she would like.
Unsurprisingly, Claire and Derrick walk to the back of the class hand-in-hand. Massie pretends not to notice as Claire blatantly glares at her and Derrick's cheeks burn red, almost as if seeing her makes him feel some sort of embarrassment, and maybe a little bit of sadness. At least, that's what Massie likes to think. Kristen, Alicia, Dylan, and Olivia are close behind the couple, taking up the entirety of the back row. It's not long before Massie sees that their whole group of friends is in this class, and she can't help but feel a little bit disappointed as she spots the Briarwood Alumni enter. Massie turns her face to the window, desperately hoping that class is cancelled for the rest of the year as she hears a chair scraping the ground just behind her.
"Welcome to AP English Literature," the teacher says to them, as all teachers do on the first day. He takes their attendance and Massie can hear Claire and the rest of her group snicker at the sound of her name. He begins to go over the usual first day dribble and Massie is already nearly nodding off. Her head rests on the back of her hands as she tunes out the teacher, but she can still hear the girls giggling in the back of the room. "Can you quiet down back there, girls?" the teachers asks them, making them all fall silent; even they know that they wouldn't be able to dissuade the teacher from kicking them out of class and making them look like the fools. "Claire, can you tell me about 1984?"
"I wasn't born yet," Claire replies with a small laugh, thinking that the teacher had merely been trying to make a joke about whatever he had been talking about before. Massie hears Cam scoff behind her and suppresses a small smile. At least everybody isn't in love with Claire, Massie thinks to herself.
"I'm referring to the book that was on your summer reading list," the teacher tells Claire, who frowns a little. "I thought not. Well, we're going to be sorting into groups to create projects from the list on the first page of your syllabus detailing reflecting some of the books you were supposed to read over the summer."
Panic flooded Massie's innards and she resisted the urge to look around the room to see who would partner with her, because nothing was more embarrassing than having to tell the teacher that you haven't got a partner because nobody would want to partner with you. She bites her lip, but she hears the teaching continue: "I will be picking the groups."
The class groans, but Massie feels a slight sense of relief, though the feeling does not offset the dread she can feel in the pit of her stomach. The assignment is being handed out, along with the partner pairings that will be and Massie can't bring herself to flip over the piece of paper that she has in front of her.
"Ew, you're with Massie," Claire groans with disgust in the back of the classroom, but the teacher doesn't seem to notice Claire anymore as he answers the questions of some other girl that Massie had never bothered to learn the name of. Who's with me? Massie wonders. It could be anybody in the back of the room, but she doesn't know who would be the worst of the lot. The knot in her stomach tightens unpleasantly as she turns her paper over.
Derrick Harrington
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note: so yeah, i'm pretty excited about this haha. reviews are nice!