Author: fraidy bat

Rating: T

Pairings: Olivia/Viola, Viola/Duke, Sebastian/Olivia

Summary: We see things from Olivia's POV, and all may not be well.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from She's the Man. None of it belongs to me.

Notes: Sorry this update took so long. I've spoiled you guys with all the quick updates. ;) This one is really heavy on the emotional reflection. Sorry if you get bored. The next chapter will be really important, so stick with me. :)

Chapter 7

The final paper for English Literature was kicking my ass, pure and simple. Sentences refused to gel into paragraphs, and therefore nothing made any good sense. Shakespeare was not something I was ever great with, and the constant inability to focus didn't help much either. I had erased and rewritten the same section of the paper at least four times, but it wasn't working no matter how hard I tried.

Yet there was Maria, sitting calmly at her desk in our room, typing furiously on her laptop. I thought maybe she was just on her instant messenger, but one look over her shoulder proved that she was only writing her paper (and writing it well). How can she find meaningful symbolism in Shakespeare when the world is ending? I asked myself, the now-familiar envy bubbling up inside me again. Maria hadn't been totally uninvolved with the Sebastian fiasco from the beginning of the year; she was the one who told me to go out with Duke to make Sebastian jealous. Even so, finding out that Sebastian was actually Viola didn't seem to bother her all that much. Besides her mild surprise, she regarded it more as one of those random, quirky things that happen sometimes. She even thought it was a little funny that I had been obsessing over a girl the whole time. And then, just like that, she was over it.

That was the reason for her total lack of awareness of my current issues with Viola and Sebastian and all of it. I silently wished (as I did so often now) that I could be that aloof and casual about it, but given my position in all of this, that was impossible. Of course it was easy for Maria to be indifferent. She wasn't the one who fell for Viola-Sebastian in the first place. So now I just glowered at the back of her head, listening to the sound of her fingers on the keyboard and wishing I could trade places with her. Then she'd have to be the one worrying about the sky falling and I'd be the one with an 'A' paper.

Heaving a long sigh, I turned back to my computer screen and prepared to try rewriting that section for the fifth time. Behind me, the sound of typing suddenly ceased.

"You're driving me nuts, you know," Maria remarked from where she was sitting. Taken somewhat aback, I turned to face her.

"Pardon?" I said, puzzled.

"All the sighing and frustrated noises and slow, slow typing?" she said wearily. "Your spazzing is completely wrecking my concentration."

Great, something else to feel guilty about.

"I'm sorry, Maria," came my weak and helpless reply. "The last week has been really hard with school and, um, finals coming…"

Maria's manner abruptly changed from tired and annoyed to one of keen interest, and she scrutinized me from across the room. Her eyes widened with something I could only interpret as understanding, or perhaps…vindication.

"Something happened with Viola, didn't it? That's why you've been such a nervous wreck lately," she triumphantly declared. After considering it a moment longer, she continued on with her assertions. "She found out about how you feel, right? Or maybe you told her…"

I was floored. It was a full minute before I could form words. "What—how did you—I never—" Even then, the words made no sense.

Maria rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Honestly, Olivia. You must think I'm stupid or something."

"No, I…"

"You don't think I haven't noticed that Viola is the only friend you've stopped talking about or that she doesn't come over here anymore? And all the crying you've been doing recently. The fact that Sebastian doesn't call, that the mere mention of Viola's name—look, you're doing it right now—makes you go all tense and jumpy." Maria paused to shake her head sympathetically at me. "Obviously, you thought I was clueless about this. Well, I'm not. You know, we used to be good enough friends that you would actually talk to me about what was going on in your life instead of trying to hide it from me."

When I couldn't say anything, she stood up and moved to sit on the edge of my bed so that she was closer to me.

"I hate to tell you, but I've been expecting this for a while," Maria said, eyes downcast. "I could see that you weren't over Sebas—I mean Viola, but you were in some pretty powerful denial. I kinda guessed that it would only be a matter of time before this exploded in you guys' faces. If I had to guess…you broke up with her brother, I think. That's what started this, right?"

I nodded, still unable to believe that Maria had known everything all along. Here I was trying to keep all of it hidden, and it was like she was reading it off a big sign stapled to my forehead. I hadn't told her about breaking up with Sebastian, but she'd figured it out anyway.

"You broke it off with him, and that led to all sorts of icky questions, and you ended up telling Viola that you still like her. And now you two really aren't speaking—I mean, I know you were avoiding her before, but now you've totally cut off all contact—because she didn't take it well. This is why you cry and don't talk about her ever and can't write papers and sigh all the time, and why I can't finish my thoughts about Shakespeare. Is that close to being right?"

"Yeah," I croaked. "You've pretty much got most of it."

Softening, she gave me a little smile. "What am I missing?"

"Um, Sebastian and I have sort of patched things up, and we're going to try to be friends," I began slowly. "Paul knows. He's the one who told me to tell everyone the truth."

"Ah, so it's his fault I can't concentrate," Maria joked.

I smiled despite myself and continued on. "Nobody else knows, especially not Duke, and that's pretty much it, except…"

"Except what?"

"Except…I kissed Viola."

Maria's mouth fell open. "Okay—that? I did not predict. I never would have thought you'd have the balls for that."

"I didn't! I don't! I have no idea why I did it, it just…happened. Right over there, actually," I said sheepishly, pointing to the wall by the door.

"In our room? What did she do?" Maria exclaimed, gawking at the place I'd indicated.

"Nothing. I had just told her the truth, and we were fighting, and then—bam. I kissed her, and she just stood there. I literally ran away."

Comprehension dawned on Maria. "Oh, that was why you were gone all night."

"Yep."

Silence fell on us then as we both turned our thoughts over, trying to make sense out of it.

"What should I do?" I said finally, not really expecting an answer. It just felt better to ask.

Maria took a deep breath and let the air out slowly. "I think—and this is just me—I think you and Viola need to work this out. She has a boyfriend, and as far as I know, she's not bisexual, all cross-dressing aside. You guys have the same friends and go to the same school, so you're going to have to deal with her sooner or later. Yeah, it sucks, but you should find a way to move on from this and be friends again. That way, we might both be able to pass our finals next week."

I rested my forehead on my hand. Working things out with Viola was much easier said than done. I nodded anyway.

"You're probably right, Maria." I glanced at my computer screen. "I think we can get back to work now. I promise I'll try not to sigh and make frustrated noises."

"Good." She stood up to go back to her laptop and gave my shoulder a squeeze. Before long, the room was filled with the sound of her typing again, and I did my level best to think only about Shakespeare and not about how in the hell I was going to resolve this thing between Viola and me.

The typing stopped momentarily. "It'll be okay, Olivia."

Maria had meant it to be comforting, but I didn't feel any less discouraged.

"I expect your papers on my desk by the end of the period on Wednesday, okay? Everybody clear on that?" Ms. Greenberg called out over the noise of students packing things up to leave for lunch. We grumbled our understanding of the infernal English Lit. paper's due date and trudged from the room. The hall was already full of people making their way to the cafeteria. I went with the flow, but I didn't feel much like eating.

I'd read a little about depression in school, and a cousin of mine was depressed once and had to take medication for it, but for my whole life up to this point, I couldn't remember ever having felt anything like the way people described depression. It had been one week and about 36 hours since the Saturday night of the concert, the Saturday night when I had told Viola that I had feelings for her and, because of temporary insanity, kissed her. That meant that it had been one week and about 36 hours since I last spoke to Viola. I did everything I could not to see her or even be in the same room with her. If I spotted her walking down the same corridor I was, I turned around and went another way. If she was in the cafeteria, I skipped lunch that day. Not that I ate very much anyway.

I started to wonder if this was what it was like to be depressed. Getting out of bed to go to school was a major struggle; all I wanted to do was stay under the covers where it was safe and sleep. I cried in the same bathroom stall at the same time every day at school. It was easier to designate a time for bawling my eyes out than to give in and cry at all the random times during the day that I suddenly felt like weeping. When other people were around who didn't know anything about my Viola Problem, I put on a brave, happy face and did my best to be "normal" Olivia. But I didn't feel brave, happy, or normal. I felt guilty, anxious (sometimes to the point of being physically ill), and something I can only describe as despair.

Countless times every day, I wished that I could just make everything and everyone else disappear, and it would only be the two of us. There would be no Duke, no Sebastian, no complicated issues of sexuality and labels, nothing but the person I met outside the headmaster's office…and me. I surprised myself with how certain I was that I didn't want Viola to be a guy again; I only wanted her to be Viola because Viola, the person, regardless of gender, was the one I wanted.

And I felt awful about that. I vacillated constantly between intense guilt and painful embarrassment. No matter how I tried to convince myself that this wasn't as catastrophic as I was making it out to be, it never worked. Pretending to believe that I had no reason to feel ashamed or humiliated got me nowhere.

It was a vicious, circular line of thought that always brought me back to the same place: I was in love with Viola Hastings, and she would never love me back the same way. And what was worse…she knew. We both knew. There was no taking that back, and it seemed pretty clear to me that there wasn't a way to simply erase her from my heart.

So I decided that this must be what that cold, dark place that some people go to when they feel pain so great that they just can't bear it anymore is like. Buried under the weight of something so heavy that you're helpless to get out from under it.

Yes.

Buried.

While the rest of the students veered right for the cafeteria, I took a left. I wasn't hungry, and my usual bathroom stall was starting to look pretty good. Just as I was about to clear the mass of people and break free, I heard it.

My name, ringing clearly over the noise of lunchtime chatter and hundred of footsteps.

"Olivia!"

I didn't turn to see who had called out my name. I knew who it was.

"Olivia, wait!"

I walked faster, aching to get to the girls' bathroom and lock myself in. I knew it was Viola. It didn't matter at all. I was crumbling under the weight of my feelings for her and everything they had already ruined, and maybe if I never saw her again, I might be able to avoid being totally destroyed.

The final bell rang, and not nearly soon enough. My elation at the thought of finally retreating to my room and holing up was short lived; it was only Monday, and I had four more days to get through. Then it was the weekend, and after that there would be four days of final testing. Then, winter break would arrive to sweep me up and take me away from Illyria for three glorious, Viola-free weeks. I was practically giddy at the thought. I only hoped that I wouldn't end up flunking all my finals.

I shouldered my bag and left the classroom. All the other kids in my class were taking the main hallway to exit from the front of the school. I started down one of the smaller corridors that lead to a back entrance. There were far fewer people here, and the chances of my running into Viola were slim. For the hundredth time, I felt like a coward.

I should take Maria's advice, I told myself. Most people, if they knew the details of the situation, would agree with her. I should do my best to work things out with Viola and find a way to be friends. It was the best solution for everyone. I just didn't believe I could do it, nor did I really think that Viola even wanted to.

You're still a coward.

But how could I be a coward when I had already had the guts to tell her the truth? To break up with Sebastian? To kiss her, for god's sake? Nothing made any sense. I only knew that I had reached my limit, and now was the time to turn tail and run my ass off to get away from the entire mess.

I wrestled with feelings of anger and shame, but I felt pretty good about my decision to take the back way out of school. She wasn't here; I was safe for one more day.

It's just too bad that I was very, very wrong.