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Life was full of choices. Decisions that had to be made one way or another. The problem was that sometimes it wasn't conscious and you found yourself on a path you never chose.
Margaery had never decided to fall in love with Sansa Stark. In fact she had made a very conscious decision that she wasn't going to get involved with any of that love nonsense until she was at least twenty-seven at the earliest (that wasn't to say she wasn't going to flirt and kiss and have a bit of fun but she definitely wasn't going to fall in love).
She'd met Sansa when she was eighteen and just freshly moved to the capital (Margaery was twenty and in theory an expert on life in the big city which was why she was asked to look out for her) and had instantly warmed to her. It was hard not to like a girl who seemed so innocent and naïve after all. At first she told herself that she was just looking out for the younger girl, being responsible by making sure she didn't get herself into any trouble. Not that that was easy, it was strangely hard to keep her out of the way of guys who'd only hurt her (she had the worst taste in men). And then suddenly they were friends, friends who hung out together all the time and came to each other first with silly stories and first for advice.
Margaery wasn't used to having female friends outside of her cousins. Most girls she met she flirted with and pulled; and some people seemed to struggle with transitioning to friendship after that for some reason. And it wasn't until she had Sansa that she realised how great it was to have friends outside of her family, that there were things she could tell her that she simply couldn't tell her cousins.
And it would have been great if things had remained like that but life is rarely that simple.
So it was one night as the two of them were sitting in their pyjamas watching a movie with Sansa's head resting on her shoulder that Margaery suddenly realised that she loved her. Not in the same way she loved her family but in a painful gut-wrenching way that she couldn't believe she'd never felt before. And she knew it was love because what else could make her chest hurt so, to make her entire world change in a second.
In stories and songs people always made love sound so amazing, like it changed their whole life for the better. It didn't feel like that to Margaery. It felt like her entire life had been tipped on an axis and nothing ever could be normal again. That she could never be happy again because Sansa was straight and she'd never feel the same way.
She tried to be the same. To be the same laughing, flirting, confident Margaery but she felt horribly like everyone could tell the difference. She so desperately wanted to be the same but it was hard to put on an act when she felt so different.
Loras noticed it first, it didn't surprise her really when they'd always been so in sync. But when he asked her if she was okay, whether something was wrong, she just smiled and told him she was perfect. It was the first lie she'd ever told him and it felt so wrong but she just couldn't tell him the truth then, she wasn't brave enough for that.
Margaery knew other people noticed too. There was something about the way they looked at her or acted around her that made her feel as they knew something was wrong. Or maybe she was just being paranoid. They didn't say anything though, they left her to her misery.
But she suffered through it. She listened to Sansa's stories about terrible date after terrible date and tried not to feel glad for her friend's suffering because at least this way no one else had her. She tried to laugh and joke around in the same way as before. She tried so hard and it only got more and more painful. She knew that the best thing would be to stop being friends with Sansa, to make a clean break but she couldn't do it, she couldn't be that brave – she needed Sansa too much.
She could have probably lived through anything, spent her life pining over her straight best friend. And maybe she wouldn’t be happy but she could survive it. Well apart from her brother asking Sansa out. If it'd been anyone else she wouldn't have blamed them but Willas should have known she was off limits – that even if Margaery hadn't been in love with her he shouldn't try and date one of her friends. She just couldn't understand how he could do this to her, how he could dare do this to her.
But she still did nothing. She bottled up her feelings inside her and watched as her brother dated the woman she loved. She couldn't stand it, she felt this horrible monster swell up inside her chest every time she saw either one of them and all she wanted to do was hurt something. She wanted to let it out somehow but she couldn't, she couldn't do that. She couldn't even cry, just in case someone walked in on her.
Until one day when she found herself curled up in her mother's arms and crying her eyes out. She didn't tell her anything but just let herself be held and hugged and loved. After all Margaery knew that her mother already knew, her mother knew everything. And somehow the unspoken advice she got helped her to know what she had to do. To give her the courage she had lacked for so long.
“Sansa,” she whispered, hands tying themselves in knots as they walked side by side through the park. “I think I love you. I mean only for a few years but I had to tell you before you see Willas again, before you went any further and it became too late to tell you. And it's fine because you're straight but I had to tell you before it ate me up any more.”
And all she heard was a slight embarrassed laugh, “you love me?” A slight touch on her arm and suddenly they were kissing.
And suddenly the world was sunshine again. Margaery didn't understand but somehow she didn't want to. She didn't need to understand when Sansa was kissing her like she'd always dreamed she would.
“Why didn't you tell me before?” Sansa laughed, “you should have told me before.”
And Margaery laughed back and kissed her again, not caring about any one else in the world. After all things were perfect again.