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BAZ
I never thought Simon would be good at keeping a secret. (You can’t blame me, he did spend a majority of our fifth year trying to convince the entirety of Watford that I was a vampire, I was only lucky that he didn’t really know he was right.) But we’ve been snogging for over a month now and he’s not blabbed it to the entire school. Or even to Penelope Bunce, which is the most impressive, because he tells her everything. It makes sense, for a long time she was his only confidant, and apparently sometimes felt like his only friend.
“What about Wellbelove?” I’d asked when he told me that just a few nights ago, splayed out across my bed with his head on my chest, fingers tracing abstract patterns across my skin.
“She didn’t like hearing about… well, most things.” I could hear the frown in his voice and my arm tightened around his middle. “Only the ‘normal’ things, like how classes were, things like that. She never really liked all the crazy missions the Mage would send us on, and she never really understood that stuff like Penny did. And she really didn’t understand me and Penny.”
“Have you told either of them about… this?” I wanted to hide how nervous I was to ask, but I’m still not sure I managed all that well. He leaned up on his elbow, looking down at me with his breathtakingly plain eyes.
“Not yet.” To my surprise, he seemed just as nervous to broach the topic. We really hadn’t talked about this, about what it was, we just. Did. Simon doesn’t like thinking about things, and I can’t say I’ve been jumping at the idea of labels and telling people. “D’ya… uhm.” He swallowed, eyes dropping to stare at the mattress. “I figured you wouldn’t - Didn’t really think you’d want me to, did I?”
The way he wouldn’t look at me, his words, it all made something constrict in my chest that I tried to ignore. I cleared my throat, eyes boring into the ceiling rather than looking at him, and gave one curt nod. “Best we didn’t.”
It still leaves that heavy feeling on my chest, remembering that night. The conversation, the first time we mutually decided to keep this a secret. He won’t tell Bunce, and I sure as hell won’t be telling Niall or Dev. And it’s all for the best, because the moment whatever this is becomes public knowledge it’s no longer just ours. It’ll become weighted down with expectations, with questions, with all of the shit we already carry day in and day out.
Every kiss already feels like it could be the end. I still anticipate the day he comes back and tells me he’s had his fun, but now it’s over. That he’s back with Wellbelove and they’re in love and already planning to marry. It feels so fragile as it is, I fear what happens if we add the weight of reality.
So, it’s a secret. Just between us, just behind this door. (And sometimes in the little hidden away corridors and corners we stumble upon. I think Simon realized how much of a thrill I feel when we do that, so he’s started seeking these spaces out just to steal me away to them in the middle of breakfast or dinner, even between classes.)
The difficult part is remembering that, to everyone else, we are still enemies. I have to check myself every time I look at him, make sure my face hasn’t gone too soft at the sight of him. He’s had to catch himself, too, and much more frequently it would seem. He’ll often glance over at me in the dining hall and quickly have to school his expression from that soft smile of his into a, albeit less heated than usual, glare.
The even more frustrating part is remembering that in our room when Penelope sneaks in. She and Simon are working on some project or another, and she claims that Simon gets too distracted when they work in the library. He doesn’t seem any less distracted in here, but after she realized I wasn’t going to tell anyone about her visits, she’s insisted on working here. And it’s so much harder in here, to remember to hate him. This is our space, where we don’t have to pretend.
Unless Bunce is around. Which she is today, again, for the fourth day in a row. I don’t know what project they’re working on, but I hope it’s finished soon. She’s hunched over Simon’s desk, while Simon sits on the edge of it and watches her scribble furiously at a paper. He’s got a book open in his hands, but I’ve not seen him look at it in the past hour. Every so often he’ll point to something and mumble under his breath, to which Bunce will purse her lips in consideration before erasing or marking something out.
He tells her something else before looking across the room at me, catching me watching him. His lips spread into one of his sly grins, and I think he’s trying to raise an eyebrow but his face refuses to contort in such a way and instead he’s giving me this ridiculous look with one eye halfway shut and his nose scrunched up a bit. I want to kiss his ridiculous face.
But I can’t. Because Bunce is right there, and if the past week is any indication, she’ll be here well into the night.
I sigh and stand, and feel Simon’s eyes on me as I stretch my back before grabbing my book bag.
“Where’re you off to?” He asks, watching me slip on my shoes.
“Library.” I answer shortly, afraid I’ll give it all away with just my tone of voice. Bunce doesn’t even look up as I walk to the door.
“Wait.” Simon catches my arm as I walk past the desk, pulling me to a stop right in front of him. “Do you still have a key to the kitchen?”
“Yes.” His face lights up and I can’t do it. Bunce is still scratching away at her paper, she’s not watching, so I let myself smile at the expression he gives me. It only makes him smile wider. “Why, Snow?”
“D’ya think you could nick something on your way back? We had to leave dinner early to start working.”
“What, didn’t manage to get your third helping?” I tease, and hope it doesn’t sound too fond. Or at the very least, that Bunce is too focused to pay us any mind.
Simon rolls his eyes, and that gesture is definitely too fond, because he’s still smiling. At me. He tries to stick out his bottom lip, which doesn’t quite mix with the whole smiling situation, but it’s still adorable. “Please?”
“Fine.” I make a show of rolling my own eyes and sighing. “I’ll be back in a couple hours, think you can survive until then?”
“I may manage.”
His hand is still on my arm and he uses it to pull me into him, kisses me, chaste and sweet, before letting go.
That is the moment I remember Bunce is right there, and she has turned away from her work to look up at us. Her eyes are wide behind the frames of her glasses, brows shot so far up they’re almost lost to her hairline. Simon realizes the mistake at the same moment I do, his eyes shift from me to Penelope and back.
“Shit,” he swears under his breath, but that’s the last I hear because I turn on my heel and rush through the door. I think I hear him call my name, I may even catch Penelope’s voice, but I’m halfway down the stairs before either of them even register.
I didn’t think Snow would be good at keeping secrets, and it turns out I was right. It turns out we’re both pretty shite at keeping secrets.