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“Did you know…?” Clara asked with a chuckle, her feet dangling on one of the swings in the park, she couldn’t remember when the last time she was here was, but Vee found the idea of the swings so wonderful that the blonde girl just couldn’t say no to this.
They were lots of things she wasn’t able to deny Vee and whatever she asked, she got it. Clara knew very well why she did all of this, but Vee was rather oblivious and maybe that was for the best.
“Yes?” Vee asked, flopping her ears and blinking in that particular way of hers, there was no need to hide the traits of her real identity when Clara was at her side.
The girl in question blinked, realizing the basilisk was still waiting for her to finish the sentence; she faked a cough and continued:
“Did you know that Luz could have kissed me once?”
To her utter surprise, the monster-girl (it was the cute nickname she chose for her and Clara still remembered the first time she used it and the way Vee looked at her) choked on her own breath, then a multitude of white spots appeared on her noticeable blushing face, then opened her mouth to say something, then simply stayed there, unmoving.
The cheerleader was about to slap herself for that dumb attempt at small talk: she had been trying to find a way to express her deeply complicated feelings for the basilisk for over three weeks now and not once she had the result she expected.
Maybe Vee just wasn’t interested in her, she tried to say to herself, but then she would see the way she glanced and blushed at her, the multiple giggles she did when she was around. Those couldn’t just be coincidences, right?
Maybe (and this was a strange but concerning possibility), basilisks weren’t allow to fall for humans, maybe it wasn’t in their nature, maybe Camila had a rule against any sort of relationship or perhaps the real Luz didn’t want to deal with unexpected problems once she returned to Earth.
Which also brought the question: What the hell was Clara suppose to do once Luz got back? And what about Vee? Would she just go back to the demon realm, leaving her behind?
Well, Vee had other friends here too besides her, but for once Clara decided to be selfish and focus on her own feelings.
Would the basilisk stay if she was asked to? If Clara extended her hand and pleaded her to remain at her side, would Vee accept? Or this was just one of her multiple fantasy scenarios and Vee would just return to her world, without glancing at the girl who obviously liked her far too much?
“I… didn’t know that” Vee finally replied “Tell me about it”
Thank God for the basilisk’s sweet voice Clara thought, knowing too well she had to stop fantasizing about her crush.
“Well, she was trying to get the part of Juliet in our classroom’s Romeo and Juliet play, but…”
Clara kept explaining, lost on her own memories:
She talked about the absolute mess Luz made in the tryout, not only making an absolute gory scene involving sausages and fake blood, but the worst part was that she didn’t even say her words right!
“She shouted ‘Oh happy dagger, give me death!’ but Juliet never says that!” Clara said energetically.
Vee was looking at her with even more attention now and the cheerleader couldn’t help but blush intensely when she noticed her gaze, she gulped, doing her best to ignore how cute her crush (friend, she’s just a friend!) looked under the spring sunlight.
“Anyway, pretty much everyone rejected her after that, but I walked to her and told her she could still try to get the Romeo part if she really wanted to participate…”
The way Vee sighed at that told Clara she probably knew what she was going to say.
“But then she told me she was just doing it because her Mom told her theatre was a normal thing to do at her age”
Vee was still silent when the blonde girl commented:
“Luz was making an effort to fit and I was so stupid to ignore that, I ended up pushing her away, just like everyone else”
“But you tried to help her, you just said that” Vee countered.
“Well, maybe I should have tried harder” Clara replied “If I had, then she would probably be here, living a normal human life”
Vee started to fidget nervously and looked down, asking:
“So would you prefer Luz to be here instead of me?”
“What? No!” Clara panicked “I’m just worried about her, I thought I could be the friend she needed, but that doesn’t mean I want her to replace you”
“But that’s exactly what I’m doing, Clara” Vee said sorrowfully “I’m living her life, pretending to be her”
“But you’re not her! You’re a totally different person”
“Basilisk” Vee corrected with a frown “And you’re just one of the few people who know the truth, to everyone else, I’m still Luz Noceda”
“Well, you and I know the truth” Clara said, taking the other girl’s hand suddenly “And the truth is that you’re such as unique and special as Luz”
“Oh…” was the only thing Vee said in return.
They spent the next minutes swinging side by side, the conversation seemingly long forgotten, Vee had a pensive face on, obviously she was thinking about something too hard and Clara blamed herself for what she said.
She just told her that anecdote because she wanted to…
Well, what she wanted didn’t matter anymore.
“Clara, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure” the blonde girl said, happy to hear her voice again.
“Who are Romeo and Juliet?”
It was Clara’s turn to say:
“Oh…”
After a rather quick explanation, Vee seemed to grasp the core concept of the play, but she kept asking questions:
“But why did they fell in love if their families were enemies?”
“Well, I guess no one can choose who they’ll fall in love with” Clara said, avoiding the basilisk’s look.
“Why is it written so weird?” the basilisk questioned, reading a scene of the play on Clara’s phone.
“It was the way things were written in the past, it was the way Shakespeare wrote it”
“Who’s that?”
“The author of the play”
“Uh-huh” The magical creature said, not even caring about that piece of information “How far in the past?”
“Like 400 hundred years back?” Clara replied, shrugging.
Vee opened her as eyes as big as plates at that and gave her friend one of her most radiant smiles.
“Humans actually live that long?”
“No, actually…”
“Can you imagine?” Vee said, barely paying attention to the other girl “400 hundred years of human adventures and friends and ice creams and you and me!”
“Y-y-ou an-and m-me?” Clara stuttered.
“Yes and Camila and school, and the coffee shop and…”
“Vee… Humans don’t live that long” Clara said, putting her hands on both of the other girl’s shoulders “You didn’t know that?”
“But you said that Shakespeare guy…”
Clara smiled and explained patiently what she meant, she talked about literature and history, about universal classics and drama, plays, authors and movies, musical instruments and science and technology and…
When she was done, she clarified again that no, humans didn’t live that long, but some of them were still alive thanks to their creations. Like Romeo and Juliet.
“You seem to really like that story”
Clara nodded with a grin.
“Yeah, but I was never able to play the Juliet part, after the incident with Luz, the School Council decided to shutdown the play and… Well, everyone got mad at her for that and I ended up with a sky blue dress that I never used again”
“You’d have liked to be on the play?”
Clara sighed, her eyes lost in a specific fantasy…
“Yeah, I’d love to…”
“To kiss Luz?” Vee interrupted her.
Then Clara choked on her own saliva, while Vee rushed to her side and pat her back. She didn’t have an idea of what human culture was, but at least Camila taught her something about first aid…
“You got it all wrong!” Clara shouted between breaths and the basilisk took a step back, surprised. When she remained silent, Clara knew she had to continue:
“No, what I’d love was to get a part on the play and I only mentioned Luz kissing me because I wanted to… to…”
“To what?”
“It doesn’t matter” Clara said, turning her back.
“Of course it does!” Vee insisted “Whatever you say, I promise it matters!”
Tears started to dwell on the cheerleader’s eyes, she couldn’t she just couldn’t do this. Not when she knew Vee had to go back to demon realm at some point and she would stay here on the human side, trapped, without being able to confess that…
“It matters a lot!” Vee said, trying to get to her.
Vee was going to hate her for this, she was going to make fun of her and tell her she was insane and she was going to run back to her house and tell Camila to shut down the door and never let her in anymore.
Or even worse, she was going to misunderstand the whole thing, again, and think she was talking about the real Luz, that she was harboring this stupid, unrequited, impossible to bare feelings for the human and not for her kinder, cuter, happier basilisk counterpart…
“It matters to me!” Vee insisted once more.
Oh, damned her and her way with words. Clara thought, before turning around and pouring her heart out in a single sentence.
“I want you to be my Romeo, Vee!”
“What?” the other girl asked; evidently confused.
“I want you to sing to me under the moonlight, to tell me sweet words in an almost forgotten language, to compare me with the sun itself…”
“Is that from…?”
“The whole thing is from Romeo and Juliet” the cheerleader said with a dry chuckle “And when you have to leave back to your world, all I want to do is tell you that parting is such a sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow…”
When her finished her speech and saw the way Vee was looking at her, Clara gave up on the whole thing. Obviously Bee didn’t feel the same way. Her stupidity and need for a love story just cost her the most special friendship in the whole universe…
“Sorry, I overreacted, right?” Clara said, dropping to the floor.
Vee just stood there, without even blinking.
“And I know that all I said, all I ask and want from you, I know it’s just too much, that’s something I just can’t get, because…” The blonde girl insisted, not caring about her own tears anymore.
“Because I’m a monster?” Vee finally reacted, white specks of sadness and fear appearing all over her face.
“Because I don’t deserve you” Clara countered, getting up in a flash and cupping the basilisk’s cheeks “I don’t deserve your forgiveness for the things I did, your utter optimism and the unique way you see human lives and the smiles you give me every day, I don’t deserve you to be my Romeo…”
“Is that…?”
“No, Vee” Clara interrupted with a little smile “That’s not from Romeo and Juliet, that’s coming from…”
There is no turning back now, is it? Her brain accepted.
“…My own heart” she completed.
In that moment, Vee took her hands and rubbed her fingers softly, she gave her the warmest of smiles and time stopped.
When nothing else happened and Vee didn’t make another move, Clara couldn’t cointain herself and asked:
“So? What do you say?”
“I’m thinking…”
“About?”
“What to respond!” the basilisk girl said “You just said a lot of cute things, things that no one, not even Camila or Luz told me, you made me feel warm with every word you just said and I’m trying to think what to respond, but I don’t know, I don’t know how to!”
“You need time to process, then?”
“It’s not that! Give me!” she shouted, snatching the phone from Clara’s pocket.
She spent too many minutes scrolling up and down, reading and re-reading, the cheerleader could actually see how her white spots appeared and faded way, a clear signal that whatever was on her mind was too important.
She finally gave up, her shoulders falling at the sides of her body, then shouted:
“It’s useless!”
“What is it?”
“The words of your play! All the things Romeo says to Juliet, you probably know them all!”
“I do” Clara admitted.
“Then what’s the point in being your Romeo?” Vee said, reaching for the other girl’s hands again “If you know those words I need to find new ones to tell you how I feel, but I don’t know!”
“You don’t know how you feel?”
“I don’t know how to say it! Let me try again, there has to be something here…” the basilisk said, looking at the phone again.
“What is going on?” Clara muttered.
“You don’t look like the sun …” Vee said, fast-reading “Why would someone say that? Your hands are warmer than the sun”
Clara blushed profusely at that, while Vee kept reading:
“And this whole thing with the hands of the saints?” the basilisk continued “Sounds like the Emperor talking about the Titan, why do you want to be compared with a saint, Clara? You’re real and you’re here, that’s all that matters to me…”
The cheerleader couldn’t deny that she was actually melting at that declaration.
“A rich jewel? What is this? You’re much softer than that!” Vee insisted.
Oh, now the red creeping on Clara’s face was impossible to ignore.
“A snowy dove? But you’re not white, you’re yellow, and pink and red sometimes and full of colors, never something as simple as white!”
Clara’s knees started to shake and she wasn’t even sure she could stop them.
“You know what? I can’t, I just don’t know which words to use…” Vee finally said, looking at the other girl “You’re just too…”
Clara smiled.
“Perfect!”
And then she started to cry. Vee rushed to her side and started to wipe the droplets of water away, desperately:
“I promise I’ll try to do better next time, Clara!” she said “I’ll try to find the right words to tell you…”
“You already said too much for today, Vee” the other girl replied, pecking her cheek.
The basilisk froze at the sudden attack and whispered:
“Did I, because I can find another way of telling you how much I like you… Wait, that’s it, those are the words, I like you!”
Seeing that Clara wasn’t responding, Vee insisted.
“I like you, Clara, I like you! Wait, they don’t say that in Romeo and Juliet, right?”
“Not in the way you said it, Vee…” Clara whispered, lying on the grass. She was so full of happiness, so tremendously thankful for this moment, that she barely realized Vee was lying right at her side, her real basilisk’s eyes sparkling with an otherworldly shine…
“Hey Clara?” Vee said a few minutes later, squeezing her friend’s (girlfriend? They needed to have a talk about some human words soon) hand.
“Tell me, Vee” the cheerleader said, squeezing back.
“Do you want to do the play you always wanted… with me?”
“No way” the other girl replied, to the basilisk’s surprise.
“I don’t think my heart can handle any more of your cuteness” she added, giggling.
“Oh… Wait, what’s cuteness?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Of course I am!” Vee exclaimed excitedly, giving the cheerleader a quick kiss on her forehead and watching how her face flooded with a red color…