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From the moment they reached puberty, Marianne knew she was different from her sister. Dawn, always the merriest and prettiest of them all, attracted all stares and sighs of adoration. With her fair skin and bright blue eyes, her hair shining like the sun always styled effortlessly like those actresses of the TV, Dawn gained the title of “Princess”.

It really wasn’t an issue with her, she really liked her own rare goldish brown eyes and dark maroon hair. It was her own kind of beauty, her father always said when she once asked why people seemed to be enraptured with her younger sister’s looks. She liked what she saw in the mirror, how the clothes embraced her body without effort, how her face didn’t need an ounce of make up, as lots of her classmates seemed to need.

It wasn’t as if she cared about looks, too. She was aware that both sisters were blessed with natural beauty, but they weren’t braggy about it. Still, they were popular.

It was that popularity what called the attention of the most popular boy of her school, Roland.

He was what made all girls sigh and whine and cry and whisper on the hallways. Roland was always the man sought for the sports team and the first picked in PE class, the winner of the title of Spring Ball King two years in a row (she couldn’t believe it already has been two years since he came to her school). He was, what you call, perfect.

And he chose her. In fact, they met on the Spring Ball from two years ago, when she won the title of Queen and stood beside him on the stage set up in the gym. He had called her “beautiful” and “worthy of being Queen” and she immediately fell over heels for him. It was perfect, the power couple, and everyone parted their ways from the King and the Queen wherever they went.

She felt so beautiful and so full of life, like at last she was valid and fit into the school. She never felt jealous of her sister, but the feeling of being left out… it had been always somewhere in the back of her mind. But now she was Queen and was respected…

Until that Fateful day when all went sour.

She found out that Roland not only cheated on her, but had been doing so since almost the beginning of their relationship and everyone knew it but her. She found out when rumours and whispers of her boyfriend with his new lover floated to her ears, accompanied with snickers and comments about her… inability to satisfy her own lover.

She learned the hard way that teenagers were cruel and cowards and took every opportunity to bring down someone they feared. That same day she discovered what her year and a half boyfriend was doing while he was supposedly “studying”, and she also found out that a rumour about her virginity and inability to comply with her “girlfriend duties” had been brewing for a while.

When Dawn found her crying under her covers back at their house she didn’t have to ask what was wrong, as a friend told her about the rumours when her sister ran home in the middle of the lunch break.

But there was nothing that could help her dear older sister. Her love was crushed by a selfish prick and the whole school laughed behind her back, even in front of Dawn’s face. Roland still remained as the heartbreaker of school, the “hopeless romantic bachelor” every girl wanted to date, to prove their value, to do what the so called Queen wasn’t able to do.

When Marianne came back a week later, she came back stronger. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” she used to repeat to herself when she thought that no one heard her. The former Queen started to use make up, dark eyeshadow on her eyelids, a smokey eye that made her natural gold shade stand out even more than before. She cut her hair into a daring pixie cut and wore clothes that had nothing to do with her former “modest and princess-ish” style.

She was no longer the Queen, only Marianne. She became even more different, an outcast. People that didn’t get to witness the whole “Roland misunderstanding” usually asked Dawn how they were even related. That how on earth the girl that got detention three days in a row for fighting and always wore dark colours and had that dangerous glint in her eyes could be the older sister of the new refined Queen of the school.

When time passed and her last year of school came, Marianne was alone as always. No one dared to get near her; and even if the rumours about what happened with the King, warped and far from what really happened as they were, stopped and faded with time, she was still the pariah of the school. The fallen Queen, some dared to say. But those words couldn’t get to her, the skin too thick with scars of the past and her walls around her heart so high to let any damage pass through.

But inside she always felt less. She trusted no one, never let herself be swayed by any kindness showed to her. It wasn’t like she was cruel with people, but simply she didn’t take the time with pleasantries and smiles, not even fake ones. Dawn was the only one she cared enough to be herself with, and maybe Sunny, her sister’s best friend from childhood; but apart from them she maintained a strong face, cold as stone, all day around.

It was when winter was ending, shushed whispers about this year’s Spring Ball theme falling on her deaf ears, when she learned about the new librarian temporary substitute.

Marianne overheard it from some girls walking down the hallway to the cafeteria. They were laughing and snickering about how ugly and old and so not-sexy he looked, the disappointment clear in their voices.

Horny bitches,
the former Queen thought, but didn’t say anything about it. Maybe it was that puberty was slow on her, but she wasn’t as hormone-driven as her peers. She usually thought back at what happened with Roland, never with regret or shame but with anger. He daily pressured her to let their relationship go further but she never felt like it was right. She never felt ready or that “tingle in her tummy”, as the others girls said it was, like the world was spinning around him, or like her heart was in it when he pushed his tongue on her mouth.

She did have butterflies on her stomach, though. That’s what made her feel worse and what fueled her anger. She felt dirty for liking such a shallow boy that only wanted to brag in front of his buddies how he screwed the school’s Queen. To think that she almost gave into his desires… Fortunately, it all ended in time and she was saved from making the mistake of her life. And for that, she was grateful.

Thinking about that, Marianne completely forgot about the new librarian for the rest of the day. It wasn’t until the following week, when the Director decided that the best punishment for sending two guys to the infirmary was to help sort the new books that arrived in the Library, that she remembered what those girls said.

Those idiots deserved what came to them, but noooo. No one wants to hear that the most promising duo in their football team were sneaking in the girl’s changing room!

She was grumbling to herself on her way to the Library, one hand mindlessly scratching the new bandage on her left arm. She fought with nails and teeth, angry at those boys’ shameless smirks when they told her that no one would believe her.

Well, at least they won’t be go running around spying girls for a while, the thought almost made her swollen cheek hurt less.

Classes were already over when she found her way into a barely visited section of the main building, where the janitor storage was and also the place she was dreading the most right now- the Library. She didn’t have anything against books or culture, she used to read a lot when she was younger; but when she was with Roland it was like her time wasn’t hers and he consumed every little bit of free time she managed to have after finishing tons of homework and house chores, so she found herself reading less and less… And when her time was hers again, all she could see was romance everywhere.

It didn’t matter what kind of story she was reading, even if it was a mystery book or a thriller one with lots of guts and blood, there was always a helpless heroine falling head over heels with a stupid man. A damsel in distress, a useless sidekick, an at-first-strong-woman-but-that-when-falls-in-love-becomes-useless protagonist. It was always the same thing, always with the stupid thing about love and butterflies in the stomach and “everything is good at the end because they love each other”.

If she was a better at writing she would write a story with zero romance and strong female lead characters.

“Hello?” she called when she finally pushed open the heavy doors of the library. There was no one here, big surprise, as students in this wretched place preferred first hand smooching before actual studying and reading. “There’s someone here? I’m the detention kid,” she made a face at her words, and yelped when a sting on her bruised cheek hurt more than she expected. “I’m here to he-”

“No shouting, kid.” A deep voice said from behind her. She yelped again and turned to see a really tall man standing mere inches from her.

She later laughed at herself for being afraid, but in the moment she didn’t expect someone behind her nor such a deep voice. Wasn’t the librarian an old woman…?

“Who are…?” and then, realization came to her eyes. “Oh! It’s true! You are the substitute librarian! I completely forgot that the old lady from before had retired!”

The tall man in front of her cocked his head, slowly blinking his piercing blue eyes. She looked back at him, straining her neck to even get a glimpse of his face, her height only managing her to get her face at the level of his shoulders. For a few brief moment they looked at each other, Marianne expecting an answer.

She sighed and stepped back, still not having her answer. Awkward…, she thought.

Now that there was some space between her and the man she could hear the mean words of those girls from last week. Ugly, old and not-sexy, huh? The weird, silent man was not ugly in her honest opinion. Old? Yeah, maybe. He was definitely older than her, but by how many years? He had that kind of permanent scowl that made it difficult to discern someone’s age, but if she had to bet her money on it she would say he was on his mid-thirties. A small stub adorned his pointy chin, making him look even older than that, and a deep scar on the left side of his jaw made the librarian look like a dangerous person, and the ones scattered around his face only made it worse.

He had small squared glasses on, barely hiding sky blue eyes that looked at her with the same intensity, making her wonder what he saw in her bruised face. His hair, dark as a moonless night, was brushed back with gel or something like that, but a few strands of hair had decided to escape their confinement and were swinging in front of his eyes.

But ugly?

She thought again. She wouldn’t qualify him as “ugly”, only maybe too old and tired looking, but he wasn’t “ugly” at all. He wasn’t all smiles and sparkles as Roland, but-

He wasn’t Roland. Oh my God. Was that school’s ideal of beauty Roland? The mere thought made her flinch.

“So,” the man said taking a step back and putting even more space between them. His blue eyes seemed clouded now, like if a bad thought was passing through his mind. No wonder, Marianne thought, I’m the troubled kid. No one wants to spend time with a pariah. “You are the kid who’s going to help me with these?” He pointed to a big pile of brand new books with a long pale finger.

“My name is not “kid”, sir.” She answered and tried to cross her arms, but remembered too late that her left one was injured. The young girl made a face at that.

“And how may I call you then?” he arched an eyebrow, but looked down to her bandaged arm with a worried glint in the blue.

“Marianne,” she simply said, feeling a little self-conscious under his scrutinizing glance. Her clothes weren’t the best, now scratched and tattered after the fight. It was a shame, she really liked this black tights with little stars on them.

“All right, kid,” the man nodded and the girl felt her eye start twitching. Hadn’t he heard? She liked her name very much.

“Sir, I said my name is-”

“I heard you well the first time, kid,” as he approached the books to be sorted, he gave her a sideways glance, clear amusement on his face. “But you didn’t have the courtesy to ask for my name.”

She wanted to punch him in the face.

“And what’s your name then, sir?” the venom on her voice was obvious. He smirked and took the first pile of heavy looking books, his big hands seemingly able to carry a lot of weight.

“You can call me Bog, Marianne,” suddenly her name was the last thing she wanted to hear from this idiotic, stubborn man. “And now it’s time to work. I look forward to working with you all the time it takes to organize the library.”

Hah?

Marianne looked around her at the mess the place was. This wasn’t on the debriefing the Director gave her. She only had to help put the books on their places.

A loud sound startled her, realizing later that it was just Bog dropping the books on the table beside her. He made a gesture to them and kept the little smile on his lips as he stared her down through his little black squared glasses.

Marianne clenched her right hand, the uninjured one, repressing her escalating need to punch this man until she erased that patronizing smile from his lips.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Marianne blew a strand of hair that refused to stay in place out of her face. Her once “too-short-for-a-girl-like-you” pixie cut had grown into a quite messy mane of hair, too long to stay out of her face but too short to gather up in a ponytail. It was exhausting having to take it from her eyes every five minutes.

“Tired already?” she heard a deep voice behind her, but she didn’t have to turn around to see who it was. That stupid librarian. They had been working together for two days and he had only spoken to her to make a snarky remark about her lack of style or how she was not doing her part of the job correctly.

“Shut up, Bog King,”  the girl had decided to call him like that since he carried himself with certain altiveness, like he was above everyone surrounding him. She thought that maybe he was rich - he always came to school in fine clothes. Always a shirt and a nice pure wool gray vest, both of brands she was aware weren’t exactly cheap, and jeans. The combination was quite odd, but strange enough it suited his lean form really well.

“I love it when you call me that, kid,” he said back. She snorted.

The pace between them had settled in casual banter, something both seemed to be comfortable with. He didn’t ask her any questions about her wounds apart from a soft “how are you feeling today?” when she arrived at the Library, which was way more than anyone on the school seemed to care. In exchange, she didn’t ask about the big scar on his chin or why did a big man like him end up as an library assistant.

“Sure you do,” she smirked, “old man.”

He snorted.

Marianne turned back to the books in front of her, a big pile of old, dusty books to sort and catalogue, as Bog had instructed her the day before. The task was way too much for only one person, and even with her helping hands it may still take a week or more. It was no surprise that she had been selected to help as a punishment for getting into fights constantly.

Unconsciously, as she piled the books by author and genre, she started to hum a tune she liked, simple notes in rapid succession, a song she lately had been obsessed with and had driven her sister mad. “Why don’t you just change that song sometimes?” she said that morning after hearing it for the third time in a row through the wall between their rooms.

“Is that…?”

“Huh?” she stopped humming and lifted her head with a little smile on her lips.

“Were you singing Toxicity?” Bog had turned from his place a few tables away, a heavy looking book on his hands.

“Yeah. You know that song?” she blinked, surprised that such a rich looking guy knew System of a Down.

“Are you kidding me? I love that song! And the entire album too!” he smiled at her.

Marianne blinked again really taken aback by his enthusiasm. He didn’t seem the type to like that kind of music, but well, she didn’t either until a few years ago after the whole Roland incident. It was then when she decided that she was going to be herself and like what she wanted to like, after realizing that a big chunk of her personality had been lost in the tides.

“Do you like System of a Down?"

“Well, is not really my favorite but I enjoy a lot of their songs. I have ears, you know,” he snorted as if not liking it was a foolish matter.

Tell that to everyone on this wretched place, the girl thought. All the empty headed idiots listened to was the latest hits and “modern” music. Not that she didn’t like a commercial song or two, but she was aware that it was just designed music to impress the masses and the real talent had to be looked for. But hey, she was the “weird kid” for listening to music from before 2010.

It was so rare to find someone else that listened to real music anymore. The fact that it has to be a man a lot older than her should irk her, but welp. It kind of did. Not that it surprised her.

“What else do you usually listen to?” Marianne tasted the waters.

“Let me see…,” Bog abandoned the giant book on another table and put one hand on his chin in a pensive gesture. She briefly wondered if the barely grown beard scratched his skin and if it bothered him. “Queen?”

“Classic.”

“Kiss?”

“Cliché.”

“C’mon, don’t be so picky.”

“I’m not-!” she blushed when she realized that she was speaking really loud. What a good first impression he was having of her. “I’m not being picky,” Marianne repeated in a lower tone.

But instead of scolding her like every adult she knew, the librarian laughed and turned back to his work, resuming their comfortable pace, this time with random comments here and there about music tastes.

She liked this. Here she wasn’t being looked at with a magnifying glass, waiting for her to do something she shouldn’t do or that wasn’t socially accepted. She could get used to this.

It was shame that this could only last until they finished with their work.

Later that day, while Bog closed the Library and went to his car to return home, he pulled out his phone and looked for the few songs he hadn’t heard before that Marianne had mentioned on their conversation.

Unsurprisingly, as the first guitar riffs started to play he liked them already. Marianne had a good taste in music, he had to concede, even if she didn’t strike him as someone who enjoyed this kind of music. She had that gothic style going on, yeah, but he could see the pretty face and delicate hands under all of that expensive make-up she usually wore.

Still, the whole “getting beaten” issue should have given it away once she crossed the Library door. His first thought was “Ugh” as well as methods to avoid her and the incoming headache. He didn’t like kids. In fact, he avoided them as much as he could. That’s why he had been happy with his temporary job in the Library while they looked for another librarian to succeed the old woman that was there before.

In the Library he only had the company of silent books and his music. He could work like that. He enjoyed solitude. So when he was told that he was going to have help from the detention kid he wanted to complain. His peace and quiet, his order, was being compromised by a misbehaving child. They only brought chaos.

But Marianne wasn’t like that. On the first day he gave her a task and expected her to shout and throw the books around, but she did it without much fight apart from weird faces from time to time; but that may be because of her hurting arm. When they had to interact she had been polite and calm, and looked at him in the eye without hesitating. She was so calm and silent that he almost forgot she was there until she came to him to ask where she could put some books.

On the second day he found himself looking forward to working with her. Marianne was quick and efficient, and didn’t ask any unnecessary questions or tried to make conversation to ease the mood. Also, she didn’t comment on his appearance either, and that was something he enjoyed the most.

He knew he wasn’t much to look at and that the scars on his face made all kinds of rumours start to form without much input on his end. On a school full of kids those kind of things always ignited a flame of pain and destruction, capable of breaking even the strongest people into dust. He tried not to remember his time in school for this same reason. The scars produced by those horrible years ran deeper than the ones on his skin. The worst one being in his last year…

He still remembers the cold feeling inside when the girl he thought was the love of his life left him alone to suffer the rumours and shameful comments. She denied dating him at all and made him feel not only used but hideous.

“I’m sorry,” she had said, crying and putting as much distance as she could between them, “I just can’t love you...”

I can’t love you because you are too ugly, he completed on his head, not really needing to hear it out loud. He simply turned and got out of there before getting the final stab in his heart.

He was no fool back then. He knew what everyone said behind his back about him, about his face, about his strange body with too long limbs and big hands. They said he was a freak and that he belonged in a circus. Bog managed to survive all of that without crumbling, pouring himself into books and fantasy and videogames; but when he fell for this girl only to get his heart stomped on… it was the final nail on his coffin.

Coming back to the present, the librarian shook his head and looked around, noticing that he had been standing in front of his car for a while now. It was cold and his exposed skin was starting to hurt, so he rushed to the inside of his car and started the engine.

Bog scoffed. It was no use dwelling in the past. Not when he had made something useful of his life in this time. He studied what he wanted and managed to get a friend here and there, and he never ever had suffered what he did in high school. People simply matured out of that hive-like mindset of ridiculing the different and the unusual. In time, he accepted what happened and moved on with his life.

But he swore off love and relationships. He was better off alone and without having to open his heart to anyone, to give them the power to break what little self-esteem he had managed to work on in these years. He wasn’t going to be vulnerable again.

Marianne sighed and twirled the pen on her right hand again, not really feeling like doing homework right now. She had come home late after doing her work hours in the Library and then she had to eat something and finish her homework. Hey, being the outcast from school didn’t mean she had to stop caring about her grades.

But today her mind wasn’t focused at all, too many song lyrics going around her head, memories triggered by those songs playing in black and white behind her eyes. The conversation she had today with the librarian had returned dear memories from beloved songs to the front of her mind; some memories about her deceased mother, who passed on her love for the classics to her.

She missed her. With her mother around everything would be going to be okay, Marianne would have someone to turn to despite having everything against her. If her mother was here she was sure she would be a different person altogether, without so much make-up and a thick skin and a tough persona to resist all the crap she suffered at school.

But her mother had died ten years ago and she couldn’t dare tell her sister about what really happened with Roland. She only knows that he cheated on her sister and that’s it, so Dawn couldn’t understand why Marianne decided to swear off love so rashly. Sure, what he did was despicable and all of that, “but you can’t really judge every man by that bias!” she usually said when they argued.

How wrong she was. She wanted to tell her a lot of times that it wasn’t just Roland, that she shouldn’t trust any man, and that girls that defended them were as horrible as any of them. All the girls at school that denied any fault in Roland’s behavior, that said that it was “just natural” for him to look for a woman that would satisfy him; those were the dangerous ones.

Dawn’s friends were like that, too. Marianne had heard them whisper behind her sister’s back sometimes, usually trash talking and rumours about the fallen Queen, things they didn’t dare say in front of the blonde. It was sad. She couldn’t trust anyone.

She couldn’t give anyone the power to crush her heart into dust.

Next day caught Marianne looking forward to working with the weird librarian that liked good music and wasn’t judging her (or pitying her, like most adults did on school). Probably he hadn’t heard yet the rumours about her and all about the Roland incident but a tiny part of her wished that he didn’t. It was stupid, because his opinion of her shouldn’t be distorted by what other people thought they knew about her; but… well, she wanted to be the one that told him, if she ever did it, that is.

And it was even more stupid that she cared about what he thought of her. He was nice to be with, yeah, but she still was her own person and if Bog decided that the troubled kid was what people thought she was, then it was his loss. Another shallow man to despise and fight with.

She vaguely wondered if she would win in case it got to that situation.

“Earth to Marianne!” she heard her sister’s voice, making her snap out of it. “Are you okay, sis? You have been spacing out since we got out of home!”

Marianne blinked and realized that they were, in fact, already parked on the school grounds. Kids were walking to the big cristal doors like they had nothing to worry about. Like they didn’t destroy her life two years ago.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice breaking. She hadn’t spoken at all that morning. “I’m fine, Dawn.”

She tried to smile, but she had forgotten how to do it properly a long time ago. Her sister sighed and let it go, for now.

“Let’s go or we are going to be late.”

Marianne nodded and got out of the car putting on her headphones. Dawn once asked why she did that, but she was answered when they encountered their classmates that first day of school when Marianne came back to school as her new persona.

All kinds of comments could be heard. Most of them weren’t coated in malice, at least not anymore, but it was like everyone had the right to have an opinion about what happened almost two years ago with Roland, even if those opinions weren’t exactly well informed and based on what had been accepted as the truth. She was used to it by now, but that didn’t mean she actively wanted to hear it.

Hence the music.

She scrolled aimlessly on her saved songs, not really knowing what she wanted to listen to right now. It was then when she stumbled into a song she didn’t remember saving on her phone. She tapped on it and started to hear the familiar guitar over the hurtful whispers around her.

“Pressure, pushing down on me, pressing down on you, no man ask for...”

The teenager smiled sadly, feeling strangely comforted by David Bowie’s soft voice and Freddie Mercury’s signature one.

It was not, absolutely not, because Bog had mentioned he really liked this song the day before.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It was a normal morning at the teacher’s lounge room when Bog first heard about the rumours around Marianne.

“Gosh, I can’t stand this,” the math teacher said, an elderly woman whose name he didn’t care enough to remember. Someone stepped forward and asked:

“What happened, Susan?” Yeah, whatever her name was. He kept on reading his book and drinking his coffee in his silent corner. It was rude to be the first one leaving so he waited at least until the first classes started to run to his Library.

“I stumbled upon that kid today, Marianne,” that made him listen. What about her?

The room fell silent and a few shuddered involuntarily. Bog didn’t understand why.

“Her eyes spook me sometimes. They are so weird,” the woman, Susan, kept going. “She had those headphones plugged in, you know? And she didn’t seem to know where she was going. We bumped into each other, fortunately I didn’t fall… But she looked at me and - and she said “sorry”!”

Bog blinked. Wasn’t that common courtesy? Why were these people freaking out because of Marianne being a normal human being?

“And what happened next?” someone asked. Bog thought it was the science teacher.

“Nothing,” Susan said finally taking off her coat. “She just kept walking on.”

“Are you serious?” the same teacher asked.

Understanding that he wouldn’t be able to finish his book anytime soon, the temporary librarian put it down and tried make sense of what they were saying.

“I’m not kidding you! She didn’t threaten me or looked like she wanted to punch me at all…”

“Does she…” Bog gulped, not realizing he had talked. Everyone turned to look at him, surprised that he even had talked. He never did. Well, I’m already here,
he thought. “Does she usually do that?”

“Do what? Threaten people?” another teacher scoffed. He thought it was the English teacher, but he wasn’t sure. “All the time! Haven’t you noticed it already? I heard she had been tasked with helping you with the Library.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Doesn’t she irk you? Or tried to beat you up?”

“No, but…”

“Don’t mind her, honey,” Susan approached him, a gentle smile on her lips. She tried to put a hand on his shoulder but Bog flinched back. If the woman noticed, she didn’t say anything. “She is just… lost. Since what happened two years ago…”

This caught even more his attention.

“What happened?”

“Oh yeah, you weren’t here then,” the science teacher blinked in surprise as if the thought of someone not knowing what happened was unfathomable. “The kid got dumped by Roland.”

That’s it? The librarian thought. Dumped by some random guy?

“Yeah, it was such a tragedy. She was the Queen, you know? She had been the Queen of the Spring Ball since she started high school.”

“The Spring Ball?” Bog asked.

“It’s this big event the kids love. Actually it’s in a month or so, if you are interested, because teachers can go if we want to,” the English teacher (Grace, her name was Grace) added, but didn’t seem really excited about it. “Every year, near the end on the evening, a Queen and King are voted among the students and they’ll hold the title until the next Spring Ball.”

“And this Roland guy and Marianne…”

“They were Queen and King for a year, but now the Queen is her younger sister Dawn.”

I didn’t know she had siblings, Bog thought.

“And what happened?”

“She changed when she got dumped. Marianne stopped coming to school for an entire week! And then she came like this punk brat one day, listening to her music and ignoring everyone.”

“And getting into fights every week,” the science teacher said taking a sip of his coffee. “Ungrateful brat…” he grumbled.

“Is that a normal behaviour?” Bog asked, remembering her bandaged arm and swollen cheek from that first day. He did ask if she was okay, not really sure if her delicate skin would heal those wounds fast enough.

Almost every teacher scoffed.

“It’s the normal behaviour. Always angry and picking fights. With the boys!” Grace raised her arms to the ceiling. “I can understand if she’s angry with the other girls with all those hateful comments, but the boys haven’t done anything to her! And she’s a girl!”

Hateful comments?

“It seems that all kinds of rumours started to go around since Roland dumped her,” Susan continued, “and all about her and what happened for the Queen to be cheated on like that.”

Oh, Bog felt his own heart skip a beat. She was cheated on by her boyfriend? And the whole school knew about it? Poor thing.

He was about to ask more about what happened to Marianne but the bell rang before words could get out of his mouth. Like if the conversation hadn’t been a big revelation, the rest of the teachers rushed to get ready for a new school day dealing with their students.

The only teacher that took her time to go was the art teacher, whose name he did remember only because it was so weird and rare.

“You shouldn’t stick your nose in her private matters like this, Bog,” Aura, or “Sugar Plum” as she liked to be called, said with a very serious face. “And not from someone who isn’t the direct source of the problem. If she wanted you to know about this she would have told you.”

He knew she was right and that this didn’t concern him at all, but his curiosity was burning brighter that a bonfire.

“I know,” he said nonetheless.

Aura locked her impossible blue eyes, a shade lighter than his own, with him for a while before sighing and turning back to the door, her bag full of painting supplies tucked under her arm.

“Just remember that nothing is what it seems,” and with that she left him alone in the teacher's lounge.

When Marianne arrived at the Library too many hours later, Bog had decided that whatever happened with the girl and her ex-boyfriend shouldn’t concern him; and if she decided to misbehave because of a broken heart, then it was her responsibility to mature past the childish fixation with only one boy.

So far, she had been respectful and even nice with him, so nothing else should matter.

“What boring and tedious job do we have for today?” she asked with a tiny smile, and for a brief moment Bog wished that she was happy for being here with him. It was absurd, of course, as this was only a punishment for getting into too many fights on school grounds. If she had her way she wouldn’t step on the Library at all.

Still, he felt an equally small smile creep into his face.

“Oh, nothing much,” he pointed to the still enormous pile of books to be catalogued. Two whole days and they only managed to get to the third shelf. There were fifteen of them.

“Damn.”

“Yep.”

Marianne didn’t speak much as she worked, which he was grateful for. She also wasn’t looking at him, too focused on the task at her hands, and he wasn’t sure why exactly this fact struck something in his heart. At least it let him look at her and really see the person she was, now that he has new information about her.

She really didn’t look heartbroken. Well, she didn’t have to, it had been almost two years since that, but still he expected her to show that in any form. Maybe her face? Her eyes? Everyone he somehow learned had their hearts broken looked the same: sad, grey and lonely. He himself looked like that once upon a time when he still believed in love, but no matter how much time had passed a slight trace of that was still present.

Wasn’t first love supposed to work like that?

But no matter how long he looked at her smooth, slightly angular face and her golden eyes he couldn’t see any of that. Bog would never have guessed any of the story the other teachers told him by looking at her alone.

“What are you looking at?” her sharp remark snapped him out of his musings. Marianne was a few steps in front of him with a book between her hands and a really angry expression on her delicate face. “Bog King?”

Bog blinked slowly, finding that he had absolutely nothing to say.

“Something’s on my face?” she asked, and if he were paying attention he would have noticed the slight trembling on her voice. “Speak.”

This was a whole new Marianne he hadn’t faced before. She was trying to be scary and menacing, and if he was another person maybe she would have managed to succeed in that; but what the girl didn’t know was that he could stand much worse than that.

“What have they told you?” she narrowed her eyes and put the book she was still holding down on the table next to her. “Speak!” she repeated, this time followed by a punch to his face.

She looked authentically surprised when he stopped her fist with a swift motion.

“How did you-?”

“Don’t get angry, kid,” he finally said. “And don’t try to punch me next time. You won’t hit me.”

She grumbled and took back her hand, cradling it on her chest. Bog worried that he had hurt her, but she seemed just fine so he didn’t move to ask her if it was otherwise.

“And yes, today I’ve been told some...rumours about you.”

Her eyes seemed clouded for a second and then her body instantly relaxed, but not in a good way. It was more like she had been the one punched in the face.

“I - I see.” Marianne took a step back, the fight completely gone from her like if a switch had been hit. Her eyes running around the room, everywhere but him and her body language told him immediately that she wanted to run away from there. Was he the only one feeling like something had been broken between them?

“Look, I know it’s-”

“You know nothing!” she said, her voice way too loud in such a quiet place. “Please, don’t. Whatever you were going to say, save it.”

Bog sighed. There goes the teenager.

“Having your heart broken is not the end of the world, kid,” he said, but even he felt like his words were hollow. “You’ll get over it.”

She scoffed.

“Is that everything they told you?”

The librarian blinked. Was there more story than that?

“Yeah...,” he looked behind her to the big windows of the Library, which showed a beautiful spring scene of the inner courtyard of the school. He liked those windows, but right now the beauty did little to calm his nerves. How difficult it was to deal with teenagers! “Actually…”

“What?” she crossed her arms over her chest, glaring with all of her golden might.

“I kind of wanted to hear the truth from you?” Bog looked at her and immediately looked back to the window again, obviously uncomfortable in this situation.

If he were watching the girl in front of him, he would have seen the epitome of shock.

“I know how rumours can warp the truth, and I have to admit I’m curious but… if you don’t want to talk about it… I’ll understand….” he finally looked at her shocked expression, feeling stupid for meddling with affairs that had little to do with him.

“You are right, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Bog sighed and turned back to his table, where he had abandoned his share of the work for today. What a way to ruin his peace and quiet, he grumbled in his mind. Why did he have to be such a stupid-

“But,” her soft voice made him stop in his tracks. “I think you deserve the truth.”

“Are you sure?” the man asked as he turned back to her. She looked up to fix her eyes with his, a determined shine on the rare golden shade.

“Positive,” Marianne sighed and uncrossed her arms, the tension leaving her body. “I got cheated on my boyfriend, my first one ever, almost since the first day we started dating. Everyone knew it but me. When I found out I dumped him.”

“Wait, you dumped him?”

“Heh, they told you it was him who did it, right?” he nodded. “Yeah, that’s what he made everyone believe. While I was away he made all kinds of public shows and flashy demonstrations that it was him who left me, because…”

“Because he didn’t love you back?” Bog gulped, feeling sick just by hearing this.

“No,” she shook her head and sighed deeply, looking down at her feet. For a moment she seemed troubled by her thoughts, pondering what she was going to say next. Was she going to lie? No, she said he deserved the truth and he had to believe her. “He cheated on me… and I ended our relationship… because I wouldn’t sleep with him.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

She looked back up to him, her eyes watery as if she were about to cry but holding it behind an angry scowl. “He didn’t love me, and I see it now, because back then he only wanted me for what I had more than for who I was. He just wanted me to be a pretty face attached to his fucktoy.”

Bog gulped. This was bad. Worse than bad. Marianne must have been fifteen when all of this happened. She was a just child!

“But it didn’t stop there,” she kept talking, the first tears going down her cheeks, but he didn’t make any comment about it. “People started talking and spreading more and more rumours about what really happened between us. They said that I was incapable of satisfying any man, that I was a frigid, frozen Empress. Everything you can think of, they said about me.”

“But you were fifteen! How could they expect you to do that?” Marianne snorted, unamused.

“You tell me! Every girl in school was more than ready to drop her panties for him, I was the defective one!” her voice broke. The girl rubbed her eyes with her long sleeved black t-shirt, trying to stop the stream of tears going down her face. “You’ll have to excuse me, I’m not usually a crier. That’s my sister’s job.”

“Don’t worry,” Bog thought about putting a hand on her shoulder, but he talked himself out of doing it. Maybe it would do worse than good in that moment.

“I had to…,” she continued, “I had to endure this, you know? My sister only knows what everyone else does, and she can’t know the truth.”

“Why not? Why didn’t you tell an adult then? Or the Director?”

“You don’t understand. Roland is the big promise, the poster child of this school. No one would believe me,” she sniffed, the tears finally stopping as she looked at him in the eyes. “And the Director is my father. He adores Roland like the son he never had.”

Bog blinked once, twice. The plot thickens, he thought.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, “for having to suffer that alone.”

“I guess so. But at least now someone knows,” she smiled softly and then sighed again. “I’m a mess.” Marianne looked down to the smudges of makeup on her sleeves.

“Nah, it’s just paint. Here,” he offered her a handkerchief to clean her face.

“I’m sorry,” the girl murmured, her voice muffled by the cloth, “I’m ruining your stuff.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have tons. My mother usually gives me those for Christmas.” He breathed when she finally smiled, feeling a weird clench on his heart.

They settled into a comfortable silence as the sun started to set somewhere on the horizon, the light coming through the windows going more orange by the minute. Marianne finished cleaning her face of the make-up but didn’t immediately give back the handkerchief to its proper owner. As she thought of cleaning it on her house and return it the next day, she dwelled on the fact that she had just told her deepest secrets to a person she barely knew; a secret that she didn’t dare to tell anyone. Maybe that’s why she felt comfortable sharing her suffering - he was a complete stranger to the situation, after all. He didn’t know Roland so he didn’t idolize him, and he didn’t know her before the whole incident so he wasn’t taken aback by the sudden transformation of her personality. She felt like she could be herself around this not-quite-stranger-anymore.

“The worst part is,” she continued after clearing her throat, her eyes looking down to the piece of cloth on her hands, “I really liked him. He was so good looking, you know?” Marianne let out a dry laugh. “How stupid of me.”

“You were young. Don’t beat yourself up because of that,” the teenager looked up to the man still standing a few steps in front of her, the fading light of the sun bouncing on his angular face making shadows that made difficult the task of reading his expression. For a moment she thought that he sounded a bit sad.

“Not that young,” she sighed in defeat.

Another moment of silence fell on the Library, but this time there was a certain kind of tension radiating from Bog. She knew that there was something that he wanted to say and wondered what it would be about. He had tried to comfort her, but what was his real opinion about this? Was he going to treat her differently from now on? She hoped that he didn’t.

“It’s getting late,” he finally said, but something told her that it wasn’t what he had in mind. Marianne blinked as she realized that the light was almost completely gone and she couldn’t see what was in front of her.

“Yeah, I should be going home or Dawn is going to get worried.”

“I could give you a ride home,” Bog offered quickly, and if she could see his face she knew he would be slightly blushing. He wasn’t the type to initiate a socializing situation. “If you want to.” He added like in an afterthought.

“That… that would be great. Thanks.”

They both managed their way out of the Library and the forgotten books to be catalogued tomorrow. She waited in silence as he closed the door with his keys and followed him into the parking in equal silence. He still looked like he was thinking about something serious, and she could almost see the thoughts going back and forth behind his blue eyes framed by his small glasses. Curiosity burned the tip of her tongue, but she knew she was in no place to demand anything. She had opened her soul today but that didn’t mean that he had to do the same and share every thought and secret with her.

It was indeed a childish thought, so she did her best to shove it way back into her mind and focus on her reflection on the car window as she waited for him to unlock the car doors. Man, her face was a puffy red mess. She didn’t know how she was going to hide this from Dawn once she got home.

“Where to?” Bog asked once she seated beside him on shotgun and had fastened her seatbelt.

“It’s not far from here. Take me to Willow’s Park and I can walk.”

“I’m not going to make you walk alone at night,” he frowned without looking at her.

“Well…,” Marianne tried not to dwell on that fact that he wouldn’t look at her, “if you insist…”

She told him her address and he finally started the car, leaving the almost empty parking behind.

The ride wasn’t as quiet as the Library was, the soft murmur of the car engine and low music coming from the old stereo filling in for the conversation that wasn’t happening. Bog still looked like he wanted to tell her something, but so far no luck. She sighed when the familiar buildings of her street surrounded them.

“I…,” his voice startled her. Bog turned his eyes in her direction (finally!) and then looked back to the road even if they were going so slow that a man walking his dog was faster than them. “I…”

“You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, Bog,” Marianne dropped her nickname. “Really.”

He sighed.

“I know. But still you deserve a bit of sincerity. I guess?” it was almost cute seeing a grown man as nervous as Dawn the day of the Spring Ball.

“I appreciate the thought,” the car stopped in front of her house and the librarian killed the engine before leaning back on his seat and sighing deeply.

“I want to tell you before you find out by other people,” she smirked when he gave her an apologetic smile. Marianne shuffled on her seat and turned her body in his direction, silently telling him that she was listening. “I was told that I was too hideous to love. By a girl I loved. On my last year of high school.”

Marianne blinked in surprise at the, well, normal secret. She didn’t know what she was expecting but it wasn’t definitely this. A heartbreak? She could deal with that. But it was clear that this went further than that for him.

“What?” she deadpanned. “Tell me you didn’t believe her.”

“Well…. She didn’t actually had to say the words. I kind of understood it by the context.” he started to fidget with his fingers, not really looking at her.

Marianne snorted.

“Then maybe you should have stayed to hear what she really wanted to say. You are not hideous, Bog.”

It was his time to snort.

“Tell that to my “dear” classmates back in high school,” he grumbled and fixed his eyes in some point outside of the car. Marianne sighed. This was just the tip of the iceberg, she was sure of it. This man oozed low self-esteem and image issues. But she couldn’t do more than hear him when he needed someone to talk to.

“Teenagers are cruel and stupid and full of crap. Believe me, I’m one of those,” she put her left hand on his right one, which was now clenched in a fist on his leg. “Don’t believe any word they say because they usually are driven by a strong need to belong, like sheeps in a herd. If someone decided to target you, everyone would follow even if they don’t agree with it.”

“Suddenly I feel like you are the adult in this car,” Bog snickered.

“Nah, I just had to suffer herd mentality the last few years. Rationalizing it helps me when I don’t want to go to school.”

“Aren’t you a brave little thing?” he smiled when she blushed at his comment.

“I’m not going to comfort you anymore, idiot,” she huffed and looked elsewhere, provoking a laugh on the man by her side. She finally caved in and joined him in the laughing, the mood between them finally easing into something more of the usual.

A car honking brought them out of their little bubble, making them realize that she should really go home and he should move the car before someone called the police for blocking the road. At this hour there weren’t many cars but better safe than sorry.

It was then when both realized that Marianne still had one hand on him. The girl blinked and withdrew it so fast that it became a blur, her heart going at full speed. She hoped that he wouldn’t think anything bad about her, like she was some kind of creep. Marianne didn’t risk it and turned to open the door as fast as she could, blurting out a goodbye and a thanks before rushing to the door of her house, disappearing behind it when she managed to open it.

If she had turned and looked inside the car she would have seen a blushing Bog looking at his right hand, his bony cheeks painted a soft shade of pink.
 
That night, sleep evaded the librarian. He kept thinking back to the events of the day, from discovering the general opinion of the girl he was working with, to the impromptu heart to heart and the way that they easily swung back into their happy routine.

Bog couldn’t believe that he had told Marianne about what happened so many years ago. He hadn’t told anyone, not even his mother. But with Marianne, trusting her and confiding in her came easily. She was that kind of person, he guessed, people that radiated charisma and were reliable and capable of guarding a secret.

He wondered how she was like before all the stuff that happened to her. She didn’t seem to like her old self much and by what other teachers told him, she was a completely different person back then. Bog was sure that a experience like that changed anyone, no matter how strong you were.

He turned in his bed, restless as his thoughts went to darker places. He couldn’t imagine what she would have felt like when she discovered that the person she loved only wanted her body, and openly went to other women in places where people could see them. And then have all the whole school ganging up on her on a daily basis.

He scoffed. Marianne was right, teenagers were mindless sheep fighting for approval, eager to agree with the general opinion no matter how absurd it was. He was bullied for being too ugly, Marianne for being too pretty. Because they couldn’t pick on her appearance they made up stories about her, but that was the only difference to his situation.

None of them deserved her, he was sure of that. She was so brave and strong, capable of enduring all the rumours and the sideway glances with determination; she was passionate about the things she loved, like her sister and her music, and she was not scared to admit it out loud; she didn’t hesitate to make her opinion known even if it made anyone angry with her.

Bog looked once again at his hand, feeling the ghost of her touch where her fingers laid against his skin. Marianne didn’t hesitate today when she touched him or when she told him that it was stupid to think that he was too hideous to love. Even if it was a white lie, her golden eyes shone with the usual determination and stubbornness that drove her, and he appreciated it.

But still, he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve her.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Since the incident with Roland, there where very few moments when her sister had looked so happy. In fact, Dawn couldn’t remember a time when Marianne was actually looking forward to going to school, to the point of being the first one getting out of the car.

It’s true that her older sister arrived home late a bit flustered and acted weird the night before; but today it was getting suspicious. Dawn was sure that their father couldn’t see what she could, so she took the task into her hands to investigate what was the source of her sister’s sudden change in behaviour.

Not that she was complaining, though. It was mere curiosity and, maybe, just a liiiiittle bit maybe, she wanted to do what she could to ensure that whatever it was lasted for a while. She missed her old Marianne.

Now, spying became quite the task when she was two years younger than her sister and her classes were in a different building, but in every recess and break she looked for her. She was seating in the back of her class, listening to music, every time she went to check on her. Bored, as usual, with a hand propped up on the table and her chin resting on the opened palm, her eyes wandering as she looked through the window…

No, wait. Down narrowed her eyes and looked closely. There was a difference on her sister’s stance and a little smile on her painted lips. If you weren’t watching you’d miss it, but there it was. Also, her eyes weren’t exactly wandering; they were fixed on a dark figure walking on the opposite building, which was-

The bell rang and she had to run back to her class to make it on time. She did arrive before the teacher did and sat on her place by the window, which was oriented to the inner courtyard, next to her sister’s building. The school made a big square and all the main buildings were connected by that courtyard, so you could go to any class or the Library while enjoying a nice-

Wait. Dawn narrowed her eyes and looked at the window her sister had been looking at the whole time. It was the Library! Marianne was looking at the new librarian assistant! Wasn’t she working for him the last few days?

Her spider-senses are tingling!

That’s why when lunch break finally happened (thank God or she was going to stab someone in the eye with a pencil), Dawn run to her sister and snatched her before she could run away and eat in the dark hole she usually hid when she didn’t want to socialize (usually it was under a tree in the backyard).

“Dawn? What are you doing?”

“Suddenly I have the need to get a few books!” she shouted over her shoulder, not caring if someone heard or if Marianne was tripping with her own feet the whole way.

Her words made sense when the familiar doors of the school Library stood in front of them, paralyzing Marianne as her sister did the job of opening them. Dawn was ecstatic, this was going to be soooo cool if her suspicions were true!

“Dawn?” she heard her sister’s voice, and the blonde noticed how it was slightly trembling. “What are we doing here?”

“Shhh,” the other silenced her, “be quiet. This is a Library.”

“I know! I have been working here all week!” Marianne whispered to her sister, but let her drive her body to the nearest table. Bog wasn’t in sight, but he must be there. She knew that this was his safe haven.

“Sit down here a be a good girl,” the blonde instructed and Marianne did it trying to see where this was going to go.

And like it was all planned, the tall librarian made an appearance in that exact same moment, walking out from behind a shelf and approaching the couch installed near the window. He didn’t see them, too engrossed in a book in his big hands, so the only one that could notice Marianne’s face becoming a little bit pink was Dawn.

She smirked.

“So…,” the girl whispered, leaning on the table and resting her face between her hands, her lips next to her sister’s left ear. Not that Marianne would notice - she was totally enraptured as she watched the tall man sit down and flip the page he was reading in a swift motion. “He’s the librarian?”

“Uh, yeah…,” Marianne answered without turning back to see her. Dawn was smiling like crazy. “That’s Bog.”

“Bog?”

“His name.”

“I see…” Dawn sighed and watched carefully as her sister followed every movement the librarian made, the tiny blush on her cheeks becoming more and more noticeable. “You know…,” she said after a few moments, “you’ve been staring at him all day… You look like you want to start a fight,” she casually said with a little knowing smile.

“That - That sounds like a good idea…” Marianne answered noticeably not paying attention to her. She propped one arm on the table and started biting her lower lip, an unsure expression on her face like she was internally debating if the best way to approach him was a fight or not. Knowing Marianne and her awkwardness, Dawn was more than sure that if she didn’t help her dear sister that would be the case.

This was the most fun she have had in months!

The best part was that Marianne herself didn’t seem to acknowledge her own feelings. People always took the younger sister as the airheaded one, her head full of boys and her looks, but Dawn was really clever and cunning when she wanted to. She may not have ever loved anyone but she had her fair share of crushes and she knew what she was talking about.

She looked at the man that managed to draw her sister’s attention -  Bog, his name was Bog - and tried to imagine what kind of man he was to make her sister break her oath to 'never fall in love again’ so fast. Obviously it wasn’t how he looked like, Marianne wasn’t one to be attracted by looks (especially not after the Roland fiasco), so it has to be his personality. What kind of hobbies did he have? What were his dreams? Did they have a lot in common? The contrast between the man’s - Bog’s - modest clothes (a nice pair of dressing pants and a shirt buttoned all the way up with tie and everything) and her sister’s own gothic-punk fishnet tights, dark tube skirt and long sleeved gray t-shirt was painfully clear; almost like they were from completely different worlds.

She wanted to talk to this man. So that’s exactly what she did.

“Dawn? Dawn! What do you think you are doing?” Marianne furiously whispered when the blonde stood up and walked to where Bog was reading on the couch. “Come back!”

“No!” she answered back and giggled.

Once she got to the man’s position she noticed him flinch before closing the book. He had been listening to them, that was clear.

“How can I help you?” he said with a small but forced smile. His voice was deep and masculine, but soft and smooth at the same time. Dawn could hear him talk all day.

“Hi! My name is Dawn!” she waved with her hand with a little too much enthusiasm.

“And she’s my sister,” Marianne added as she walked to her sister, not really trusting her with Bog.

The man blinked slowly and put down his book, adjusting his glasses.

“Nice to meet you, Dawn.”

The girl didn’t say anything else, she just stood there with a big grin on her lips, her teeth slightly biting her lower lips, making the man sweat in his place.

He had heard the girls talking almost since they came in but was too scared to face them. At least not so soon. Last night he couldn’t get any sleep as his thoughts seemed to go back to her again and again, bringing the brief moment they had on his car when he took her home to the front of his mind. Her bright eyes, the way her skin was soft and warm to the touch…

“... and maybe I should take a book home, what do you think?” the blonde’s voice brought him back to the current conversation.

“Sorry, what were you saying?” he asked, ashamed of his behaviour.

Dawn smiled a thousand dollars smile.

“I was saying,” she started again and noticed how Bog’s eyes went back to Marianne once again. She didn’t have to look to make sure that her sister had seen it too, “that if you could recommend a book for me?”

“Do you read?” the librarian cocked his head before realising what his words implied. “I mean! I thought young people these days didn’t read anymore…”

The younger girl just laughed it off and patted the man’s arm, making him tense like he wasn’t used to it.

“Don’t worry! I got what you wanted to say! And yes, maybe you are right, haha…” Dawn patted him again and took a step back, pulling the librarian with her. “Anyways! What do you think I would like?”

“What have you read before?” he followed the girl to the nearest shelf, trying to breathe normally. Dawn was loud and shiny, and her presence consumed the whole place, making him feel slightly overwhelmed.

“I was really into fantasy books when I was little. I had some books -”

“More like you stole them from me,” Marianne scoffed and crossed her arms, ignoring the other girl’s stuck tongue.

“Whatever. You weren’t reading them.”

“You read?” Bog asked trying to drown the feeling that he was intruding into a family moment.

“I used to read a bit-”

“She was always reading!” Dawn whined. “Mom had to take the books from her hands at the table, because Marianne wouldn’t put them down for anything in the world. Not even food!”

Bog blinked and stored this piece of information.

“It wasn’t like that!” the sister complained, glancing quickly to Bog’s surprised face, tryings to act as if the pinkness in her cheeks wasn't there.

“It totally was!” Dawn made a gesture with her hands, ignoring Marianne’s outrage, and with a knowing smile on her face. This was going perfectly! The mood was flowing and they were looking at each other like… like… Well, they were watching really close what the other was doing.

Her sister had a crush on the librarian!

When did this happen? Obviously in the time they spent together for her detention; but, how did she fall so quickly? Not even when Roland she was this awkward and enraptured. But here she was, all flustered and nervous in the presence of this man.

Who knew that her dear sister liked older men? In a way it suited her - she was really mature for her age and she has had to take the reins of the house when their mother died, as their father didn't do it really good. He never had evil intent in his actions, but when you burn even cereal it's clear that you have to step down from the kitchen. It didn't help that he was always busy managing the school, Dawn thought, because Father barely had time to be there for his daughters. Neither of the siblings held it on him, but yeah, he was never there.

Not that it mattered anymore, though. They loved each other and despite Marianne’s new behaviour she knew that she loved her and it was enough for her. Maybe that’s why she felt so hyped by this development on her sister’s love life, because she felt like finally she had something to help her with. And she could keep a secret, too. She may be the school’s Queen, but she wasn’t going to be as shallow and full of gossip like everyone expected her to be.

Yeah, she was going to fight for their relationship even if it was the last thing she did!

“I’m so sorry about my sister,” Marianne looked down to the books on her hands, feeling really nervous under his gaze. Dawn had dragged her back to the other building so they could eat a little before classes started again, so the brunette didn’t have the time to apologize. Now, she took the opportunity as they worked.

“Don’t worry about it,” he answered, his heart doing a weird flip as he watched her blushing face. Marianne wasn’t the blushing type, and he wasn’t one those that loved shy girls, but cute kind of worked on the goth girl. “It was nice to finally meet her, though.”

“Huh?” she asked as she walked to the proper pile and put her books down.

“The teachers,” Bog made a face, not sure if it was a good idea to speak what was on his mind, “they talked about her… yesterday.”

Marianne knew what he was trying to say.

“Yeah, well. She’s the Queen. Everyone talks about the Queen.”

“Hey, don’t make that face,” Bog walked to her and flicked her forehead with his fingers, ending the scowl that was starting to form. Marianne gasped and hastily rubbed the stinging skin, glaring at the librarian.

“What was that for!”

“So you would stop thinking about stuff that doesn’t deserve your attention. The past is in the past, and the person you are now is not the Queen they decided to bring down the cowardly way.”

“I know…” she looked elsewhere, uncomfortable with the way Bog was now being all adult on her. She wasn’t used to it and after what happened last night between them it was a sharp contrast. Even if what happened could be considered “something”, she thought.

He noticed her discomfort and took a step back, sighing.

“Let’s go, we have much to do today.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Roland was, if he must say so, perfect in any way. His carefully combed hair, washed daily with conditioner for extra softness; perfect teeth, and the perfect smile; perfect muscles carefully toned after years of exercising. He was King and everyone knew it.When he walked down the hallways, he smiled and winked to any girl that was looking, encouraged by their glazed over eyes and blushing cheeks. He lived to make his people happy. What could he say? He was a philanthropist, always working for his people.Because you see, being King didn't come without work - you had to maintain a strong front and be absolutely perfect in every way, in every step and every smile. People looked up to him as a role model. His heart would break if he disappointed his followers.That’s why when things ended badly with Marianne he had to fight for his image. It was nothing personal, really, and Marianne wasn’t a bad girl at all. A little boring and dull to be honest, but she had a good body and a bright smile, perfectly matching his own. She was perfect in every way… until she had to break up with him. How humiliating!Even if now people had accepted his version of the story, he knew that the words that Marianne said when she ended things with him were true - he was no King. And out of the school? He was a nobody. When this year ends and friends get separated as they pursue their dreams, he was going to be left alone and starting over from the beginning.It’s not like he was being childish - no, Marianne was wrong about that. He was only doing what someone of his status had to, and that was seize whatever opportunities he encountered in his life. He was born to lead! Why didn’t she see that? If only she had shut up about this nonsense about not being ready and whatnot they would have been a legend on the school. Who doesn’t like high school sweethearts?And it was good on college recommendations, too. Their school was a elite one and a written recommendation letter from the Director meant a pass into whatever place he wanted to go.The selfish one was Marianne! She ripped him of his opportunity to shine!He wanted to hate her, really, but as he watched beautiful Marianne break down into someone else all he felt was pity. She willingly chose to diminish her shine, stomping on her natural beauty with make-up and clothes that were boringly awful. She hid in the shadows and stayed away from the spotlight, away from him, as much as she could.He couldn’t blame her, the people on this school was really mean. Even he cringed with some of the comments and whispers that managed to float to his ears, but there was little he could do. She got what she asked for when she dumped him. When she - and I remark - stomped on his bright future. He didn’t have anything to do with the snares and snickering behind the girl’s back.Still, the thorn on his side was a painful one. His failure in swooning her, that is. She had been the only girl who had dared to resist his charms, and those were amazingly hard not to fall for. She even said so a long time ago, when they still shared their evenings and planned together a future, that he was too perfect . In fact, she was back then the girl who adored him the most, so it came as a big surprise when she denied what was the only natural step on their relationship.They had already been six months together, for fucks sake! She was pretty and everything, but he wanted to see more, to touch more. Why didn’t she understand that? He adored her body like a goddess, it was only fair to give back some of that love, which wasn’t little. She selfishly denied their mutual attraction, the sexual tension underlining everything they did together. He sometimes wondered if there was something broken in her. Or if she was this thing called an “asexual”? He heard those people never felt sexual attraction...Poor broken little things.It was their loss.When news about Marianne’s actions on his teammates and her subsequent punishment came to his ears he thought little of it. She had been going after his buddies for quite a while and her constant detention wasn't important anymore to him. If she preferred getting hurt and fighting he wasn't going to do anything about it.But one day he was minding his business, smiling as he walked down the most crowded corridor with a big smile on his face, that he saw her again. It was funny how destiny worked sometimes, he laughed, because he had been thinking about her since he woke up that day. And she was there, trying to blend in with the shadows, listening to her music and not looking at anyone in the eye.That was the usual.But, as he looked closer, he noticed the smile on her lips. And the different shine on her golden eyes. The tiny blush in her cheeks.That wasn't the usual.How weird it was to see her so… happy . Marianne had been a serious and scowling teenager since the little incident, and this was the first time in years that she looked full of life and smiling.This immediately sparked his curiosity, of course. He had to know what was the change in her behavior, what had triggered such a big change in a person like Marianne, someone that had been holding a grudge on him since the day they broke up. Like, seriously, who can be so angry for so long?So he did the most logical thing - he followed her.The whole day he hid behind columns and lockers, trying to catch a glimpse of her daily routine (which wasn't really interesting at all ). Her sister, sweet Dawn, and his Queen, came to pick her for lunch the moment the bell rang and took her somewhere far from the cafeteria. He rushed to their side, fighting to keep up with Dawn’s speed as well as not reveal himself to them.But nothing different than the old building of the Library was their destination. What was all of this even about?He chose to wait on the door, but as they never got out of the room he walked out to the courtyard window to spy whatever they were doing inside. The sight was not what he expected - Marianne was talking and blushing and smiling, just like old days, with her sister and the new librarian.What were they talking about? What did he say to make her act so at ease and natural? How could she act so normal out of nowhere?He just too used to the gloomy Marianne walking around the school that the strange change on the balance of things threw him off. Things were not supposed to work this way, Marianne wasn’t supposed to move on from what happened two years ago.Not that he actually expected her to do so. She fell into her new role on school and no one questioned it, specially not him, so the sudden change was odd. It has to be that hideous new librarian, his gut told him. It was the only thing that was different in the school's status quo, and Marianne had that spark in her eyes when she talked to him.He wanted to explore more this idea, but the bell was about to ring and he had to go back and eat something to survive the afternoon classes.“You practice martial arts?” the girl asked without believing it.“Yeah, and I sucked at it. Where do you think I got all of these scars?” he laughed at her surprised face.“Well… I guessed you would get in a lot of fights or something like that,” she admitted, trying not to look at the mentioned scars.“You can ask about it, don’t worry,” he sounded relaxed with the topic, so Marianne trusted that he wouldn’t really mind if she was curious. “And do I really look like the type of guy that gets a lot into fights?” he gestured his pretty normal clothes. Nerdy, even.“I guess you are right, though,” she shrugged, trying not to be weird and look at him a minute longer than what was necessary. Was she being weird? She wished she didn’t.Dawn’s accusations were silly, though. She totally didn’t have a crush on the tall librarian, or at least not as her sister was thinking about. Yeah, he was nice and easy to hang out with and he was even cute under the resting scowling face; but what she liked most was how little judged she felt around him. He didn’t patronize her or told her what to do and to think. He was aware that they were completely different people with different ways of thinking and didn’t assume the reasoning behind her acts. She was grateful for that and wished that her father was little bit like him.She shuddered internally. Bog and her father in the same thought was not something she was comfortable with.“Was it hard to learn?” she asked, trying to think about something else. Bog turned to her and smiled softly.“Why? You want to?”“It could be useful,” she shrugged again, one hand going unconsciously to the last wound on her arm under the long sleeved t-shirt she had on. If Bog saw that, he didn’t comment on it.“I could show you,” the man said softly, slowly realizing what she would need the lessons for. It was no mystery to him why she did what she did - she was the kind of person who would make justice on her own. And the system failed her. She was making sure that it wouldn’t fail anyone else.“Really?” Marianne couldn’t believe he would be willing to teach her so out of the blue.“Yeah. At least so you won’t hurt yourself by accident, kid.” He said without looking at her eyes, his hands slowly rolling up his sleeves.Marianne blinked slowly and did the same with her sleeves, revealing what Bog could only describe as a hard story written in scars. Some were clean - probably a knife (who the hell brought a knife to such a rich kid school?)-, others where jagged and badly healed, and others were scars he was painfully familiar with. His eyes run through her scarred wrists for a brief second, going back to Marianne’s serene face without commenting on it. Specially not pointing out that he had few very similar on his left wrist.“Alright,” he started the lesson after swallowing down the knot in his throat. “Martial arts is not about who is strongest, but I think you know that already,” she smiled at him at the comment. “You can take advantage of your height and speed to immobilize your opponent. But never hurt or make them bleed.”“Shame,” she shrugged.“I know, right?” he laughed with her as he took a step in her direction. “Punch me.”She nodded and without much input did as she was told. As expected, the librarian caught her punch with his much rougher and bigger hands, redirectioning her arm with soft gestures. He told her how to bring up the most force with each punch, how to tilt her hand so the hit was made with a softer part so the impact didn’t break any bone, how to redistribute the force so her shoulder wouldn’t hurt too much.Marianne was puzzled. There was so much theory and knowledge in such a simple movement. Who would have thought that a punch could be much more than simply hitting your opponent with your fists? Not that she complained, though; because in five minutes Bog had helped her understand more what she should do to defend herself than a year and a half beating up bastards in school grounds.“I see,” she nodded as she stored the information.And so, the minutes passed as the librarian reconverted into a teacher and, with a deep and soft voice, instructed the teenager in how to keep her body under control so her movements were strong and yet didn’t take so much energy to do. He touched her a lot as he corrected her initial demonstration, but both were so deep into the explanation that they didn’t notice how intimate their positions could be in any other context.The sun was going down by the time Marianne’s breathing got more labored, making her realize that the class got a bit longer than what both had initially expected. She took a moment that Bog stopped talking to look at how the school was empty by now and no one was walking down the small courtyard visible from the Library’s window.She looked back at Bog, finding him nearer than what she was usually comfortable with. It was in that moment that her mind chose to dwell on the fact that Bog’s big and warm hand was on her hip, the other one on her shoulder. This was more than intimate. This was closer than what she had been with a man since… since…“Marianne?” Bog’s voice made her snap out of her incoming flashback. She blinked back into reality.“Yeah?”“You went far away,” he commented. When did his face come so close to hers?“Uh…”“Is everything okay?” he put a hand on her forehead, the one that had been on her shoulder. “You are burning.”“Huh?” why couldn’t she form words? Her mouth went dry and her throat closed hard . This was… He was…Bog’s cologne was intoxicating her. He was close, too close, and she was deciding if she was uncomfortable or not. Maybe in another time, she would have punched the man on the face without hesitation. Her body had sustained enough men’s touch for a lifetime, after all, and she wasn’t going to let even yet another fake bastard get near her.Or would she?Bog was legit. He was safe and sane. He let her be herself and listened to her horrible tale without flinching or blaming her for what happened to her. He may have not heard all the details; but with what she had told him, everything she got in return was unwavering support.Suddenly they didn’t feel so far apart. For one moment, under the light of the sunset coming from the big window, Bog stopped being the substitute librarian to become the weird man that could understand her more than anyone else. The man that managed to make her look forward to tomorrow even after everything was taken away from her.Bog, on the other hand, had noticed the moment that his pupil stopped listening to his instructions. He was about to feel insulted by it, but understood that they had been doing this for too long and she may have been really tired. He even asked to make sure of it, and offered her a ride home, like he did yesterday, but her eyes told him that she was far away.It was in that moment that he found his hands in places he didn’t remember them being. His immediate thought was to put as much distance as he could between them, as he didn’t want her to get the wrong idea or feel threatened by him, but his body didn’t obey him.He panicked, his heart going wild with what he thought was anxiety. He knew this feeling, of course he did. Her natural sweet scent was all around him, and her face was close enough to make him consider even for a moment that -But no.No. It couldn’t be.Because, even in the wild case that it wasn’t weird to feel these things for a girl much younger than him; he was aware that he didn’t deserve her. Bog just knew it. She was strong and beautiful, things that he was not. He could only bring her down with his nonsense and his weirdness and his crumbling anxiety - Stop dreaming, silly boy , his teenage inner voice told him, bringing back so many memories from angsty times. He had told himself just that when that girl said that “couldn’t love him” so long ago. When people looked like they wanted to be his friends only to laugh behind his back. Stop dreaming, because dreaming was for another type of people that wasn’t him“Bog, I -” she whispered, not wanting to break the mood.“Marianne, don’t -”Her hand posed softly on his cheek, making him stop talking. His heart stopped beating for a moment. This couldn’t be happening. This was not real. It was a dream - or a very, very cruel nightmare. He was going to wake up and -Their lips finally touched in a gentle caress. If his eyes weren’t opened he wouldn’t have felt it at all, but there she was, with her eyes closed and at barely inches from him. Marianne , who was as far away from him as a distant star, for various painful reasons. She was there kissing him like he was made of fine glass, her thumb rubbing his bony cheeks with care, like if she wasn't softer than that he was going to break down any moment.He wanted to panic, but stopped himself from doing so. Instead, he leaned down the space between them and responded to her kiss with all his heart.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

When Marianne finally got home, her mind was going around and far away from her body. She hadn't felt like this before, not even when Roland confessed an eternity ago. She felt like she could fly from her bed and right through the ceiling, floating away in a gentle breeze…

She sighed and opened her eyes, a bitter smile on her lips despite the happiness filling her chest. While this wasn’t something she expected to feel, at least not so soon, she was aware of the things this entailed. That even if Bog kissed her back - she still couldn’t believe that it really happened! -, this whatever that was happening between them could not last.

She was young and he was... what? Ten years older than her? Maybe even more, and that was just too much for her. Why the hell did she think that it was a good idea? I mean, she was the one that took the first step. She, who despised romance and love. She, who denied to her own sister that something was going on between her and the librarian.

Marianne put a hand over her eyes, snorting at the thought. She was being too silly with this. Bog was an adult and he knew that this couldn’t continue. Yeah. Tomorrow she was going to sit down with him and discuss the termination of…

Of his soft kisses and warm hands? Of the way that he looked at her like she was beautiful? Like she mattered, like her existence was worth something for someone. Bog’s blue eyes told her what she had needed to hear this whole time, bringing the life she had lost back to her. And it has only been one evening like this.

A future with him was too tantalising. In less than a year she would be eighteen and she would be legally an adult. She could date whoever she wanted, so it wasn’t a wild thought to be… involved with the librarian. Romantically.

Marianne chuckled lowly. God, she was a mess.

“You are pretty quiet tonight,” Dadga said to his eldest daughter, who hadn’t touched much of her dinner.

When he finally got home and found that Marianne forgot to make dinner he thought nothing of it. The girl was in her last year and it wasn’t weird that she would be balancing a lot of work right now. And, of course, her after school punishment for bad behavior.

“Huh?” she asked without looking up from her food. The Director looked at Dawn, but the girl shrugged in response, not knowing what was going on with her sister.

“Is everything okay at school?” he asked, putting down his fork.

Marianne blinked slowly and smiled, knowing what was going to happen if she told him the truth. It would eventually go back to Roland, that why did she have to end her relationship with him if 'things were going great’ and that she was prettier without that much make up. She would answer that her reasons were her own, and that her choices weren’t driven by a broken heart, as everyone seemed to assume. He would scoff and tell her that why did she have to be so difficult and if Violet was still there with them she wouldn’t behave like this.

She hated when her father mentioned her mother like that, like if she were still alive they would be happy and things would go as planned. Things wouldn’t suddenly be going to get better, she was aware of that, and if he wanted her to be happier he could at least pay attention to what she had to say for once in his life.

But right now she was way too tired to start a fight. That’s why she just smiled and said:

“Nah. Everything is ok.” But her father’s face didn’t look very convinced.

“You sure? You look… different,” he frowned and leaned in, trying to look closer at his daughter’s face. “Don’t you think so, Dawn?”

The mentioned girl smiled weakly. Marianne was crushing on a handsome, tall librarian, but she couldn’t say it. She chose the safe route and shrugged again.

“Something new lately?” he kept trying to connect with his little girl. She seemed so far away since Roland… she was not the Marianne he used to know. “Maybe -,” he swallowed hard, “Maybe a boy?”

Marianne looked at him so fast and he knew that he was right.

“Roland?” Dagda smiled tentatively, but the teenager was shaking her head already.

“Never,” she sighed and ate a few bites with a frown on her face. “I’m not hungry anymore. I’ll eat this tomorrow.” She got up and went to the kitchen to store the food.

The father blinked in surprise and sighed. Roland was a delicate topic in the house and he didn’t know how to bring it up anymore without getting this type of response from the girl. It was like the mere mention of his name triggered her defenses and made her even more closed off to the world than what she usually was.

When they had that final fight where they broke up, he thought it was going to simply go away in a while. Yes, they were in the same school but their classes were in different parts of the building so she wouldn’t have to worry about seeing him everyday. And kids were like that, right? One partner here, another one later… He had a few girlfriends in high school and he never behaved like that when those relationships ended.

He wished that his wife were still alive. She would have known what to do. Maybe it was a woman’s thing? He never understood them very well, specially not teenagers, but he was trying.

Why was Marianne being so difficult? Just let it go, that’s what he usually tried to tell her. Even if it is going back with Roland and resolve this absurd tension or finding someone else to be with - he didn’t care. He just wanted his old Marianne back.

“What have you told him?” The older sister cornered Dawn once she got back to her room. The blonde was expecting this conversation sooner or later, so she squared her shoulders and smiled innocently.

“Not a thing. Really.”

“Then why did he ask all those questions?” Marianne frowned and crossed her arms.

“I haven’t said anything. I promise,” she sat down on her bed and looked up to her sister with a gentler smile on her lips. “I said I would help you with Bog and that’s what I intend to do.”

“Don’t say his name!” Dawn blinked in surprise, noticing the slight blush on the other girl’s face.

“Oh my,” she giggled. “What happened?”

Marianne blushed deeper and damned her bad luck. Telling Dawn was a bad idea. But it wasn’t like there was much to tell, though; and she still intended to end it - whatever there was - tomorrow once she spoke with the librarian.

“Nothing.”

Dawn smiled wider, her eyes full of mirth in her trademark knowing look.

“Okay, maybe something happened today,” Marianne looked elsewhere in shame, choosing to ignore the tiny shriek of glee from her sister. “But I’m going to end it tomorrow.”

“What? Why?” Dawn jumped to her feet, ready to shake her sister until she were more reasonable. “And tell me the details! Did you kiss?” Marianne’s blush darkened. “Oh my -!”

“Shh!!”

“I know, I know.” the girl jumped in her place. “Is just that I’m sooooo happy! I knew he was good for you!”

“He is not -”

“Nonsense!” Dawn interrupted, placing her hands on her hips as she frowned. “He has been the best thing in your life since… well, since that. You are not letting him go, you hear me!?”

“But he is much older than me, and I -”

“Nonsense!” she said again, this time with a light chuckle. “You are not going down that path, girl. He might be older, but you guys fit so damn well that it doesn’t matter. Age is just a number!”

Marianne sighed in defeat.

“You’ve read too many shoujo mangas, Dawn. In real life things don’t work like that.” The sister made a face at the comment, knowing that the older teen was closed to any argument or reasoning. She bit her lip and used her last card, using the soft voice she reserved for their mother’s memory.

“Mom and Dad had almost ten years of age difference.”

That finally made Marianne listen.

“But - but that’s different!” she tried to defend herself. “They were adults when it happened! They -”

“They met in college and started going out when she was a freshman. Which you’ll be next year, Marianne,” Dawn’s serious face, devoid from any of it usual spark, almost scared the elder sister for a moment. “In a few months you’ll start college and be all adult. You can make your own decisions about love.”

Marianne smirked at the irony of being lectured by her sister, who was using her own thoughts against her.

“I think so,” she shrugged.

“No, don’t run away from this. There’s nothing wrong with it, Marianne. He adores you. I can see that!”

“I…,” she blushed slightly, remembering Bog’s eyes that same evening. They looked at her like she was beautiful. He touched her like she was the most precious thing he had ever seen. He kissed her like it was the last time he could be able to do it.

Maybe it was, her most obnoxious part responded inside her head, reminding her that she should not succumb to the temptation; that changing was bad, that taking risks was what put her in this place first. That romance was for the weak. That letting someone else have that kind of power over her was a bad idea.

And it was, looking at it from certain perspective. Loving someone implied giving them the key to bring her down, and trust that they wouldn’t ever use it. That Roland disappointed her was part of the learning process, but it didn’t mean that the next one would do the same. That Bog would do the same.

Of course Dawn was right. She should stop and listen to her heart for once. If he made her happy then it was stupid to care so much for what they would say or if he’s older and whatnot.

“Oh, Marianne…,” her sister said as she got up. For a moment Marianne was confused by her sister’s behaviour, unable to stop the girl when she hugged her. “Don’t be scared. Everything’s going to be alright.” She patted the older sister’s back.

It was then that Marianne noticed that she was crying.

Things weren’t alright, she thought bitterly as she stood in front of the Library’s door, unable to simply open it and face Bog.

She couldn’t sleep last night and her classes were painfully slow and difficult to follow in her sleep-deprived state. Teachers talked about nonsense and formulas and words mixed together in a big mess in her brain. That’s why she knew that it was a bad idea to talk to Bog after school. She needed to be in her right mind to do that conversation.

“Hey,” she heard the man’s voice and blinked open the eyes she didn’t remember closing. The girl looked up and found the subject of her despair right in front of her face, a tentative smile on his lips and obvious nervousness in his eyes.

“‘Sup,” Marianne answered, trying to mask the fact that maybe she just fell asleep while standing there.

“You look horrible.”

“Thanks,” she smiled. Both laughed.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“Nope.”

“I wonder why,” Bog smiled cheekily, surprising Marianne by his bold move. She pushed him to get inside the Library with a scoff, refusing to answer that remark.

She had to stop.

She had to end this.

She had to!

But as soon as they went inside the Library it was like an electric current passed between them, the memories from the previous day going through their minds. Any smart speech she had rehearsed in her mind went out of the window in the moment their skin touched when Bog lovingly caressed her cheek.

She barely had time to sigh before the man leaned down and kissed her, a mere touch on the lips, something chaste and delicate like the situation they were in.

She tried to force her mouth to form words, but blaming the lack of sleep - even if she knew she was more awake in that moment than the whole day -, she wasn’t able to stop the situation. A simple “hey” would do the trick to make him stop kissing her. Anything! But the spell of his lips touching hers broke any kind of resolution inside of her body.

His soft touch on her skin as he caressed her cheeks, cupping her face with so much care with his big hands. It was in moments like this when she forgets how he may look at the rest of the world; that for her he was soft and tender, gentle with infinite care.

And Marianne knew that she was doomed.

She couldn’t stop this, stop him, stop herself. It was like her body acted on its own, crossing her arms behind his neck, bringing him down to her level for better access. Kissing him back with enthusiasm, she decided then and there that what the hell; she was old enough to make these kind of decisions by herself after all.

It was then that they heard a knock on the door, startling them and making them jump and take a step back just in case. Marianne cleared her throat and combed back her messy hair - she glared at the librarian - before opening the door, finding…

“Hello, Buttercup.” The blond man smiled there, showing as much as he could his perfectly white teeth.

“What are you doing here!” she hissed and looked back at Bog with worry. Had they been discovered?

“I came to talk to you. It’s important,” Roland glanced at the librarian, his smile faltering a bit, sending a clear message: It was private, too.

“Don’t worry, I’ll leave,” Bog sighed and walked deeper into the Library to give them some privacy. Roland waited until he disappeared behind a far shelf to look back at Marianne with a serious expression.

“We have to go, now,” he whispered before grabbing the girl’s arm, pulling with a bit too much force.

“What do you think you are doing?”

“I’m saving you, Buttercup.” She narrowed her eyes, planting her feet on the ground.

“What?” Marianne forced her arm out of his disgusting hands. “And if I needed saving it should be from you!”

“Stop being so difficult! I’m trying to save you from that man!” Roland approached her and put his hands on her shoulders, but it wasn’t a pleasant touch. It wasn’t like when Bog did it, because then she felt protected and warm. Now, it made her fight or flight instinct arise.

“What the hell are you talking about!”

“Marianne,” the sound of her name coming from his lips made her recoil. “You have been seen kissing… that man.”

The girl’s body went cold. Her slow mind tried to process the fact that word of her beautiful relationship, which still didn’t have a name for, with the librarian was already passing around. She felt heavy, she felt tired. She felt like crumbling down. This couldn’t be happening, at least not so soon.

She never had the chance to be happy.

“... and I had to get you as far as possible!” Roland was still talking, but she could barely hear him over the beeping in her ears. “Are you alright?” He put his hand on her cheek, making her snap out of her trance.

“What have you done?” she whispered, looking fiercely at him in the eyes.”Why are you torturing me? Have you not done enough?”

“I don’t know what are you talking about, Buttercu-”

“Silence,” Marianne cut him, too tired to scream. She tried to take a step back, but he still had his hands around her. “Let me go.”

“I can’t.”

“Why.” It wasn’t even a question.

“Because you can’t go back to him.”

“Who the fuck said so.”

Roland smiled, putting his other hand on her left cheek, successfully cupping her face in what could have been a loving gesture. Instead, she felt threatened when Roland leaned down and whispered in her ear: “Your father said so.”

Before she could dwell on the discovery, the speaker on the wall came back to life to deliver the message that the librarian was requested at the Director’s office. Immediately.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Bog couldn’t believe this. Or anything that was happening.

As he walked down the hallways to the Director’s office, flashbacks of what he saw back at the Library haunted him.

Roland. Marianne’s ex.

He had never met or seen the boy, as he didn’t spend a lot of time out of his Library - and the boy didn’t look like the type that read much anyways -, so he didn’t have a solid opinion about him. But one glance at his perfect blond hair and his perfect smile, and he got shivers brought by painful memories. He was the type of boy that mocked him the most when he was in high school.

Did really Marianne date that? Well, she said that he was handsome and that she was young and stupid; but the girl he knew would punch people like Roland in the face without many regrets. How different was the girl he was falling in love with - because he wasn’t going to lie to himself, he did love her -  from the Queen on the school she once was?

He was thinking something along those lines when he heard her yelp in surprise back at the door of the Library. He moved to look around the shelf he was hiding behind, stopping himself just in time to not reveal that he was listening. Bog peeked slowly and watched as the girl was pulled into the boy’s chest, maybe, as he couldn’t see very well from that far.

He frowned. He couldn’t see her face from his position, but she didn’t seem to put up a fight when Roland touched her in a way that he knew she didn’t like, without much respect of her personal boundaries. He wondered what they were talking about, whispering so low that it wouldn’t get to his ears.

Bog was ready to step in, maybe comment something about Marianne having some work to do or any lie to help her out of the situation, when two things happened at the same time: one, Roland gently cupped her face and, as he looked at him directly in the eyes, he leaned down to kiss Marianne; and then the message that he was needed at the Director’s office echoed on the hallways.

It was like something snapped inside of him and the world stopped turning to make the walk by the teenagers an eternity. He felt numb, disconnected, unable to thread two thoughts properly in a decent phrase. Marianne, Roland, the school… nothing made sense.  He refused to look back at them, too afraid to see her eyes one more time, too afraid to see the mockery in her lovely golden shade.

Still feeling a bit numb, he knocked on the Director’s office’s door and waited until the secretary opened it, walked past her and made a beeline to the room where he didn’t want to be right now. He suspected what was going on already, not that it took a genius to realize that he had been tricked one more time.

“Boggart, I must say I’m disappointed,” Director Dagda said without a greeting. “I’ve been told some disturbing news about you.”

Bog swallowed hard and breathed in, his heart about to explode from the anxiety. “Is that so?” Dagda nodded slowly, his hands clenching and unclenching on top of his desk.

“I’ve heard that you have been involved in some… illegal activities with my daughter,” it was obvious that the man was trying hard not to break character. “Is it true?”

“No, sir.”

“I don’t believe you!” Dagda answered fast, slamming his hand on the desk. “What did you do to her on that Library?”

“We just sorted books, sir,” Bog looked behind the other man to the ceiling to floor windows. The sky was clear and the sun looked warm, but his body felt like trapped inside a snowstorm.

“But you can’t prove it.”

This time Bog looked at him, frowning. “How could I?”

“Look, even if you were right and nothing happened, we still have to investigate it, ok?” he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course, Marianne will cease her work with you and by any circumstance you can’t get near her. You hear me!?”

“Crystal clear,” Bog whispered, already feeling like any bit of happiness he may have gathered was breaking down along with his battered heart.

When he got out of the office, he almost bumped into the object of his despair.

“Bog? What happened?”

“Don’t get near me,” he grumbled without stopping or looking at her.

“Hey! Wait!” she run to him, surprised by his change of behaviour. “Are you alright?”

“Stop that,” Bog still didn’t look at her.

“What?”

“Stop this charade, Marianne. I already know what’s going on!” He was the one that stopped in the deserted hallway in front of a very confused Marianne. “You don’t have to fake it anymore!”

“Fake it? What are you talking about?” the girl lifted a hand in his direction, trying to comfort him, but he slapped it away.

“Don’t. Touch. Me.” The man growled. “I won’t be a fool again!”

She felt her heart break, not understanding what was going on. He took her silence as a confirmation.

“You - You played me!” his voice came out a bit breathy, but he kept talking. “I knew it was a bad idea coming here! All of you teenagers are the same!”

“I don’t know what you are upset about, but listen -!”

“No,” Bog tried to calm down. Even if they haven’t had company yet it was a matter of time before someone came and saw them talking. “You are different than the others. You are a better actress. Good job, Marianne! I really thought you loved me!” he whispered, and for a moment the girl was truly afraid by his face. His hair was all over the place and his eyes sparkled with dangerous feelings she never wanted to see in him.

Without waiting for an answer, the man turned back and left her there more confused than before. The image of his back as he walked far from her burned in her memory.

“Marianne?” she heard her father’s secretary’s voice coming from the opened door. She was looking at her as she stood under the doorway, a tiny smile on her painted lips. “Your father wants to see you.”

She nodded.

As she walked inside the office she felt hot and cold at the same time. In her mind echoed Roland’s words as well as Bog’s, making her wonder if she was trapped in some kind of nightmare. It started good, she was happy, and now it hurts more than when she found out that the entire school was laughing behind her back.

“Hi, sweetheart,” her father’s voice greeted her, but it did little to make her focus on what was in front of her. “Please, sit down.”

She did so mechanically.

“I know what happened. Roland told me,” she blinked into existence again at his words.

“What?” her throat felt dry.

“You don’t have to be afraid anymore, dear. That man won’t bother you again.” Dadga placed one hand on hers, but she withdrew faster than lightning.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Marianne frowned.

“Language,” the father narrowed his eyes, but she didn’t seem any less angry. “And I’m talking about Boggart. I know he tried to take advantage of you but -”

“Roland told you?” the girl was breathing hard, standing up abruptly and pushing the chair to the floor in the process. The world was spinning around her at full speed. “And you believe him!?”

“Why are you so upset?” Dadga looked up to his standing daughter, confusion painting his features. “And yeah, why would he lie? He always took care of you.”

Marianne wanted to scream, to fight. Anything! She was the only one that knew that Roland was a bastard that wouldn’t hesitate to lie to keep up his image, but her father couldn’t see past the façade.

“You know nothing!” she growled, her hands in fists at her sides. “Roland is lying, dad. He is nothing but a bastard that -”

“That’s it!” the Director stood up and slammed a hand on the desk. “You are going home and you are going to reflect on your behaviour! I have allowed it all this time it because I knew that you had to burn that phase, but enough is enough! Roland is not a bad guy and all this,” he made a gesture in her direction, her clothes, her makeup, her angry pose, “theatrics are totally unnecessary!”

“Then leave Bog out of this! He hadn’t done anything wrong!”

“Stop defending him!” he screamed. God, how far had that man eaten her willpower? What have he done to make her defend her aggressor? “If that… man tried to take advantage of you, then it’s time to speak up and stop this nonsense!”

“I can’t believe this,” Marianne said, shaking her head. “Do you really not believe me?”

“Look, uh,” Dadga sighed. “I’m tired. Of all of this. I don’t want this situation as much as you do, dear, but -”

“I can’t believe you,” she put her hands on her hair, pulling at the roots in frustration. “I’m -  I’m done. With you. With this school. You guys are crazy.” She laughed softly not really looking at him.

“What are you talking about?” he said as he watched his daughter take a step back, her eyes showing the look of a haunted woman when she directed their full force on him..

“I’ve put up with this because of Dawn, you know?” she smiled softly, not looking at him anymore even if her eyes were placed on him. “But this is enough. I don’t care anymore.” She turned to leave, but Dadga jumped to stop her, grabbing her arm.

She got free with a violent tug, looking up at him with her burning eyes, pure disgust in the deep golden brown. That alone made him stop fighting to keep her in her place.

“Don’t.” She whispered, her voice a mere broken breath, but it was enough.

Her father froze in place, unable to move his body once again to stop his daughter as she walked out of the room. He was confused and a bit scared, feelings he had never associated with Marianne before. This conversation went in a completely different direction than he had expected, but he couldn’t find the moment it went wrong no matter how much he went back to every word he said.

What the hell was happening?

The next day, Marianne didn’t go to school. She had been crying all night and when morning came she couldn’t find the strength to move out of bed. She heard her father try to wake her up and make her go to school, but Dawn remained firm on her door and didn’t allow it. Marianne was thankful for that. At least someone didn’t need proof that Roland wasn’t what he seemed to be to believe her.

She went through the motions as she roamed around the house, her mind thinking about what happened and how mad she was with everyone, even Bog. Specially him. He never let her explain herself and also let himself be consumed by his doubts and his prejudices even after everything they shared together.

Maybe she had been truly a fool for believing that there was something else for her out there. That this time would be different.

Maybe she had just to let go the idea of being happy, at least for the time being. She would let the months pass and would go far away from all this pain, and hope that someday it would hurt less. She wished that it was that easy, not feeling anything, becoming numb to the world and let the days blend with each other. Maybe if she stopped caring she wouldn’t have to feel like this.

That night, when she went to bed again, she didn’t cry. Because she wasn’t going to be the fool of the story again.

When Bog learned that Marianne hadn’t come to school the next day, a tiny part of his heart was sick with worry. Something had happened to her? Maybe she was really ill the previous day and it had worsened with all the drama.

But no, he wasn’t going to waste time on that deceiver witch. He just shook his head and let the other teachers gossip about the issue in peace. It didn’t matter to him, he was probably going to be kicked out sooner or later by the way that the teachers avoided him like the plague. They knew, of course, and by now he probably was some kind of child molester to their eyes.

“Bog,” he looked up from his book to find that eccentric art teacher. The rest of the staff had left the lounge. How weird. When did the bell ring? “Are the rumours true?” she asked softly.

He glared at her.

“Why do you care?” She just smiled at his behaviour. Aura adjusted the bag on her shoulder.

“Because I don’t believe them.”

Bog scoffed. “That’s a first.”

“Don’t believe them too, Bog,” her smile turned sad. “Or they’ll consume you.”

He kept glaring at her but didn’t answer. The teacher opened her mouth like she wanted to say something else, but thought better of it and turned to leave the room, letting Bog behind in the lounge.

The librarian closed the book he had been trying to read and took off his glasses, feeling the headache coming. He hadn’t slept very well that night and it was going to be a living hell for him today. Hiding in his Library never sounded like such a good idea before.

Next day, Marianne finally went to school. She spoke less than before, and tried to become even more invisible than what was possible. Her eyes went dark cold and any time that people crossed glances with her they looked elsewhere without knowing exactly why.

Dawn was worried for her sister, but didn’t do much to take her out of her new persona. She didn’t know what happened to her two days ago, but maybe she didn’t want to. Whatever it was seemed bad enough to take her to the limit, breaking her in the process. It was sad to watch that spark that came with her new love be gone overnight.

This was way worse than what happened with Roland, because at least back then her sister tried to be cheerful around her.

Bog watched mindlessly as the kids walked around the inner courtyard at lunchtime. Why was he doing that instead of the big pile of work waiting for him on the tables? He wasn’t sure. Maybe it was that the teachers commented that Marianne was back to school and he hoped to see her one last time before having to leave the school. His rational part was screaming in his ear that he was being stupid for this, that she was the one that used him for her own gain, that giving her the attention was a mistake.

Whatever the case, here he was, waiting for her to appear any moment.

And there she was, walking down the courtyard with her lunch bag in one hand and a book in the other, sitting down on a tree that was in a weird angle from his window, but still visible.

He watched her sit down under the shade of the tree, open her bag and take a small bite of her sandwich as she looked for the page she had been reading on the book. For anyone else she would have looked like her usual self, but he knew her and he could see that her pose was tense and her movements were robotic, unnatural. And her eyes… they had never looked so devoid of emotion before.

It was then that he realized that they were looking at each other. She was frowning, but she didn’t seem eager to stop the eye-contact, or at least as much as he did. Bog put a hand on the glass, feeling his heart starting to beat a little faster, hating that she still had that kind of power over him.

He didn’t know what kind of face he had in that moment, but Marianne winced and shook her head before gathering her things and standing up to eat somewhere else.

Bog woke up from his spell and frowned. He knew that it should be weird that she wasn’t with her handsome ex-boyfriend, maybe not an “ex” by now, but she probably had a reason for that. Who knows. It didn’t matter anymore.

She didn’t matter anymore.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The following days were filled with uncertainty. Rumours about what happened rampaged through the school, and as the people involved were rather unapproachable, the students and teachers chose to fill the gaps with any kind of information they could come up with.

In the end, when Marianne heard the story told at the girl's restroom by some people she recognized were of Roland's fanclub, the tale had been warped into a fantastic and epic delusion where the blond teenager had rescued Marianne from the evil molester that took advantage of her. And that as she was grateful for the rescue, she was considering presenting as the Queen in next week's Spring Ball dance to go back to Roland.

Nothing was further from the truth, she thought, as she hadn't seen Roland since he had the nerve of crashing into her life to destroy it once again. She became even more vocal about her hatred at home, fighting daily with her father about the issue.

She knew she was self destructing. It didn't take a genius to see that, but she didn't care anymore. Marianne had lost everything she had to fight for and it wasn't in her nature to just sit down and let other people tell her what to do or what to think.

It was exactly this what her father didn't seem to understand. He still  insisted that she was being unreasonable, or at least he said so when he tried to be civil. When they fought he usually chastised her for defending her aggressor and that she shouldn't have tried to be alone all the time, that if she had asked for help sooner then it wouldn't have come to this.

“At least with Roland you were protected,” her father said one time and Marianne had to control herself to not throw her slice of steamed ham to his face. Instead, she chose to keep eating dinner like he hadn't said anything at all. It was usually the best course of action, but she found she was being less and less patient as the days rolled around.

At school she noticed this, and it worried her. She hesitated less when jumping into a fight, finding herself more often than not involved in a vicious fight with fellow students. It came to a point where she spent more time at the infirmary than out, almost breaking her arm many times.

It was like the status quo from the last two years had broken and all the tension flooded the hallways. Everyone voiced their opinion about the issues out in the open, unafraid of the outcome. And if things went wrong, you could always blame Marianne and Bog. It didn't matter how, but it always worked.

Bog watched her come and go from his window at the Library, uncertain of what he was feeling as he noticed her new bruises and wounds. Her behaviour puzzled him. But well, that wasn’t anything new, it was precisely her unique personality what initially had attracted him to her that fateful day that they met.

It seemed like an eternity ago, but it hadn’t even been a full month since she was brought to the Library to work for him. His heart ached at the memory, for a moment wishing he had the power to go back and redo his actions - like not falling in love with her, for starters. With her eyes and her kissable lips and her even more beautiful personality. He wished that it didn’t hurt so much to think about her even after everything she did to him.

Bog sighed. Wishing wouldn’t get him anywhere.

For now, advances in the “investigation” about his illegal activities within the school seemed to be frozen for the moment; and despite having been interrogated once about what he did with Marianne after school, fortunately his days weren’t disturbed by it. He could hide as much as he wanted in the Library. It was like his dreams about being left alone finally came true.

But he didn’t want to, he found out one day. He had stopped being angry and started thinking about her instead, daydreaming about what it could have been in another place, another time. If she was older. If he wasn’t so hideous and easy to blame. He started also to think that her shock from a few weeks ago was real and that Marianne really didn’t know anything of what was happening; that she really did love him back and that both were tricked by fate to fall for the wrong person.

That thought usually took him to dark places, though. Maybe Marianne deserved more than him? Maybe he shouldn’t have accepted this job? Maybe his place wasn’t to love or be loved in return. A long time ago, when he suffered for the last time in high school, he discovered that by banishing the stupid dream of love from his life he helped himself maintain a certain kind of order in the midst of all chaos. Maybe this was just a reminder of that.

Thinking about it, Bog decided that he was closing the Library for the day. No one would notice anyways.

As he closed the door he heard noises coming from the janitor closet, which wasn’t far from his position. How weird. Weren’t the kids supposed to be in lunch time?

The librarian approached the closet and stopped in his tracks when he recognized Marianne's voice in there. What the hell was she doing there?

“C’mon, Buttercup. You know you want it.” Oh.

Roland.

Bog pressed his lips together and clenched his hand tighter around the keys. Yep, he had to forget about her and never ever go back that road again.

“Go away,” she clearly said.

Sure, Bog thought to himself, ready to go to his car and, who knows, maybe don’t come back tomorrow to school? Send a note to the Director accepting any conditions if he let him resign sooner than -

“Go away Roland!” the girl’s voice was muffled by the door, but he heard the fear painting her words. “Don’t touch me!”

That was what made him act without thinking. Bog rushed to the door and opened it with a firm yank, knowing what he would find there but not prepared at all to actually see it.

Marianne, sweet and strong Marianne, was trying to cover her bra with what was left of her shirt; her eyes wide opened in pure fear, drops of tears in the corners, refusing to go down. Roland’s hand was way up her skirt between her legs, making Bog’s stomach turn upside down. How dare he-!

“Bog?” she turned to look at him, actual relief in her face.

“Marianne-,” he stopped himself when he saw them. Bruises on her neck, finger shaped, going around over her creamy skin and morphing into scratch marks on the back of the neck.

“Mind your own fucking business,” the blond teenager woke him up from his shock. Bog turned to the boy and, with great satisfaction, grabbed him by the shirt and threw him down the corridor, as far away as he could.

“Let’s go,” he said in a low voice, grabbing the scared girl as gently as he could given the circumstances. “Can you walk?”

She blushed, knowing what he meant by that. “Yeah. I’m not… I’m not injured.” He nodded and kept them going forward, one hand still in her arm. If he noticed that, he didn’t comment on it. “Where are we going?” she tried her voice, grateful that so far it hadn’t shaken a bit.

“To the infirmary.”

Half an hour later, fully bandaged and noticeably calmer, Marianne found herself in the infirmary. Alone. With Bog.

It has been such a long time that now it was plain weird. She spent days hating him, feeding the raw emotions, tiring herself to sleep by thinking again and again about the pain he inflicted on her that fateful day when he told her that her love for him was fake. An act.

By now she was tired. It became so normal to avoid him and anything that had anything to do with him that eventually she could live on like nothing ever happened with the librarian. But now, having him so close and unable to focus on anything else, everything, the feelings and the pain and the love, came back with a bang.

She blinked slowly, watching Bog’s long and pale fingers work her numerous scratches with professionalism, with a care that kind of surprised her after how mad he looked the other day. And there was the issue that he saved her from Roland. He saved her from -

Marianne breathed in slowly, trying to keep the panic attack at bay. Right now was not a good moment to start crying and shaking. Think about something else, she said to herself.

“So…,” her voice cracked and she tried to clear her throat.

“Hm?” the man didn’t look up from his work. Marianne tugged at the shirt she had on, trying to hold it close as it has lost the first four buttons.

“It’s been a while, huh?” Oh my God Marianne. Is this the smartest thing you could think of?

His body tensed and his hands stopped bandaging her left foot, where she had a nasty scrape from a recent fall. She swears someone tripped her on purpose.

“I think so…” he finally answered her, resuming his work.  The girl bit her lip, unsure of how to proceed.

“How…,” she swallowed, “how have you been?” I missed you.

The librarian finally looked up to her an blinked slowly. “How do you think? I’m an accused child molester.” He said in a monotonous voice, like it wasn’t something important at all.

“Okay, if we are going to talk about this-”

“I didn’t know that we were talking about anything.”

She frowned. “Don’t be like this, Bog.”

“Oh yeah?” he put down the antiseptic and gauze he was using once he finished with her foot. “And how do you want me to be after -”

“It wasn’t me.” She interrupted him, fixing her eyes on his striking blue ones. “Roland was the one that told my father. It was a trap for me too.” She continued at his confusion.

Bog blinked from his kneeling position, looking up at her. One second ticked by, then two, and three; by the fourth Bog took a deep breath and took off his glasses to rub his eyes, finally breaking eye contact with the girl.

“I’m tired of all of this.”

“Me too,” Marianne moved a hand to caress his cheek. “I didn’t mean.... for any of this to happen.”

The librarian opened his eyes at the touch, looking back at her brown eyes, unconsciously leaning on her hand. He smiled softly, unknowingly making the girl’s heart stop for a moment, and turned his head slightly to put a kiss on her uninjured palm.

“Now I know,” Bog said still smiling.

They looked at each other feeling buried feelings arise, the love they had for each other still intact even after feeding the hate at the situation. Marianne wanted to say so much, touch him so much, but before she could open her mouth she saw his eyes go down and his body tense as a noticeable blush darkened his pale skin.

“You… uh…. sorry -”

“Huh?” she looked down to see what was the problem, realizing that by placing her hand on his cheek she had let go what was left of her shirt and her black bra was uncovered to be seen by anyone. Or Bog, in this case.

“This is awkward,” she rushed to close her shirt, a blush on her own cheeks. “Sorry, I-”

“No, no. Is not your fault.”

The memory of Roland’s hands forcefully opening her shirt, how they touched her skin like it was some kind prize he deserved, how he squeezed her chest as he said how much she should be grateful-

“Here,” Bog’s voice took her back to the present. In front of her was the shirt he had been wearing before, but to her peace of mind, he had a inner sleeveless t-shirt on. “I think I brought a spare one, but it’s in my bag back at the Library’s door.”

“Thanks,” she smiled gratefully at him.

“Ok, what’s going on here?” the nurse said, arriving just in that moment. He probably was at lunch break too, that’s why there was no one in the infirmary when they got there. “Boggart? Weren’t you forbidden to get near that girl?”

“He saved me,” she cut into the conversation, knowing where this was going. “Roland Green was about to rape me in the janitor’s closet.”

The nurse blinked in surprise.

“What?”

“You heard me,” she frowned, turned back at an unsure Bog, who was just standing there in all awkwardness. “Go get your shirt. Then we are going to talk with dad.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one to notify that?” the nurse said, frowning at the exiting man.

“Do that if you wish. I’m tired of this circus and I’m going to talk with the Director anyways.”

Marianne was peacefully waiting for Bog to return, feeling contentment for the first time in a while. Things were going to be okay, for once, and Bog didn’t hate her after all. They would talk with her father and Roland would leave her alone at last.

“Marianne?” she turned to the infirmary door to find her father there, very red and flustered, his breathing heavy and ragged, like he had been running to get there. “I heard what happened. Are you okay?”

She frowned, feeling a horrible sense of déjà vu.

“Let me guess, Roland told you?” Dadga nodded. “Then don’t believe him.”

“There you are again with that. Leave Roland alone! You can’t seriously hold a grudge for so long!”

Marianne sighed, getting up with unstable legs.

“I don’t care what you think, father,” she spat as she looked at him in the eye. “Roland’s been lying to you all this time and Bog was framed for stuff he didn’t do.”

Dadga looked like he was about to retaliate when he noticed the way too big shirt on his daughter. “What are you wearing? Is that a man’s shirt?”

“Oh, yeah,” she looked down, noticing that the hem of the shirt was below the edge of her skirt, making it look like she wore nothing else under Bog’s shirt. “Bog lent it to me. Mine was in pretty bad shape after what Roland did.”

“Did that man seriously get near you?”

Marianne narrowed her eyes. “Is that the only thing you register from my words?”

“I told him that it was forbidden-!”

“Dad, are you serious?”

“We are going to the police.” He grabbed the girl by the arm, not noticing the bandages under the fabric of the shirt.

“What?”

“Then I’m doing what I should have done years ago and get you a therapist. This is beyond absurd.”

She planted her feet on her ground, trying to pull free her arm. It hurt a lot and probably her wound had reopened with all the action.

“Are you implying that I’m making this up? That I’m crazy?”

“What I’m saying is that you are unstable, Marianne,” the Director pulled with more strength, almost making her trip with her own feet as he dragged her out of the building. “Your violent behaviour must come from somewhere. You seemed fine after your mother’s funeral but I see it was the beginning of this mess,” the man scoffed. “It made you vulnerable and men like Boggart would surely use it against you.”

“Are you fucking hearing yourself!?” she screamed feeling a bit scared now. “I’m not crazy, dad!

“Shut up!” he slapped her cheek, surprising the girl. He never hit her. No when she started the fightings or when she talked back to him. “I’m trying to help you! Why are you being so difficult with everything! All the time complaining and whining, behaving like a brat! I tried to be calm and understanding about it but this is enough!”

Marianne blinked and slipped to the floor in shock. She put one hand on her cheek, the one her father wasn’t grabbing with shaking hands, feeling the skin that had been hit get warmer by the second. She had been hit many times but it never hurt this much. Because it was her father who did this.

And then she knew. He was never going to understand, to get out of his stupid idea of what was happening. He would never see Roland as anything but the perfect boy he didn’t have; he would never accept that his daughter as she was, that he would think for the rest of his life that she was unwell and it was all a phase.

Or would he? Because she knew a way that this cycle of violence could end. She didn’t like it but...

Marianne swallowed hard and stood up slowly, feeling the blood of the reopened wound flow over her skin and stain Bog’s shirt. She looked at her father in the eyes, erasing the world around them, the noise, the people, the painful past. She had to do this, it was the only way to end this circus. Because even if the tale she was about to tell her father was a painful memory, she was sure that it was the time to share it.

“Dad, Roland tried to rape me.”

Dagda stopped glaring at her and opened his mouth in surprise.

“Girl, if this is a lie to -”

“He said “Marianne, don’t you think it’s time to fulfill your part? I deserve this” . He told me -” her voice broke, but she took a deep breath and continued: “He told me that that’s what a good girl do. That he could make me a woman. He said that I owed him my first time because we had been together long enough. That I was being selfish by making him wait.”

“I can’t believe this,” the man whispered to himself, but Marianne didn’t stop there. She was on a roll.

“He took my shirt off and was starting to take off my bra when I snapped out of it. I had been feeling uncomfortable with the topic for a while, I knew I wasn’t ready. Fortunately I managed to stop him in time.” She took a shaky breath. “You know what’s the worst part? I really thought he was right. We were supposed to do it. It is what couples do, right? I only had to endure it even if I didn’t want to do it because if I didn’t he would look at me with so much disappointment.”

“I didn’t know any of this. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you said I had to get him back! Dad, you may not remember it, but you were more  obsessed with Roland than I was! He was everything you talked about for days!” Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t let them stop her. “It was like you wanted him as a son more than you loved me!”

“I certainly did not!”

“But you did! You said that I was being unreasonable, that there was nothing that Roland could have done to make me that mad.”

“Because Roland is not a bad guy! He is young, yes, and he might have made a mistake or two, but-”

“Are you seriously saying that he couldn’t be able to rape your own daughter? Are you really that blinded?”

That stopped Dagda in his tracks, making him finally see his daughter. She was crying, and his girl never cried, not even in Violet’s funeral. Her hands were clenched tight and her lip was broken where her teeth bit with too much force. And her eyes…

Her eyes told him what he needed to know. She was telling the truth.

“But -” he started to say. It was confusing. How could he not notice any of this before?

“She is right,” a voice said behind him and the Director turned to find a girl around Marianne’s age walk towards him from a big crowd that had formed without any of them realizing. “About Roland.”

Marianne looked around them, finding that they were, in fact, in the inner courtyard of the school and that the whole school was watching them fight. She blushed, feeling the rush of adrenaline go down after saying what she wanted to say.

Where was Bog, though?

“What do you mean, girl?” Dagda asked.

“Roland. I didn’t want to, but he sweet talked me into… uh…” she blushed, but everyone got the message.

“Me too,” another girl said, walking to stand by the first girl’s side. “I did it because I thought he loved me. Next morning he acted like he didn’t know me.”

“Me too,” a third girl said.

“And me,” another one.

In less than a minute, around twenty five girls were standing in a circle surrounding the father and the daughter, looking at Marianne with shame in their eyes. The brunette recognized a few of the girls that first trash talked about her when the break up happened. The whole Roland fanclub was there, speaking about their rape stories with a brave face, hand in hand, voices cracking with the knot in their throats. But it was like a dam had broken and they couldn’t stop talking about it, about Roland, about how wrong they were about him.

About Marianne.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“I look ridiculous.”

“You look gorgeous!”

“I certainly am not.”

“Don’t be such a baby, Marianne,” Dawn said to her in the car as they went to the Spring Ball. The other girl snorted, crossing her arms on her chest. “And I adapted it for you! It isn’t even a dress anymore!”

“I know, but -” she blushed, stopping herself mid-phrase.

“Bog would like it,” Dawn smirked, guessing her sister’s thoughts. She was easier to read now that she let her be herself in front of others.

“I wasn’t thinking about him!” Marianne’s blush darkened, and looked out of the car window, watching the houses go by.

“I certainly hope not,” their father butted in from the driver’s seat, his eyes never leaving the road. Marianne tensed for a moment before relaxing again. Her father was an ally now, she had to remind herself. But years of fighting were difficult to forget. “Please at least wait until your birthday.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said robotically, as she usually did when her father tried to remind her the obvious.

Dawn snickered from her seat by her side.

Since what happened a few weeks ago, after the breaking point where she confessed what Roland did to her in front of the entire school, her father did a complete one-eighty with his behaviour. He asked her all the time how she was and what she thought about anything and if he was doing good with this new development. He tried to spend time together and asked her opinion for every decision he made. It wasn’t like she was going to actually tell him what to do but… he was listening.

About Bog, well… They got the security tapes and one camera in front of the Library showed enough proof to let the librarian go. Marianne was happy that at least Bog’s name and job weren’t at risk anymore, and considered not telling her dad about the very real relationship between them; but in the end she chose to tell him. She sat one day with her dad and explained - not without difficulty - that they liked each other and that yes, they were aware of the age difference, and yes she was a minor thank you for pointing out the obvious, dad. She let her father fret and be angry about it for a few days, declining with a smile when he offered her going to a therapist once again.

In the end, Dagda got the same conclusion as Dawn - not that his little “chat” with the blonde behind the elder sister’s back had anything to do with it, of course -. Marianne was practically an adult and Dagda had been ten years older than Violet when they met, too. It wasn’t like he had to enjoy it, but…

Marianne was happy. Genuinely happy. It was what mattered, he said.

“If it helps,” their father added as he parked on the school’s grounds. “I think you girls look adorable.”

Dawn smiled showing all of her impressively white teeth and got out of the car, ignoring the stares and awes and ohs she received for her costume. She was used to being the center of attention, and while she didn’t let it get to her head, she kind of enjoyed it. She got to smile to a lot of people and talk to them, she usually said.

A little grumpier, her older sister exited the car, her back slumped at the idea of having to go to that stupid dance. It brought so many memories, good and bad, and she wasn’t very eager to spend her friday night surrounded by teenagers dancing to the latest pop song. At least the DJ was Sunny, so she could sneak a nice song or two.

“Have fun, you two! I’ll be back at ten,” Dagda smiled from the other side of the car window and left the sisters there.

“Lucky bastard,” Marianne gritted her teeth. It was ironic that the school’s Director didn’t have to be on the dance.

“C’mon, Marianne! Let’s have fun!” the blonde grabbed her gloved hand and tried to move her, without success. “Don’t make me call Boggy Woggy to drag you inside.”

“Do you really have to sneak him into every conversation?” she glared at her sister, letting her feet move even if it wasn’t with as much grace as her sister.

“Yes!” Dawn huffed like it was common knowledge. “It’s the only way to make you pay attention!”

Marianne sighed. Her heart fluttered every time she thought about him and she didn’t like it. It was… too much. She wanted to just be with him and love him, all this teenage drama was unnecessary. She couldn’t wait for it to stop and settle into something more relaxed, more her style.

“And it’s my job as little sister to mess with you,” the other girl added, turning to smile at her one more time before they entered the gym, where the dance was held.

So far so good, Marianne thought as she sipped her coke in peace, looking at her classmates dance to whatever Sunny put on now. She hadn’t got into a fight with anyone and no one dared to ask her to dance, so no one had received a punch in the eye. Yet.

She leaned on her dark corner, watching with awe how good the decorations were made this year. She didn’t like the theme so much, but art was art, and what the organizers had done to the place was indeed beautiful.

Fairy Land was the theme, and the gym had been completely remade into a forest-like environment, with trees and roots and enormous flowers that made her feel really small. The lights were placed so a constant moonlight shone over their heads, giving it this magical air to everything inside.

If there had been anything else but a school dance that night, she was sure she would have enjoyed it better. It even made her feel good in her costume and a lot less ridiculous than she did that afternoon when Dawn dragged her into a last minute costume test. Of course it had fit perfectly, Dawn was never joking when dealing with sewing and clothing, but the reflection she got from the mirror wasn’t exactly her.

She had added her personal touch, of course, and -

“It’s amazing what these kids had done to the place, right?” a voice interrupted her, making her jump in her place. She knew that voice very well.

“You forget that “these kids” are rich,” she said without turning to see him. Marianne drank the rest of her coke and threw the cup into a nearby bin, getting it inside on the first try.

“Nice shot,” she heard the smile on his deep voice. “How many times have you tried that tonight?”

Marianne smiled too, finally turning to face him. “Way too many. That was the first time I got it right, though. My aim had gotten worse through the night.” She suspected that somehow they had spiked the punch, because once she noticed the bitter taste of alcohol she switched to coke.

“Then I’m sorry I couldn’t be here sooner to see you fail.”

“Idiot,” she snorted.

“Nice costume, by the way. It makes me want to have one as well,” he said, pointing to his boring normal clothes.

“Thanks,” she blushed a bit, but kept talking like her face wasn’t red at all. “Dawn made it for me.”

“She is good,” Bog caressed one of her fake wings, marvelling at the texture. From there, he went upways to her shoulder and then to her hair, putting a bit of her hair behind her pointy ear. He leaned so he could whisper only for her. “You look beautiful.”

“Idiot,” she repeated, looking anywhere else but him. If she was paying attention, she could have seen him blushing. Still without looking at him, Marianne snaked her gloved hand and grabbed one of his, feeling warm inside when his fingers interlaced with hers as naturally as breathing.

Absorbed in their little moment, the two not-that-secret lovers enjoyed each other’s company. Neither really listened to the music or the voices of the people around them; it was just them basking in the presence of a kindred spirit.

This was what Marianne enjoyed most about them. More than the hormones and intrusive thoughts about what they could be doing instead of standing there, she loved how at home she felt by just being with him. It was comfortable. He was comfortable.

“Do you want to go listen to some real music?” he asked after a few minutes that could have been hours.

“Sure,” she nodded and let herself be dragged away from the party by Bog. No one noticed them leaving.

The silence once they left the gym was deafening after being subjected to deep drums and bouncing bass, making them notice their breathing and the way their hands were still joined. Neither tried to get free.

Marianne looked at the reflecting surfaces of the windows, which gave back a pretty clean image of herself in full costume. It was silly, but Dawn had insisted that as it was her last dance at least she could leave the school with a bang. Her sister had promised that she would be a sight few could forget, and she had to confess that Dawn definitely delivered.

What once was a maroon dress now had been shortened to a glorified sleeveless t-shirt that had been modified. Dawn decided to use the leftover fabric to criss cross them into a pattern in the front, mimicking petals of a flower flowing around her midsection. To cover her legs, Dawn had painted a pair of dark red leggins Marianne had buried deep in her closet when she decided to forsake colors, making the illusion that thin vines were growing around her legs.

The most impressive thing of her sister’s creation were the velvet-like wings weighing in her back. Deep purple with the borders painted black, they were pretty good imitation of Monarch butterflies’ wings style, making her full outfit resemble some kind of warrior princess of the fairies.

The only thing Marianne was missing was a sword, but their father forbid them to sneak one on the dance. Shame.

Bog, for his part, couldn’t stop looking at her. Venturing a glance or two in her direction as he guided them through the dark hallways of the school towards their sanctuary - the Library - he couldn’t stop mavelling at the sight of her under the moonlight. Everything in her was colorful, alive, vibrant; her intense personality captured from the designs on her leggins to the purple shade of her eyeshadow. He wondered what kind of lottery he had won to earn this girl’s affection, his mind plagued with the same thoughts of regret he got every night alone in his bed, considering if this was all a very bad idea.

“Hey, Bog,” her voice cut through the quiet night as he opened the Library. “How old are you actually?”

He blinked, not expecting the question.

“Why? Are you going to be all grossed out once you know it?”

“I think we are pass all that already,” she huffed, remembering all the jokes and puns from her sister at home about being a ‘lolita’.

“Then I’ll let you know that I’m actually twenty-four years old. My mother complains that maybe I’m more like fifty years old.” Bog snorted, letting her pass before him and getting inside the Library. He closed the door, and the soft thud of it did little to appease Marianne’s rapid beating heart. They were alone now.

She chuckled, despite her nerves. “Why?”

“Well, I never was one to do as my classmates. No parties, no alcohol…,” he grabbed her chin and looked into her eyes with intensity. “No girlfriend.”

Marianne smiled softly, knowing how this had been a delicate issue for him for years. Once they got green light to be together, or as much as Dagda allowed her while she still ‘lived under his roof’, they had talked a lot about themselves, their thoughts about everything, about Marianne’s mother and how she was the one that educated her in music, about how her death forced the girl to step up to fill a void she shouldn’t have to fill. Bog was slow at first, but shared with her about his mother and his father, about how his death affected him in a time where everything was dark, about his constant battle with his image issues and his mental health.

Each time the crying stopped and they went for ice cream or a movie later, they felt more in tune than before.

The girl put a hand on his cheek. “She can’t complain now. Or sign you up on those dating sites,” she added, her smile turning teasing.

“Thank God,” he shuddered, but smiled too and leaned down slowly, like he was giving Marianne the chance to pull back if she felt uncomfortable. He always did it and it was a cute detail in her opinion. “My girlfriend would kill me if I cheated on her.”

The girl scoffed. “Sure as hell she would.” Then she grabbed his shirt to pull him down for a quick kiss on the lips. “Careful with the lipstick, though.”

“As if you cared about that,” Bog scoffed, putting his arms around her to lift her in the air, their faces close and their lips closer.

“Maybe so,” she chuckled. Her legs were put into action and she trapped him to her body, wanting to feel the warmth of her boyfriend through her fine clothes.

With a slight push, she managed to get his lips on her person once again, this time with intentions that went further than something quick. He knew that and, with a throaty chuckle, obliged gladly to the whims of the feisty fairy in his arms. He kissed her back with as much intensity, closing his eyes and surrendering to the feeling of her soft lips, her tongue, her teeth barely scraping his lower lip.

He loved kissing like this. It made him forget about the rest of the world for a moment that could last forever. It made him feel loved, awakening feelings in him that he had forgotten that existed. He felt passionate about her, about the way her body was pressed against his and her hands had trapped his head into her direction, about how she moaned softly in their kiss. He had made her produce that sweet sound, the thought sending shivers down his spine.

Marianne was everything. She was the air he breathed, the warmth he didn’t know he needed, the peace he craved. He wanted to kiss her and touch her, do so much with her and explore more of these untouched feelings she provoked on him.

“Careful,” she warned when she felt him shift her in his arms to grab her by her legs. She was totally aware that he was groping her butt, not that she complained; the bold move only turned her on.

“Hm,” he grunted, guiding them to the nearest table and softly putting her down without breaking the contact of their lips.

Marianne’s hands let go of his head and traveled to his back, feeling every tense muscle and every bone, marveling at the thought that all of that was hers. Bog would give her everything she wanted of him, and she knew it. In the time they talked about themselves words of adoration were shared more than once, his eyes telling her how much he wanted their relationship to work, how careful he was with every step. She understood it and was kind of garetul for that. She still felt a bit raw from the buried memories of Roland’s misdeeds that came back to the surface with all the drama; so after talking with Bog about her worries they settled into a comfortable pace both enjoyed. It wasn’t like they had to behave in a different way around each other. Going slow was good.

But that didn’t mean the she wasn’t allowed to make out with her boyfriend.

He let go of her lips, deciding to give his attention to her jaw and her neck, smiling cheekily when she sighed in delight. He loved making her react to his attentions. He didn’t want this to stop, but when he felt her legs close tighter around him, the sensation of her warmest spot against his crotch waked him from the daze he was in.

Softly, Bog detangled from the girl and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes to find Marianne all flushed, her cheeks bright and her lips swollen from their activities, her hair out of its careful hairdo. He thought that it was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He put a hand on her face, partly for stopping her from leaning in to kiss him and partly to touch her to make sure that it was real.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered, caressing her red cheek with his thumb. “But I think we should stop.”

It was her time to take a deep breath. He was right, of course. She was on the verge of being carried away by her hormones and she didn’t want it to happen yet. Or at least not like this, in secret and rushed on her prom night. She felt silly, but she wanted it to be special and sane, in a moment where both were in their right minds. This was not it and every fiber of her being told her to stop.

“Yeah,” she smiled as she put her hand over his own, which was still on her cheek. “And you promised me good music, don’t think I’m forgetting about it.”

“Let me fetch my bag,” Bog nodded. Marianne’s legs let him go but he stayed in his place for a few more seconds.

“What?” she said when he didn’t move.

“Nothing,” his eyes were shining with awe. She looked elsewhere feeling a bit overwhelmed. Bog chuckled and patted her head. “It’s just that…”

He took a step back, biting his lip and considering if it was a good idea or not. One glance at Marianne’s confused face helped him make up his mind.

“I love you~” he sang with a really bad falsetto voice. “And nobody else~”

Of course Marianne recognized that song. Dawn had been singing it for a few days nonstop since Sunny confessed to her about his pretty obvious crush on the girl. The song had driven the elder sister mad to the point where she complained about how horrible and ugh it was. She really loved her sister, and Sunny, and wanted them to be happy but -

“I’m going to kill you!” she grabbed the first thing she saw available and threw it to the man, who was running to where he left his stuff when they arrived, laughing like crazy as the glove Marianne had thrown missed his face by inches.