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seducing-a-vampire · 3 years

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Day 24: Song

@carryon-countdown

In my defense, I have none For digging up the grave another time But it would've been fun If you would've been the one

--The 1, Taylor Swift

Agatha reflects her relationship with ex-boyfriend Simon and on breaking free from the roles she's been expected to play.

***A million thanks and blushing frog emojis for @snowybank for beta reading!!!***

Rating: T // Word Count: 1040

The 1

I wake up alone.

I mean, I always wake up alone. I’ve never actually spent the entire night sleeping next to another person, unless you count the few times Simon and I fell asleep on separate couches in my living room at home. That was years ago, stuffed full with Christmas cookies, Dr. Who playing softly on the TV as our conversation faded into an easy rest.

I’ve often wondered what it would be like, to lie beside someone like that, to breathe so close to another person for seven or eight hours. Watching their chest rise and fall steadily.

Sometimes, I find it impossible that you could ever get used to that. Would that ever feel completely comfortable—another person next to you, an intruder to the rhythm of your own breathing?

Read the rest on AO3 or under the cut!

I remember watching a movie with Ginger one time soon after we met, a cheesy American rom com. She was giggling at the sex scene, which occurred approximately 0.2 seconds after the meeting of this blandly attractive white couple. (They panted and moaned for a bit, and then fell asleep together, naked. Listen, I’m not a prude, but I can’t imagine ever feeling confident enough to forego my pyjamas at night.) In between the peals of her laughter, she was telling me about her recent hookup with the barista she’s been seeing.

An image popped unbidden in my mind, then: Ginger, in her little navy pyjamas with yellow moons all over them, curled up next to me in my bed. I didn’t even know if I actually liked that thought, but it was, well, interesting to think about.

Oughtn’t I have figured this out by now? Figured out myself ? I dated Simon for far too long, I snogged Minty in the park across from our old primary school last time I was home, and I fled to California, the land of possibility and no judgement. Still I feel like I’m trapped in a cage of my own making.

I take up very little space in the expanse of my bed. I can stretch out my whole body, feeling the muscles flex and then relax, pointing my toes down like I used to practice for ballet. My soft white linens (with teeny pink flowers dotted all over) feel cool against my body.

My apartment in San Diego is bright and sunny. I like living alone, and I know I’m being honest when I think that because I don’t have the little tense knot in my stomach that I get when I suppress my true feelings. I pour myself a bowl of cereal and curl up on my couch, scrolling through my notifications on my phone as I eat.

Fourteen unread emails, mostly for school organizations that I signed up for and then never participated in. I delete them.

I open up Instagram, and first up on my feed is a picture Baz posted of Simon. Simon’s wearing my old Watford lacrosse sweatshirt. I can’t believe he still has that. He’s in the middle of talking (probably waxing poetic about scones); his hands are blurry from being caught in motion, and his eyes are soft. I know he must be looking at Baz. The caption is just “My idiot.”

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I’d see Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch posting almost-mushy things on Instagram, let alone that the object of the almost-mush would be Simon.

A few weeks ago, I FaceTimed Penny, and she said they’re still all heart-eyed for each other. It’s easy to admit that even when things were good between us, Simon and I never really had heart-eyes. I’m happy for them.

Goodness knows Simon deserves some happiness of his own. I always thought I’d be the one standing next to him— or sometimes, I thought I’d have to be the one grieving him. Then I tried to break free from that, break up with him, play a different role. The closest I came to actualizing that was when I first came to California. Now, I feel like I’m tripping over my lines again.

Simon was most of my childhood. Talking to him, going to dances with him, studying with him and Penny, walking around Watford with him, rolling my eyes when my parents fussed over him when he was at home with me for the holidays.

I have this funny feeling, looking at the blue-eyed boy in the picture. My fingers move of their own accord as they tap onto my own page and scroll down to the last picture I posted of Simon and me. It was the winter solstice ball, the year before last. I was wearing a divine dress, cream colored with pearls covering the bodice.

My mother and I got into a row the night before over my hair. I wanted to leave it down— straight, elegant, simple. But she insisted I had to do something more elaborate. In the end it turned out rather fine. The entire evening of the ball Simon looked at me as if I were Aphrodite herself. He kissed me that night: chaste, pleasant, perfunctory. Like all of our kisses. It wasn’t bad. It was never bad.

That night, I would’ve bet my wand on Simon and me. We belonged together. We made sense. But in that relationship, I think we were both stunted. Held back.

I tap back to the photo of Simon with his soft eyes, and I know it’s true. I hadn’t noticed before, but in the bottom of the picture, you can see someone’s long and slender hand resting on Simon’s knee.

I look around at my apartment: quiet, peaceful, especially in the mornings. There are palm trees bending gently in the wind outside my window, and the sliding door next to my couch leads me to a small balcony from which I can see the bright blue of the ocean. A different ocean than the one I spent my summers visiting as a child. But even fuller with possibility.

It might’ve been easier if Simon had been the one. But he’s not. And I’m not that to him, and I don’t want to be. I suppose I’ve got to keep figuring out what I am to myself.

#COC 2020 #simon snow series #carry on fanfiction #agatha wellbelove #it's loving agatha hours #i mean #it always is #folklore #Carry on Countdown

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