Taylor's Not Interested!

[Web-Weaver]

A/N: I started writing this because I was tired of tropes and badly written romances. It got out of hand.

Vs. Bully

It took Taylor until High School to realize that her world wasn't normal.

Although, normal wasn't probably the best term to use, considering Earth Bet on its own isn't exactly normal on its own. Home to Parahumans, it's a world that existed akin to a comic book—one full of Heroes and Villains, of golden men in the sky that save kittens from trees and monsters of indescribable horror lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike and destroy humanity city by city, slowly, agonizingly—

No, Taylor wasn't referring to that. While she's lived her entire life with the world in this state, it felt intangible to her; something that Taylor knew existed but couldn't properly articulate its impact on her daily life. In comparison to older times in history it was strange that this was just how things worked now; but she's never known anything beyond it, so why question it? The world doesn't stop turning, and people slowly grew used to the strange happenings of the world. The alternate worlds that didn't have any parahumans or had so few they weren't worth mentioning, like Aleph, were the ones that stood out as odd to Taylor.

But she was trailing away from her original thought. Taylor was a bookish sort, her Mother's rather expansive collection of books and willingness to share them enabling and encouraging a habit to blossom when she was younger. Combine that with a lightning fast reading speed and being absolutely enamored with stories, she plowed through everything handed to her with an almost aggressive need. Every book handed to her she returned with a creased binding, pages with corners folded and unfolded, and a satisfied smile on her face.

While it was a habit they shared, her Mom was more into the classics—enjoying the works of Agatha Christie in comparison to more recent authors—and Taylor found her stride in enjoying urban fantasy and the occasional science fiction book. She loved the mythical, the unreal, the places beyond the world that she knew. They used to make a day of it, to go out to local bookstores and find something new for the both of them.

Her Mom being an English professor meant more than Taylor having an abundance of books, however. It meant that overtime, Taylor became very familiar with the structure of books. The structure of stories; of people, history, of actions and the way people spoke and loved. She learned how their words spoke of their fears, their joys, it showed the love of people long since passed. Humanity, putting their words to pages, passing them and their memories long into the future. Yellowed paper carefully kept and maintained.

She learned the references to older stories within newer ones, the rationale behind the prose of an author, why they ever picked up a pen in the first place—nothing spared her view. Her Mom would go on long, winding tangents about the current tropes and popular rises and falls of literature, and what horror stories of times since past could inform you about the fears and issues of living in that time. She loved the subject, and Taylor found a similar love in it with her.

This meant that by the time Taylor had reached middle school, she started to fall into the habit of breaking down what she was reading by the time she had finished it. Finding their inspirations, the tropes of the genre that she was reading and watching for subversions of interesting twists to a familiar product. It was a game, one that she amused herself with while enjoying books (and doing it a bit harsher if she had picked up a particularly bad one) and coming to see the lines that connected them all. It was a fun little game, one that she had tried to explain to Emma once when they were younger. But the girl hadn't really seemed to get it or care, so Taylor's game alone it remained.

By the time Taylor entered High School she had gotten good at it. Really good at it. So good at it that she started seeing the familiar twists of narratives in real life, labeling things and the way that certain plots would play out in the news and city around her. Life, of course, was more complicated than stories would let you believe, and they always didn't fall into exact tropes or narrative plots. But most were close enough that she could easily point them out.

Interactions between people in public, the drama that played on headlines, the relationships with her friends and grade-mates; everything started to fall into neat little lines that Taylor could see and track. It had been an odd thing to become aware of, but nothing concerning.

It should've been her first warning.

To this day she's still not quite sure what triggered her realization. Be it just enough time had passed playing her little game, or the days leading up to it having a peculiar amount of weird twists everywhere she went that kept pointing out the flags to her, she would never know. What she did know is that on a random Monday morning, she woke up to the morning sun, and went to brush her teeth. She idly scrubbed away, doing a mental checklist of what else she had to do today as the fog of sleep cleared from her head. It was at that moment, mindlessly staring back at her blurry reflection, that Taylor realized she was living in a novel.

A Romance Novel, to be precise.

But of course it couldn't just be any old romance novel. Oh no, Taylor had figured out she was living in a Lesbian Romance Novel.

(Mom would've probably called it Sapphic Literature, but Taylor couldn't bring herself to care about precise terminology at the time.)

With that startling realization Taylor began to review her entire life, thinking back on things that had gone previously ignored, things that she had noticed and hadn't thought much of that painted a different, more concerning picture with her current knowledge.

During Middle School, most of the boys' faces at school had started to just…go out of focus. Like someone had gently rubbed their features away with an old eraser. But it wasn't just their features that started blurring around the edges; it was their personalities, their outfits, their voices, all collapsing into one another. Reacting as nothing more than another face in the crowd, slowly losing everything that made them stand out as individuals.

Like they didn't really have anything real to them anymore, they were just… background characters.

She struggled to recall even a single one of their names. She hadn't been alarmed about it at the time, and it wasn't like every boy was completely blurry. Some had kept their features until the end of the year or held onto them even now. But she couldn't place a name. Not even now could she name someone, even after hours of thinking.

The scariest part was no one, not even the boys, had even seemed to realize it was happening. Not one person ever made a comment about it, or seemed to break out of the spell. It had been normal, just another part of life, so Taylor had just rolled with it. She had been too busy reading through book series after book series to give it a second thought. It was odd she remembered more about the books she read in that time than the people around her.

What had stood out however, was the rapid increase of supposed 'cute' girls being her yearmates. It had started slowly, but by the end of the year seemingly everyone she came across in the halls were attractive in some fashion. The hushed whisper of crushes slowly changed, moving from whatever boy had shared their juice box with them to the sudden twist of talking about how the girl in their science class was sooo pretty, do you think she has a boyfriend? Or that one girl on the soccer team who had gotten her hair cut so short she looked like a boy, and girls had to stop themselves from staring at her when she went down the halls.

Emma had made a few comments once or twice, wondering about what it would be like to kiss another girl and other girls had nodded along, like it was a common thought. It was almost a spell! Someone Mastering the world and no one was even blinking at it!

(...Thinking back on it, there had been a lot of women at Mom's funeral. People she had never seen before or had vaguely seen in her lectures had shown up, every single one of them looking haunted and lost. Who had told Taylor if she ever needed anything to just call them. They hadn't even glanced in Dads direction, just sobbing over Mom's grave like a long lost loveeeenopedontgothere—)

Even the Parahuman side of things wasn't untouched—Taylor knew Legend was the one people talked about for openly speaking about his husband, but all she could remember is everyone wondering about the mystery woman that Alexandria kept being seen with, flown in her arms in a bridal carry. The whispers about the longing glances Narwhal gave to Dragon suits when they weren't looking. The shipping—oh god, the shipping—that went on and on for threads on PHO about every cape. How that one Ward from New York kept flirting with another girl Ward. Miss Militia openly talking about a partner she was interested in, fidgeting with a mouse shaped pendant around her neck, Battery openly flirting with Photon Mom—

(Taylor was struck with a sudden need to check cape pages and see if there was a drastic difference in the amount of girl capes in comparison to male capes.)

(...There wasn't. But the pages for girls had more clear pictures and detailed pages.)

Being born into a Lesbian Romance Novel explained everything! It made all the pieces come together in a horrifying, twisted sort of way.

After calming down from a raging, maniacal panic of understanding how the world itself worked, of peeking behind the curtain and seeing how the game was played, Taylor was forced to deal with the real question that arose: was she destined to be a Main Character? Was there a story in store for her, something that would change her, pull her into an adventure she would not come back from the same as she was?

Surely being aware of the state of her World meant that there was something in the works for her. It felt too haunting, too easy for there to be nothing. Was she to be forced into some romantic trope she didn't care for and be swept up in whatever romance the authors had set before her? Was there something out there, a daring journey she would fall into? What was out there for her?

She wasn't—the very idea that her life wasn't her own, not forged by her choices, but a set path written out by some invisible author slowly stringing her along to an unforeseen end revolted her. Taylor liked books, yes, but she had never wanted to be in one! To travel to the worlds they showed, sure, but never part of a narrative! Especially not a romance novel, something that was on the bottom of Taylor's list for book genres and was on the bottom for a reason. They had never appealed to her, and still didn't. She wondered if even then, she was aware enough of the world around her to know.

She didn't even like girls! She wasn't—it wasn't like she was that interested in boys either, she was young and hadn't really given it much deep thought. But the idea of romance itself had always stewed in her stomach, twisting her thoughts and making it hard to focus. It was an uncomfortable, gross feeling, something she could read about but never relate to. She didn't feel that way for anybody! She never had!

Fear clung to her, whispering in her ear and fueling her thoughts: what if the narrative changed her? Tried to make her fit the mold for the world? Why was she different?

Figuring out the answers was simple, if time consuming. Taylor, determined to control her own fate and possibly free herself from the novel around her, ended up dragging out her Mom's chest of romance books from where Dad had stored them. She pulled out the first one from the top of the pile they were carefully set in, flipped open the first page, pretended she didn't see the handwritten note and did not stop reading until she finished the last page of the last book. It had taken her a month long, paper and ink filled haze to get through it, but if she was going to live in this world, then she was going to learn everything she could about it!

(She tried to ignore the fact that a majority of them were sapphic literature and too many of them had a handwritten note in the front cover. She can have a meltdown about her mothers apparently prolific love life—or admirers, god she hoped it was just admirers—on a different day. One crisis at a time, Taylor.)

Coming out of that novel-filled frenzy and then picking up a few more at her favorite bookstore—that just so happened to have a large section of romance novels previously untouched by her—Taylor had finally come to a conclusion so suddenly she felt her knees nearly give way in the middle of the sidewalk: She was a background character.

A mob character, as the internet described it. Nothing more than a faceless person in the crowd. She wasn't so pretty as to turn heads, and she wasn't that outgoing or super quiet as to stand out; completely average on all fronts. No special backstory, nothing in her past or family that could insinuate a strange destiny waiting for her—Taylor was completely, utterly, normal.

So as long as she kept her head down and didn't swing too far in either direction, she wouldn't fall into the trope of being one of those 'introverted geek' types and pick up any unwanted attention by falling into some sort of plot by pure happenstance. She knew it was a rising trend for average girls to fall into mystical, twisted love triangles, but Taylor would have none of it!

Every and all flags that came her way she would crush under her fingers!

Of course, she could always be a protagonist—being the only one aware of the strange twist her world had undergone could be a lead into that—but unless her life took a drastic twist, Taylor didn't think that was an option. She was aware of it now and could easily avoid anything that could be perceived as the call to adventure. Her boring and quiet life wouldn't be interesting for people to read about.

Sure, the world around her was interesting, but the most exciting thing that happened to her on a monthly basis was seeing a cape fly overhead or hear about some fight a few blocks down from where she was. It didn't involve her or even come close to doing so. She was not interested in being a part of any plots or quirky, fun little slice of life stories. As long as she did her best to not shake the boat, her future—her entire life—was completely safe and away from narrative control!

~​

"Oh, Taylor~" A voice called out to her. "Trying to run off again? Gonna go find a dusty little corner to cry in?"

Mostly safe. She was mostly safe from the narrative. But being safe from the narrative now didn't mean that she was always going to be.

See, Taylor had been so happy she wasn't currently part of an ongoing plot that she had failed to grasp an incredibly important detail of how her world worked; while she wasn't in a plot now, it didn't mean the universe would be content with that. Which left her with somewhat of a problem, one that threatened to drag her life into some form of twisted romantic plot if she didn't handle it soon, and that problem currently had the name of Emma Barnes.

Emma had been her friend—her first friend, her oldest friend, her closest friend, to the point where others had called them basically sisters—but something had changed. She wasn't entirely clear on the details of what had occurred, but Taylor had managed to put together that something had gone on during her time at summer camp. What exactly it was still eluded her, but it must have been something intense to give Emma enough plot development to make her do a complete 180 when it came to Taylor. Her closest friend had become twisted, turning into a bully with no remorse, attempting to bury her and all their shared history in the dirt.

(Taylor was—she could live with never finding out the truth. Even though it hurt, even though she desperately wanted to know, and wanted to make things right between them, she couldn't. Finding out meant exploring Emma's backstory, and Taylor wanted to be Emma's backstory, not the reason it was told. So she grit her teeth and accepted it.)

Taylor would've been just fine if it had ended at that. Even if it sucked and she was for a time desperately upset over the fact that her closest friend suddenly decided that she didn't want Taylor in her life and wouldn't tell her why, she could've learned to respect her choices and tried to live with being a victim of bullying. Taylor was adaptable, and anything was better than the alternative.

Fighting back would draw too much attention to herself, and she could've easily swung being bullied in such a way that no heroine would've ever tried to come for her, keeping her away from any form of savior tropes or enemies to lovers concepts. She needed to be quiet, unassuming, just another face in the background, a backstory for a character with an actual plot. She just needed to get through this. High school romances, from the research and novels she had read just looked awful to be involved in.

It was a simple plan; Taylor would go through her high school days in somewhat peace, counting down the time she had to graduate or just get a GED— and no, she couldn't transfer, are you insane? That was just asking for a mysterious transfer student plot or new girl drama somewhere else. She refused to escape from one plot to jump right into the arms of another one. So no, being bullied wasn't ideal, but Taylor is nothing if not adaptable.

But no, things couldn't go that easy for Taylor Hebert. Instead, whatever had happened to Emma—and maybe the world itself—had taken that part of her that had cared about Taylor, and twisted it. Pulled not it into not hatred like Taylor initially assumed, and not pity or some form of self-loathing directed at her either. No, what had happened was Emma had become obsessed with making Taylor hers.

She bullied Taylor without remorse, never afraid to get her hands dirty and do whatever it took to make Taylor's day worse. But it was obsessive, directed attempts to make it so that Taylor's only interaction with others at school was from Emma. Even if they were negative ones. Everything she did was curated to facilitate that; from stealing Taylor's things so she'd have to ask for them back, to moving her groupies around Taylor's seats in class so that no one could reach her except Emma—even her harsh comments were full of things that Taylor could clearly see were setting up so that she would believe that she only had Emma to rely on.

"Did you fall down again? Oh Taylor," Emma cooed at her from above, tone mocking. The girl had tripped her when she wasn't aware, grabbing Taylor's hand and harshly pulling her back up. "You're so clumsy! You really need someone to take care of you so you don't hurt yourself, don't you?"

A drink would be poured over her head, drenching her in sticky, dying liquid and proving nowhere in Winslow safe for even a moment of respite. Emma would laugh, taking a singular small towel out from somewhere and would 'gently' (read: harshly) wipe her own mess away from Taylor's face, grabbing her chin to force her to meet Emma's gaze.

"You're so disgusting, Taylor," She'd laugh, eyes full of mirth. "I can't believe you'd come to school like this. Can't you do anything right?"

"So ugly," She'd say one day.

"So useless," Another.

"So worthless," After that.

"You're really nothing on your own, aren't you Taylor?" Emma hummed. "I can't believe you need me this badly." She hammered these points home constantly, day by day without any remorse or hesitation.

Taylor took each blow, letting it wash over her. Suffered ruined notebooks and backpacks as everything she had was ripped away from her. Grades tanked, people avoided her gaze in the halls—her entire high school career ruined as Emma tried to shape her into something else. Methods aside, she had to give credit where it was due; the girl was very good at crafting insults to hurt Taylor. They were painful, each one driving Taylor to tears the first time she heard them and doing her best to break her down into something that Emma could find moldable, softer. Weaker.

Dependent on Emma.

She was very, very glad that she didn't make a childhood promise to Emma to get married or something similar, because then the girl would have been absolutely unbearable and impossible to remove from her life. More so than currently.

Despite Emma's campaign of harassment, of working to break down Taylor so methodically it seemed deranged to an outsider, their entire childhood had been the exact opposite of their relationship now. Emma had been the crybaby, the one that had run to Taylor when the going got tough, the one that was easily frightened, jumping at loud noises and squirming at the movies when there was just a little bit of gore.

So the more that Emma tried to act big and tough, like she was an immovable wall that Taylor was meant to press up against and worship, the more that Taylor remembered the snot-nosed girl that cowered behind her when they went trick-or-treating and she saw someone across the street dressed as a giant, cartoon spider. It didn't make hearing the comments she made easier or stop the bullying, but it was a balm on an aching wound nonetheless.

Emma was also, try as she might, only creative up to a point. A girl with a great starting line-up but unable to stick the landing. She managed some really good insults and bullying acts, sure, but the ferocity and freshness of her attacks ran out steam by November of their freshman year and didn't seem to improve. They were sophomores now, and she still made the same comments. Pulled the same pranks over and over. She didn't even seem to notice their edges were dulling, which made Taylor's life all the easier.

Of course, getting out from under her thumb wasn't easy: Emma had also decreed early on that no one else could help her or bully Taylor on their own, which had been a somewhat amusing sight at first. During the earlier moments of their new song and dance, people had flocked to Emma. Her queen bee attitude drew in what felt like the entire grade and above, girls coming up to her with stars in their eyes, blushes on their cheeks, and Taylor could almost visibly see the flags and crushes forming when Emma tossed her hair back in a particular manner.

Most saw hurting Taylor as an easy way into her good graces.

Madison Clements had one of the more memorable attempts, and ended up doing her absolute best to sneak into Emma's favor by being particularly bold and 'tripping', dropping her entire lunch over Taylor's head one day. It was almost comical in the way that Madison had started to mockingly apologize about it, a line on her tongue about how Taylor almost looked better drenched in trash. It hadn't even gotten to the end of her sentence before everyone had basically bolted from that side of the lunchroom the moment that Emma had turned to look at her.

Taylor hated that she learned what a 'Kabedon' was, and that Emma had performed one on Madison that day. Trapping her against the wall as the amusement on Madison's face died rapidly as Emma closed in on her, whispering something ferocious and cruel into her ear. Taylor never learned what it was, but the twisted, angry expression on Emma's face said plenty, and that it was enough to immediately remove all the color from the other girl's face. Madison all but collapsed to the ground, legs falling out from underneath her. Taylor had booked it from the lunchroom when she saw the blush starting to form on Madison's face because she didn't want to watch that, thank you very much.

People were quick to catch on that Emma was sort of…. obsessive about Taylor. Which led to the realization that she wasn't really someone you wanted to suck up to, rather the kind of person to stay aware of and keep 40 feet away from at the worst of times. So her queen bee crowd went from bright eyed and hopeful to more of a devout following, either ignoring her creepy tendencies or being a little too into them to leave. Taylor supposed she was lucky that none of them had gone full psycho and tried to remove her from the picture permanently yet.

Or decided they were interested in her. Another thing to be careful about, she guessed.

This, of course, returned to Taylor's current dilemma: how does one deal with being bullied in a way that is so obsessive, so controlling, like someone had taken the idea of pulling pigtails to show that they liked you to the utmost extreme without drawing attention to themselves or giving the bully the wrong signals?

Fighting back implied that you were aware of it and that their bullying was affecting you, which could lead to enemies to lovers especially with their deep and connected backstory like Taylor had with Emma. Cowering instead, rolling with the punches and waiting for an out was another possibility but riskier; it could lead to escalation and domination, or even worse, a protagonist marching into the picture. Protagonists were so hard to deal with, because particular types just wouldn't listen to you no matter what and try to act in your supposed best interests.

Taylor hated those types of characters.

She could play dumb of course. It provoked deeper, angrier reactions, continuously trying to get a reaction out of Taylor by doing harsher things, but it at least kept Emma's focus away from her main goal and more towards general pain. It wasn't ideal, and had its own drawbacks—She already had to switch lockers three times this year alone—but it was a temporary solution that was working well enough.

Her current situation wasn't perfect by any means, but it was the one with the most wiggle room, should Taylor need to suddenly react to something or the plot suddenly shifting in pacing.

Now that the current problem and backstory had been properly summarized, Taylor's current predicament reeled its ugly head, and back her focus went to the plot that threatened to drag her kicking and screaming into its twisted affairs:

Sophia stood at the classroom door, letting other students pass but Taylor knew from prior experience that she would block her own attempts to leave. Their eyes met, the amused smirk on Sophia's face growing as she prepared to watch everything go down (because Hess, unlike most of the populace of Winslow who had decided to look the other way from their mess, knew exactly what was going on, and instead of trying to convince Emma to bully her properly had decided it was way too funny to do anything else but cause problems for Taylor and 'Support her friend in her endeavors' which was such bullshit—) which meant Taylor was going to be trapped in the classroom and needed to find a way out, not to react in a way to give Emma any ideas or anyway leeway, and to hopefully discourage and further attempts. The last part had not worked so well for her so far.

So, the question is proposed to a hypothetical reader: How do you react to being bullied in such a way to not cause any form of positive plot development?

Taylor blinked, tilting her head slightly to look at Emma standing at the door, expression smug. Madison stood behind her, face twisted between trying to look haughty and an expression she assumed was jealousy, seeing as Madison was gripping her book so tightly her knuckles were turning white and shaking. Taylor was doing her best to not make eye contact with her.

"I'm going to my next class?" Taylor said, frowning slightly. "Like you should be?"

Emma blinked, haughty expression faltering for a moment before coming back full force. She laughed.

"You looked pretty desperate to leave for just another class," she replied. "Are you so busy that you didn't have the time to talk to your dearest friend? I'm hurt, Taylor."

Taylor would've snorted in laughter if it wouldn't have drawn unnecessary attention. Emma was anything but Taylor's friend nowadays. They both knew she wanted to be far more than the label implied, but she knew better than to rise to that statement.

"Sorry?" Taylor shrugged. "Didn't realize you wanted to chat." She paused, waiting for Emma to respond. But all the girl did was stare, slightly taken back at the way Taylor seemed to not even be the slightest bit afraid. She hunched her shoulders, playing more into the nervous, panicked look.

"Did you need something? You'll be late too if you don't hurry." She added quickly. Emma continued to stare at her, still not the response she wanted.

Taylor couldn't always play off Emma's taunts like this, because playing it too stupid would make people feel bad for her and try to help. But if she played stupid just enough, acted unfazed and like what Emma was doing wasn't anything that could truly hurt her and nothing more than mean spirited teasing—then no one would step in, and as long as she never acted too aloof to it, Emma would never try any harder.

It's not like anyone even tried to step in anyway.

"Why the rush?" Emma cooed. "It's not like you'd have anyone waiting for you there." The moment the words left her lips she gasped, reaching out and grabbing Taylor's hands. She immediately tried to pull away, but the other girl held firm, pulling them closer to her chest. It made Taylor stumble a little, an uneasy feeling of being too close washing over her. Emma held on, rubbing her thumbs gently over the back of Taylor's hands.

She resisted the urge to shiver.

"Oh, I'm sorry! That was so mean of me, bringing up the fact that you don't have any friends!" She apologized, not even giving Taylor a second to try and respond before laughing.

"Well," she said. "Besides me of course. But that's a given, isn't it Taylor?" She tugged on Taylor's hands a little harder, nails digging into her skin as green eyes stared her down, expression wild. Pleading. Almost desperate.

"Isn't it, Taylor?" She reiterated, and Taylor finally wrenched her hands out of Emma's grasp, ignoring the urge to wince at the crescent grooves that now marked them.

"I guess," Taylor relented. She hated giving ground to her like this. "We haven't really hung out much recently." Since the summer before high school, in truth. Taylor could barely remember what they did that last time.

They had been drifting apart before this, Taylor recognized now. They were too different, enjoying separate things as they grew older, their interests overlapping less and less. They both had been trying, but it hadn't been easy, and it hadn't been fun. Sometimes she wondered if Emma hadn't become this, if the world wasn't like this, if they would've just become nothing but acquaintances, fond memories and friendly waves but their own little circles.

But it was nothing but what-ifs now. Both of them had let this become what it was.

Emma frowned, displeased by her reaction. The expression shifted quickly, hiding it back behind her smile as she tilted her head, contemplating her next move. Would it kill her to just leave Taylor alone? They were all going to actually be late to class at this rate.

"We should fix that!" Emma said eagerly. "Why don't I come over this weekend?"

"We can have a big sleepover, watch movies and eat popcorn—oh, Madison and Sophia can come too! It can be just like old times—"

"No." Taylor interrupted. It came out instinctively, before she could find a softer way to word it. "I mean—" The words got stuck in her throat, and she couldn't do anything but just deny her. "I can't."

"....Why not?" Emma responded, watching her intensely now. There was something in her eyes, a hurt being buried in something possessive, dark and threatening.

More than once, Taylor's thought about just letting Emma win. Letting her words and actions finally get to her, breaking in just the right way she wants her to. All her pieces falling into Emma's rough hands to be rebuilt into something else. She was tired, keeping this game up had taken so much from her and left her with only the piece of mind that she was still free, she was still making her own choices outside a narrative.

But Taylor's own instincts fought her every time she wanted to surrender.

Emma moved closer, trying to get her feelings across by closing the distance. She wanted to pin her, trapping Taylor against the wall to keep talking to her. She tried it often enough, desperate to hold Taylor in place for one reason or another, sometimes just to stay close. It was easy enough to predict, and she refused to turn out like Madison had. She shuffled away, her back now facing the other two in the room instead of a wall. Emma didn't relent, matching each step she took to get away.

"C'mon, TayTay." She said, spitting out that horrible nickname. "Let's talk about this. We can have a wonderful time together!"

Taylor knew how to get out of this, but she didn't like it. This awareness of hers had—exploits, was the easiest way to put it. Aware of the rules and how it was all played to the point where she could use them to adjust responses. It was something she had found completely by accident and felt like it was playing right into what the world wanted. She didn't want to go with what the world wanted.

But when you were stuck in her sort of situation and desperate for an out, then anything that could get her there was going to be used. Even if it made her stomach twist.

Madison finally decided to step in, approaching from another side to keep her from going anywhere. Sophia refused to move, enjoying watching more than anything else. That made it easier for her.

The easiest way to avoid a flag? Invoke another one.

She waited, the two of them inching closer and closer, blocking her off, keeping her here. It was easy for Taylor to 'slip' stumbling on the leg of a desk she pretended to not see. She scrambled to catch herself, and Madison was unlucky enough to be the one who she latched onto, unable to pull away as Taylor shoved her backwards. She slipped past the shorter girl as she was pushed directly into the path of Emma, and two of them could do nothing but slam into each other. Taylor almost wishes it was painful for them.

But Taylor knows exactly what world she lives in. The two of them fall into each other face first, and she hears a muffled gasp when they collide. They land on the floor, Madison ending up on top of Emma, limbs a tangled mess while their faces stay close together and hidden by their hair.

Nothing says spontaneous feelings like pondering their first kiss together!

She hates this. She hates that she caused this, playing along with this stupid little game—

Deciding to take her chance and get away before Emma realized what had happened, Taylor turned to the door and booked it. Sophia didn't even try to stop her, letting her pass as the girl's shoulders shook with laughter. Her focus was on her friends, who kept attempting to scramble off each other but kept falling back down. She didn't move an inch to help them, more than satisfied with just watching them struggle

"Nice trick, Hebert." Sophia murmured to her as she passed.

"Shut up," Taylor mumbled back, shoving past her. Sophia just continued to laugh, too amused with Taylor's plight and subsequent escape.

"But it's so fucking funny." Sophia said, still laughing. "This shit makes my week, you know? Watching you squirm, trying to find a way out of whatever Emma's got you on." She shrugged. "Getting her to focus on Clements was good."

Taylor didn't respond, continuing on her march out into the hallway and to her next class. Away from Sophia's twisted amusement and Emma's gaze and Madison's hatred. There were enough people loitering around that it was easy enough to blend right in, hunching and pretending like nothing had happened. She made it to her next class uninterrupted, the rest of her day was peaceful, almost. She still watched over her shoulder, but nothing came from her wariness.

Emma and Madison didn't approach her the rest of the day. She never saw them, but she heard in hushed whispers about how they walked circles around each other now, refusing to meet each other's gaze. Everyone was talking about how something must have happened between them, that the meek Clements finally confessed or just jumped her.

For Taylor, it was enough confirmation to feel a weight lift off her shoulders. Even if it didn't last, it looked like Emma was going to be diverted away from her for a while. She could breathe easier for now. Have a peaceful day without worrying about a flag for once.

She just hoped that this chapter of her life would close soon and another wouldn't start.

After all, the world couldn't have that many plots to throw at her, right?

….Right?