A/N - One of my earliest stories. Aghast at the laziness and lack of quality that dominated this piece, I did some gentle revisions. It's not much better... lol but hey, it's finished now at least.

Revised 05Jan2013

Chapter 1:

Presumptuous Girl

Olivia Lennox charged into her floral scented, very cutely decorated dorm, curly blonde hair flying behind her, feet stomping on the industrial carpet. Startled by the violent entry, her roommate, and best friend, looked up from her trashy romance novel. As soon as the door shut, the blonde let loose a torrent of emotions that she had kept pent up during her entire walk across campus.

"Whom did she think she was, trying to pawn me off on her brother? Just because they're twins, and she was pretending to be boy doesn't mean she was acting like him at all." Olivia threw her hands wide and growled. "They're nothing alike. It took about three days for everyone to stop expecting him to be anything like Sebastian at all. He's quiet, chivalrous, hates anything to do with shopping, has an iron stomach, can write amazing lyrics, smells very manly, and he gets it when someone is or isn't interested in him."

"Basically, he acts like a boy." Maria summed up neatly.

Olivia stopped her broad gestures and sighed. "Yes."

"And he isn't the guy you fell for."

The frazzled blonde started to pace in the small room. "Exactly. Now I have to be all buddy-buddy because that first week was great. I got to hide behind the real Sebastian and forget what I really felt. Oh that girl pisses me off." Her arms started gesturing wildly again, punctuating her frustrated exclamations.

Maria nodded agreeably even though her friend was too busy ranting to notice.

"She acts like she's completely oblivious to what she did to me. Duke and soccer are all she cares about. Her brother was beyond thrilled to meet the random cute girl that kissed him and to have a chance to get away from his crazy ex. He wasn't exactly happy when Viola assumed we would start dating right away, that there would be this big happy ending. Sebastian was especially pissed when he figured out Viola was hoping I would just transfer my feelings for the fake Sebastian to the real one. Having his sister use him like that didn't sit well with him."

"Oooo." Maria was nodding again as a light bulb went off in her head. "So that's why they had that big fight on campus last week."

"Yes."

"Okay, so you two broke up after dating for two weeks. That was almost a month ago. Why are you blowing up now?"

Olivia glared at her best friend. "You didn't hear?"

"Apparently not," the dry response.

"Right after her fight with Seb, she had a big one with Duke. Girl came to me for advice."

Maria burst out in disbelieving laughter. "She didn't?"

Hand on hip, Olivia replied angrily. "Oh, she did."

"Did Vi ever apologize to you for the whole soccer debacle?"

"No, and she even had the nerve to ask if we could spend the weekend together. Duke is going camping with Toby and Andrew, her mom is doing a Junior League fund-raiser, and Seb's band has a gig. Just us."

Eyes about ready to pop from her exploding skull, Maria stared. "What about her posse?"

"Paul has to work and her girls are spending the weekend in New York to see some Broadway show she hates."

"So, she doesn't want to be bored and you were like, the only one left."

"Exactly!" Olivia huffed. "Why did she have to transfer to Illyria? The Cornwall team would've taken her back."

"No wonder you look like you're gonna pull your extensions out."

"You said you wouldn't tease me about those."

A shrug. "I lied. What did you tell her?"

"About my hair extensions?" Olivia's tortured brain was having trouble keeping up.

Maria eyed her friend critically, worried that maybe Olivia should lay off the hair dye for a while. "About spending the weekend alone with her."

"No." Olivia replied with no hesitation.

"No? Why not?"

"Maria, I'm not going to do that to myself. Besides, she's a big girl and can spend the weekend doing something by herself. Like, maybe do her homework."

"Do what to yourself?" She asked carefully.

Olivia flopped onto her bed, suddenly drained. "Drop it."

Her friend sat up straighter and looked over, concerned and absolutely not going to ignore something so obviously juicy. "Come on, Livie. Fess up, are you still like, crushing on her?"

"On her? I fell for the boy that she was pretending to be."

"Yea, and then she turned out to be a girl. Her personality never changed, just her physical appearance, the stupid boy voice, and name. Hon, admit it. Your crush got even worse when she started wearing the girls' uniform."

Olivia turned on her side, putting her back to Maria. "You're talking nonsense." She whispered.

"I'm not and you know it." Maria pointed a righteous finger at her friend.

Silence reigned for several moments, broken only by Olivia's sniffling. Maria waited patiently for an answer, thinking that comfort could wait until the girl admitted the truth. Hard love and all that. That's the code her own mother had lived by and Maria had turned out just fine. Eventually, Olivia rolled over, revealing her red eyes and wet cheeks, and therefor admitting that Maria was right. Battle won, Maria transferred herself to Olivia's bed and gathered the crying girl in her arms.

"You're right." Olivia muttered weakly. "I haven't looked at guys the same way since Viola came into my life."

"And Viola, how do you look at her now?" She prodded gently.

Olivia mulled the question over before responding. "Like I've never looked at anyone before. My fingers itch to touch her skin. I want to smell her hair. I could just sit and drink in the sight of her forever. I smile just thinking about her."

Stroking blonde curls, Maria clucked her tongue. "You've got it bad, Livie."

"Great, I get to be the desperate closet case crushing after a very taken, straight girl. My life is going to be a complete hell." She groaned.

"Aw, it won't be all that bad." Her bestie tried to temper the negative emotions.

"Yea? Tell me how it won't be."

Maria didn't know how to respond. Olivia took her silence as answer enough. She let her emotions take over and cried her heart out in her friend's lap. Maria continued stroking blonde hair, unable to bring herself to mutter 'it'll be okay'. She knew firsthand how hard it was to crush on someone completely unavailable. Despite how her favorite romance novels waxed on about unrequited love that morphed into mutual devotion, she knew real life rarely worked out that way.