Quite Altered

Chapter Two

The first thing Lexie was aware of was the heat. She felt like she had when she was ten and had missed a whole week of school because of the flu. The next thing she was aware of was the pressure of two hands cupping her flaming face. Her eyes were closed and it took all of her willpower to not to fling them open. She remembered the giggle-fest before she and Isabelle had gone through the mirror, panicked and tried not to throw up. She thought they'd all been joking about all the Aiden stuff, but Isabelle was right. Something was tugging at the back of her mind, something obvious, but the thought that Aiden--her sworn enemy--was about to kiss her and there was nothing she could do to stop it took priority. She considered her options. Making a show of slapping him and stomping off dramatically was possible, but it seemed like it was too late for that. If A.U. Lexie had let Aiden get this close, she had no choice but to go along with it. She scrunched her eyes more tightly closed as if she could block everything out, and focused on not vomiting, cursing her AU self for having terrible taste. Maybe he would chicken out and she wouldn't have to actually experience the feel of his lips on hers.

"What's wrong, Lex?" the owner of the hands on her face said. She knew that voice, and it most definitely was not Aiden Myer's. This time, Lexie couldn't keep her eyes from opening to stare into the deep blue eyes that she'd been thinking about for the better part of a year. How many times had she dreamed of this moment? Lexie suddenly hated her other self with a fiery passion for getting the guy of her dreams. Apparently the guy of her dreams mistook the passionate hatred in her eyes for a different kind of passion. His hands moved from her cheekbones and slid around the back of her neck and into her silky blond hair.

Lexie became hyper-aware of her surroundings. She was in her room but it wasn't her normal room. There were Twilight, Justin Bieber, and Taylor Swift posters on the Pepto-Bismol pink walls and a fluffy pink comforter on the bed, complete with a frilly canopy, which she quickly tore her eyes and thoughts away from. She was standing in her room with her crush standing recklessly close. Her hands were resting on his shoulders and she could feel the heat of his smooth hands against her neck. This isn't happening, she thought as she felt her heart race. She thought she could feel his heart beating, too.

"Is everything okay?" he asked again, looking more deeply into Lexie's eyes. Lexie didn't think she was capable of saying anything coherent, so she just nodded. By now, Lily's attic was long gone, replaced by the heat and closeness. She knew that she was about to kiss the boy she'd been dreaming about - figuratively - for the last year. The knowledge that this was really real nearly knocked her over. His face was so close to hers that she could have counted every one of his dark eyelashes. Lexie looked into his eyes before she closed the short distance between their mouths and kissed him.

***

A huge blast of noise startled Isabelle out of the chair she was sitting in, making Isabelle jerk the sharpie in her hand, accidentally slashing an angry black line down her arm. She wondered briefly what had been doing with the marker, and then saw that all of her nails had been scribbled in with black, except for one, which was only partially filled in. Shaking her head in confusion, she rose to attend to the more important matter-- the hardcore rap that was blasting from the speakers of a black iPod dock. In fact, black seemed to be the theme of this room, with heavy metal posters replacing her Twilight ones, and CD cases with parental warning stickers strewn all over the room. It seemed to resemble more closely Caryn's dream room, though more black and her posters would probably extend to include the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones...

The one thing that surprised her was the black lingerie that was hanging on her chair; she didn't think that her hardcore, rap-loving, badass counterpart would be very much into lacy black underwear. Becoming more perplexed, she rushed across her room and pressed pause on the iPod that was now broadcasting some guy's explicit rapping to the whole house.