D I L E M M A x Mattheo Riddle

first snow

Vivienne Leclair
Mattheo and I haven't spoken in a week. I don't know how to talk to him. I don't know what I'd say. If I talked to him, I wouldn't be able to give him the answer he wants. I wish I could tell him I know when I'm going to break up with Briar, but I don't. It's hopeless. It's so hard to make Briar seem like a bad guy, because everyone loves him.

Well, almost everyone.

Ali hates him.

"So he said he wanted you to be a 'trophy wife'? Are you kidding me?" Ali asks as we walk to the Quidditch pitch.

The school is bustling with excitement as we make our way to the Gryffindor versus Slytherin game. I haven't seen Mattheo all day, but I assume he's going to the game with some friends.

"Yeah. And he tries to control what I wear," I say.

"Why are you just now telling me this? I've always known he was a jerk, but now I know he's a true asshole," Ali says, crossing her arms in her brown corduroy jacket.

"I was protecting him, I guess. I didn't want you to hate him. But now it doesn't matter, because I'm breaking up with him," I say as we sit down on a bench at the center of the Quidditch bleachers. Students are packed in the seats around us, but we're talking quietly enough to where no one else can hear us.

"Thank God," She exhales. "When are you going to break up with him? And why do you keep holding it off?"

My face turns to stone at the mention of the fact that I have no clue how I'm going to break up with Briar.

"My mum won't let me. And I have no idea how I'm going to get her to let me break up with Briar," I sigh. "Making her hate him is the only way she'd ever let me end things with him."

She pulls up the sleeve of Mattheo's leather jacket that I'm wearing and takes my hand in hers. "I'll help you," She declares.

"You would do that?" I ask.

"Of course. I would do anything for you," She puts her hand on my shoulder. "And I want to watch Briar suffer."

"Yes, I guess that is a very noble cause," I laugh and roll my eyes.

"We need to come up with a plan."

"Like what?"

The bleachers are completely full, and students and professors alike are decked out in red and green garb, complete with face paint and various other forms of house pride.

Ali tilts her head to the side and I can practically see the gears shifting in her brain as she thinks of a way to help me. "How bad are we talking?" She asks. "Like, ruin his day bad, or ruin his life bad?"

I breathe in sharply. I don't wish for any harm to befall on Briar... but fuck it. Maybe I do. After all the shit he's done to me? He deserves it. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

"Ruin his life bad," I respond, a surge of anxiousness and uncertainty coursing through me.

Ali raises her eyebrows and a twinkle forms in her eyes. "I've been waiting to do this for the longest time."

Of course she has.

I giggle and roll my eyes. "Any ideas of how we can do it?"