Lockers Full of Thorns

Chapter Ten: Crosse Over

Ginny was lying in her bed, staring at the ceiling. Her dingy comforter lay around her, bunched up, as if ready to swallow her whole.

Her hand hung over the side of the bed, brushing the dust on the ground (she rarely, if ever, cleaned her room - it was miles better than Ron's, though, since she at least didn't leave food around to rot). Between her dextrous, lacrosse-trained fingers was her Nokia phone, a small message on the screen.

How about I come over at 1? I want to help you practice for State.

Those fifteen words meant so much, because they were fifteen words from Zinnia Sinclair.

Not a day had passed where Ginny didn't think about Zinnia - her swirling two-tone hair, her entirely unblemished skin, her beautifully normal lips, and of course her little dimples, like tiny black holes in her cheeks. She thought about the acorn-like shape of Zinnia's head, the girl's long and shapely neck, and her chill yet quirky vibe. 

At first, Ginny had tried to convince herself that she was just feeling admiration for the other girl - she was so good at lacrosse, after all, and it was normal to want to be pretty, right? - but that mental defense had fallen apart when she imagined those red, totally regular lips while kissing Harry.

Harry.

Ginny had obsessed over Harry for years. He was an up-and-coming celebrity, who went to her school, who hung out with her brother. She couldn't believe her luck. She remembered her days in middle school chasing after him, snapping pictures of Harry on her mom's old Polaroid every time he came over, drawing the curves and angles - mostly angles and hard edges, let's be honest - of his strong face. At a low point in her life, she had even slipped locks of her hair and clippings of her fingernails into his duffel bag at a sleepover, so he would take little pieces of her home with him.

And then flash forward to now, her sophomore year, where Harry had pulled her behind the bleachers after practice and asked her out. It was the most romantic thing in the world.

But dating Harry hadn't been everything she'd expected.

Harry did everything with a sort of hardness - he loved hard, he spoke harshly, he sang with power and strength. She could never get him to just be soft around her. She loved his witty, sharp way of talking and his readiness to fight anyone who disagreed with their relationship, but she could never get him to turn off that side of himself - they never cuddled in pajamas, never shared a slice of avocado toast while watching Gilmore Girls, never laid down on a blanket outside and stared at the stars. (They'd tried that once, but Harry had jumped up and said the stars had inspired him to write a "metal song" about how everything burns out and explodes, leaving Ginny to listen to him muttering lyrics under his breath while pacing.)

When she first fell for him, she felt that the lions inside both of them would be a perfect match, that their anger and passion would meet and burn brighter. But instead they just fit together awkwardly, both fighting to reach different goals, and these days Ginny could see a longing in Harry's eyes for someone else - someone who lived life as hard as he did. She knew he'd snuck around, knew he'd cheated once or twice, and she couldn't even be mad. It wasn't that Harry was a bad person. It wasn't that Ginny was a bad person. It was just that they were a bad fit for each other.

And now, though she barely knew her, Ginny felt like she'd found someone who clicked with her like a puzzle piece, whose rough lines could bend and dissolve like nothing at all. But she was still dating Harry. And the idea that maybe she was falling too fast, just like she had for him, scared her more than anything.

She looked back at her phone. She wanted Zinnia to practice with her more than anything. But to get her here, she'd need to lie.

Because Ginny wasn't on the State team anymore.