Open Comic Book Hero

[Maggy Harrington]

Maggy sat down in the Student Lounge with a comic book, it was old and was something she had gotten over the holidays as a present but hadn't found the time to read it. She thought a rainy fall day like it was would be the best day to stay inside during the weekend and read it. She had gotten a cup of tea and found a cozy spot in the lounge to sit down and enjoy the afternoon. She wanted to forget about the tests that were coming up and the stress they brought her. She also wanted to not get lost in thought about Acacia or that Ravenclaw girl in their year Guinevere she had found herself staring at for too long recently. She knew she liked girls and yet something about it scared her still. She had told her mother, Professor Harrington and it hadn't gone as badly as she thought it would, which was good. But she still caught her mom starting to ask about boys and having to correct herself to girls when they had dinners together. She needed to tell Everly but she had a feeling her younger sister already knew and just never pressed her about it. Turning her thoughts to Spiderman and the comic book in front of her Maggy began to start reading and stop thinking.

 

[Acacia Dunn]

Acacia had been having the quietest year of her life since moving to New Zealand. Almost nothing was really going on, and it was... frustrating, somehow. With the layers of homesickness peeling away as New Zealand felt more and more like home over the years, now Acacia was just... bored of being here. She had a job now at least, and that brought a strange promise... though she hadn't told Mom and Dad yet, Acacia wasn't planning on going back to America for the holidays this year. Cedar and Jeong's flat was big enough for her to stay here, and there was something freeing about that. This was the first big life decision Acacia had made for herself. She was making her own money, she was going to live wherever she liked, and her parents would have to deal with the consequences of shipping her off to the other side of the world; she was just going to stay.

Other areas of Acacia's life had stalled though, and she didn't know how to feel about them. It had been so long since she had really hung out with Maggy that it was hard to know what to do with herself. Hogwarts was full of pretty girls, but Acacia's mind kept drifting back to the moment last year when Maggy had helped with her makeup, how Acacia's heart had stuttered in her chest at being so close to her roommate. And with that thought drifting through her mind, Acacia was startled to see exactly the girl who had been on her mind in the student lounge. It felt too coincidental to ignore. Time to see if there was still anything there. She made her way over to where Maggy was sitting, greeting her with a smile. "Hey, babe!" Acacia said cheerfully, hoping to feign her usual perkiness. "What magazine is that?" She asked, sitting down next to Maggy.

 

[Maggy Harrington]

Maggy was lost in her comics and hardly noticed anyone else in the room. It was nice was to relax and not think about other things going on, especially with OWLs coming up. She couldn't believe the year was almost over and at the same time she was slightly relieved. She thought she was doing fairly well in all her classes and was happy about that. She liked being in her mother's class even though she thought most of her classmates would hate their parent's being teachers, Maggy liked it. It almost gave her a heart attack when she heard someone's voice nearby. Looking up surprised she saw Acacia with a big smile on her face. Fairly quickly Maggy relaxed and returned the smile as the shock went away.

"It's not a magazine, it's a comic book, a story with pictures and things," Maggy said in reply holding it more open so Acacia could see the inside of the comic and how it was laid out. She could sense how close doing so made her to Acacia which made her heart race a little. She hadn't thought she'd see her here and had been trying to not let romantic feelings get in the way of their friendship for some time now. She didn't even know if Acacia liked girls and then even bigger toss up would be if she'd like Maggy the same way. Which was why she had been trying to forget about her feelings for the moment by getting lost in her comic.

 

[Acacia Dunn]

Peering over at the pages in Maggy's hands, Acacia quickly realised her mistake. "Oh, cute!" She smiled, looking over the pages to see if she recognised any of the characters. "My brother used to read comics sometimes, they're cool. I think this was like, his favourite guy." Acacia had never really had any interest in comics herself, but Cedar had made sure everyone in the family knew exactly what he was into when he had had a Spiderman phase. Glancing up at her friend again, Acacia realised how close they were, but couldn't quite bring herself to move away. "So are you like, super into comics and stuff?"

 

[Maggy Harrington]

"I mean I do enjoy them, nice change to just reading picture less textbooks all the time," Maggy aid answering her roommate's question. Her stomach fluttered a little bit as she realized how close Acacia was to her. It made her unintentionally shift a way a little bit. "So I, uh, I finally told my mum this and now I feel comfortable enough to tell my friends so I guess it's a good thing you've come here," Maggy started having this urge to tell someone she trusted about her interests in girls. How she would phrase the next part was beyond her, different ways were running through her mind as she looked at Acacia. "I, yeah, I like girls..romantically." There, she finally done it she told one of her friends all the mixed confused feelings she had been having about who she liked and who she didn't for the past year. The hardest part now was that Acacia was one of the girls she thought she certainly had a crush on.