Open New Vocabulary

[Emma van Houten]

Red rose, open after Rowan Baros

Emma was pleasantly surprised by how many red roses she had to deliver, and most of them had very interesting notes too. This one especially had been pretty long, and a bit confusing. Emma was curious what sort of person she would have to deliver to. The girl was an older Gryffindor, and Emma only vaguely knew her. She spent most of the time searching for her asking random people if they were Rowan, only to end up in the student lounge. Instead of asking individuals, Emma cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled from the doorway. "Is ROWAN BAROS here?!" She yelled.

 

[Rowan Baros]

Rowan was relaxing after finishing all her roses. She knew Elio was delivering now, so had to assume he would join her soon. She hoped so, she missed him when he wasn’t with her. Spread across the couch and trying to take a nap turned out to be a bit of a bad idea when she looked up at the sound of someone yelling at her. “Woah, what?” She asked, slightly dazed. She looked over to the sound to see a younger Gryffindor with roses. “Oh, hi I'm Rowan.” She called, waving to the girl from her spot on the comfy couch.​

 

[Emma van Houten]

Emma bounced over to the girl who was napping on the couch. Boring. She clapped her hands once, just to make sure she was awake enough. "Hi! I have a rose for you." She said, handing her the red rose. "Here you go!" She handed it over, bouncing on the heels of her feet eagerly. "So... what's a side-squeeze?" She then blurted out, too curious to resist asking.

Suppose I should send a rose to you...

Who am I kidding, Valentines day might as well be called love Rowan a million times harder than normal-tines.

Love you more and more each day, I'm so unbelievably in awe of you and everything you do, don't ever forget how amazing you are Ro.

Always here for you (and your freezing cold feet)

Your side squeeze, El xxxxx

 

[Rowan Baros]

Rowan shook her head as the girl clapped at her, completely knocking her out of her gaze and looking over to see the girl had a red rose. She immediately knew who it was from, her entire body changing to much more excited and happy as she grabbed the rose from the girl eagerly to read the note. She almost physically melted into the couch, she was so happy because things hadn’t gone well for them at all last year. At least this time there was no misunderstandings to worry about. She looked up at the girl curiously when she asked her about the note, giggling at the question. Trust Elio to confuse everyone with that kind of sign off, as if Rowan had a main squeeze to worry about his sideness. She wasn’t sure how to answer though and smiled at the girl. “How old are you?” Could she explain this sort of thing to a young girl? Good lord Elio, what was he doing?​

 

[Emma van Houten]

Emma was surprised as the girl asked her about her age, rather than either explaining the word or getting mad that Emma had clearly read her note. The question made her eyes gleam. "I'm thirteen, why?" She asked, leaning closer."Is it a bad word?" She asked in a loud whisper.

 

[Rowan Baros]

Rowan really wanted to kick Elio right now. She didn't know how she was supposed to explain this without making herself look bad. She decided just to suck it up and get it over with. She showed the note to the younger girl. "It's not a bad word really, especially not with who sent this to me, but you know how sometimes people date, and have boyfriends or girlfriends?" She asked, waiting to see the girls response before continuing. "Well, sometimes they also have a second person they are really close with, like maybe a second boyfriend or girlfriend. So the first one might be called a main squeeze and the second one might be called a side squeeze." Now that she had explained it somewhat, she hurried to continue so the girl didn't think she was cheating or something. "The boy who wrote me this note, Elio, he is playing a joke be calling himself my side squeeze, though... I'm not quite sure what he is referring to as my main squeeze," she frowned, "unless he's calling me self centred, in which case I need to go and have a talk to him."​

 

[Emma van Houten]

Emma listened attentively as the girl tried to explain, nodding at the right moments. It was kind of a long story, and she sort of zoned out a little bit. "Why would you want a second boyfriend or girlfriend?" She asked, frowning. "Is the first boyfriend or girlfriend not upset about that?" As far as Emma knew, that was not really a good thing. "So... it's a joke? Is he your boyfriend or not?" Emma asked then, crossing her arms. Why was this girl so confusing? She thought one boyfriend would be enough of a hassle, who on earth would want another?

 

[Rowan Baros]

Rowan knew she was not equipped for this and she was definitely going to mention how not happy about this situation she was when she next saw Elio, because how dare he put her in this situation. She had half a mind to shoot him in the foot with a particularly vicious trip jinx. "Some people don't want a second one, some people do, it's all quite fluid," she said, trying to explain. Merlin, she wasn't this girls mother, what would her parents think if she started asking weird questions and then told them a weird older Gryffindor had too her these things. It certainly wasn't the norm. "Sometimes... it's a secret, which can be a bad thing, but sometimes, everyone knows," which could be a good thing? Or at least not a bad thing. Goodness, she didn't know much about this stuff either! Why'd she have to get the one who asked questions. It was great, of course, since that was how you learned things, but still. When she asked her if Elio was her boyfriend, she had to take a breath, because the reality was that, no he wasn't, but, emotionally? It was hard to say. Best stick to the script. "Not really no, we're just really close... I love him, we're best friends I guess."​

 

[Emma van Houten]

Emma frowned at the girl, not sure if she believed her. "That's kind of stupid." She told her. "I don't think it's a good thing, it sounds confusing." She pointed out. "Even if they know, it's probably making everyone sad." She couldn't imagine Lars sharing his boyfriend with anyone. And how upset he had been about the breakup said enough to Emma. "Bleh, this is weird." She said, shaking her head. "I don't want a boyfriend anyway." She brightened when the girl said he was just her best friend. "Oh, that's okay then. I get it." She told her with a nod. "Friends are better anyway." She said, sure that Rowan would agree.

 

[Rowan Baros]

Rowan shrugged. "Yeah, it really is, I don't really know much about it, just want I've heard and read I guess," she said. It was something she was a bit familiar with, since polyamorous relationships were not out of her vocabulary. Chrys' dad had two people in his life that lived with him and they all raised Chrys' family together. Of course that was after his mother died. Wait... why did Rowan know that? "Friends are really good, it's nice when you have people you can rely on. Thanks so much for this rose, I'm sorry I couldn't really help you much with trying to understand... since I am having some trouble with that myself."​

 

[Emma van Houten]

Emma nodded when the girl said she didn't know much about it, and she seemed to agree with Emma on friends being the most awesome. "No problem! I think it was just a joke." She told her with a grin. "And thanks for not getting mad I snooped." She added, as she had been surprised by how calm the girl was about Emma reading her note.

 

[Rowan Baros]

Rowan smiled at the younger Gryffindor. "Yeah, I think so." She really had no idea why he'd written that, or who her main squeeze was supposed to be. She'd have to ask him at some point. "That's okay, we all get a little curious sometimes," she said laughing. She'd had to work so hard not to snoop herself. She might have failed on a couple of them, but none of hers were that interesting. "I hope you have a good rest of your day!"​