{potions dungeons} should have learned by now | nola

“Yeah well that’s not what Allison said,” she prodded further, giving him a look as if to insist that she was wary of the fact that their stories did not seem to match up. Not the expert in highly emotional situations, the teenager had therefore decided to reroute the conversation into a guilt trip. At least this way she could blame him for being flaky instead of feeling like an idiot for basically having confessed to like him. He hadn’t even noticed, for Merlin’s sake, or maybe he was being dense on purpose. Either way, she didn’t want to wait around to feel even more silly than she felt now.

But then he said that thing that whole thing on how he didn’t want to spend time with any other girl but her and she couldn’t help the way she looked up at him almost immediately, “W-what?” she stumbled over her words, feeling a little relieved but mostly embarrassed because she wasn’t sure if he was being friendly or this was more than friendship or if she was hearing things that hadn’t actually been said. Nola did that sometimes, heard things the way she wanted to hear them rather than how they had actually been spoken. It was a problem.

So instead she looked around, nervously at that, and stood to her feet abandoning all plans to save the poor plant that had fell to the floor so carelessly. “Yeah well—I mean, you had your chance and you chose Allison,” she insisted when the fact was that she had chosen Horus because she didn’t want to wait around hoping Isaac would return her feelings. 

Isaac felt like everything he said somehow dug him a deeper hole and made things worse. Magnolia was impossible to get along with. And the wizard was starting to realize he didn’t understand her at all. He thought he’d said something well and good, but she spat it back in his face and stood up, and Isaac followed her quickly. “The fuck I did,” He replied, the frown on his face growing into absolute disdain. He hadn’t chosen anyone; that was the point. “You should stop assuming you know everything,” Isaac hissed at her as he rounded the table and reached for his bookbag.

“You are impossible to talk to, do you know that?” Isaac shook his head, feeling like he might lose his mind if he kept running in circles with her. Since the start of term, it had been constant bickering, back and forth, and it was twisting him up inside. Before he’d noticed Magnolia Hawkins, everything had been calm and easy. Magnolia made things not simple, she confused him, and he hated it.

“Yeah? Well—” she started, the look of nervous indignation clear on her face even if she felt a little out of her element now that she didn’t know where to go with this argument without feeling like a complete fool. “If you hadn’t lied, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” she countered but that wasn’t entirely the truth. Surely they’d be in something similar to this situation over something else. It was what they did, bicker about stupid things and he left her feeling more out of sorts, more aware of the feelings she had for him and how he hadn’t even bothered to be nice about it. Even if he wasn’t interested, she thought they had been good enough friends for him to say it to her face rather than go behind her back to hang out with Allison and do Merlin knows what.

“You don’t have to talk to me, Isaac,” she said, frowning at him as the words came out of her mind and instantly regretting them. That was not what she wanted, but of course like usual, once she got started the young teenager couldn’t help but make things worse. “I’d rather you didn’t, to be honest,” she said, clenching her jaw a little as she tried to keep her mouth shut before making it any worse, instead gathering her things and her very sad plant to walk out of the classroom and go elsewhere. Maybe the lake, she’d read somewhere the water from the lake might help fix it. Or maybe that was all plants, Magnolia hadn’t been paying attention.

Isaac’s hands threw up into the air, and he exhaled loudly. There she went again, accusing him of lying when he hadn’t. He’d told her he was busy, and even if he had known (which, of course he did) how she’d react to him hanging around Alison, he still wouldn’t have told her. It wasn’t like he was dating Magnolia or Alison, for that matter, and Isaac hated the way Magnolia seemed to think she deserved all the details. They weren’t essential details, and he didn’t owe them to her.

“You are right,” He said, his hands slipping into his pockets, tongue in cheek. If she didn’t want him to talk to her, then he wasn’t going to stand here and try to change her mind. Merlin knew it’d take a revolution or a tidal wave to change Magnolia’s mind, and Isaac wasn’t in the mood for either. “See you later, then,” he said and then rolled his eyes at himself for saying it at all.

“Or not, whatever….” Isaac turned around and headed out of the classroom. He didn’t finish whatever he was working on, and he didn’t care. He’d do it later and probably still have it done before half of his classmates. And it was probably better he did it on his own and nowhere near the one witch who could make him lose focus.