Chapter Text
“Hey, brother. Dinklage was looking for you, man.”
Viola tossed her bag onto the floor and it sounded considerably louder in the eerie quiet of the dorm room. Duke was hunched over his desk, and she noticed his body was deliberately angled away from her. The pen scratching at his homework was used with a little more force than the task seemed to require.
Viola stepped closer, frowning at the silence. “Dude. Hello!”
Duke still didn't turn around, but his voice was tight and strained when he spoke. "You know, it's... crazy. How wrong you can be about a person." A short, disbelieving breath. "It's crazy."
Viola froze, a sudden prickle of anxiety hitting the back of her neck at hearing his tone.
“You think they're one thing,” Duke continued, finally turning his head to look at her, his eyes dark with resentment, “and then they turn out to be the exact opposite.”
Trying to play it cool, Viola slowly sat down on the chair next to his desk. “What are you talking about?”
“You're gonna sit there and act like you don't know what I'm talking about?” Duke shot back immediately.
Viola swallowed hard. Shit, this is it. He found out I’m a girl.
Panicking, she threw her hands up in a desperate bid for mercy. “Okay. All right. Okay! I wanted to tell you, Duke, but you have to know I love soccer more than anything else in the world, and I had a point to prove!” she pleaded, staring up at him as he turned his entire body around to look at her in incredulity.
If Duke was angry before, he was even more furious now. He raised his voice, his body tense with anger. “What?! So you're telling me that you used me to help you with soccer, and then you turn around and stab me in the back?”
Viola’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Wait, what? Now I really don't know what you're talking about.”
“Save it, man,” Duke snapped, his voice dripping with disgust. “I saw you with her.”
“With who?!” Viola shouted back.
Whatever thread of restraint Duke had been holding onto snapped clean in half. He slammed his textbook down onto the desk and rounded on her, jabbing an accusing finger through the air. “Who?! Olivia, that's who! You kissed when you got out of the cab!”
Without waiting for an answer, Duke spun around and started stomping angrily across the room. Viola scrambled off the chair, following close behind him with her own voice raised. “What cab?!”
Duke whipped around, getting right up into her face, his eyes flashing. “We were supposed to be friends!”
“We are!” she yelled back.
Duke didn't want to hear it. He planted a hand on her shoulder and shoved her back. “You don't know the meaning!”
Using his size, Duke cornered her right against the dorm room door. Frustrated and backed into a corner, Viola found a sudden burst of nerve and shoved him right back.
“Olivia never liked you, OKAY?!” she exclaimed.
Hearing those words, Duke’s furious expression immediately dropped. He faltered, the anger vanished and was replaced by hurt.
Taking advantage of his stunned silence, Viola pressed on. “She was just using you to make me jealous!”
Duke blinked, and the flicker of hurt hardened over almost instantly. “I bet that's part of your plan,” he narrowed his eyes. “Distract me with all of the bullshit you’re saying so you can move in on Olivia.”
“That is not what happened!” Viola protested.
But Duke was completely done listening. He grabbed Viola by the shirt and forcefully shoved her out into the hallway. “You and Olivia have a good life!” he snapped, before slamming the heavy wooden door right in her face.
Defeated and utterly overwhelmed, Viola dragged her feet down the hall and out into the night, completely unsure of what to do next. She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders slumped as she sat miserably on the stone ledge of the old decorative well in the center of the main quad. It felt as if everything in her life was crumbling at once.
"Sebastian!"
Viola flinched at the sound of the name, pulling her hands away from her face. She looked up to see Olivia walking quickly across the grass toward her. Olivia’s face was glowing and she was clutching an envelope tightly against her chest.
Seeing her only made Viola's blood boil with lingering frustration. If it weren't for Olivia's relentless crushing, Duke wouldn't be furious, and Viola wouldn't have to deal with all of this.
"Olivia, I really don't have time for you right now," Viola muttered, her voice tight as she abruptly stood up, trying to create distance between them.
Olivia paused, her enthusiastic stride faltering just a bit, but she held up the envelope anyway. "I know, I know we need to talk about what happened earlier, but I just wanted you to be the first person to know because-"
"I don't care, Olivia!" Viola snapped before she could think better of it.
Viola shook her head. The words kept coming, fast and careless and fueled by everything that had nothing to do with the girl standing in front of her. "I don't care about what we need to talk about, and for god sake, I don't care about whatever it is you think is happening between us. Just leave me alone."
The harsh words hung heavily in the quiet air of the quad. Olivia took a step backward as if she had been physically struck, the joy draining from her face. Her fingers clamped down hard on the envelope, wrinkling the paper in her grip as a deep flush of humiliation spread across her neck.
"What?" Olivia whispered, her voice cracking as a look of heartbreak washed over. "How can you say that? After the way you kissed me earlier... I thought we actually had something."
Viola’s breath caught in her throat, a sharp twinge of instant guilt pricking at her conscience as she saw the tears welling up in Olivia's eyes. She knew she was being awful. But her own pride won out, blocking her from softening the blow or fixing what she'd just broken.
"Well, you thought wrong," Viola said coldly. The words had no venom, but instead an edge of regret that went unnoticed by the blonde.
Viola turned and stomped off across the quad. She left Olivia standing completely alone by the stone well, staring blankly at the crumpled letter in her hands and the back of a boy she thought she'd known walk away from her without once looking back.
⋆.ೃ࿔ ݁ ˖*༄*ੈ✩‧₊
Any thoughts Viola had about going back to apologize to Olivia got pushed onto the back burner the next day.
It was buried beneath the weight of what was coming that afternoon: the big Illyria versus Cornwall game. Between the pre-game nerves and the very real possibility that her entire double life was about to either pay off or implode in front of an entire stadium, the memory of Olivia's face by the well kept getting shoved further and further down, promised a later that Viola fully intended to honor just as soon as she survived the next ninety minutes.
Viola had barely managed to salvage her soccer future after the real Sebastian wandered onto the field during the first half and played so terribly that he nearly ruined her reputation as a star player. But after a covert swap under the watchtower, Viola was finally back in her uniform and getting Illyeria back on track.
The only problem left was Duke.
Whatever had happened between them the day before had not cooled off in the slightest. He was still simmering over the Olivia situation and constantly shot her looks across the field whenever the play brought them close.
Things finally broke when she was clearly open and Duke had adamantly refused to pass the ball to her, resulting in them losing the ball altogether. The whole team was pissed, and she was pissed too and fully over his attitude that was risking the game not only for her but everyone else as well.
Duke and Viola found themselves locked in a heated, low-voiced argument in the middle of the field. Duke refused to even look at her, his jaw clenched in anger, when Justin decided to saunter over and gave his best attempt to break it up.
“If we're not disturbing you, we have a soccer game to finish,” Justin chimed in.
Duke planted a hand firmly on Justin's chest and shoved him backward. “Get back in the net, man.” He voice was low and threatening like it was daring Justin to see what would happen if he interrupted him again.
Justin bounced back immediately, pressing his head close to Duke's with a smug grin. “Or what? You'll hit my fist with your face again?”
Duke's eyes flashed, and he aggressively shoved him a second time. “Do you want to see me do it? Let's go!”
Justin didn't waste another second; he instantly whacked Duke right back in the face. Viola’s eyes widened in horror, and she ran toward them to de-escalate the situation. “Duke, come on. Stop it,” she yelled, throwing her hands out to separate them.
But it was too late. Duke had already launched himself forward and tackled Justin straight into the turf. That single hit was all it took to spark a powder keg. Within seconds, players from both teams took the tackle as a green light, sprinting into the fray as chaos erupted across the soccer field.
As a massive brawl broke out, Viola frantically tried to wedge herself between Duke and Justin. Surrounded by sweaty jerseys and flailing limbs, a stray fist swung blindly through the air and caught her square in the jaw. The force of the punch knocked her off her feet, sending her crashing into the grass as the world momentarily went black.
A few seconds later, Viola blinked her eyes open and there was a ring of worried faces hovering above her, blotting out the sky and all of them talking at once.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," she groaned, pushing herself up onto her elbows before anyone could fuss too much.
Before the brawl could resume again, Coach Dinklage stormed into the center of the pile. He reached down to seize Justin and Duke each by the collar, hauling them apart and up onto their feet.
“Okay, tough guys. You want to box? You get out of my stadium," Coach Dinklage barked, glaring between the two of them. "Otherwise, get on with the game. Alright?”
The teams started slowly making their way back to their respective places on the field, the brawl behind them now reduced to grumbling and the occasional shove. Viola fell into step behind Duke, but before she could even take a breath, she spotted a familiar figure jogging over.
It was Olivia sprinting across the grass toward her. Despite every harsh and cruel word Viola had hurled at her the day before, there was nothing in Olivia's face now but pure, unadulterated concern.
"Sebastian, are you okay?" Olivia reached her, eyes scanning Viola's face where the punch had landed. "I saw you go down and I-"
Viola felt twisted with guilt at seeing the concern that she didn't deserve. But out of the corner of her eye, she registered Duke standing just a few feet away and watching the entire exchange with a darkening expression. Viola immediately took a sharp step backward, holding her hands up defensively and preventing the blonde from getting any closer. "No, Olivia. Not now."
Duke let out a bitter, mocking scoff at the sight. "Try to tell me again there's nothing going on."
"There is nothing going on!" Viola shot back, her voice laced with desperation.
Olivia's gaze dropped to the grass, the hurt flickering across her face all over again, and something in Viola's chest pulled hard at the sight of it. She was so tired. Tired of the endless web of lies, tired of the secrets, tired of hurting every single person who'd done nothing but care about her, all to protect a secret that was crushing her by the day.
"I didn't lie to you, Duke." Viola paused, taking a ragged breath. "Well, I did... but not about this."
Duke looked between the two of them, his brow furrowing in confusion. Viola closed her eyes for a split second, deciding right then and there that she was done hiding. She opened her eyes and looked out at the entire stadium.
"Okay, you know what? I can't do this anymore. Everybody, I have something to tell you." She took a deep breath, her voice echoing across the turf. "I'm not Sebastian. I'm Viola."
A collective, shocked gasp rippled through the surrounding crowd. Viola reached up to her face and peeled off her fake sideburns, holding them up as she explained. "The girls' soccer team at Cornwall got cut and the guys wouldn't let me try out for their team. So, I've been pretending to be my twin brother while he was away in London for the past two weeks..."
She reached up again, ripping off the thick, fake eyebrows. "...just so I could make the Illyria team and beat Cornwall."
Finally, she grabbed the edges of her short brown wig and pulled it completely off, letting her long hair cascade down over her shoulders. The entire stadium went dead silent; jaws literally dropped across the field and the stands.
"But my brother came home early," Viola continued, holding the wig in her fist. "And that's who you saw kissing Olivia, and that's who played the first half of this game."
Olivia stood frozen, her mind spinning as she tried to process the impossible truth. Shock and confusion warred on her face. "Wait a minute," she stammered, looking at Viola. "If I kissed your brother... where is he?"
"Present. Hi," a cheerful voice piped up. The real Sebastian suddenly popped up right beside Olivia, offering a casual wave.
Olivia looked back and forth between Sebastian and Viola. Her gaze lingered on Viola noticeably longer, searching her face. The initial confusion slowly faded away, only to be replaced by a deep, crushing sense of betrayal. She shook her head, her hands clamping into tight, trembling fists. Without a single word, she turned and walked off the field.
Viola watched her retreat, her heart aching with something she had no idea was and couldn’t name. For a fleeting second, she had the chance to chase after Olivia and try to apologize, to explain, to try to fix even a fraction of the damage she'd done. But her eyes went to her teammates, then drifted up to the scoreboard: ILLYRIA 1, CORNWALL 1. The game was knotted dead even, the clock bleeding down through the final stretch of the second half. One goal either way would decide all of it. She had come too far, sacrificed too much, and fought too hard to walk away now.
Viola decided to stay.
⋆.ೃ࿔ ݁ ˖*༄*ੈ✩‧₊
Winning the big game had always been the ultimate finish line. And crossing it was supposed to be the moment where everything she'd risked and lied for finally clicked into place.
Viola fixed things with Duke and everybody who knew her under the impression of Sebastian, and they had come around once the shock wore off. She'd been named captain of Illyria's brand-new girls' soccer team - the thing she'd wanted more than anything, the entire reason she'd strapped on sideburns and answered to her brother's name for weeks. Viola had the team, the respect, and the proof that girls could play and were good at soccer. She had everything on the list.
So she couldn't quite explain the hollow feeling that crept in around the edges of all of it.
As the days bled into weeks, a very noticeable, Olivia-sized hole opened up in her life. It was a constant, aching hollow that she couldn't seem to shake. And Viola caught herself doing it without meaning to. Scanning the hallways for a particular shade of blonde hair, tilting her head at the distant sound of a laugh that might have been hers, lingering a beat too long outside classrooms on the off chance. She told herself she was being ridiculous, but she kept doing it anyway.
Then came one afternoon when Viola was walking down the main corridor after practice, and a sudden glimpse of blonde hair caught her eye through the sea of students. Her heart leaped into her throat. Without thinking, Viola pushed past a group of freshmen, her chest tightening with a sudden, desperate surge of hope.
"Olivia!" she called out, her voice loud enough to pause conversations.
She broke into a jog, navigating the crowd until she finally reached the girl. Viola reached out, her fingers catching the girl's elbow to turn her around. "Olivia, wait, please-"
The girl turned, and it wasn't her.
Viola froze, her hand dropping instantly as a cold wave of disappointment washed over her. The stranger, along with her group of friends, stared back at Viola with confusion. In fact, half the hallway had stopped to look at her, whispering at the outburst.
Flush with burning embarrassment, Viola took a step back, raising her hands awkwardly. "Sorry... I'm so sorry. I thought you were someone I knew."
She retreated before anyone could say anything, cheeks burning. For the longest time she tried to convince herself that the reason she kept failing to find Olivia was simply that Olivia was avoiding her. That had to be it. She was angry, and she was avoiding her, and eventually she'd cool off enough that Viola could find her and explain everything and somehow make it right. But after days of seeing absolutely no trace of her, Viola couldn't take the silence anymore.
That night, she marched up to the girls' dorms, determined to get answers. She knocked on the door of one of Olivia's closest friends, Maria.
When the door swung open, Maria looked at Viola, her expression instantly souring.
"Where is she, Maria?" Viola asked, not wasting any time. "Is she hiding from me? Because I've been looking for her for a week, and I just really need to talk to her."
Maria blinked, a look of disbelief crossing her face before it hardened. "Olivia left, Viola."
Viola choked on her next breath. "What? What do you mean she left?"
"You didn't know?" Maria let out a dry, humorless laugh, leaning against the doorframe. "She got accepted into her university early. She technically already had all the credits she needed to graduate, so she submitted the paperwork and got approved. She just packed up and left." Maria’s voice tightened with a protective, bitter edge. "I begged her to stay. I told her to at least stay for the ceremony, but she wouldn't listen. She decided not to walk at graduation."
Viola stood there, completely stunned with the air entirely sucked out of her lungs. That was what the envelope must’ve been about, and she had completely dismissed Olivia that day when she tried to tell her about her college acceptance.
"She... she's gone?" Viola croaked, tears welling in her eyes as she fully processed what she did to Olivia.
"Yeah, she's gone," Maria snapped, her eyes flaring with anger. "And you know she liked you a lot, right? Sebastian, Viola, or whatever the hell you want to go by. She liked you. Lord knows why it was you, but she did. And you lied straight to her face, broke her heart, and then never even bothered to apologize or explain yourself."
Viola stared back at Maria in silence. All this time, she had told herself that whatever Olivia felt was just a silly crush on the Sebastian she invented. And that belief had almost made it bearable. If Olivia had only liked the performance, then no real harm had been done; the disguise would come off and the feelings would dissolve right along with it, and Olivia would walk away unscathed. That was the entire point. Viola had never, ever wanted Olivia to become collateral damage of a lie she'd made to prove a point.
But Maria was saying Olivia had liked her, the girl underneath the wig. The real Viola was the one Olivia had fallen for. And the realization broke through all her defenses, because Viola had spent so long bracing for the wrong heartbreak that she'd never once prepared for this one.
"I never intended for any of that to happen," she stuttered, her voice cracking as she tried to salvage herself. "I was just trying to play soccer, I didn't mean to-"
"Save it," Maria interrupted coldly, cutting her off with a wave of her hand. "Whatever you have to say to me right now should’ve been said to Olivia."
Before Viola could utter another word, the dorm door slammed shut in her face.
The heavy thud echoed in the quiet hallway. Knees weak and completely devastated by the news she had just received, Viola pushed through the front doors into the night - where, of course, it had begun to rain. Hard, heavy sheets of it drenched her uniform within seconds while a loud crack of thunder rumbled directly overhead. It was as if the world had gone grey and cold, perfectly matching the miserable, breaking storm inside her chest.
Suddenly, her phone began to vibrate in her damp jacket pocket. Pulling it out with shivering hands, she saw Paul's name flashing across the screen.
She pressed the phone against her wet ear. "Hello?"
"Hey, Vi," Paul's voice came through the speaker, sounding hopeful. "How did it go? Did you find her? Did you give her the big “I fucked up” apology speech?"
A bitter sob caught in Viola's throat. "She left, Paul. She left before I even had the chance to say anything that might've fixed even a little of what I ruined. And now... now it’s far too late. She’s just gone away."
The line went quiet for a moment, the solemn sound of the thunderstorm filling the silence. "Oh, honey," Paul sighed, his tone softening with sympathy. "I'm so sorry. Listen, to me. We’ll go out tomorrow, just us and the rest of the girls. You can cry, you can yell, you can talk it all out, whatever you need. We've got you. Just hang in there tonight, okay?"
Viola blinked hard against the rain, the tears mixing in with the water from above. "Alright. Okay. Thanks, Paul, really. I mean it." She wiped at her face, not that it made a difference in this weather. "But I have to go now. It's pouring and my dorm is all the way across the quad. I need to get inside before I drown out here."
"Go, go. Text me when you're in."
Viola ended the call, shoving her phone back into her pocket as she pulled her jacket tighter around herself. She ducked her head against the biting wind and started to jog across the flooded grass, her hair plastered flat against her forehead.
As she neared the center of the quad, she passed the old stone well - the exact spot where she had shattered Olivia's heart just weeks ago. She tried to hurry past it, eager to escape the painful memory, but a strange, unnatural sound made her skid to a premature halt.
Bloop. Bloop... Bubble.
Viola frowned, wiping the rain from her eyes. The water deep inside the well was churning and bubbling aggressively, echoing strangely over the sound of thunder.
What if someone fell in there somehow? Viola thought, a sudden spike of panic overriding her heartbreak.
"Hello?!" she yelled over the storm, stepping cautiously toward the ledge. "Is someone down there?"
There was no answer, just the violent sloshing of water. Viola grabbed the slippery stone rim and hoisted herself up on her tiptoes, leaning over the dark, gaping edge to peer inside. She squinted into the pitch-black abyss.
Just a little bit more, I have to make sure, Viola thought as she pushed herself to go even farther, straining to see past the darkness and the rain-
Then her hand slipped on the rain-slick stone. There was one weightless, sickening moment where her stomach dropped and her feet left the ground, and then she was falling. A scream tore out of her and was lost in the roar of the storm as the dark mouth of the well swallowed her whole.
The terrifying sensation of free-falling vanished in an instant, replaced by a desperate gasp for air.
Viola’s eyes flew open. She immediately rolled onto her side, her lungs burning as she violently coughed and choked, spitting up a mouthful of cold water onto the ground. She lay there panting, her chest heaving as her hands instinctively clawed at the earth beneath her.
But it wasn't the wet, muddy grass of the quad, and it wasn't the cold stone of the well either. Her fingers dug into the familiar, rubbery texture of synthetic soccer turf.
Viola blinked hard, her blurry vision slowly coming into focus. The thunder and heavy sheets of rain were completely gone. Instead, the bright, blinding warmth of the midday sun beat down against her face.
Before she could even begin to process the impossible shift in the weather, she realized she was surrounded. A tight circle of upside-down, worried faces was hovering directly over her.
"Do we need to call an ambulance?" someone asked.
"Oh god, is he okay?" another voice chimed in.
"Bro, what type of punch knocks the water out of someone?" a player muttered in disbelief.
Before Viola could even attempt to speak, Coach Dinklage stormed into the center of the pile. He reached down to seize Justin and Duke each by the collar, hauling them apart and up onto their feet.
“Okay, tough guys. You want to box? You get out of my stadium," Coach Dinklage barked, glaring furiously between the two of them. "Otherwise, get on with the game. Alright?”
Still lying on the turf with water dripping from her chin, Viola felt the blood completely drain from her face. I've heard those exact words before, she thought, as a dizzying, suffocating wave of déjà vu crashed over her.
She looked down at her own chest, staring at the Illyria soccer uniform she was suddenly wearing again. Frantic, her gaze darted past the bewildered players and landed on the giant digital scoreboard: ILLYRIA 1, CORNWALL 1.
Her head spun. She could have sworn she had already lived this exact moment, right down to when Coach Dinklage intervened in the brawl. But how was that possible? How did she instantly jump from a freezing downpour at the main quad straight back into the middle of a sunny soccer match?
Viola pressed a trembling hand to her wet face. What the hell is going on?