23

Now that neither Ben nor Margot was worried about angering Audrey since they felt they had proven the breakup wasn't Margot's fault, any remaining barriers on their friendship dropped, and they were back to spending every night in the library together. Ben had even gone with Margot to the dog rescue shelter to visit Estel twice.

Curiously, both of them became awkward when one mentioned their new significant other, feeling a strange pang in their hearts that made no sense to them. Whenever Margot heard the rumours about Mal and Ben as a couple, she shut them out, confining herself to the music room where she focused only on her harp, not on the nagging sensation that something was wrong.

It was Monday morning when the double date was suggested. Oliver had caught Margot as she was leaving Remedial Goodness 101 and pulled her aside, exchanging a strange look with Mal that Margot noticed uncomfortably.

"Yes?" She asked, her eyes wide the way they always were now when she was talking to him.

"So, Ben and I were thinking about taking you girls on a double date tonight." Oliver noticed her confusion when he said Ben's name with some relief. At least the love spell hadn't pulled her under completely.

After the brief moment of discomfort, Margot perked up. "That sounds great!"

Oliver grinned. "Awesome. Make sure to bring a swimsuit, too."

"Oh! Uh, I-" Margot smiled sheepishly. "I don't know how to swim."

"Don't worry. We'll teach you." Oliver ruffled her hair gently, before heading to his next class. This would work, hopefully.

Margot was confused for the rest of the day, so much so that she actually took Belle's offer to be a listening ear.

"What is it, Margot?" Belle asked as she poured their tea.

"I-" Margot started, eyebrows furrowed. "I'm confused."

Noticing the flush on her cheeks, Belle smiled maternally. "Is it about a boy?"

Margot huffed. "Two boys, actually. I thought I had feelings for the one, and I was trying to get rid of those, and now all of a sudden I seem to have feelings for a different boy. It's really confusing."

Belle could easily guess who the first boy was, or, at least, she hoped she knew. "Well, how do they both make you feel?"

"Well, both of them make my heart race, and I get that fluttery feeling. But, with the first boy, I feel very safe and warm all the time, and with the second boy, I feel like I don't act like myself even though my feelings for him are overwhelming." Margot vented.

"Hmm. Do you think that it's possible you're forcing the feelings for either of them? Like, maybe, in trying to get over the first one, you subconsciously chose the second one as a distraction? Or maybe, you get too nervous around the second one to act like yourself and you just know the first one better?" It took everything in her for Belle to make a case for both boys, though internally she was rooting for the first.

Margot hummed, looking down at her hands. "I'm not sure. I know what I felt for the first boy was genuine, but it's really the second one making me wonder. You might be right, but my choice still doesn't make sense then." If I were to choose someone to get over Ben with, the obvious choice would have been Jay, who protected me my whole life. It would make much more sense for me to like him.

Belle felt herself smile as she thought of her son and the girl she almost thought of as a daughter being together, but pushed it down, not wanting to confuse the poor girl even more. Margot had been pondering the situation, when suddenly, she felt as if she'd been struck by lightning. The cookie. There's no way... But it really doesn't make sense otherwise.

"I think I've figured it out, Belle. Thank you so much for your help." Margot impulsively leaned down to give Belle a quick hug before hurrying out of the room. It was time to get ready for her double date, after all, where her theory would be proven correct or not.

When Margot reached her room, she found that, though it didn't seem like a real date anymore, she was quite nervous, so she ended up bursting into Evie and Mal's room with a pile of dresses and a helpless expression.

"Eve, I need you to choose for me. And I need a swimsuit too, apparently." She'd found one among the hand-me-downs Ben had given her earlier, but it didn't fit her either shape-wise or colour-wise.

Evie sighed, shaking her head. "You're both as hopeless as each other." It took her half a minute to choose a deep, emerald green chiffon dress with clear long sleeves, and within another half hour, she'd altered the bathing suit and dyed it so it actually suited her friend.

Once Mal and Margot finished dressing, Evie was flitting back and forth between the two of them with makeup brushes, an unfamiliar feeling that had Margot sneezing, until she finally called them presentable.

Neither Evie nor Mal noticed the sceptical glances Margot sent the purple-haired girl's way during the makeup session. They assumed her tense posture was from nerves, which technically wasn't incorrect, but the reason behind her nerves was different than what they thought.

"Okay. Easy on the blush. I don't want to scare him away. Not that I could." Mal said. The sentence almost made Margot double take, but she held it in, keeping it as proof in her heart that she was right.

"Please. My mom taught me how to apply blush before I could talk. Always use upward strokes." Evie replied calmly. Neither of them seemed to notice they'd said too much in front of their curly-haired friend.

"My mom was never really big on makeup tips. I never had a sister." Mal said quietly.

"Well, now you do." Evie replied easily.

Margot frowned, pushing down her concerns about the potential love potion and nudging Mal's shoulder. "Two of them." No matter what, Mal wouldn't do a bad thing to her for no reason, and family stuck together through thick and thin. That was what mattered, not whether she was under some silly love potion. For now, at least.

It might become a problem again once the spell was broken.