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Kristen Stewart does not have a crush on Charlize Theron. She doesn’t. Kristen’s a pot-smoking sophomore who spends pep rallies reading Kerouac under the bleachers. Charlize is the senior class president, all-round golden girl and holder of the most superlatives in yearbook. They have nothing in common. The most favorable adjective Kristen gets on her report cards is surly. She’s pretty sure the only thing they talk about on Charlize’s is how sickeningly perfect she is and how the sun shines out of her ass. Charlize basically stands for everything that Kristen thinks is stupid about high school.
She’s the worst.
So maybe Charlize is the most beautiful girl Kristen’s ever seen and when she sees her walking down the hall, or decorating the auditorium for prom, Kristen stops to stare but that’s not the point. Charlize is popular and Kristen’s not and maybe, on the rare occasions that they’ve talked, Charlize is actually really nice to her even though she’s an awkward mess but that really doesn’t matter because she doesn’t have a crush on her. Really. She doesn’t.
“I don’t,” Kristen says irritably.
“Oh yeah?” Rob says casually, eyebrows all raised and Kristen’s starting to regret her, in retrospect, overly generous policy towards British exchange students because if she knew how much trouble they’d be, she’d never have said hi to Robert Pattinson in the cafeteria that day. They hung out for a while and skipped class to make out to The Clash in her car and it was all fine until Rob stopped her mid-make out one day and pointed out that it wouldn’t really work out in the long term.
“Uh, why not?” Kristen had asked and Rob had tilted his head and said, “Well, because you’re super gay?” and Kristen would have refuted that if she hadn’t been distracted by the sight of Dakota Fanning crossing the parking lot in her new cheerleading uniform. Since then, they’ve just been friends (if you can call Rob following Kristen everywhere she goes and being super nice and weirdly helpful “friendship”…okay, maybe you can) and even though Kristen doesn’t like many people, she likes Rob, she does. Except for when he’s being a dick and right now, Kristen really does not like him at all.
Rob looks at her with that stupid face of his that he makes when he’s trying very hard not to laugh and pokes her in the chest where his finger leaves a dent in her foil breastplate.
“Okay, so if you don’t have a crush on Charlize, then why are you wearing this?” he smirks and it takes all of Kristen’s willpower not to hit him on the head with her sword because as much as she’d like to, it’s made out of Styrofoam and she knows the drama kids in the props department would kill her if it breaks.
God, if only it was actually made of steel, then she could actually do some damage. She looks at her Rob’s smirking face and sighs.
-
Kristen did not want to be Snow White. When the drama club gets up during assembly to announce that they’ll be doing some weird, medieval production of Snow White for their annual performance, Kristen rolls her eyes and stops by the noticeboard to write a new fake name on the auditions list every day for the next week (hey, she never said she was mature, Seymour Butts is a classic). She does it dutifully until Friday when she flips to the second page and finds Charlize Theron written in neat cursive on the fourth line. There’s an arrow pointing to the name she wrote yesterday with a hahaha! in the same handwriting and her heart does a pathetic little flutter in her chest.
“Aww, she thinks you’re funny,” Rob says right next to her ear and Kristen whirls around to hit him on the shoulder (“Ow!” “Jesus, don’t sneak up on me!”). She’s too busy being indignant to notice Rob reaching out to write on the list and when she sees her name written in crooked letters under Charlize’s, Kristen’s eyes widen.
“What are you doing?” Kristen hisses and before she gets the chance to change it, Rob rips the sheet off the board and sprints down the hallway towards the auditorium where the drama club kids are having a meeting. Kristen never manages to get her name off the list but she does tackle Rob onto the ground during lunch on the football field.
“You’ll thank me later,” Rob laughs after Kristen calls him an asshole and she shakes her head.
“You can’t make me go to auditions,” Kristen points out but she does anyway because it’ll look good on her college applications and maybe if she gets to catch a glimpse of Charlize, then that can’t hurt right? The whole thing pays off almost instantaneously when she waits outside the auditorium for her audition on Monday. The door swings open and Charlize freaking Theron almost walks into her.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” Kristen blurts out and Charlize laughs. She shakes her head and her long, blonde hair falls artfully around her shoulders. “Don’t be, I was the idiot who almost knocked you over.”
Kristen should not be this flustered.
“Um, uh, um, haha,” Kristen manages and she runs her hand through her hair because she doesn't know what else to do. Oh God.
Charlize’s lips quirk into a smile and she nudges her shoulder. Kristen tries not to die at the contact because she can smell Charlize’s perfume and she suddenly remembers that the old Runaways t-shirt she’s currently wearing reeks of pot and has holes around the neck. If Charlize notices, she doesn’t seem to care. She just looks at her steadily, “Hey, good luck. Don’t worry, you’ll do great.”
After that, Kristen doesn’t remember the audition at all. She’s pretty sure she fucked it up so when Kristen drags Rob to the noticeboard with her and flips to the back of the casting list to see that she doesn’t even get to play Villager #6, she’s not surprised.
“Whatever,” she mumbles, trying not to sound disappointed but then Rob reaches out and Kristen’s eyes follow his finger as it runs down the sheet.
“Um, Kris?”
Charlize is playing the wicked stepmother, Chris Hemsworth, star QB, is playing some guy called the Huntsman and next to Snow White, is her name – Kristen Stewart.
Kristen thinks she might kill Rob. She’s too busy plotting his death in her head to notice Charlize shouldering her way to the front of the crowd.
“Hey, congratulations!” Charlize says and she looks genuinely excited when she leans in to give Kristen a hug. “This is going to be so much fun.”
Kristen blinks, “Um, yeah, it totally will.”
Charlize grins, “I gotta go tell Hemsworth but I will see you later, fairest of them all.” Charlize winks at her and then she’s gone.
Kristen turns to look at Rob, panicked and, okay, maybe a little ecstatic, “Did that actually just happen?”
Rob nods and grins broadly, “Oh my God, I can’t wait to see this production.”