(A/N: Updated 05/02/2017 for consistency.)

Chapter 2

Elphaba's temper was not the only reason why I hated her. There were so many reasons, but among them was the simple, basic fact that she got something I couldn't have. Born into a pampered lifestyle, I was used to being given what I wanted, but for the first time in my life, I failed to get my way.

Beyond the fact that it was she of all people who I lost to, it just had to be a matter that was incredibly dear to my heart. Sorcery was a career I'd aspired to for years, and now I found myself in the situation of being denied it, while the horrid green girl got served magic on a plate. It seemed wrong that she was rewarded for that one vicious outburst at the beginning of the year, while I was denied the chance of pursuing the dream I'd cherished since I was a child. While she got to practice magic, I got to re-do poorly written essays, a fact that was clearly ridiculous when I knew my real aptitude lay in the more practical subjects.

Okay, so the few times I attempted to cast a spell left much to be desired, but to this day I'm still how unsure how I could be expected to know anything without anyone to teach me. With no access to the classes, and a frosty relationship with the Crage Hall library, my only source of knowledge came (to my infuriation) from the green girl herself.

Her sort of magic was unlike anything I'd seen before. Beyond the typical parlour tricks, it consisted of some frightening occurrences, usually in the heat of an argument, where shelves would shake or books would float in the air. She didn't seem aware of this until someone pointed it out, at which point she would freeze on the spot as if the magic was an evil entity out to get her, and flee hurriedly. These were the only times I ever gained the upper hand.

I was unsure how such a thing could be equated to a talent. What, I wondered, was the good in magic if it only served to cause disruption?

Elphaba's outbursts smoothly tied into the horrific image I'd created. The student body was naïve enough to assume that, since they'd witnessed such horrendifying displays of magic, everything else must be true. It got to the point where people went out of their way to sneak up on her with a cup of water, just to try and see if she would melt when it hit her. Somehow, Elphaba could always see it coming. It was as if she had an uncanny gift of knowing. Countless cups of water must have been dodged, and not once was she seen in the rain. It was a spell, everyone said. A spell to repel water from her repulsive body.

When my life fell apart, I found myself wishing for sorcery. I wished to magically turn back the clock and take back my poor decisions. I wished for people's memories to be erased and to start afresh. The trouble is, sorcery is limited. Sorcery – no matter how cleverly performed – cannot turn back time. It cannot wipe the memories of hundreds.

The fact is, once an action has been made, it cannot be undone, especially by the use of cheap parlour tricks.

One thing that would take me many more years to learn is that you can only ever rely on yourself. This is a fact that Elphaba knew from an early age. It was beaten into her by the hostility and ridicule that resulted from her pigmented skin. I, however, was used to being dependent. My smooth talking easily paved a pathway to favours, meaning I could offload my responsibilities onto others. What I failed to realise is that people are unreliable, all talk and no action. Anyone can say anything, but it doesn't mean they are going to do it.

And Pfannee didn't. Turns out she had her own agenda.

A Munchkin attempting to pass as a Gillikinese highbred, she was short, pretentious and gregarious. She was something of a ringleader when it came to tormenting Elphaba. Very often it was her shrieks of gleeful laughter that could be heard whenever ill fate befell the green girl. Passive but motivated, I was certain she would leap at the chance to be my accomplice.

Leap she did. A few well-placed words about how a favour from her would result in allowing her into my closest friend circle were enough to sway her into complying with my scheme. With wide-eyed elation at the thought of rising up the ranks of popularity, she gushed promises about how she would live up to my expectations. I handed her my most precious and unique pink fountain pen. It's the only one I ever wrote with, a signature so distinguished that anyone who saw the pink ink and loopy writing could be certain that the words were mine. There would be no doubt to Elphaba that I was the one who wrote this letter.

'You must not tell anyone,' I insisted, and Pfannee pinky-swore that she would keep it to herself.

The door handle finally turned, and I looked up from painting my nails to see Elphaba finally walk in. My stomach twisted in anticipation. I had placed the letter at a perfect angle on my desk for Elphaba to see it. She paused in the doorway, glanced vaguely in my direction, and then closed the door before slumping off to find some book or other.

I was fuming.

How dare she not take any notice of my efforts to demoralise her. The very least she could have done was say something about it, but instead she had gone off as though it didn't matter at all. Determined not to be defeated, I coughed.

'Something wrong, Galinda?' said Elphaba.

I didn't want to speak to her. Verbal battles against Elphaba always resulted in losses. Instead I offered my best glare.

Elphaba rolled her eyes.

'Nice to see you care so much that you can't stop staring at me,' she quipped, and my resolve broke.

'I would never stare at you!'

'How strange. I could have sworn that those two wide, unblinking eyes of yours were glowering in my direction. Their prettiness is ruined by such ugly emotions.'

'At least I'll never be as ugly as you.'

'At least my ugliness is only on the outside, whereas yours comes from within.'

'How dare you.'

Elphaba cackled. 'Well what do you expect from a callous green bean?'

And then, she opened her book and her attention was lost.

All around me, I heard the scratches of pens. The room was boiling. Morrible always magicked the rooms hot in the middle of winter, but a lot of the time, they were too hot. It didn't help that the winter sun was glaring straight at my eyes through the window, partially blocking my vision and causing me to squint.

In front of me, Elphaba had already filled half a page, even with such tiny handwriting. Even Pfannee had managed a couple of sentences, but I felt stuck and had a slight headache coming on. The essay question was long and wordy, and I only had sparse recollections of the information needed to answer it.

I decided that, at the very least, I ought to look as though I was doing something, so I reached into my handbag, only to find my pink fountain pen missing. Well that was that, then, another wasted hour in a stuffy classroom. Only now did I remember that Pfannee had yet to return the pen to me. Glancing over, I noted, irritably, that Pfannee was using the pen herself, wasting all my precious pink ink on her horrible essay. So much for allowing her into my close friend circle.

Closing my eyes, I allowed my forehead to be warmed by the sunshine. Suddenly it was summer, and I was sitting outside on the terrace at my home in Frottica, with a jug of lemonade and a few close friends for company. We sat beneath a parasol discussing our dreams for the future, in days long before the idea of wealthy husbands was forced on us.

When I was a child, I used to dream of being an artist, but no one tended to pay attention whenever I drew anything. 'That's a nice building you drew, Galinda, now put down your pencils and go socialise with the other girls.' Eventually, my enjoyment of art gave way to the need to form and retain friendships, leaving me with little time to pursue it. At the time, I didn't care, but would, many years later, come to regret it.

The faces of those girls I used to socialise with had long faded into indefinable blurs; they were all the same, really, and there was not one girl I was close enough to care to remember. It was the same at Shiz – all of those wealthy, classy society females flitted around me, and yet not one of them stood out as anything special. I thought that I was popular, but it would take me years to realise that one's popularity is not defined by the number of shallow acquaintances one has, but by the real, precious few who stick around through everything.

There was, in fact, one girl who stood out from the crowd at Shiz, but I was in such a state of denial that I failed to realise she was right under my nose the whole time. A lesson that I had yet to learn was that hatred and love are often the same thing, it's just that hatred is also a disguise of a love not accepted.

I spent the hour staring at the back of Elphaba's infuriatingly shiny head, wanting nothing more than to tear off those long, straight locks that could almost be considered beautiful when her green skin was out of sight.

The day everything changed was like an outbreak of hives. It began with that itch that you firstly try to ignore, until eventually you cannot ignore it and finally look and discover that it's all over your body.

When the whispers started, I refused to believe they could possibly be about me. In the running of the gossip vine, I was normally an instigator, not a receiver. The students looked to me to keep them informed of the goings-on of the university. As such, it was odd that, for the first time in history (History meaning the whole first term of uni), a rumour had sparked from a source I was unaware of.

The first time I heard my name in such a context, I thought I heard wrong. I was – surely – not the subject of this rumour, but perhaps a victim of it? At any rate, someone seemed to have gotten the wrong end of the stick. It was one of those dreadful exaggerations that caused me to want to bang my head against a wall. Two guys taking a scrap of information and making mountains out of it. It was so funny that I struggled to keep a straight face as I walked on by.

Their allegation: Apparently I was in love with Elphaba.

Me. The girl who led every movement against her. The girl who called her names, churned out vegetable jokes and complained about not getting a private suite or sorcery lessons. In love. With Elphaba.

Seriously.

I brushed it off with a bright smile and quick toss of the hair. In a mere matter of hours it would be those two idiots who became subject to speculation. I could easily spin the tale so that I was the victim. 'Did you hear about those losers saying all that stuff about Galinda? How dare they insult her in such a way!' everyone would say. Better yet, it wouldn't be so hard to imply that Elphaba was the one who was in love with me. After all, at least the entire male half of the student body was. Smirking, I continued to my class.

When I arrived it was to shrieks and peals of laughter. Thoroughly baffled, I slid into my seat and looked around. The students were huddled around one desk in the front and centre of the room…Elphaba's desk. I wondered what sort of affair was going down. Among the peals of laughter I heard a particularly high pitched shriek of glee. Pfannee stood at the head of the crowd; clearly she was in charge of all this. She caught my eyes, and a wicked grin spread across her face.

'And look everyone, here she is, the culprit of our latest scandal, Galinda Upland!'

The laughter ceased immediately. My stomach dropped. Heads turned, and pairs of eyes stared. From the middle of it all, Elphaba rose, her shoulders hunched, her arms pinned to her sides, and as she did so, the tables around her trembled. Slowly, she twisted herself around to face me, and her eyes flashed dangerously through her glasses. In her hand, she held a sheet of paper, and I recoiled in horror as I caught sight of pink, loopy writing.

'Galinda Upland,' she seethed. 'How in Lurline's name could you do this to me?'

I rose from my seat. I could feel all eyes on me as I slowly made my way towards her and snatched the paper out of her hand. Glancing over it, my brow furrowed as I tried to make sense of the words that swam before me. At first, I thought it was the letter to my parents, but as I studied it more, I started to notice that the letters didn't make sense; they spelled out words that were far different to what I recalled.

Words that didn't belong to me.

Before I could react, Pfannee snatched the paper away.

'Let it be known exactly what it is that Galinda wrote in her oh-so-romantic love letter to the Artichoke,' she announced. 'Dearest, darlingest Elphie,' she sang, 'I know that I've been a bitch to you in the past, but I couldn't contain myself anymore, and simply had to tell you how in love with you I am. I secretly have a thing for ugly green things and every night I dream about kissing you and making love to you. I hope you understand and are able to return my feelings. With love and kisses, Galinda Upland (of the Upper Uplands).'

The students started howling again. I was frozen on the spot, unable to comprehend what just happened, let alone react. Pfannee's face swam before my vision; she threw her head back with merciless laughter, and the crowds of students swarmed around, latching onto the hilarity of the situation. Elphaba stared at me, and I shook my head in disbelief.

'I didn't write it!' I screamed. 'You took my pen and wrote it yourself!'

Pfannee shook her head. 'But Galinda, is that not your pink fountain pen over there, on your desk?'

I looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, there was my pen, back on my desk as she said.

'I didn't write it,' I choked out feebly, but the amount of uproar in the room drowned out my words.