Stars and the Dark Spaces Between

She’d always imagined it would be in the sunset. Enid would have to go away for some reason—a track tournament or some type of non-lethal emergency (a lethal emergency seemed a little too morbid for a hypothetical first kiss scenario, even if that hypothetical kiss did involve a hypothetical Wednesday Addams). There’d be a heartbroken goodbye on Enid’s end and a manufactured stoic one on Wednesday’s to save face, but then as Enid was getting in the cab to go to the bus station she’d hear Wednesday calling her name and stop.

Wednesday would catch up, breathlessly begging her not to go, or telling her she’d come with her, or any combination of words that meant she’d realized in the five minutes Enid was gone that she couldn’t live without her. The sun would be setting and the air would be just chilly enough to need a sweater and Wednesday would kiss her as the sky burned orange and pink above and…

Well, she hadn’t exactly thought of what came after. Admittedly, she’d been a little too busy pacing a trench through the floor of their room after Wednesday’s radio silence to be thinking of anything except for different variations of FUCK.

Upon seeing the note before the crack of actual fucking dawn, Enid’s first instinct was of course to grab her phone and type out a message that was super nonchalant and aloof and said “TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE.” It sounded real stalker-y in and out of context, and Enid initially regretted it until she went through her morning jog, first two classes, and track practice without a response. And then she just got more pissed off.

Enid knew Wednesday didn’t like her phone. Enid also knew that she was the one person Wednesday would always answer. It only left a couple of explanations:

She’d crushed the device under the tire of her car again and couldn’t find a payphone to call her on because, unbeknownst to her, they were no longer living in the 1900’s.
Wednesday didn’t want to talk to her.

It was a hard pill to swallow in general, but an impossible one to swallow given the gravity of the situation. Wednesday leaving that note and then fleeing like an emotionally ignorant thief in the night was probably the single most torturous thing she could’ve done (not counting actual torture like pulling off Enid’s toenails or something. That would be worse for sure). It’s not like there was a world that existed where Enid would read something like that, knowing who it’s from, and just… not care.

No, instead they existed in the world where Enid woke up to a love confession returned via cute morning sticky note tradition, signed by the girl she’d been pining after for, like, eight months, who’d supposedly dropped off the face of the earth. And in that moment Enid would’ve jumped out of the atmosphere to track her down.

Enid searched for her on her way to every class to no avail, and—idiotically—in every class (also to no avail, because why would Wednesday be in any of her classes even on a normal day, let alone the day she’d apparently diagnosed Enid with the plague and decided immediate escape was her only chance). It was around lunch when she got desperate enough to engage in an active hunt for the girl, which started at the library and ended five minutes later also at the library because Enid found Yoko instead and ranted to her about the situation.

And Yoko was usually scarily good at focusing completely on whatever garbage was coming out of Enid’s mouth while not taking her eyes off a whole term paper, but when Enid told her about what happened, her fingers stilled on her keyboard and the reflection of the computer screen in her sunglasses turned into the reflection of Enid’s worried face.

“You actually told her you loved her?”

“You told me to!”

Yoko hmphed. Hmphed over a situation like this. “Well, I didn’t think you’d do it so that’s on you.”

Enid gusp a gasp that had several students and at least one librarian looking over to ensure nobody had dropped dead. “What do you mean ‘that’s on me’? What did I do? I was honest and open—as best friends should be, by the way—and she is, like, one more ignored text away from being reported as a missing person.”

“Hold on…” Yoko pushed her sunglasses down her nose so Enid could see her brown eyes over the rim. “How many texts are we talking about?”

Enid truthfully had lost count at that point so she just handed her phone over so Yoko could put in the hard labour of counting them. After a few scrolls and about five seconds, she snorted. “To be fair, fifteen is surprisingly low for you. Well done.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“It is. Seriously, how is she supposed to respond to just a bunch of question marks and exclamation points?”

“The first one wasn’t like that!”

“Ah, yes. I remember.” Yoko nodded, scrolling up to the message and lazily turning the screen so Enid could be faced with it again herself.

5:03 AM: TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE

“It’s so nonthreatening. I have no idea why she wouldn’t—”

Enid shot across the table and snatched her phone back. “If you’re not going to take this seriously—“

“What? You’ll leave?”

“Yeah.”

"Please. We both know I couldn’t make you leave if I tried.”

And Enid took offence to that. So much offence.

But she didn’t leave.

Instead she slapped her phone obediently back into Yoko’s outstretched hand, sat back, crossed her arms, and glared in defeat. Yoko sang a smug 'thank you', which Enid maturely mocked in a really high voice because reasons, so lost in her petulance that she almost forgot that she was looking at Yoko typing on her phone. In Wednesday’s text window.

Every muscle and bone went cold. “Wait, what are you—”

“Chill, I’m just drafting something. Sending it is your decision.”

After a second, she offered the phone back to Enid, who took it with all the elegant desperation of a person stranded in the desert for a week being handed a bottle of water.

Sorry, I’m chill now. Ignoring me is still kind of a dick move but I understand. Have your time to figure things out. We’re good and we’ll talk when you get back to the room.

“That’s it?”

“Honey, she’s terrified. I doubt she’s ever even told her own family that she loved them, let alone the first person she’s probably ever had a real crush on. I’m not saying it’s right for her to ignore you, but if you want to talk about it the only thing you can do is let her come to you when she’s ready.”

“But—”

“And that will never happen if you don’t chill the fuck out.”

So Yoko was right. Of course Yoko was right. Yoko had been right this entire time and Enid hadn’t even really been listening, just doing her own thing and failing and complaining right back to the person whose advice she didn’t use. One of these days when she was settled down with a career and money she’d send Yoko on a good vacation for putting up with all her shit. Somewhere nice and warm and not-Vermont, and where wearing sunglasses at all times of the day would be normal.

“Yoko?”

“Yeah, crazy?”

“Do you think Wednesday’s avoiding me because… she doesn’t feel the same way?”

Anyway, after Yoko threatened to repeatedly beat some sense into Enid’s head with the corner of her laptop (“the hard corner!” she specified, and Enid didn’t think there was a difference but Yoko started to pick it up and Enid thought that was as good a time as any to not find out), Enid went back to her room and stewed.

Then she read the note again. And again. And again.

Then she waited. And waited.

And waited.

It wasn’t even raining when she went outside, she’d just had enough of pacing the same seven square feet for the past hour and decided to move that extremely productive activity out into nature. She hadn’t planned to have that fight out in the pouring fucking rain like their lives were some sort of unimaginative rom-com, but here it was.

And there Wednesday was, making her way up the path, showing a startling resemblance to a kicked puppy (or at least a puppy that might not have been kicked yet but was really expecting to be). She stayed just out of reach of the awning as the rain got heavier and Enid didn’t know whether or not she was actively trying to look as pathetic as possible to invoke sympathy, but she was pretty good at it regardless. She was also good at arguing, but completely wilted under Enid’s sharp tone.

Their fight was subpar—a bit of back and forth but overall Wednesday didn’t fight back at all and Enid just felt like she was bullying her, which was kind of frustrating because it’s not like Enid was the one that suddenly became more elusive than fucking Bigfoot for the past thirteen hours. So sure, Enid gave her a piece of her mind, but Yoko’s advice still rang through her mind so it was only a small one. A nice, gentle, not-scary piece.

And Wednesday just stood there, solid and unmoving under the beratement and the rain, and told Enid she was sorry.

She knew Wednesday didn’t know what else to say. She knew that Wednesday knew apologizing was one of the things that made Enid un-mad so that was probably her best bet. She knew Wednesday was trying her best to patch up what she thought was a mistake. It wasn’t her fault, she was just doing what she knew—treating that 'I love you too' like any other injury, hiding it under bandaids and other stuff that hurt when you ripped it off. They’d both know the blood was underneath, but everything was easier to ignore when it was out of sight.

But Enid didn’t want it out of sight. She wanted the blood and the hurt, the gaping wound, the bite of air and the sting of alcohol. Wednesday didn’t have to leave that note, but she did, and now she was pretending like she didn’t because… what? She thought Enid didn’t want her back?

“What do you want, Enid?”

“I want you to fucking kiss me!”

She hadn’t even known that was on the table for something she’d say in a moment like that. She’d just been so frustrated from waiting so long and the pelting rain was making everything more urgent and it just came out, hopeless and begging like a plea.

Or a prayer.

(And she didn’t believe in those anymore, but couldn’t help but fall back on desperate habits with a sentence that stripped her bare like that.)

So Wednesday’s kiss wasn’t in the sunset. Wednesday’s kiss existed in shades of black and grey, battered with sheets of rain and buried under fog, clean and clear like water and folded up in a soggy black zip-up sweater. Kissing Wednesday was cold water and warm lips on her skin—everything she didn’t know she needed and everything she was sure she’d never be able to live without now that it’d happened.

Because Enid thought that if Wednesday pulled back right then and told her it was all a mistake, she’d be better off just letting herself soak into the soil with the rain.

But Wednesday didn’t do that. She stood there, raindrops in her eyelashes, bangs plastered to her forehead, eyes drunk and focused on Enid’s lips, and then her eyes. Then her lips. Then her eyes and then her lips. And Wednesday asked her if she wanted anything else.

And, God, Enid wanted.

Rain fell so hard water splashed out of puddles and the world was going dark and Enid’s dream about their kiss in the sunset was buried under overcast sky and soft lips, the blunt edge of fingernails on her neck. There was nothing else she could think of that she wanted more than kissing Wednesday. Needs weren’t even in the picture.

She’d always been known for putting her heart too far into things that might break it, but this time it was different. Wednesday wasn’t capable of simply breaking her if this went bad—Wednesday would destroy her. So wholly and completely that no amount of Seven-Eleven slurpees could fix it. Every fiber and molecule, every breath, every beat of her heart wrung out and ripped up and burned to the ground.

But she just kissed Wednesday again, the thought disappearing behind her like a scream of warning to a person who’d already jumped off a cliff.

. . .

When Enid was a kid, her mom told her she had an addictive personality. Enid figured she came to this realization when her father once let her have half of his morning coffee when she was seven and she developed a withdrawal headache the next day around noon. Ester sat her down in front of their boxy family computer that had its own room and showed her before and after pictures of people going through a crystal meth addiction.

“Never try cocaine. Never drink. Never do any drugs. In high school, people will try to get you to smoke marijuana, but never smoke marijuana. It’s a gateway to heroin.”

Implying that pot and heroin users were after the same type of high was one of Ester’s duller moments, but the warning did work. Enid left a house party when she was fifteen because Michelle’s boyfriend offered her a puff of a joint, convinced the next object he’d hand her between his fingers would be a hypodermic needle.

When Enid began junior high, she started coming home crying a lot. A friend that she’d really trusted said something behind her back or a boy she'd really liked gave his pencil sharpener to another girl. Enid really felt a lot of things. She later learned that her brain had a stronger craving for dopamine than most. She became obsessed with things that made her feel good, attached to them like a parasite, drained them of everything they could possibly offer until she was left in limbo, an emptiness inside her that could only be filled by finding something else to live for. And it was never herself.

“You lose yourself in things, honey,” her mother would say, like Enid had told her she was popping fentanyl on the weekends and not just that Jessica turned out to be kind of a bitch. “You need to be careful what you wrap yourself up in.”

To this day, the 'don’t do crack from a pipe' thing was probably the only nugget of wisdom she’d ever been glad to take from her mother. She couldn’t imagine how powdered street drugs would affect her when, completely sober, she could brush hands with a boy in the hall and instantly come up with names for their three future children.

It was her disease. Her plight. Her cross to bear. To love someone and be consumed by it. She didn’t even look for a way out at this point, just let her delusions and daydreams build and build so stupidly high until expectation far outran reality and her heart remembered why people are always better in her head than they are when they’re in front of her. And then, because of her cruel obsession with feeling, she’d obsess over that disappointment until it poisoned every part of her being, intertwined with her bone marrow and ran through her blood. The synapses in her brain would push the emptiness around and around and around until—

“I’m gonna need you to say something.”

Wednesday and her stood under streams of hot water in the bathroom, a condensation-coated tile wall between them, silent like two strangers frightened to disturb the other.

It seemed like an odd place to transition after what had just happened, but Enid hadn’t known what else to do. There were too many variables to consider about going back to their shared room.

Would they talk about it?

Kiss some more?

Pretend nothing happened and live with an unbearable tension between them until Enid finally snapped and said something that would ruin their relationship forever?

Actually, the most likely scenario was that Wednesday would just make a B-line for her typewriter to reclaim the hour she missed, leaving Enid no choice but to throttle her and then probably get her own throat sliced by one of the three hidden knives Wednesday kept on her at all times (the actual number was definitely higher, but she’d only told Enid about the three). Thankfully Wednesday didn’t do that. Her own gruesome murder was not on Enid’s post-kissing-Wednesday to-do list. Whether it was on Wednesday’s post-kissing-Enid list was a question that could only be answered in the near future.

The trip up the stairs and to their door was about as loose and carefree as a calf cramp, and then there they were standing in the doorway, dripping wet and cold from the rain, looking at the room they’d last left as friends and came back to as…

Well…

Fuck. This was supposed to be the easy part.

Not in her wildest dreams did she ever think that the aftermath of kissing Wednesday would be more unbearable than the yearning that led up to it. But the silence was so loud and so there. Like if Enid spoke the words would just bounce right off it and back down her throat.

“We should probably shower.” Wednesday was the brave one who spoke first. Her voice seemed to slice through the air, so clean and certain, like she’d used a blade to do it.

Just as sure, she breezed through that doorway as though that’s all it was. To Enid, it was a portal to the remnants of a relationship that would never be the same again. She was almost afraid to step foot in the room, like it was holy ground, a bible page that would crinkle the second she tread on it with her soggy sneakers. But to Wednesday it was just a room.

Still, Enid would’ve preferred if she at least wiped her feet first.

They collected some dry clothes with the solemn quietness of praying monks, then made their way to the showers. Everyone must’ve been at the dining hall for supper because it was mercifully empty.

And now here they were, a wall apart from one another, the sound of spraying faucets and water hitting tile the only thing that dared disturb the muggy air. Enid’s heart hadn’t stopped pounding for the last ten minutes. At least her cardio was beyond covered for the day.

And she really needed Wednesday to say something. Literally anything.

Her voice was somehow jarring, even veiled by the pouring water. “Like what?”

“Maybe something about, like… what just happened?”

“I thought it was self-explanatory.”

“Well, can you please make it verbally-explanatory? I’m freaking the fuck out over here.”

“Why?”

“Jesus, aren’t you?”

For several eternities there was only the echo of spraying faucets. Enid watched the hot water running rivers down her arms, desperate for something to focus on. The steam was so thick in her little stall that she thought she might pass out.

Then Wednesday said, “I’m freaking the fuck out,” and the pressure in Enid’s chest that she thought might be the beginnings of cardiac arrest broke into a laugh.

That was what she wanted, she realized—confirmation that this world rocking, reality shifting, monumentally life altering thing wasn’t just affecting her. Wednesday felt it too.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

It wasn’t even a dent in all the things they had to discuss, but it was a start, which was all Enid could ask for after living through a day that felt like it would never fucking end.

Wednesday finishing her shower left the echo of a single running shower head bouncing around between the walls. It made sense that she was done first. According to Bianca, who showered in the same changeroom as Wednesday after nearly every fencing practice, Wednesday always finished showering in four minutes flat.

“Apparently that psycho used to time herself when she was a kid,” Bianca said when Enid asked, because five minutes she could see but who the fuck chooses an oddly specific number like four to time anything? “If she wasn’t finished in time, she’d just get out.”

“What if there was still shampoo in her hair?” Enid had asked.

And in a scarily perfect impression of Wednesday’s dead, uninterested tone, Bianca mocked, “‘Then I’d learn that if I don’t get out in four minutes, there’ll still be shampoo in my hair.’”

This was obviously insane. What was more insane was that she didn’t even use a timer anymore but Bianca did on multiple occasions and found out that she was never off by more than five seconds.

So anyway, after conditioning her hair and grappling with the fact that she was about to discuss long-term relationship goals with an actual fucking robot, the squeak of Enid’s shower knob announced the staunching of water flow above. A thick, humid silence followed, interrupted only by a few lingering drips of water and the sound of Enid’s flip flops slapping against her feet as she dried off and put on pyjamas.

It was so quiet that she figured Wednesday had left, but when she got out there she was, sitting casually on the sink counter with her feet dangling. It was an oddly natural position to catch the world’s most advanced model of AI robot in, made more odd not only by the black crocs on her feet, but also the fact that she was scrolling through her phone. It seemed so foreign; Wednesday acting like a normal twenty year-old. Like a typewriter opening up a google page.

There was the obscenely loud crinkle of Enid’s plastic shower curtain when she pulled it open. Wednesday’s head lifted. She looked much less robot-y than usual with her hair down and cheeks flushed pink from the shower. It was like the hot water had eroded all her sharp edges, burned through the metal and wires until all that was left was the regular girl underneath. In her grey Nevermore University hoodie and black joggers, she was beautiful in a different way than she usually was. Less like a pristine statue and more like something soft. Cotton and fleece and warm skin. Undeniably human.

Enid was in love with it like she was with everything else about her. Wednesday probably missed her wires.

“Of course you always have your crocs in sport mode.”

Wednesday’s eyebrows furrowed microscopically as she looked down at her feet. Enid fought a grin and she made her way to the sink. She was supposed to be mad, after all.

“I’m assuming you’re referring to the strap being up—“

“I bet they feel so secure.”

“—which is how you’re supposed to wear them.” Wednesday looked up flatly, wet hair a little curly, frizzy around the edges where it was drying before she had the chance to run a brush through it. “And yes. They do feel secure.”

As though to prove it, she swung her feet a little, garnering the energy of a kindergartener attempting to touch the school bus floor from their seat. Enid distracted herself from the laugh building up in her throat by rustling through her bag for a brush. Wednesday went back to her phone.

She was almost tempted to keep it light. Everything would change now. Was it so wrong of her to want ten more minutes of being friends with Wednesday before…?

God.

What if it was never like this again?

She thought about voicing that horrifying theory, but when she glanced at Wednesday she noticed some familiar messages on her phone screen and figured a conversation about their future was probably out the window now that Wednesday was looking at the texts she’d sent her that morning. Enid only found out when they returned to the room briefly to get their shower stuff and clothes that Wednesday had actually left her phone turned off in there the whole day, meaning all of Enid’s bottled rage had been sent directly to their intended recipient—the drawer of Wednesday’s typewriter desk.

Enid cringed in distaste at the version of herself that was being allowed to tear through the world unchecked barely ten hours ago. She was practically a public hazard.

A moment of silence. A drip of a faucet somewhere.

“Okay, so I wasn’t angry.”

Wednesday nodded. Scrolled. “Okay.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Okay.”

“Do me a solid and say anything other than ‘okay’.”

Nod.

Scroll.

“Alright.”

“Not what I meant.”

She finished reading the texts after approximately five thousand years (three seconds at most), then turned off the phone and laid it facedown on the counter. “You have every right to be… not angry,” she said. Two of her fingers drummed idly on the lip of the counter. “I should’ve communicated better, or at all. I needed some time to think, but it was wrong of me to avoid you and I’m sorry for that.”

Ultimately, it was a good apology. She’d taken accountability, validated Enid’s feelings, and outlined how she could’ve done better. Enid couldn’t ask for anything more, especially considering she was at least 90% sure Wednesday hadn’t apologized to a single person in her life besides Enid herself, so the fact that she even bothered with one meant more than any of the words that were in it.

But an apology still wasn’t what Enid was looking for.

The air was sticky and condensation coated the mirrors. Enid dropped her shower bag on the floor and leaned over the counter to wipe one with her towel. “It’s fine for you to take time to think things through,” she said. “I’d be concerned if you didn’t. I’m just wondering why you had to do that directly after leaving me a note telling me you loved me. Usually the thinking part of that whole decision would be over by then.”

“My feelings weren’t what I was concerned about.”

The squeak of Enid’s towel against the mirror came to an abrupt and pitchy end. She was frozen to the spot, in such a potent state of disbelief that she truly couldn’t begin to imagine where to start with this unadulterated lunacy.

It’s not like Wednesday was the sole contributing factor to Enid realizing she liked women and the subsequent major identity crisis that followed. It’s not like Enid and Yoko plotted nearly every day over a three month period how best to communicate to Wednesday Enid’s romantic interest. It’s not like Enid had scrounged up the last morsels of courage from the very depths of her soul to flirt with this girl time and time again for no reward other than the gratification that she was making moves and Wednesday was bound to notice eventually and make a move back, only come to find out Wednesday not only hadn’t seen the clues, but continued to be unsure if Enid liked her or not?

“Are you serious?”

“No, I thought this would be an appropriate time for a joke as we stand here discussing the terms of a long-standing friendship that was just flipped on its head. The atmosphere is so light and carefree.”

Honestly, fuck that bitch for being so funny sometimes. Enid wore more colors than a goddamn clown, yet her sense of humour was frequently outshone by a woman made in the same lab as Frankenstein. It was stupid how she wasn’t even trying—when the future of their relationship was on the thinnest line imaginable and they were having a serious conversation about love confessions and deep feelings and her voice just cut in to deliver the driest, flattest, most unhelpful addition to the conversation, and now Enid couldn’t even remember why the fuck she was mad at her because a laugh was pushing at her throat as Wednesday glanced up.

Granted, it wasn’t difficult to bring that spark of anger back. Especially because—

“I literally told you point blank that I loved you.”

“I’ve seen you tell your math TA that you loved her,” Wednesday said. “Point blank.”

“If you were failing antiderivatives and she gave you an extra point on a midterm, you’d tell her you loved her too.”

“No I wouldn’t. But I also wouldn’t be failing antiderivatives so there’s an independent variable there.”

“Fine. How’s this for an independent variable?” Enid dropped the towel she was wiping the mirror with and turned to Wednesday, irritated beyond words with her obliviousness. “I didn’t flirt with my math TA for three fucking months, Wednesday. I didn’t leave cute little good morning sticky notes on her nightstand every morning. I didn’t hold my math TA’s hand on the hood of her car under goddamn fireworks and I sure as fuck didn’t break up with my boyfriend for her.”

That surprised Wednesday. Enid could tell by the way her dark eyes flicked up to hers, naturally looking for a lie but finding none. It was impossible to believe that even now she still hadn’t put the pieces together. Thankfully she’d brought Enid to the end of her rope, the only place she’d ever have the mental fatigue to not have an anxiety attack over spelling it out for her.

“I didn’t track my math TA to a gym change room at ten in the night to talk at her for five minutes about how scared I was to tell her I loved her before I told her I loved her. There was context, Wednesday. And you’re smart enough to solve fifty year-old cold cases so excuse the fuck out of me if I thought a little flirting was in your realm of deduction.”

Wednesday was reacting like this was new information, like this was the first she was hearing of any of this, like she didn’t live through and take a first row seat in all of these events. The silence stretched on for way longer than before. It surrounded them, looming and pressing until Enid wondered if she might've overloaded Wednesday’s data processor and now she had to wait here for however long it took to reboot her systems or whatever.

Finally, just as Enid was starting to discreetly look for a power button or user manual somewhere on her, Wednesday graced the air with her voice.

“I was suspicious about the firework thing. The rest honestly went over my head.”

Enid felt like banging her head off the chipped plastic countertop. Instead of doing that though (because giving herself a brain bleed on the basis that she was a little frustrated was a little unhinged, even for her), she just stared at Wednesday with passive aggressive raised eyebrows of disbelief until Wednesday had the good sense to defend herself.

“I appreciate the effort, but given who I am as a person, I’m struggling to see how you thought that was a better idea than simply telling me.”

“For Christ sake, I was scared, Wednesday.”

“Of what?”

“Of losing you! God, I was so scared to lose you.”

“Most people are scared to have me.”

Enid snorted before she could remember they were having a serious conversation and she probably shouldn’t do that. It was whatever. Wednesday didn’t always know when she was being funny, but she did always glance up when Enid laughed, and she never seemed annoyed.

She looked at Enid now the same way she always did when she unintentionally made a joke—a little confused, a little surprised, but mostly she just looked. And Enid did too.

“You don’t scare me, Wednesday,” she said, and it was mostly true. Wednesday rolled her eyes the tiniest bit, and when they landed back on Enid she chose to ignore how she had to manually force her breath not to catch.

Like she said. Mostly not scared.

“I know.” Wednesday sounded peeved. “It used to be the bane of my existence.”

“What is it now?”

“Back to my mother, as God intended.”

“Oh. Great?”

“Also…” Wednesday looked up at the ceiling and cleared her throat. “I was scared too.”

Wednesday Addams. Scared. Enid thought the world would have to be ending in a fiery blaze before she’d ever see that. But instead it was just because of Enid.

Wednesday’s eyes reluctantly found hers, warm and dark even under the fluorescent lights of the bathroom. Enid always hated that light—the bright white kind that exposed every pore and under-eye bag—but Wednesday’s hair was still down and frizzy, and getting frizzier the longer she waited to brush it out. The messiness subdued the sharpness created by the light. Even her bangs were a little ruffled.

So it was endearing, and it was soft, and it wasn’t scary. And neither was Wednesday’s voice when she said, “You mean a lot to me. More than most people. More than… anything.”

Enid remembered those words from the bus station, when she was going home after their first year. There was the sunset and the muggy air and Wednesday told her she’d miss her. More than anything. Enid was surprised that she’d said that, but too emotional about leaving to navigate a conversation about what it meant with a person who reacted to emotions like cockroaches reacted to light. So she took it at face value—an uncharacteristically sentimental statement from a girl who didn’t know how else to respond to her friend crying on her shoulder.

Was it possible that Wednesday knew she loved her even then? Had Enid been the one missing signs?

Whatever. It didn’t matter now.

There was no use in dissecting all the signs missed and opportunities wasted, the little spark of anger in her heart as a result of it. Wednesday’s eyes were dark and steady like they always were, and out of everything Enid loved about Wednesday (i.e. a metric fuck ton), that might’ve been her favorite—that consistency. In a lot of ways, those eyes looked like home to her. Not the home she was from in San Francisco, but a new one. One that was cozy and familiar that she could always come back to when she’d wandered too far. It didn’t matter what was happening anywhere else or what thoughts were swirling through her head, she’d just look at Wednesday’s eyes looking into her’s and know she was seeing her in the same shades of grey she always had.

When she’d been in San Francisco last summer, she often thought back to that—how the setting sun had lit up Wednesday’s eyes with coils of amber before the bus pulled in front of them and ruined it.

“I didn’t want to misinterpret anything and force you away.”

It would probably be better to use plain words with Wednesday in a case like this. A lack of concrete yes’s and no’s was exactly what led them to this point. Wednesday needed that certainty. But Enid had said things she thought were clear before, only to find out now that they were messages sent and received with all the letters scrambled up along the way.

For a long, quiet moment, Enid looked at Wednesday’s eyes. Then her lips. Then her eyes then her lips.

Eyes.

“Can I—?”

“Sometime today would be preferred.”

And Enid kissed her. Not in the sunset, and not in the rain, just in a dorm bathroom on a random Thursday because she could.

Let her misinterpret that.

. . .

“I figured it out when you picked me up from the bus station in New York.”

Enid sent that out into the universe when they were in their dorm room later, leaned up against Enid’s headboard watching Grey’s Anatomy on her laptop, empty ramen bowls sitting on the nightstand with forks sticking out. Words that held the potential energy of a swinging wrecking ball at its apex fluttered out in that quiet, crackly tone of speaking just above a whisper.

“How did you know what it was?”

“I didn’t. I just… knew it couldn’t be anything else.”

Enid would’ve taken a firing squad over admitting that to Wednesday just a day ago, but sitting on the bed with their shoulders pressed together, the faint scent of dryer sheets and vanilla shampoo swirling in the air and blankets bunched up at their feet, it didn’t seem so scary. Wednesday was soft and warm right now, full of blood and ruffled bangs and she wasn’t scary. She wasn’t even spooky. She was just Wednesday.

She didn’t say anything for a while, but Enid could hear her skimming through all that led them here in the idle tv chatter that went on in the back—their tearful reunion followed by Enid being distant, Ajax , the fireworks, the breakup and sexual identity crisis that came suspiciously soon after, followed by several months of unsuccessful flirting to top it all off. No wonder Wednesday wasn’t sure how Enid felt. Enid’s feelings were chaos, not even decipherable by Enid herself and never expressed in ways that made sense.

She was sure that if you cracked open Wednesday’s head and looked inside, there’d be no brain matter, just a bunch of ones and zeros bouncing around against the inside of her skull in perfectly parallel lines. Wednesday appreciated order. She acted with logic. Looked at patterns.

Enid, however, realized she loved her best friend, then proceeded to seek out a relationship with a guy who probably ranked in the top ten entries of Wednesday’s hit list. In hindsight, she could see why Wednesday was confused.

Wednesday answered her questions earlier. Now it was Enid’s turn. And she expected a lot of them.

Why did you date him when you knew you loved me?

How could you expect me to know how you felt when you were pulling me in as much as you were pushing me away?

In what world is going to your strangely wise lesbian best friend for advice on how to date me a better idea than just asking me yourself? Also, it’s kind of creepy.

Why couldn’t you just be honest?

But Wednesday didn’t ask any of that. She didn’t ask anything. Instead, when her voice pushed gently into the empty spaces between the tv soundtrack and their breathing, she just said,

“It took me a while to name it. I didn’t know what it was.”

Enid was underwater, the gentle weight of it pressing evenly over every muscle and bone, the warmth of Wednesday’s shoulder anchoring her at the bottom, but her voice, all dark air and fluttering night, guiding her back to the surface.

She leaned in a little heavier, sinking down, head on Wednesday’s shoulder—the cushy part where they put flu shots in.

She asked quietly, “How did you figure it out?"

“I came back one day and you were sitting on the bed pretending to study. Sun was coming in through the window. You looked like you were glowing.”

It didn’t seem right that Wednesday’s realization would come under those conditions. Anything bathed in light was allegedly as agonizing as a needle to her pupils, and Wednesday already admitted that Enid was something that scared her; Enid didn’t want to be something that hurt her too.

Then again, Enid never liked rainy days, but she was pretty sure she fell in love with Wednesday in the middle of a torrential downpour at least twice now.

So maybe it was fine.

“I think I almost kissed you,” Wednesday whispered. Outside their window, the warmth of the streetlight flickered.

Enid whispered, “You should’ve.”

“I should’ve.”

. . .

They fell asleep leaning into each other, watching the show previously accepted by Wednesday due to the amount of blood, but frequently ridiculed by Wednesday due to the amount of interpersonal relationships and lack of continuity. Their voices were mostly quiet and soft, but Wednesday’s picked up every now and then when she thought something was stupid.

“Please, she survived being clinically dead for an entire hour but he can’t survive getting hit by an ambulance?”

Wednesday boiled his death down to a skill issue. Enid ugly cried. They were back to normal.

After so long of tiptoeing around each other so as not to disturb the veritable wasp’s nests that were both their feelings, being comfortable around Wednesday again was like letting out a breath she’d been holding for the last five months. She couldn’t remember the last time they sat side-by-side on Enid’s bed watching some mind-rotting Netflix show, and Enid just leaned into Wednesday without thinking of all the things it did and didn’t mean.

But tonight as the clock ticked later and her bones got heavier, the mattress softer, blood slower, Enid didn’t think. She just sank. And Wednesday was there to sink into.

Her hoodie was soft against the side of Enid’s face, a comfort that started with Enid tipping her head to rest on her shoulder and ended with her pillows scrunched up behind her and her cheek squished into Wednesday’s shoulder. She was vaguely concerned about her still-damp hair developing a cowlick from the position, but not nearly as concerned as she was with dozing off between Wednesday’s sporadic complaints about that’s not how an appendectomy is done and you can’t press an emergency stop button on an elevator just because your coworker is crying. This is a hospital, Miranda. People need to use those.

Everything was the faint scent of laundry detergent and Wednesday’s “unscented” body wash that actually smelled a little like baby powder, crumpled clothes and sheets and soft lamp light. Enid sunk into it until there was no deeper she could go. Until they were both in half-sitting-half-lying positions and her head somehow found its drowsy way from Wednesday’s shoulder to just above her elbow, and then, after dozing off for an indeterminate amount of time, she woke up to her laptop screen sideways in her vision, cheek pressed into the bunched-up fabric of Wednesday’s hoodie pocket.

She’d usually spend an unnecessary amount of time and energy worrying about whether or not Wednesday was okay with Enid using her actual stomach as a pillow or just tolerating it because Enid didn’t give her a choice. But Wednesday’s arm was draped heavy and motionless over her side, and when she didn’t make a comment about the embarrassing unprofessionalism of using an on-call room for sex, Enid figured she must be asleep.

And it’s not like she didn’t wonder what would happen when her alarm went off at 6:30 the next morning and they were startled awake, tangled together with none of the ease that came with the crescent moon and all of the unease that came with waking up like that under the spotlight of morning. It’s not like she didn’t wonder if they would see everything as it was when the sun came up—all the little things not said, steps skipped only to find themselves way too deep into this before it had a chance to even begin.

It’s not like she didn’t wonder if Wednesday would regret it all the moment she woke up.

But Enid tucked her hand into Wednesday’s hoodie pocket and let herself be washed under again, waves of sleep burying her beneath midnight air and fairy lights.

When Enid’s alarm blared the next morning, the body under her cheek shifted to turn it off. Enid didn’t move.

“Enid.” Wednesday’s voice was possibly the most husky and morning-like Enid had ever heard it, and it was too early for her to possibly decide what to do with that information. “Your alarm.”

It was actually insane, this situation they were in right now—cramped together on a twin bed, the weak light of dawn covering the room in a rose-tinted haze. Wednesday’s hoodie was black, but it looked almost burgundy this morning, the fabric blurry and fuzzy near Enid’s eyes but clear further away, little pilled areas grainy against the morning glow. The inside of Wednesday’s pocket was soft. Enid ran her thumb back and forth over the warm fleece, watching the fabric shift with the movement.

Just two years ago she’d pegged this woman as a serial killer. Just seven months ago they had their first hug. Now Enid was waking to the dull thrum of that maybe-serial-killer’s heartbeat, the sleeve of her hoodie crumpled up where it met the equally crumpled pocket of Wednesday’s. Pink fabric merging with black. Fingers curling against body-warmed fleece.

“Enid. Your alarm.”

“No.”

“Your run.“

“Do you want me to go on my run?”

The morning melted and shimmered around them, all haze and dust sparkling in the weak rays of sun piercing the window. Wednesday sighed. Then another hand nudged its way into Wednesday’s pocket, fingertips brushing Enid’s, hooking them together softly out of sight.

Enid could’ve thought about fireworks, blankets and the hood of a car, but instead she thought of a sunrise. And Enid let the dawn pull her back under.

And it would’ve been lovely. Buried in soft sheets warmed by the girl beneath her, her feet curled in the comforter they’d pushed to the bottom of the bed, Enid could’ve stayed like that forever. She was so relaxed that she even slept through Wednesday’s alarm at seven o’clock.

A fact she became aware of when she didn’t sleep through the pounding at her door at 7:45.

Most of the time Enid woke up half-asleep, part of her still in a dream and not really coming out of it until she stood on her feet and squinted against an obnoxiously bright ray of sun. The knocking did not give her this luxury. Enid woke with the urgency of a person about to get robbed at gunpoint.

She jolted hard enough to rock the mattress, the metal bed frame shrieking in shocked outrage. She rushed to sit up, accidentally pushing on Wednesday’s stomach and prompting a criminally flat and unaffected “ow” from her bedmate, which she would’ve actually found really funny if she wasn’t convinced an axe murderer was going to kick down their door any second (or, you know, use his axe on it).

Instead of apologizing for bruising every single one of Wednesday’s vital organs, Enid tersely whispered, “Who the fuck is that?”

Wednesday, in her normal voice at regular volume, said, “Likely the mafia coming to collect outstanding debts judging by your reaction. It’s not a deal-breaker, I just wish you would’ve told me so I could have my knife ready.”

One final hard knock.

“Enid! If you’re not in there, I’m putting up missing posters!”

Yoko.

Honestly, under the circumstances, Enid would’ve preferred the mafia.

She huffed a sigh that was half-nerves and half-annoyance and finally looked down at Wednesday. Everything about her exuded sleepy warmth—half-lidded eyes and ruffled bangs, the neck of her sweater warped and loose around her chin from where it shifted as she slid down the bed. It was tugged up on the back as a result, crumpling up the fabric to expose just the tiniest sliver of skin at her hip, the waistband of black underwear peeking out from the top of her track pants.

Enid’s entire mind went to static as she stared at that like a horny teenage boy getting his first look at a clavicle.

BANG BANG BANG.

“Enid Ester Sinclair!”

She jumped again, eyes flashing back up to Wednesday’s, who was minisculely arching a dark brow at her in her own concerned robot way. Heat prickled up Enid’s neck.

“Enid!” Yoko yelled.

“I just slept in! Jesus.”

“You bitch. I was texting you all morning! You missed our run, breakfast, and didn’t even answer when I called five times! The least you can do is let me in when I come to make sure you’re fucking alive.”

“I will! Just… fuck, give me a minute!”

Yoko continued with the verbal assault outside the door, but Enid looked at Wednesday, who was still looking at her with that robot eyebrow. Her braids were all loose and frizzy on the pillow.

“What do we do?” Enid asked.

“Probably let her in before she wakes up the entire dorm house and we get a rock through our window.”

“But what do I tell her?”

“That you slept in.”

“I mean, what do I tell her about…?” She made a vague gesture between them.

Wednesday seemed puzzled. Her eyes darted to the door, then back to the bed, then to Enid herself, probably looking for whatever was making her so anxiety-ridden about the whole scenario and finding the same thing that typically made her so anxiety-ridden about any scenario—absolutely nothing.

“That… we slept in?”

Yoko banged on the door again. “If you don’t open this door in ten seconds I’m picking the lock! Wednesday taught me how!”

Enid shot Wednesday a look. “You taught her how to pick locks?”

“It’s a valuable skill.”

“Not in the wrong hands.”

“Especially in the wrong hands.” And with that completely responsible statement, Wednesday proceeded to roll out of bed and make her way to her closet.

Wednesday grabbed the clothes she’d already laid out the night prior, her toiletries bag, toed on her shower crocs, and went to the door. All Enid had time to do was scramble off the mattress before she swung it open, and there was Yoko, arms crossed, sunglasses on, hair whip straight and jet black and eyebrows raised, looking in every part like a very disgruntled member of the Black-Eyed Peas.

“You—Wednesday?”

“Yoko.”

Yoko looked past Wednesday to Enid, then to the black, perfectly-made bed across the room, then to Enid’s crumpled sheets, and then right back to Enid, standing awkwardly beside the bed trying to inconspicuously straighten her clothes. Her eyebrows raised a further millimeter.

“Please move,” Wednesday said, confident in a way only she could be when meeting someone’s eyes wearing wrinkled sleep clothes and crocs. “You’re going to make us late for our psych lecture.”

Yoko wordlessly took a step to the side. Wednesday brushed past. Yoko tracked her as she disappeared down the hall, entranced, like she was watching Jesus emerge from the tomb on Easter Sunday. After a few seconds, there was the faint opening and closing of the bathroom door down the hall. Yoko turned her head back to Enid with the slow suspense of a possessed doll in a horror movie.

“I thought you were dead, but you were getting railed?”

Enid, red to the roots of her hair, rushed to the door and yanked her into the room.

It took a lot to get Yoko to believe that Wednesday and her didn’t have sex. First Enid had to swear on her own life, and then, when Yoko deemed that as an unreliable bargaining chip, she made her swear on her whole family, Yoko’s whole family, Yoko herself, Wednesday and her whole family, and finally Taylor Swift.

“I still kind of don’t believe you,” she said afterwards, and Enid admitted to a little bit of offence that there was a part of Yoko that believed Enid would damn everyone she ever cared about just to lie about having not-sex with Wednesday, “but let’s just pretend for a minute that what you’re saying is true—“

“We don’t have to pretend."

“Yes, exactly. It’s definitely true and I definitely believe you didn’t fuck the roomate you’ve been wanting to fuck since last summer even though you missed several prior obligations, refused to answer your phone, I just walked in on you guys getting out of the same bed and witnessed Wednesday doing an entire walk of shame down the hallway. But yeah, you didn’t fuck. Sure. What I wanna know is what the fuck you two were doing in that bed all night and all morning, because Dracula’s coffin—“ a point at Wednesday’s immaculately-made bed— “clearly hasn’t been touched.”

No, Wednesday’s bed hadn’t been touched since around twenty-seven hours ago when she made it before she fled. It went to show that Wednesday had predictable character even in the face of uncertainty. To take the time to make her bed with laser precision when her entire escape plan relied on not waking someone up was consistent to the point of idiocy. The world could get hit with a Jurassic-level asteroid, but if there was one thing that was right and certain it would be that Wednesday would be up twenty minutes earlier to ensure she could bounce a quarter off her sheets.

Enid told Yoko they fell asleep watching Grey’s Anatomy, and then after a little bit of back and forth containing sentences like, “she was a missing person literally yesterday afternoon and now she’s waking up in your bed” and “make it make sense to me, Enid” and “wait, what season are you on? Ten? Are you—oh you are there. Sorry.”

Anyway, all that to say Enid eventually spilled the beans about the kiss and Yoko’s gasp probably startled a flock of birds a state away.

In the middle of their debrief, Wednesday came back from the bathroom, hair immaculately braided and outfit absolute fire, as usual. She took one look at Yoko and Enid sitting cross-legged opposite to each other on the bed, silent in a way people only were when they’d been talking about something they now couldn’t talk about because the something had entered the room, and said, “I assume you’ll be missing class this morning.”

Yoko said, “We have much to talk about.”

Enid imagined flaming daggers coming from her eyes and cauterizing Yoko’s mouth shut (then she imagined booking herself into a mental institution because damn).

“I figured.”

“Care to play hooky and join us?”

“We have a final in two weeks. I care to pass this course.”

“You’ll send me the notes?”

Wednesday confirmed, “of course” with none of the warmth the sentiment implied, crossing the room to grab her bag.

Yoko lodged an elbow on the side of her knee and her chin on her fist, and Enid realized with a stone dropping in her stomach that she wasn’t done. “Sorry for stealing Enid away for the morning, by the way.” And Yoko winked. “Don’t worry, I’ll give her back.”

Wednesday didn’t even blink, much less spare her a glance. Instead, she just said cooly, “If you don’t, I’m not the one who’ll have to worry,” and then shut the door behind her as she left. Yoko was silent for a couple seconds.

Then…

“Okay, I see the appeal. That was kind of hot.”

Enid whacked her with a pillow.

So at least Wednesday was okay with them talking about it. It’s not like there was any chance in hell that Enid wouldn’t tell Yoko anyway. She’d coached Enid through this entire thing and was almost more a part of the relationship than both Wednesday and Enid combined. Considering she’d spent enough hours discussing it to qualify for a full-time job with benefits and a pension, the least Enid could do was let her know that her labour had paid off.

But Enid quickly regretted telling Yoko because Yoko made her… think about things.

Or, more accurately, the lack of things they did.

“Wait, so you’re telling me you guys have been wet for each other for, like, a year and a half, and after finally getting it all out in the open, the moment you get in private you just… did the same activity you've been doing for a year and a half?”

“What else were we supposed to do?”

“Make out all night like horny teenagers? Obviously?”

“Well, we didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Well…”

Enid didn’t know. It’s not like she didn’t want to make out with Wednesday. She did. It’d just been such a long day—a long few months, in fact. The last thing she wanted to do after finally (kind of) sorting it out was worry about when was the appropriate time to put her tongue into Wednesday’s mouth. But Yoko was right. It wasn’t a typical start to a relationship, especially one that'd been building up for so long.

Instead of answering like a normal person, Enid ended up staring silently at her still-crumpled bedsheets for a bit too long. Yoko sensed the ensuing spiral and realized she’d made a mistake, quickly jumping to try and save Enid from herself.

“Enid, it’s okay. I was just giving you a hard time. There’s no timeline for when this shit should happen. Don’t stress about it.”

Stress? Enid wouldn’t stress. Enid never stressed. She was chill. She was cool. She was a super chill, cool person who wouldn’t stress.

True to her nature, Enid’s body refused to believe she wasn’t being actively hunted for sport throughout the rest of the day. Her knee bounced so furiously through all her classes that a few of the people in her vicinity kept shooting her dirty looks. The evening was no better. Wednesday had fencing practice that night and Enid had no reason to stalk her to the changeroom afterwards this time. All the I love you’s had already been said and they’d sorted everything out, so there was nothing left for Enid to do but sit in the room and steal one of Wednesday’s packs of ramen for her supper. She tried to distract herself from her thoughts by pretending to study while painting her nails.

“Do you think Wednesday thinks we’re dating, or do you think it’s just, like, a friends with benefits thing for her?”

And by talking to a tarantula.

She sat at Wednesday’s desk, her open textbook acting as a guard to catch any stray drops of silver moon nail polish. Thing was at the corner of his enclosure closest to her, all eight eyes shiny and alert as Enid went on with her bullshit. Sometimes he lifted one of his legs slowly and dropped it back down. Enid took one tap as yes and two taps as no, even though it probably had nothing to do with Enid’s questions and much more to do with whatever tarantula reasons he had for lifting his leg. But Enid was certifiably insane and thus took it as gospel.

He didn’t tap this time, probably because her question was too stupid for a simple yes or no, but Enid did often imagine (insanely because, as discussed, she was talking to a tarantula) what he would say if he could.

If it were a friends with benefits thing, there would probably be benefits.

(Thing never called her an idiot like Enid would in her own head, which just solidified that these were actually not her thoughts and the arachnid was connecting with her through some sort of telepathy. She didn’t know how many times she could repeat that she was insane.)

“We did kiss. Like, four times.”

Doesn’t count.

Enid sighed, carefully brushing polish over her thumbnail. “Okay, so not friends with benefits,” she conceded. “So…. just friends?”

She looked up at Thing. Still no taps.

Idiot.

“That’s harsh.”

Two taps.

She huffed and went back to her nails. She finished the rest of her hand in thoughtful silence while Thing took that time to perform the very productive activity of disturbing some dirt near the glass of his enclosure.

“But we’re not dating yet,” she finally decided, and didn’t look at him because she didn’t want to know whether he’d confirm or deny it. “We haven’t even gone on a date. Unless you count the movie theatre, but that was just a date in my head.” She tilted her head in thought. “And I guess there was New Years, but I was dating Ajax at the time so that would mean I was cheating.” She idly waved her hand in the air to dry the wet polish. Looked at Thing. “So… not a date. Right?”

No taps.

Enid sighed and started on her other hand.

She was just finishing her second coat when the door finally creaked open. Enid had a slight fear that Wednesday would see her using her desk and chair without explicit permission and proceed to place a curse on her and all her future generations, but unless she somehow had the power to do it silently and with a surprising lack of Latin, that didn’t happen.

Instead Wednesday’s eyes just passed between Enid, her bottle of nail polish, the smudges of sparkly silver on the pages of her textbook, and Thing, drawing the common conclusion that Enid was having a therapy/manicure session with her pet spider and thinking no more of it than that.

She closed the door behind her and said, “I’ve been thinking.”

If Enid thought she was being hunted for sport earlier in the day, her body was now convinced she was caught and about to be cooked alive on a spit.

“In a good or a bad way?”

“A good way.” At least that was something. Wednesday moved to her closet and dropped her gym bag in front of it, glancing at Enid in a way that read as slightly troubled. “Which is… odd for me.” She pulled a pair of grey track pants and a white shirt from her closet. Enid dutifully focused back on her nails, knowing it meant Wednesday was about to change.

“I’ve been thinking too,” she said, partially to continue the conversation but mostly to distract herself from the thought of Wednesday changing behind her. “Well, Thing and I.”

“About?”

Talking to Thing always gave Enid clarity, or at least as much of it as her addled mind was capable of. Somewhere between her first and second coat of nail polish she (and Thing) decided that she had no interest in waiting another year and a half for any further advancements in whatever relationship they had. Wednesday responded to things laid bare and simple. No more hinting. No more games. Only the truth.

Enid looked at Thing.

One tap.

“About whether or not we’re dating.”

Wednesday said, “I’ve been thinking the same.”

Well fuck. It was one thing to find the courage to speak her own truth, but a completely different one altogether to keep herself from freaking out after a bomb like that. But Enid often drew conclusions before the conclusions were actually there. So, scrounging up every molecule of patience in her body (a grand total of probably, like, one and half), she swallowed, blinked, and focused on the dull coolness of wet polish on her nails.

“And…?”

Behind her she could hear clothes sliding over skin—off of skin. Fabric dropping to the floor. Any of the ease that came from not having to look Wednesday in the eyes during this conversation was thoroughly eviscerated by the thought of her being in a bra and underwear barely five feet away.

Enid’s next brush of nail polish spilled over the side of her finger.

“I think that the nature of the term ‘dating’ implies that we’ve gone on at least one date,” Wednesday said.

Enid nodded, wrinkling the page of her textbook as she used it to wipe off the excess polish. “Same.”

“So it would be inaccurate to say we’re dating based simply on an exchange of mutual feelings and not on the usual parameters of courtship.”

“English please.”

“We have to go on a date.”

Thing’s eight eyes flew to his owner. Enid’s two eyes almost did the same before she remembered that looking at Wednesday in a state of undress would break every scrap of trust she’d managed to earn from a girl who opened up about as easily as coconut made of concrete.

Still, her heart nearly exploded out of her body.

“‘We have to’?” she couldn’t help but tease anyway, trying and failing to keep a giddy smile at bay. Her nails were becoming less of a priority and more of a distracted mess. “Way to make a girl feel like an obligation.”

“You are an obligation.” Wednesday replied simply. “To me anyway. The same as I’m obligated to eat food and drink water.”

“So in the way that I’m an interruption to your day.”

“In the way that I have to have you.”

If they were still following the usual parameters of courtship, Enid would act nonchalant and aloof about that smooth-ass line. She’d quell the pounding of her heart and the butterflies in her stomach and the string of flustered syllables about to fumble from her lips and say something cool like, ‘well, I’m right here for the taking. Come get me.’

But Enid was less known for her coolness and more for her tendency to be a basket case.

Her hand jerked, knocking her bottle of nail polish over, liquid silver spilling all over the tiny (and hopefully not important) letters of her textbook page. A string of expletives flew out of her mouth as she hastily snatched a fistful of tissues to sop up the mess before it could leak onto Wednesday’s table.

“Not that you’re mine to have,” Wednesday almost sounded like she was backtracking here, probably wrongly thinking the blood rushing to Enid’s face paired with her apparent muscle spasm and colourful swearing had something to do with anger. “You’re your own person and I’d never assume that dating you implies anything near the realm of ownership. I’m sorry if it sounded that way. It wasn’t—that would never be my intention.”

Enid never thought she’d hear a nervous ramble come out of the girl who glared at babies in the supermarket for a pastime, but here it was. Granted, Wednesday’s word vomit was miles ahead of Enid’s on the grounds of coherency and the successful conveyance of her thoughts, but, as a professional, Enid still saw it for what it was.

And what it was was the best thing to happen maybe, like, ever. And it was funny. So she laughed.

It took her a second to remember that Wednesday thought she was mad, so in that context her amusement was probably painting her as a little to a lot insane. She choked it off with a clearing of her throat and pressed her lips together in an attempt to shut her smile down too, but it wasn’t going anywhere.

Wednesday Addams, an excel spreadsheet manifested in human form, just rambled. Because of Enid. She’d be riding this high for at least the next couple of decades.

Even though she was trying her hardest to stifle it, a teensy little laugh still wiggled its way between her words. “You can have me,” she said, distractedly dabbing at the nail polish as her heart picked up in preparation for her next sentence. “If I can have you.”

She wished she could see Wednesday’s face in that moment. She was desperate to know if her words had any of the effect on Wednesday as Wednesday’s had on her. But Enid was staring dutifully at the disaster that were her last three nails and Wednesday gave no hints.

Instead, after a moment of thoughtful silence, she just said, “You’ve had me for a while,” and went to her closet to throw her clothes in the hamper. Enid tried not to swoon.

She realized she could look now—Wednesday was dressed. She still didn’t just in case there was a stray boob around or something, but Wednesday crossed the room, grabbed Enid’s chair from her desk, and brought it over to her own, facing Enid. And sat.

And Enid had always thought Wednesday was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen, even when she wasn’t really supposed to think that (a.k.a. that time she was dating a whole man). And Enid liked beautiful things.

So Enid looked up, because she couldn’t really not when Wednesday was just there, existing right in front of her. Her shirt was a few sizes too big and the collar slumped a little on one side, exposing a black bra strap and a bit of collar bone that Enid had to pretend didn’t cause her eyes to stick for a second too long. Her hair was braided in its usual pigtails and her bangs were still damp from her shower in the changeroom. And her eyes… well, they looked at her in the same way they always did. Black and grey. Sun-stained mahogany.

With an almost playful quirk of her eyebrows, Wednesday stuck out her hand.

“Will you paint my nails?”

Enid couldn’t help a short, disbelieving laugh. Wednesday just kept her hand where it was, face revealing none of the amusement Enid knew she was actively attempting to hide.

She finished sopping up the spilled nail polish, textbook page stained silver and shiny and wrinkly, and threw the ball of tissues in the garbage. Then she took Wednesday’s hand and pretended to thoughtfully examine her already-painted black nails. She had callouses on her palm from fencing and weights.

“What colour?” she asked, and, mustering all the seriousness she could scrape from every cell in her body, lifted her eyes soberly to Wednesday’s. “Pink?”

Wednesday laughed—short and huffed and through her nose, and honestly not really a laugh at all, but Enid knew better. And Wednesday did too. “Whatever you want,” she said.

Enid ran to the nail polish stash in her nightstand like a kid to a candy store.

That night they listened to the record Wednesday's parents gave Enid for Christmas. Grainy, old-timey music played idly in the background while Wednesday sat cross-legged on the chair opposite her, hand loosely laid on Enid’s knee, both of them leaned in so close their foreheads almost touched as Enid applied a deep burgundy polish. Any words said were quiet, melding in with the peace in the form of hushed undertones and creaking whispers. Sometimes Wednesday would make some dry joke and Enid would laugh, brush jerking off track and onto skin, and Enid would tsk under her breath while grabbing a tissue to wipe it off.

“Your fault,” she’d whisper, and Wednesday would whisper “sorry” in a way that sounded like she knew neither of them believed it.

The next day was the date. By all accounts, nothing about that morning was insanely different than usual. Enid woke up in her own bed and went about her jog and breakfast with Yoko. It was like nothing happened—separate beds, separate lives, separate obligations. There was no absentminded ‘love you’s as she slipped out the door and no chaste goodbye kiss like might happen with anyone else she was kind-of-dating and lived with. They hadn’t even kissed since that night in the showers and Enid was really trying not to worry about it (and really failing because what kind of person would she be if she didn’t utilize her most impressive talent).

The only thing that was different about that morning was the context of Enid’s sticky note.

Lmk where we’re going for our date <3

Wednesday texted her a response as soon as she woke up. It was predictably unhelpful.

6:01 AM: You can’t truly believe I’m going to tell you.

6:02 AM: Yes you’re very secretive and mysterious and I love that for you

6:02 AM: I just need to know what to wearrrrrrr

6:02 AM: Something comfortable.

6:03 AM: I need more info

6:03 AM: I disagree.

6:03 AM: I WILL show up in pyjamas

6:03 AM: Don’t test me

For a whole minute, text bubbles showed up, indicating Wednesday was typing, and then disappeared. Showed up. Disappeared. Enid was going to chew her lip off.

“I bet she’s trying to send something flirty.”

Enid nearly jumped ten feet in the air. She’d almost forgotten that she was in line at the cafeteria with Yoko standing behind her, apparently looking over her shoulder at her screen. It would’ve been an invasion of privacy, but it was Yoko so it didn’t count.

“What?” Enid recovered quickly, enough so that the absurdity of the suggestion greatly overpowered the shock of the delivery. “No, this is Wednesday. She’d never.”

Yoko shrugged. “I personally think she’s hiding a boatload of rizz under that ‘creepy Victorian child’ exterior.” She then lowered her voice into what Enid figured was supposed to be an impersonation of that creepy Victorian child, but came out sounding more like a nineteenth century British gentleman with a sore throat. “Perhaps you would be so bold as to wear a racy little number that exposes some ankle, m’lady.”

“You think that’s what she’s going to say?”

“I don’t know, but I think it’d get her blood pumping.”

Enid’s phone buzzed. Both their eyes flew to the screen.

6:06 AM: You look spectacular in pyjamas. This is an ineffective threat. I expect better.

“Oh boo,” Yoko complained. “That’s too sweet. It’s boring.”

Enid’s heart could have flown away.

Both her thumbs danced over the keyboard indecisively for long enough that they moved at least ten feet ahead in line without a single letter typed. Eventually Yoko deemed it too painful to watch, muttering an exasperated curse as she stuck out her hand. Enid defeatedly gave her the phone. Yoko typed out a message, sent it, and handed the device back in what seemed like the span of a single second.

6:08 AM: I’ll show up naked

“Yoko!”

“Oh, shut up. What are you so afraid of? It’s literally not that deep.”

“It is. She’s not just someone you can—“

Buzz buzz.

6:08 AM: Much more ineffective.

“Wednesday, you dog,” Yoko laughed.

She moved around Enid to order while Enid stared gobsmacked at her phone, wondering if Wednesday had been a secret flirting god this entire time but was just too scared to put her skills to use. Whatever the case, to say she was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement.

But she did have priorities other than flirting with Wednesday. Unfortunately.

6:09 AM: We’re leaving at 7, by the way.

6:10 AM: 7 o’clock aligns with both our schedules and also allots time for preparation and travel.

6:10 AM: But if you’d rather another time that’s fine.

As if Enid was going to challenge the time management of a person who had the inherent ability to count down her showers to precisely the four minute mark in her head The other day Enid checked her phone in an English lecture thinking it was almost over, only to find out she was a mere nine minutes in, but sure, she was definitely going to reschedule their date for 6:30 on the grounds that she knew better than a human sundial.

Enid hounded Wednesday via text throughout the rest of the day about proper date attire even though her efforts went mostly unrewarded. Wednesday’s response times ranged three seconds to three hours, and she must’ve felt bad about the latter because she caved the slightest amount when Enid’s phone buzzed in the middle of the afternoon, and all Wednesday’s message said was,

2:35 PM: Something waterproof.

“Maybe it’s an innuendo,” Yoko suggested while she chewed on a chicken finger during lunch, both of them tossing around ideas for whatever the sweet fuck that shit meant. Upon Enid’s confused expression, she casually added, “You know, the flirting. Maybe she means that you won’t get wet from external sources, but from—“

“Oh my God, does your mind ever come out of the gutter?”

“Rarely.”

So Yoko was no help. Wednesday might’ve had a surprising amount of rizz for a sentient computer program, but she wasn’t dirty-minded. Nothing in Wednesday’s mind was even messy, and she probably disinfected every surface in there with Lysol at least five times per day. Wednesday didn’t do innuendos. If she meant something in a dirty way, Enid wouldn’t have to wonder.

This left her to cycle through possibilities ranging from late-night cliff diving to a trip to Sea World with reserved seats in Shamu’s splash zone. Unfortunately, she hadn’t thought to bring her abundance of stylish raincoats from home, so the best she could do was a lined, blue and black, weather resistant, university-issued windbreaker she’d gotten on a group order with the whole track team. It didn’t even have a hood. She hoped Wednesday wasn’t going to take them on a romantic walk through some motion-activated sprinklers or something.

At 6:45, after showering and changing and looking at herself fifteen thousand times in the mirror, Wednesday was nowhere in sight. Enid paced back and forth in the room, windbreaker sleeves swishing loudly against her sides as the clock on Wednesday’s nightstand ticked on.

6:46

6:48

6:51

Enid checked the clock one more time before sighing and dropping down on her bed, gutted. It was 6:53.

Where the fuck was Wednesday?

Then the door burst open, light from the hall flooding the room and—oh, there was Wednesday.

“I’m sorry.”

And she was… a mess. Her bangs were all ruffled and her skin had a slight sheen of sweat, cheeks flushed, eyes wide, breaths coming in short puffs. She was wearing black cargo pants that were wet up to the knees and her shower crocs. By all accounts she looked like she’d just been running for her life. Or, more likely given who she was, chasing someone who was running for theirs (that’s probably why she always had her crocs in sport mode).

The fact that Wednesday looked like she’d just murdered someone and had a hell of a time dealing with the body was offset by her dishevelment. Wednesday always presented herself as though she was manufactured in a lab, every hair poked in the right place and all her clothes laying just-so over her skin. Her face only had two settings—disgruntled nothingness and whatever sinister satisfaction erupted when she watched people who listened to music without headphones in public trip over a crack in the sidewalk—and Enid didn’t realize until she saw her panting and sweaty that there was a difference between the pull in her stomach when she looked at Wednesday and when she looked at Wednesday undone.

Wednesday seemed to like it a bit less. She didn’t even glance at Enid, just made a B-line for her closet, leaving the door open behind her and Enid sitting on the bed with inappropriate feelings.

“What happened to you?” Enid figured she should ask in case Wednesday was actually in a state of peril and Enid should be concerned for reasons other than how hot she looks while in that perilous state.

Wednesday said, “I checked the forecast for rain but forgot to account for wind.”

“Cool. So that’s actually the opposite of an answer.”

“Don’t worry, it’s a northerly so it’ll be on our backs on our way across.”

Enid watched her with a large (i.e. correct) amount of concern as she ripped some clothes from her closet in a way that read as more ‘frantically fleeing the country’ than ‘date preparation’.

“You’re right, the direction of fucking wind is totally what I’m worried about right now. Listen, you don’t need to rush. If we’re a little late it’s—”

“Give me four minutes.”

And Wednesday was gone.

Enid pressed her lips together and stared across at Wednesday’s unnaturally tidy bed for a few long seconds. Then, because there was no other possible option, she texted Yoko.

6:55 PM: So I’m pretty sure Wednesday just killed someone

6:55 PM: You called it. Dealbreaker?

6:55 PM: Not if she can get back here before 7

Wednesday returned to the room at 6:59 completely transformed. With her all-black, soggy murder attire replaced with all-black not-soggy journeying attire (nothing really different except for blundstones instead of crocs and a pair of pants that weren’t dripping from the knees down), the only remnants of her early dishevelment were damp bangs and braids that she didn’t have time to dry. She shoved a ball cap over it and pulled her own university-issued fencing windbreaker from her closet (which was the same as Enid’s except that it said “fencing” instead of “track and field” and Wednesday had special-ordered her’s in black and grey because they’d let her do that for some reason).

Finally, after her tornado of rushing, she looked at Enid for the first time that night. Looked her very obviously up and down, to be exact.

She concluded, “Not naked.”

And sometime in the impossible four minutes it took Wednesday to fully shower and apply eyeliner, Enid decided that Yoko was once again right. It really wasn’t that deep.

She winked. “Not yet.”

As such, she discovered Wednesday was not nearly as confident when faced with an actual human being instead of a text bubble. She turned red. Enid laughed.

Instead of uttering some sinister threat for the crime of causing color to appear on the body of slenderman’s younger, more proportional sister, Wednesday just stuck out a hand. Enid’s eyes caught on those dark red nails, like blood, all tidy and glossy with fresh polish.

Wednesday cleared her throat. Enid jumped up and took her hand.

They walked for a while, Enid trying and failing to drag out some last-minute date info using all tactics, including but not limited to lying that she’d already figured it out anyway to threats involving pink sparkles sprinkled over ebony hair while she was sleeping. Wednesday graded Enid’s threats on relative effectiveness, yet none of them caused her to actually give up what they were doing.

Enid was giddy when Wednesday led her outside, curious when she took them beyond the courtyard gates, and then genuinely concerned when Wednesday pulled out a key and unlocked the door of the rowing team’s boathouse down by the lake.

“You’re taking me somewhere to kill me, aren’t you?”

It was obviously a joke, but Enid did admit to a level of suspicion that while Wednesday might not lure her to a boathouse with the intention of murder, the capability was very within her for anyone else. The fact that Enid followed the most suspicious person she’d ever met to a dark, secluded building with water and blunt objects around really said a lot about how much she valued her own safety. If she ended up dead she’d look like such an idiot (which seemed like a small worry over the whole ‘being dead’ thing, but ultimately scored higher on Enid’s anxiety list anyway due to her vanity).

Wednesday opened the door on rusty hinges, causing an unsettling shriek to split through the eerily silent, dusk air.

“Trust me,” she said, “if I planned to kill you, you’d have no idea.”

Then she disappeared into the dark.

Enid stood outside, a chilly gust of wind fluttering by. Inside the boathouse, water lapped against boats and echoed off the damp concrete, old wooden walls creaking. Something howled in the woods behind her. Enid couldn’t hear Wednesday anymore. She shivered.

To any sensible person, this would be the time to run.

Enid leaned in through the doorway a little and called, “Did you bring my hat?”

A sigh. “I told you it was a northerly.” The echo of resigned, scuffing boot soles on gritty concrete filtered out from the shadows. Then there was Wednesday. Holding out the hat. “Of course I brought it.”

The boathouse was kind of creepy. The reflection of water on the walls moved shadows this way and that in a way that looked scarily similar to ghosts out of the corner of Enid’s eye, and it smelled like old wood and wet concrete. Shelves of boats lined the walls, their inky shadows spreading over the floor like spilled blood. The air was damp and chilly. Enid felt goosebumps break out on her neck.

Wednesday scuttled away, leaving Enid alone in the dingy creepiness of it all.

“Wednesday!” Enid hissed.

Her little serial killer wordlessly returned to take her hand, then led them past all the boats and shadows until they reached the dock. In the water sat a canoe.

Enid said, “What.”

“Get in.”

“When you said you’d take me on a date, I thought you meant to, like, the movie theatre or something.”

“I said to wear something waterproof.”

“I didn’t think that meant it’d involve an actual boat.”

“But you did think it’d involve… a movie theatre.”

Enid huffed. Wednesday held onto a dock post and stepped down into the rocking boat with an ease she had no reason to possess while Enid stood on the old boards above, arms crossed, informing Wednesday about how some movie theatres now had moving seats and little devices that expelled wind and water over the audience to make for a 4D immersive experience.

To which Wednesday replied, “And that’s still a more probable idea to you than a boat.”

Enid told Wednesday to go fuck herself. Wednesday told Enid to get in the boat.

She just thought they were going for a romantic ride at first, but was surprised to find that Wednesday had a destination in mind and pointed them in a straight line across the lake. She was right—the wind was at their backs on the way across.

As they rowed, Enid asked, “I thought the only people who had access to the boathouse were the rowing team. How did you even get a key?”

“I asked nicely, and because of my sweet disposition, the captain of the women’s singles team lent me her’s.”

Asked nicely? Sweet disposition?

Enid concluded, “Blackmail?”

“Blackmail.”

“Juicy. What’d she do?”

Because she simply had to know. She might’ve been on the most important date of her life, traversing through dark, choppy waters with a maybe-serial-killer steering her toward a secluded forest, but acquiring a piece of hot goss would never not be the top bullet point on Enid’s priority list. Sue a girl for having hobbies.

“She cheated on her SAT exam.”

“How do you know that?”

“She went to my highschool and paid me two hundred dollars to write it for her when I was in tenth grade.”

With anyone else, Enid would have been shocked, but this was Wednesday, and as such the only shocking thing about it was the idiocy of this rower girl to not only think Wednesday wouldn’t use that against her at some point, but to pay her for her own blackmail.

“Didn’t you need to show, like, a piece of ID or something?”

“I used hers.”

“And that worked? I think I would have noticed if you had a doppelganger running around campus.”

“Caitlyn stands at five foot eleven and has blond hair and blue eyes, all of which is visible on her driver’s license. She could also bench 150 pounds at the time.”

Water lapped against the side of the boat. Their canoe creaked and rocked. The hoot of an owl sounded distantly from across the lake.

“But it’s the American School System. They wished me luck and gave me a free pen.”

“Sounds about right.”

It started to get, like, really foggy halfway across. Enid was fine with it. So fine except for the fact that Wednesday broke out a fucking headlamp, and every time the beam moved Enid expected it to reveal a lifeless body floating on the surface or a disfigured something coming up out of the depths. By the time they reached the other side, it was pitch black and the only reason Enid hadn’t thrown herself over the side of the boat to escape was due to the fear of a monster emerging from the deep with a taste for blood and/or the spearmint gum she’d found in her pocket earlier.

Land was hardly any better, and certainly no brighter. It was fully dark now and when the nose of the boat scraped noisily on the shore of the far end of the lake, there was a big part of Enid that believed that sound might’ve served as a dinner bell for something big and with lots of teeth waiting in the shadows. Wednesday must’ve either believed there wasn’t a threat or was confident in her ability to be a bigger threat because she was unconcerned. She jumped out and, with an obvious amount of effort (considering Enid and the boat were both separately bigger than her, let alone together), pulled the vessel further up the shore so Enid could step out onto dry land.

“Okay,” Enid said, taking the offered hand to stand up, “you’ve taken me across a lake in a canoe procured through blackmail, now I’m following you into some creepy woods and I’m afraid of the dark, and I haven’t asked a single question.

“You’ve asked twenty-three.”

“Why are you keeping count?” Enid shook her head. Fucking robots. “Whatever. Point is I think I’ve earned the right to know where you’re taking me now.”

Wednesday shrugged and said, “You have.”

Enid’s eyebrows shot up. She did not think that would work.

“Really?”

“Yes. But I’m still not going to tell you.”

She was such a little dick.

Wednesday ended up pulling the boat behind some bushes so it looked mostly hidden from the shoreline, then waited for a hesitant Enid at the edge of the pitch-black treeline to take her hand. Enid did, and in her other hand brandished a flashlight. Then they set off into the woods.

They walked for a while, so long actually that Enid almost began to consider that this was a trap and the next time her loved ones would see her face would be when her high school graduation picture appeared on an episode of Dateline. Her parents wouldn’t be surprised. Falling too deep into something was always how her mother thought she’d go anyway, and she was pretty sure following a suspected psychopath deep into a dark forest just because that psychopath just so happened to be hot and bisexual probably fit that criteria.

Wednesday led her to some old structure with grey, mossy stone, a half-eroded oak door that shrieked on ungreased hinges, ominous Latin scripture carved into the crumbling rock of the doorframe. As much as Enid trusted her, she refused to go inside. The terrifying ghost of a smirk appeared on Wednesday’s lips as she wordlessly let go of Enid’s hand and slipped in, and this time when Enid hissed her name, she didn’t come back.

Enid stood outside the door, eyes wide, heart pounding, pointing the beam of her flashlight around in erratic bursts every time the wind moved some branches on a tree. Inside the half-standing building, there was a faint click.

And, just like that, the forest glowed.

Fairy lights twinkled to life in the trees, bathing the mossy forest floor in twinkling orange and yellow. In the space between the trees and dangling lights there were two foldable camp chairs positioned around a fire pit—one of those ones with uneven legs and a rusty screen that you’d probably find for rent at a campground. Beside the fire pit was a cooler that had some type of animal lock attached, and off to the side, just outside the perimeter of light, there was a fully erected tent.

Enid stood there, mouth dropped open, gaping at the cozy sanctuary that had replaced the previously eerie night in the span of a single second. She didn’t even jump when that stupid door creaked open again behind her.

“What is this place?” she asked in awe.

“A crypt,” Wednesday replied casually, like that wasn’t the single most creepy answer she could’ve possibly given. “An old pilgrim who founded the town is supposed to be buried inside. Joseph Crackstone.”

“I more so meant the cute camping setup and not the—wait, isn’t that the guy who tried to burn down a school full of children?”

“He actually ended up getting killed by one of the students. I have yet to decide if that’s more embarrassing for him or the adults at the school who sent a child to murder a psychopath, but I’m leaning towards the school since he had dementia and thought he had a telekinetic cane so he probably wasn’t much of a challenge.”

“So… safe to say nobody should be around to pay their respects?”

This time, Wednesday’s ghost-like smile wasn’t scary at all. It was just tiny and there—a wordless confirmation lit up by fairy lights. “There’s one more thing.”

The way the night was going, Enid expected Wednesday’s next surprise to be the fully resurrected corpse of Joseph Crackstone joining them out by the fire for a few marshmallows. But Wednesday walked over near the chairs to fiddle with some strange little device she had on the table, which Enid realized was a projector when it turned on and stabbed her right in the eyeballs with a blue flash of light. She turned to look at the rectangular screen projected on the wall of the old, crumbling tomb, the shadow of her own upper body blacking out the screen where she stood.

In a flash, the blue loading screen was replaced by what looked to be a recording of some type of concert in a big arena. Wednesday must’ve brought a speaker along because the sound of screaming fans suddenly joined the owls hooting in the night.

Enid didn’t even know what questions to ask at that point, so she just waited for Wednesday’s shadow to join hers at the screen.

“I got Bianca to teach me about internet piracy,” she said.

“And how did that go?”

“Much less violently than I thought given what regular piracy is like, but it has its uses. I found the Era’s Tour.”

Enid’s head snapped to her. “The Era’s Tour?”

“That’s the one you wanted to see.”

There was no “right?” at the end of that sentence, no hesitancy or question in her words. Wednesday knew Enid.

She knew her in a way nobody else really had. All the practical stuff—schedules and daily obligations engrained with such confidence that she could plan a date for 7:00 in the evening that required rowing across a lake and a creepy trek through the forest without worrying that either of them had somewhere to be. Enid liked that. That Wednesday kept everything in her perfect little computer brain so all Enid had to do was show up.

But Wednesday also knew her. Wednesday probably knew more about Enid than Enid knew about herself, but she’d keep it tucked in close unless Enid asked. That was just the way Wednesday operated—in little hums and idle responses amidst the clacking of typewriter keys that went on undisturbed, so that on the surface it seemed like she was barely paying attention when in reality she was filing away every detail. She knew Enid in that quiet way that didn’t make it obvious. Not in endless questions or prying, but in silence and steady eyes, in the way she’d wrinkle her nose when Enid forced her to try a sip of some sugary coffee she’d picked up, but then bring her the same one the next day without even having to be reminded of the order.

Enid had always been under the assumption that knowing her took a certain amount of effort. For her mother, knowing Enid meant a lifelong sentence of prayers and worries that she’d end up overdosed in a ditch after trying a pot brownie for the first time, and for the rest of her family, knowing her meant they’d always have to feel some low level of disappointment in the way that she was—or, more accurately, in the way that she wasn’t like them. It’s not like they were alone in that burden. Enid had first-hand experience with the exhaustion that came with knowing herself too. With knowing deep down that she could never change.

But Wednesday always had her hat when it was cold out.

Enid didn’t think she’d even been known absentmindedly before. Like it was nothing.

The projector cast a stark contrast between shadow and light on Wednesday’s face. There was the vague motion of the screen across her features, but her gaze was as steady on Enid as it always was. Light reflected on her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, blurry colours shifting this way and that like the reflection of the water on the boathouse walls, flickering every few seconds into something new as the camera angle changed. Even beneath the shifting projector light, every part of her was right where Enid expected it to be. Every line and angle, every shade of brown in her eyes, every shadow and muscle and freckle.

She knew Wednesday too, after all. Had her memorized.

In a last flicker and scream of the crowd, the light changed into the steady gold of what must’ve been stage lights coming to life. It scattered across Wednesday’s cheeks, the bridge of her nose, the line of her jaw. The contrast made everywhere the light hit sharper, creating shadows and highlights like it was glinting off a knife’s edge, and Enid knew Wednesday had that kind of effect on things but she’d never seen her glow before. She looked like one of those copper statues made golden by touch. Ethereal.

Enid asked, “You did all this?”

“Yes.”

“For me?”

“Who else?”

The light changed. Wednesday’s face was back in the crowd, blurry projector colours shifting across the planes of her cheeks.

Enid felt too much to speak. All she could do was breathe, “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.”

Enid kissed her. And that was all they saw of the concert.

. . .

The tent was short. Wednesday caught her hair on the zipper on the way in. There was some Spanish curse muttered, Enid’s laugh, the tingling of the tent zipper as she helped de-snare her, then a few violent zips of the door flap being closed. Enid asked where the bed was. Wednesday pointed at a lumpy drawstring bag in the corner.

“Looks cozy,” Enid said.

Wednesday gave her a flat look that at its core held no real annoyance. Enid liked that she didn’t even bother to pretend it did anymore, just let the fondness leak through, obvious and vulnerable like blood from an artery. “I need to blow up the air mattress.”

Aside from the sound of an owl hooting in the distance and the call of a loon across the pond, the rhythmic sound of air being pumped into the mattress echoed in the night, along with the sound of Enid eventually giving into the laugh building in her chest the longer she watched Wednesday dutifully pump the air mattress with her foot—such an abnormal person doing such a normal, mundane thing. It got her every time. Eventually it was done and Enid put on the sheets Wednesday had packed. Then they stood there, an odd type of anticipation fluttering in Enid's stomach until she couldn’t decide if it was closer to excitement or pain. A restless itch in her fingers.

“Do you want to go to bed?” Wednesday asked. It was 8:30.

“Not unless you do.”

“Do you want me to start a fire?”

Enid pressed her lips together. She felt a little like she did those couple of nights ago in the changeroom with that love confession stuck in her throat. Her heart seemed to be trying to beat its way out through a space between her ribs, blood rushing under her skin, hands struck with the undeniable need to hold onto something and only finding the empty air around her palms when her fingers closed. The cliff was back, but she wasn’t falling yet.

Wednesday started again. “Do you want to—?”

“What do you want, Wednesday?”

Wednesday’s eyelashes fluttered as she blinked, then as her gaze darted down and just as quickly back up. For a second, Enid looked over the lip of the cliff—the thousand foot drop and all the rocks at the bottom. There was no good end to falling, only blood, her bones broken over the stones. She could see the aftermath of it with such clarity it was like she’d already lived it before she even let go.

But the night sky was as beautiful as a sunset and stars dotted the dark, and when Enid looked up at it for once she existed in what was true instead of what might be, and it wasn’t a thousand feet below on the rocks. It was right in front of her.

She could see Wednesday thinking. Calculating. The ones and zeros bouncing hesitantly into place. Then the soft rise and fall of her chest as she let out a deciding breath.

“Te deseo.”

“I don’t know what that—”

“You.”

“Oh, thank God.”

The inside of the tent existed in a muted orange from the lamplight, and the movement of two bodies cast shadows on the thin nylon wall. With the fairy lights and projector off, it probably looked like it was glowing from the outside, the only life permeating the darkness for miles. A sanctuary built from flimsy metal poles and a 30 watt lightbulb.

The night settled around them—chirping insects and sighing leaves, the door zipper tingling every now and then from that northerly breeze fluttering against the walls. Then, out of place, there was the rubbery squeaking sound of someone falling on an air mattress. A laugh. Another squeak and the giggle was muffled. The crinkle of a windbreaker tossed to the side, almost inconsiderate and loud against the dark quiet of undisturbed ground outside. Shoes toed off. Sweaters. Hair taken out of braids and falling loose over shoulders.

There was a difference kissing Wednesday in the night versus when they were racing against a sunset and a torrential downpour. There was no urgency now. Everything was the colour of honey and the feel of soft skin, whispered questions followed by whispered permission, the hem of a shirt tugging tight before it gave in. Cotton slid like soft fire over Enid’s skin, over shoulders and messing up hair as it was pulled off.

Wednesday told her she was beautiful in a language she didn’t understand. Enid told her to kiss her in English and Wednesday did. On her lips. On her jaw. On her neck, and then down. On her shoulder. Sternum. Stomach.

And then down.

It was funny—when Enid pictured this moment she always thought it’d be born of some desperate need. Feelings bottled up, pressure building, all the strings keeping them apart pulled taught until they finally snapped. The collision would be violent, desperate, laboured breaths and claws dug in and drawing blood in their need to keep close the thing that’d been just a few words out of reach this entire time. Enid pictured fire. An explosion. The last epic flare of a star that had run out of molecules to combust.

But there was no fire. No blood. Not even a bruise.

(Well… maybe just one or two.)

Out of all the things Enid expected Wednesday Addams to be in a moment like this, soft wasn’t one of them. Her mouth moved over Enid’s skin, slow, deliberate, and careful, not quite like a knife that’d been dulled but rather one that’d been sharpened to such a lethal point the user knew they had to take great pains to avoid cutting. It trailed over her skin, tingling and light. Too light. Wednesday’s lips were on the inside of her thigh now. Enid felt like every inch of her was a fuse begging to be lit.

Silvermoon nails curled into ebony hair a little too tightly at first, loosening as Enid wrangled her restraint with an unsteady, breathy laugh. “Jesus, Wens. You’re not going to break me.”

Wednesday hummed, and her words were muffled by Enid’s skin—a soft, aching vibration and a graze of teeth as her voice swept over nerve endings in that casual, absentminded way she might say goodnight.

“Well, that’s disappointing.”

Then she moved up.

And Enid almost ripped out a fistful of her hair.

Thoughts disappeared pretty quickly then. Enid was falling, the ground coming closer and closer until suddenly Wednesday moved her mouth or changed pace and it was gone, Enid was back at the top breathing heavy, fists clenched and heat prickling up her spine. Then Wednesday was back and Enid was falling again, the ground coming closer again. And then it was gone. Back at the top. Falling again.

Gone.

“Wednesday.” She said it like a curse, growled and frustrated, and Wednesday laughed.

The next time she let Enid hit the ground. Once. Twice. Enid could barely see straight.

Getting Wednesday under her just made Enid ponder how it was possible to have the restraint Wednesday did. Something about how she felt drove Enid fully insane. Guys didn’t feel like that. Guys were big and heavy and most of them didn’t even moisturize, and Enid had always gone for the lanky, tall types so all she’d ever really felt when making out with a dude was shoulder blades and ribs. And Wednesday was obviously athletic—muscles jumped and twitched as Enid mapped out the skin that erupted in goosebumps under her fingertips—but even in someone like Wednesday there was softness. Something pliant and delicate and inexplicitly feminine that Enid would forever be drunk off. It was like Wednesday had whiskey on her skin—the sweet honey kind that had you on your ass before you even realized you were dizzy.

She tried be slow. She tried to be gentle. She tried to take her time.

But Wednesday liked teeth.

Something high-pitched and cutoff ripped from her throat as Enid accidentally scraped a canine where her shoulder met her neck, and it really wasn’t Enid’s fault for turning a little feral after drawing a noise like that from a person who would rather burn alive from the feet up than let someone see her out of control. Enid did it again and again, until Wednesday’s breath was hot and shaky against her ear and her ruby-painted fingernails were starting to dig into the muscle of her shoulders.

Enid’s hands were shaking from the effort of restraining herself, but she moved one down—over soft, pale skin and ridges of bone, to the delicate dip of her hip, and down until Wednesday inhaled sharply and her nails pricked Enid’s muscles in the split second before she splayed them over her shoulder blades, concerned about that lethal sharpness even when she was on her back beneath her. That was easily fixed. Enid sat up, took her wrists and traced their soft undersides with her thumbs. Then she pinned Wednesday’s hands to the pillow on either side of her head.

She leaned down, placed her lips right behind the shell of her ear and whispered, “What do you want, Wednesday?”

It was strange; that Wednesday would let her do this to her. That she wouldn’t let another soul so much as tell her what to do, but had placed herself willingly under Enid, breaths shaky and eyes fluttered shut, fingers flexing with the effort of keeping them where they were as if she was completely powerless against the grip on her wrists that would have disappeared the second she uttered the command.

Wednesday collected herself with an unsteady exhale, and even now Enid expected some smart remark to come out of her. In their two years, she’d never seen Wednesday short on wit.

But Wednesday’s voice sounded a little choked. A little desperate. It was a plea. Breathy and weak, broken of all its usual bite and replaced with something bare that sounded like surrender.

“Fuck, Enid.”

And maybe Enid became a little desperate too.

For the rest of the night it was just the sigh of wind through the trees and calls of animals in the woods, the golden glow of their tent in the pitch dark, the sound of sheets moving against sheets and soft breathing turned to less soft. Soft again. Whispered words. A breathy curse. Less soft.

For the rest of the night they existed in a sanctuary of lamplight and stars, and for the first time in her life, Enid felt love as something that made her float instead of fall.

. . .

“Enid, the mark you have left on me is indelible.”

“Do you mean that in, like, a figurative emotional sense? Or more in a physical—“

“I’m obviously talking about the hickey.”

“Right, yeah. Sorry.”

. . .

Enid woke the next morning to a freezing tent. Her nose was cold, and half of Wednesday’s body was settled heavy and limp over half of Enid’s, blankets pulled up to their chins. They’d put on clothes before falling asleep, so in stark contrast to the bareness of the night before, they were both now bundled in track pants and hoodies, courtesy of Wednesday’s forethought and packing list (but she must not have wanted to rifle through Enid’s drawers because the clothes were all either black or grey and smelled like Wednesday’s sheets). Wednesday even put on Enid’s tri-coloured hat, which now must’ve migrated somewhere between the air mattress and the tent wall. Wednesday, whose back still rose and fell with gentle, sleeping breaths, didn’t seem concerned.

It was the only time Enid had ever woken up before Wednesday without an alarm, save for that morning with the pancakes last year before they left to go home. She remembered looking at her that morning, not in a creepy way, just in a this-self-proclaimed-child-of-darkness-has-her-lips-parted-and-cheek-squished-into-her-pillow-and-I-know-I’ll-never-see-her-so-soft-and-unguarded-with-her-eyes-open-so-yeah-I’m-gonna-fucking-look kinda way. She’d never told Wednesday about it, but often thought back to that memory whenever she caught her acting particularly tough and detached from happiness—how the sun scattered over her skin like it wasn’t afraid of getting scorned for it.

She didn’t look at Wednesday now, but only because she thought if she moved she’d break whatever spell she was under that was keeping her unconscious past eight o’clock. It was also possible that Wednesday was just one of those cold-blooded creatures that went dormant when the temperature dropped below a certain point, leaving Enid sentenced to be her very-willing pillow until at least the end of May when the weather started to warm.

But even if all that wasn’t true, Enid didn’t have a desire to go anywhere but where she was. Her arm was getting uncomfortably tingly from lacking blood flow. It could fall off for all she cared as long as it didn't wake Wednesday when it did.

So Enid let herself bask for a little bit—in the sound of the tent walls gently flapping and the birds chirping outside, in the contrast between her cold face and the warmth over her body, in memories of the night before. But mostly she just basked in Wednesday, who herself was basking completely and carelessly in Enid. She didn’t think she’d ever have this.

Now she didn’t think she could ever give it up.

Wednesday woke not long after Enid’s arm went totally numb. It was because of nothing in particular, but she jerked her head up all of a sudden like fire had sprung up between herself and Enid’s shoulder. And Enid’s plan had been to pretend to be asleep in hopes Wednesday would stay in bed a bit longer, but she couldn’t help but snort at that reaction when the biggest immediate threat in the vicinity was the very girl who’d been snoozing on her shoulder a moment prior.

“Good dream?” she teased.

Wednesday must’ve been used to waking up like that because she just dropped her head back down as if this was a common hindrance. Enid would’ve praised God if she thought he had anything to do with it, but figured it was unlikely given everything she knew about how he felt about the gays.

“No dream,” Wednesday replied, which just left Enid to conclude that she’d mistaken the chirps of morning birds for heavy gunfire. “I forgot where I was. Usually when I stay in a tent it’s not for a good reason.”

Right. This was Wednesday. Of course she had some ambiguously terrifying reason for waking up the way she did.

“You could’ve just said it was a dream.”

“It was a dream.”

“Ooh, fun! What were you dreaming of?”

She knew Wednesday rolled her eyes. She also knew she’d play along.

“Puppies.”

Enid laughed and Wednesday shifted so her head was more on Enid’s chest than her shoulder, prompting blood to start seeping, cool and tingly, down the length of her arm. She wiggled her fingers.

“So I was thinking…” she started, words drawn-out and punctuated in the way people started sentences that other people won’t like.

And Wednesday, in all her obliviousness, must’ve sensed this because she immediately asked, “In a good way or a bad way?”

“S’mores for breakfast.”

“That’s my fault for not presenting ‘horrifying’ as an option. But far be it for me to impede your desire to eat a handful of refined sugars for your most important meal of the day.”

“That’s such a long-winded way of saying you’ll make me a s’more.”

Wednesday let out a soft puff of air through her nose. Enid smiled stupidly up at where the tent poles met in a cross above them, easily translating the disguised laugh for what it was.

I’ll make you a fucking s’more.

Despite the promise of s’mores, it still took them another fifteen minutes to decide to get up, and the only reason they did decide was because a fly had somehow snuck its way in and Wednesday couldn’t get it from the mattress. After she’d completed her daily quota of violence, she rummaged through her endless bag of packed shit and threw Enid a green plaid quilted jacket, then pulled out a red one for herself. Enid knew for a fact neither of them had one of those in their closets prior to this.

“I couldn’t find a pink one,” she explained as Enid put hers on, confirming that Wednesday did indeed buy them specifically for this trip, because the day Wednesday Addams wasn’t over-prepared for every miniscule part of her life was the day Enid would probably die of hypothermia because Wednesday forgot her hat.

“Or a black one?” Enid asked.

“No, there was a black one, but it was solid instead of plaid and I wanted to match.” Wednesday casually handed her a toothbrush and a bottle of water as though Enid wasn’t nearly having a heart attack over the fact that Wednesday wanted to match with her. “Also, they were on sale.”

“It’s still cute.”

“I thought so.”

A while ago Enid wouldn’t have thought any part of Wednesday knew anything about what classified as ‘cute’, but she’d brought her to a little camping site with fairy lights and s’mores, so clearly she was more versed in the concept than Enid gave her credit for (or, more likely, just versed in what Enid classified as ‘cute’ and taking that information and sprinting with it).

They went about their morning routines—easy, casual, mostly wordless, like a couple married with kids might absentmindedly go through the same motions every morning, if those motions involved crumpling newspaper and stacking splits for a fire outside of a crypt with a buried psychopath inside (a.k.a. exactly what you’d expect for marital bonding activities involving an Addams). Unlike with the kiss, there was no elephant between them, no tension lying palpable in the early spring air. There was just a light layer of overcast, the smell of wood smoke, the chill of morning dew, and Wednesday staring really hard at the picture on the front of the s’mores kit package before she started roasting a marshmallow because she’d never made one before.

Enid had never been this comfortable with anyone she’d dated before. Never been this certain. With every other relationship or crush, thoughts of the other person never left her mind. More specifically, what they thought of her—the things she said, the people she talked to, the way she acted, if her stuffed animals were lame or not, if they liked her friends and if her friends liked them. Enid would gladly shift every boundary or personality trait she had if the person she was with hinted at being unhappy with it. For her entire life, Enid didn’t remember a time when the only thing on her mind wasn’t making someone she loved happy, because if they weren’t and she lost them… well, that would leave her alone, and what would make her happy then? Certainly not herself.

But Wednesday didn’t hint at things that made her unhappy. If it were up to Wednesday, she would broadcast all her grievances through a megaphone loud enough to be heard around the globe, take out ads and loop them on the screens in Time’s Fucking Square so there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind about the inadequacies of the world that should be rectified. Unfortunately for her, the megaphone technology didn’t exist yet and even her rich-ass parents probably didn’t have enough funds to foot the bill for a time spot on the screens in the Big Apple, forcing her to regretfully continue employing her current and only way of letting people know her every complaint—through brutally honest English. And sometimes Spanish. And sometimes French. And sometimes—

“Queste zanzare farebbero meglio a contare i loro fottuti giorni.”

—whatever the fuck that was.

She’d muttered it out of nowhere, glaring daggers at an empty spot in the air as though her next trick would be burning a hole through the molecules themselves, and even then Enid’s first thought was that it was either a complaint about the cold or a really long, really Italian-sounding hex. It said something about how comfortable Enid was that the person she loved could be talking irritatedly in a language she couldn’t understand and the thought didn’t even cross her mind that it had something to do with her.

In all her years, throughout all the different types she felt and people she felt it for, love had always been this chaotic, uncontrollable entity that made her head spin with a neverending barrage of ifs and buts and maybes. It was a building engulfed in flames. It was a car hydroplaning on the highway. It was a hurricane.

“I think your marshmallow is done.”

The fire crackled and popped with a gentle, low-lying flame as Wednesday pulled her roasting stick away, placing the golden-brown marshmallow on the graham cracker and chocolate she’d already stacked on the table. She covered it with another cracker, squeezed until it was just the right amount of gooey, then twisted the stick as she pulled it out. It was an annoyingly perfect s’more.

“I want you to try it,” Enid requested, leaned back in a fold-out camping chair with no inclination to move until she watched Wednesday take a bite. Wednesday gave her a look that said ‘absolutely the fuck not’ so clearly she might as well have just said the words aloud. “Unless you’re scared.”

Then Wednesday promptly shoved the whole thing in her mouth.

It was the type of power move Enid expected, however the result was Wednesday’s lips being only 1% lips and somehow still 100% marshmallow fluff and decidedly not too powerful-looking, and Enid would’ve kissed her if she wasn’t laughing so hard she couldn’t even get up to get the poor bitch a napkin. Wednesday got one herself and wiped her mouth, then got another one, wetted it with her bottle of water, and wiped her mouth again. It was definitely still sticky.

When Enid could finally talk again, Wednesday, who was still trying to chew the thing up, cheeks puffed with the obvious struggle of keeping the volume of food in, was already in the process of stacking another block of chocolate on a graham cracker.

“So…” Enid hedged, “how was it?”

Wednesday, flat-faced and stoney and still chewing, garbled, “ Dithguthting.”

And Enid laughed again and thought that she'd never felt love as something so easy.

It was a softly crackling fire. It was a Sunday drive in the summer with the windows rolled down. It was rain trickling out of gutters. For the first time in Enid’s life, loving someone was peace. And for the first time, being loved by someone wasn’t everything.

It just made everything better.

. . .

They packed up in the early afternoon. Working together, it took them an hour and a half to dismantle everything, so Enid couldn’t even imagine how long it took Wednesday to put the shit together on her own. They left the firepit. They’d be back again.

They rowed across the pond again, no wind this time, just a bit of fog and ripples on water where the oars dipped in. They got back just in time to get showers and meet Yoko and Bianca in the dining hall for supper.

When they approached the table, Yoko regarded them with an intense glance and a mouthful of spaghetti. “Your date ran overnight,” she said, words garbled. She pointed her marinara-covered fork at Enid. “I was assuming it either went well or Wednesday murdered you in cold blood. Glad to see it’s the former.”

Bianca, who was apparently all filled in on everything (even though Enid hadn’t told her, which left her to assume Yoko was behind it because Wednesday definitely didn’t) said, “I was personally rooting for Enid to kill Wednesday.”

Yoko casually mumbled around her mouthful of pasta, “Wednesday would probably be into that.”

“I would,” Wednesday said at the same Enid said, “She would,” to which Bianca replied, “I’m literally just trying to eat,” and that set the tone for most of their supper.

There were a lot of questions from Yoko, and a lot of exasperated eyerolls from Bianca, who was obviously curious but pretending not to be too curious and even participated in her own muted form of teasing every now and then. Divina showed up in the middle of it, greeted them with a smile and a “here’s the lovebirds”, and Wednesday didn’t cut her tongue out with her butter knife for it so it was all in all a success.

All the stuff they hadn’t had time to unpack (and also coincidentally didn’t have space to store) was still in a pile on the floor when they got back. They cleaned it up together, stuffed things in corners and under beds until it looked some passable version of tidy, Wednesday promising to move most of it to her car at her earliest convenience. And then, with nothing left to do, Wednesday went to catch up on her writing. Enid sat on her bed, feeling oddly out of place. Returning from their little world in the woods seemed almost surreal. Enid almost didn’t know what to do in the space anymore, even though that seemed silly since it was their room before they even became a them. If anything, returning to the only constant in their relationship should’ve been a comforting change of pace considering everything that’d been flipped on its head between them in the last three days.

But it was like coming home after a few years to find your parents still had your Princess Jasmine comforter on the bed and crayon drawings pinned on the walls in your room. Everything that’d happened seemed too massive for them to just return and have everything be… as it was. Like they’d outgrown the single beds on either side of the room. The stark invisible line in the middle where rainbow turned to monochrome.

Before Enid could make a plan on the best way to organize their furniture so it looked like a them room instead of a them-but-not-this-them room, Wednesday’s phone, which had been left in the room since the night before, buzzed. Buzzed again. Buzzed again.

Buzzed again.

It had nearly vibrated its way off her nightstand before Wednesday absentmindedly said, “Enid, your phone.”

“Wednesday, your phone.”

And it wasn’t often Wednesday Addams looked shocked, but she did then. She whipped her head around, turning to stare in awed silence at the device as it let out one final buzz and stopped. Someone was calling Wednesday. And it wasn’t Enid. This was unheard of.

After a long moment her eyes shifted to Enid, questioning, as if she’d have an answer for this shit that wasn’t the start of the apocalypse or something. As if on cue, Enid’s phone buzzed too. Her’s was already in her lap, so she picked up Bianca’s call on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“Tell your girlfriend to stop wasting my damn time.”

Enid grinned, tamping down the flock of seagulls in her stomach that just started freaking the fuck out over someone referring to Wednesday as her girlfriend. “I doubt that’ll make a difference.”

“Good point. Put me on speaker.” Enid put Bianca on speaker. Bianca said, “Hey. Dick.”

“I refuse to respond to genitalia that I don’t even own.”

“You just did.”

Enid watched the disappointment dawn on Wednesday’s face like cold coffee over a white shirt, and had to physically shut her eyes and press her lips together to keep a cackle from interrupting their phone call.

Bianca continued. “Did you see coach’s email?”

“I—”

“Who am I kidding, of course you didn’t. Pack your bags, psycho. We’re headed to Notre Dame on Thursday.”

“Oh.”

And that’s how they both realized Wednesday and Bianca had qualified for NCAA’s.

Enid went nuts for both of them, staying on the phone with Bianca for ten minutes afterwards to continue telling her how excited she was for both of them and how hard they were going to kick ass, to which Bianca agreed “the hardest” and Wednesday said nothing at all. In fact, she said nothing at all for the entire conversation, except for that small “oh” when she found out.

Enid thought something was fishy. It’s not like Wednesday would typically be jumping over the moon over something that excited her or breaking out Enid’s own ‘golden retriever on crack’ method of support, but Enid expected something. A satisfied look. A demolishing insult about the other teams. Her firing a shotgun out through the window. Anything.

But Wednesday just went back to her writing.

After ending the call, Enid waited for Wednesday’s writing hour to end. At the telltale sound of paper being pulled from the carriage, she hopped down from her bed and made her way across the room to hop onto Wednesday’s, right on the corner at the foot, closest to her desk chair. Wednesday, who knew Enid well enough to recognize that she was about to be engaged in conversation, softly placed her page in her wooden case, then put the wooden case full of pages in her drawer. And shut it.

“Are you ever going to let me read your book?” Enid asked.

Wednesday shifted her chair so it faced Enid a little better—diagonal to the bed, almost knee-to-knee. Then she lifted her dark eyes to Enid’s and said, “When it’s done.”

“That’s too long.”

“Now that I know it tortures you so, I’ll make sure to take my time.”

It was such a Wednesday thing to say that Enid snorted. She wondered what trademark reaction her girlfriend (she still couldn’t get over that) would have when Enid opened up a conversation about feelings. Only one way to find out.

“You didn’t seem excited about the NCAA’s.”

Wednesday seemed to consider this for a moment, then shrugged. “I’m unsurprised, but pleased. Less pleased that I’ll have to spend a week in a hotel room with Bianca, but otherwise… yes. I’m pleased.”

‘Pleased’ was a definite far cry from ‘excited’, and Enid had a feeling Wednesday knew that, which just meant one thing: deflection. Definitely a trademark ‘Wednesday’ reaction to feelings. Luckily, despite Enid’s penchant for chaotic thinking and not knowing which way was up, she did know Wednesday. While her talents might’ve lied in logical ways of thinking and effectively stabbing things with swords, feelings were Enid’s wheelhouse. Sometimes she felt like she could see Wednesday’s better than she could see her own.

“Let the record show that I’m very excited for you, but—”

“You, the record, have shown this. And played it. For at least ten minutes. The record may be broken at this point.”

“The record thinks she may be the only one excited.” That would be the last time Enid referred to herself as ‘the record’. It sounded stupid as soon as it came out of her mouth, but Wednesday rolled her eyes in that fond, minuscule way she always pretended not to, so it had to have been at least a little appreciated. “Am I wrong? Because you can totally tell me to fuck off if I am.”

Wednesday wouldn’t tell her to fuck off. Enid knew that. Wednesday also might not actually open up about what was going on, and that would be fine. Enid would accept it and let her go to her tournament and work through it herself if that’s what Wednesday needed.

But Wednesday was silent for a long time. Her eyes shifted to the floor, and just stayed there for a bit. One second. Two. Ten. Enid, ever married to constant motion, tried not to fidget.

Finally, gaze still fixed on the hardwood, Wednesday said, “I’ve always been content on my own. It’s rare for me to miss someone. I’m not used to it. It’s just… a strange feeling.” She looked up. “And a very illogical one to miss them before I’ve even left.”

Enid got the impression that Wednesday never knew how sweet she was when she actually explained the things she felt instead just warring with them in her own mind and going MIA for the better part of an entire day. It was why it affected Enid so much. She knew Wednesday wasn’t trying to pull the wool over her eyes with sappy lines and promises, she was just laying out what she felt in her heart and hoping they could understand it together.

Like most times when Wednesday was sweet, Enid felt like kissing her. She didn’t now because she wanted her to know her feelings (as rare as they apparently may be) were completely valid. And that Enid had the same ones.

“I miss you already too,” she said. “I never thought about how stupid it is, I’m just used to it.”

“It’s horrible.”

“Yeah.”

“Is there anything I can do about it?”

Enid shrugged. “Not really.”

Wednesday was put out by this, eyes dropping back to the floor. Of course she’d think there was some lab-procured cure you could get for the fatal condition of feeling. The only thing that might’ve come close were things that you could only get at a hospital or a dark alleyway from someone with a gun in their waistband, but Enid’s mom had warned her about those types of cures so they were a big no-no.

“But…” she hedged, raising her eyebrows like she’d just come up with some novel idea. “Maybe I could make up for it when you come back.”

She didn’t give Wednesday and her stupid, beautiful brain a chance to think Enid just meant that in a nice platonic way and not the way she actually meant it, which was still nice but decidedly not so platonic. Wednesday looked up like she normally would when Enid spoke, none the wiser until she saw Enid was standing. Enid put her hands on her shoulders to steady herself, then put a leg over her lap, straddling her thighs. She ran her thumbs absentmindedly over the base of her hairline at the back of her neck.

Sure, her heart was pounding so hard she thought she might throw up. Sure, the seagulls in her stomach were now a herd of pterodactyls flapping with an absolute purpose. But this—being with Wednesday like this—no longer felt like something dangerous. It was just exciting.

“Or maybe…” she continued, drawn-out and slow, like this idea was just coming to her and she needed help putting the pieces together. “I could make up for it before you go.”

Wednesday got the flashing neon hint this time and kissed her. And she made up for leaving Enid too.

. . .

Enid broke her ankle.

She broke her fucking ankle.

It hurt like a bitch, both when Wednesday left that Thursday morning and when Enid tumbled down the stairs of the gym that evening. She’d had a hell of a workout, to the point where her legs had surpassed soreness and jumped right to numb jello. She found out just how not-numb they were when she looked back at Yoko to comment on the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy she’d watched and ended up stepping out too far, heel catching on the edge of the stair and twisting and snapping and she fell all the way down the last five steps and fuck.

It. Hurt.

Like.

Bitch.

Yoko said “shit.” Enid said a lot of curse words. Then she cried.

Yoko ran to get their coach. An ambulance came. There was a stretcher, which felt a little dramatic given it was only an ankle as opposed to a broken neck or something, but probably not that dramatic given said ankle absolutely could not have supported her down the remaining two flights of steps.

Five hours, an x-ray, and a clunky red cast later (they didn’t have pink when she asked, which was just the cherry on top), Enid and Yoko were being brought back to campus in their coach’s car. The interior was black with blue underlights, and Yoko sat in the front, fucking around with the radio while her coach kept searching for Enid’s eyes in the rearview mirror and repeated everything the doctors already told her. A broken ankle took around 8 weeks to heal, not counting the months of rehab to get her range of motion and strength back to where it was.

“It might never be the same again,” Doctor Michael told her—a woman in blue scrubs with equally blue nails, black hair loose around her face and the sleeves of her white coat rolled up to her elbows. “But it might. I don’t want to discourage you, but I also want you to know the reality of it.”

Enid was well aware of the reality of it. She was attending Nevermore on a running scholarship after all. No ankle, no running. No running, no scholarship. No scholarship…

Well. Yeah.

On the way back, Yoko tried to cheer her up by telling her Doctor Michael looked like Callie Torres from Grey’s Anatomy. Enid didn't want to be cheered up but it was true so she agreed anyway, but ultimately spent most of the car ride staring out the window, watching the streetlights and glowing convenience store signs flash past, picturing some sad Adele song playing in the background.

Yoko walked her back to her room (or, more accurately, crawled along at a snail’s pace so Enid could keep up on her crutches). Her and Yoko usually talked as they walked. A lot. Silence between them wasn’t awkward when it was there, but it was a rare occurrence given who Enid was as a person, paired with the fact they had a lot of the same interests so they had a lot to talk about.

But Yoko didn’t speak the whole way back, and Enid didn’t either. It was two o’clock in the morning at that point and they were the only ones around. The click of crutches and softly scuffing sneakers echoed in the cool, clear air, bouncing off the bricks of the buildings on either side of them, and up into the atmosphere to nowhere. Yoko was carrying Enid’s bag. They were both still in their running clothes.

After the camping night, coming back to their dorm room felt like returning to an outdated home, still cozy and warm with memories, but needing to be changed around to make room for new ones. When Enid opened the door tonight, it just looked the same as it did last year before they left (minus a line of duct tape down the middle and plus an assortment of random camping equipment milling around most of the previously empty space). And that seemed about right.

“I’m gonna get a shower,” Enid decided, clicking her way over to her closet. Yoko, still wordless, came over to help pick out her stuff, then, just as wordless, carried it to the bathroom for her.

The first time she spoke was after she’d hung up her towels and shower supplies on a hook outside Enid’s chosen stall.

“Okay, serious question: do you need me to help? I totally can. And if you think I haven’t seen worse, keep in mind that I used to frequently help my nan shower before she moved into the nursing home, and she was 92 with boobs down to her hips.”

Enid laughed, though the way her chest squeezed with the motion felt oddly close to crying. She shook her head, shooing Yoko away with the promise that she wouldn’t slip and break her neck or get her cast wet.

“I’m going back to the room to pack a bag.” Yoko sounded almost cautious, taking slow steps backwards, as if afraid Enid was a poorly-built house of cards that would topple the minute she took her eyes off her. “Then I’ll be right back.”

“You don’t need to stay with me.”

“I’m staying with you.”

“Yoko, I’ll be fine.”

“Physically, yes. But without Wednesday around someone’s gotta keep you from going all spiral-y. She’ll have my head and probably every other limb if she comes back to you beaten up and sad. I’m doing this purely for self-preservation. Not everything’s about you.”

Enid snorted, and after a long, hard look which Enid assumed was for the purpose of making sure she didn’t spontaneously combust, Yoko left. The door clicked softly shut behind her. And then Enid was alone.

Left with just her thoughts and the sound of an air exchanger lowly humming from somewhere in the ceiling, she tried to focus on the ringing in her ears. All of a sudden, her nose stung. Her eyes began to burn and she pressed suddenly wobbly lips together as pressure built in the bottom of her throat. She blinked a lot, but her vision just kept getting blurrier. She sniffed once. Twice.

The door creaked open again.

Yoko called, “Are you crying yet?”

Sniff.

“No.”

“Oh, honey.”

And Yoko came back in to catch her toppling house of cards.

She sat on the gross bathroom floor with Enid and found an awkward position around her stretched-out leg to pull her into a hug. It was a tight one; tight enough that Enid felt like it was safe to fall apart a little in it and she wouldn’t lose any pieces. And then Enid cried. Like, really hard. Harder than when she felt her ankle snap. Same as on the walk over, Yoko said nothing, just held on and rubbed her back until the breaking dam had let out enough water to settle into a river.

Then Yoko's voice came, so uncharacteristically gentle that it didn’t even echo off the spotty ceramic tiles. “I know you’re worried about your scholarship, and I know you wanted to stay here for the summer because going home is the last thing that you want. I wish I could make it better for you, Enid, I do, but all I can say is that life is shit. It sucks so bad sometimes and there’s more bad than good.” She squeezed her a little tighter and tucked her chin over Enid’s shoulder like Enid was holding her up too. “But if you’re a good person, which you are—the best one I know, actually—things tend to work out exactly how they’re supposed to. Even if it doesn’t seem like it.”

“You’re such a good friend,” Enid choked out.

“Truly the best, I know.”

“No, you’re such a good friend.” Enid sniffled and pulled back, because Yoko was just being a sarcastic dick but Enid wasn’t. “You’re always dealing with my shit and talking me down from doing stupid stuff and giving me advice and I’m always a mess but you always fix it. You’re kneeling on this disgusting floor for me and you shirt is literally wet from my fucking tears and—Jesus. I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“You’ve done so much for me and I’ve done nothing.”

Yoko pulled back like Enid wound up and hit her, eyebrows furrowed so much a crease appeared between them. She wasn’t wearing her sunglasses and her baby hairs were frizzy around her hairline where it was tied into a ponytail. Even now, with Enid bawling like a child on the floor, Yoko looked at her like she wanted to slap some sense into her.

“Enid, that’s the most stupid shit I’ve ever heard you say, and that’s an insane bar to reach considering the amount of stupid shit I’ve heard you say.” Enid choked out a watery laugh. Yoko still looked like she wanted to punch her. “You’ve done lots—more than enough, and even if you hadn’t… God, Enid. You don’t have to earn this shit. It’s not work.”

“It’s not nothing.”

“It is when it’s you.”

And Enid’s tears had calmed down, but with that someone must’ve fucked around with the coals behind her eyes again because they were burning. Again.

“Well…” She sniffed. Blinked. Didn’t matter. The world still went blurry until it spilled over. “Fuck you.”

Yoko sniffed and said, “Fuck you too.”

And then they were both crying on the floor like babies. What an unstoppable pair they made.

She often thought that Yoko was probably her soulmate, but not in the way that Wednesday was—a piece missing from her heart, taken wherever life was created from stardust and light and brought back to Enid in the form of a person who gave her every single thing she didn’t have on her own. Yoko felt more like they were made of the same stardust. They were bound together by like parts, cursed to understand each other better than anyone else to the point where Enid was sure that even if they got reincarnated as mosquitos or something, Yoko would be the one rolling her compound eyes while she pulled Enid away from biting a bear.

After they’d both stopped crying and Yoko had pulled back, sitting cross-legged on the floor and wiping her cheeks, it was time for the logical questions.

“Are you going to tell Wednesday?”

“Would it be wrong if I didn’t?”

“Usually I’d say yes, but that bitch is crazy on her own, and even crazier for you. She’d walk back if she couldn’t find a bus in time. Just tell me what lie we’re going with.”

So Enid (and Yoko) had to lie to Wednesday. At least for a little bit. Guilt was an ever-present fixture in Enid’s mind, the only thing that slightly relieved it being the fact that she was only doing it so Wednesday could focus on her tournament. No other reason at all. Not one. Definitely no reasons involving Enid avoiding thinking about going home and how saying it out loud to the only person who’d ever given her peace would give her not-peace and ruin everything. It was all for Wednesday’s sake.

And it was only for a week! That was nothing.

Like most lies, this one was more believable sprinkled with a little bits of truth.

“Say hi to Yoko!” Enid facetimed Wednesday the next day, sitting on her bed with Yoko beside her and keeping her thumb far away from the ‘flip camera’ button, lest Wednesday glimpse the bright red cast that went up the middle of her calf. “She’s staying with me while you’re gone so I won’t be lonely.”

Behind Wednesday’s head, there was one of those abstract printed canvases that cheap hotels put up to appear less cheap. Also in the background of the call—not visually but auditorily—was Bianca.

“That’s crazy, because I’m staying with Wednesday so she won’t be lonely.”

“You’re staying with me because some higher power decided I needed to be prepared for Hell before I went, so they sent me a free trial.”

Safe to say that Wednesday bought it easily without Enid having to employ any effort at all to convince her. It was almost worse that she believed it so readily. Wednesday didn’t trust anyone, and it’s not like Enid had given her a reason to think anything was amiss, but she just took what Enid said and believed it for the simple reason that it came out of her mouth.

Still, the guilt wasn’t enough that it was a struggle not to tell her. She hoped Wednesday wouldn’t sacrifice her own obligations (especially ones that might involve gold medals) for the sake of Enid’s clumsiness, but she couldn’t risk the fact that she might. They were both athletes, after all. She knew as well as Enid how detrimental an injury like this was in any sport. It’d be like if Wednesday broke her saber-holding wrist. Although, knowing Wednesday, she probably knew how to fence just as well with her non-dominant hand.

“Can you fence with your left hand?” Enid asked her one night, having talked about it with Yoko too and now they were both curious like the information-hungry little goblins they were.

“Of course. Only an idiot pretending to be a fencer wouldn’t be able to fence with both hands.”

In the background, Bianca said, “Um, I can’t.”

“Point proven.”

“Maybe if you spent more time training with only one hand instead of both, you’d be able to beat me.”

“Maybe I should cut off your right fucking hand and see you beat me then.”

“Jesus. Touchy.”

Listening to the back-biting that was the entirety of Wednesday and Bianca’s relationship was Enid’s most entertaining activity to date. She had yet to witness a moment of civility between the two, but had no doubt it likely happened in the space between phone calls given that on their last facetime Enid checked and Bianca still had both her hands.

Despite the comedy show, Enid’s guilt grew exponentially as the week went on, especially when she got that dreaded call from her coach saying they were sending her home ASAP to heal. She’d go to physio and train with a specialist and, with any luck, get back to running again next semester. She only cried a little about it that time, but only because it was expected, and really it was decent news all in all. She still had her scholarship. She just… had to go. For now.

Every day she’d wake in Wednesday’s bed (because she didn’t dare offer it to Yoko in fear Wednesday would throw both the sheets and her best friend in a sea of flames as soon as she got back and somehow spotted a black hair on her equally as black pillowcase) with a bigger stone in the pit of her stomach. She had to tell her eventually, sure. She just had to wait until she won. Then she’d feel okay with it.

But when Enid answered Wednesday’s facetime call in the afternoon before she was scheduled to return, and the screen opened up to an image of her and Bianca with gold medals around their necks, Enid only told them congratulations.

“Enid, she comes back tomorrow,” Yoko urged that night. “It’s not like she’s gonna jump on a redeye when her bus literally left an hour ago. You’re in the clear. You have to tell her.”

Yoko, as always, made a lot of sense.

Enid, as always, wasn’t attracted to lines of thought that made sense.

“She’s happy. I don’t want to stress her out.”

“First of all, happy is a strong word to use with her. Second—what’s your plan? You’re just going to greet her as she gets off the bus and let her find out for herself?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, she’ll be here tomorrow at six, so you’d better figure your shit out.”

Yoko was tough, but she was right. So Enid devised a plan.

12:34 PM: Can’t wait to see u!!!! I’ll be in a thing when you arrive so I can’t meet u when you get off the bus, but text when you pull up <3

12:35 PM: Looking forward to seeing you too. We are behind schedule because of weak bladders. Should be back by 6:30.

12:37 PM: <3

Yoko packed up and moved back to her room. Enid sat on the bed and tried to do something productive, but the only thing she was doing was watching the clock tick away, minute by minute. Then hour by hour. And then—

6:19 PM: Just got back.

Then Enid timed her. The bus would be parking at the University Center, meaning it would be about a seven minute walk from there to the dorm if Wednesday walked outside, which she would because it was a nice day. Enid’s heart pounded as she counted the minutes.

One.

Two.

Five.

She called Wednesday.

“Howdy, roomie." Fuck off. Why did she always have to answer in the most endearing way possible when Enid was already feeling way too much. "I thought you were busy”

“I um… I have something to tell you.”

“Good or bad?”

“I don’t really know how to say it. I’ve been thinking about it all day and I still don’t have a script, and I should’ve told you earlier—Yoko told me I should’ve told you earlier—but I didn’t want to distract you, and then I didn’t want to ruin your post-win high, so I waited until now but I still don’t—”

“Are you breaking up with me?”

Enid’s eyes flew so wide it was a mystery that they didn’t pop out of her head. “Oh my God! No! No. Jesus, no. Of course not.”

“Good. For a second I thought I’d have to spend the summer without you.”

Enid squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to face any of it—the breaking of the news, what it meant for her and Wednesday, the guilt and regret and the four day long bus trip back to San Francisco. She wanted none of it. The only thing she wanted was Wednesday and soon she wouldn’t even have that.

“Right. So about that…”

“If it’s hard for you to talk about it now, we can wait until you get back to the room. I’m going in now.”

“You are?”

Sure enough, the sound of a key fitting into the lock in their door rung through the room. “I don’t mind waiting for you to—”

“I broke my ankle and I have to go home for the summer.”

The lock turned. Wednesday opened the door, black duffle bag on the floor by her feet, key still in the lock, phone held up to her ear. Her eyes immediately landed on Enid sitting on the edge of her bare mattress, two suitcases lined up at her feet.

Wednesday, both in person and over the phone, said, “Oh.”

She looked so casual the way she was standing there, fencing windbreaker on with a hoodie underneath, grey trackpants, black runners on her feet, braids a little frizzy and loose from probably sleeping on the bus. Enid’s window decals and the sun that was beginning its descent painted kaleidoscope colours on the hardwood, the reflection bouncing up and giving Wednesday this muted glow like she existed through a pane of stained glass. She was still holding the phone up to her ear. She was the most perfect Enid had ever seen her. And it’s not like Wednesday wasn’t that perfect all the time, but there was a certain beauty in brevity—in the way things seem brighter, more intense, right before they fade away.

Wednesday dropped her hand that was holding the phone without bothering to hang up. Her voice was flat. Even. Not a twinge of a tremble or emotion.

“When do you go?”

The person stoking the coals was back. Enid’s eyes burned, but she wouldn’t cry this time. This hurt was on her, and she needed to own it without making Wednesday feel guilty for her. “My cab is coming in two hours.”

“Oh.”

Wednesday pressed her lips together the slightest amount, and Enid didn’t even try to read into what it meant because she didn’t want to know. Then her eyes darted between the bare bed, Enid’s cast, the suitcases, her side of the room, and back to Enid. Then all of it again. Then she blinked, took her key out of the door, picked up her duffle bag and came into the room.

She asked Enid how she broke her leg. She asked why Enid didn’t tell her she broke her leg, which was the only hint she was feeling any type of way about it because she’d already explained her reasons on the phone and she knew Wednesday listened, but she also knew she didn’t know what else to say. Wednesday could barely process her own emotions on a good day when Enid was there to help her through them, and now Enid was here dropping this bomb on her and fucking off to a bus in the next two hours and leaving her there to clean up the debris she didn’t have a garbage can for.

“What about your exams?” she asked. She’d crossed the room to sit on the edge of her own bed, mirroring Enid’s position five feet away, minus a cast and a mountain of suitcases at her feet.

“I can take them online. They want me back home and healing as fast as I can so I can keep my scholarship for next semester.”

“You can’t heal here?”

“They were okay paying my way for the summer when I was actually training to compete, but now that I’m out they think it’s better for me to go stay at home where I have family to help me along.”

“I can help you along.”

God, she must’ve been trying to make Enid cry. “I don’t have a choice, Wednesday. I can’t afford to stay here and I need to keep this scholarship. My parents have six kids; my college fund is basically a penny.”

Wednesday’s eyes dropped to the floor in disappointment, but Enid could tell she understood. Anyone else would drag her through the wringer for not telling them earlier. They’d had all this new love they expected to be able to build on in the coming months and now it was gone. Enid wasn’t enough of her old, overthinking self to believe that Wednesday’s lack of reaction was a lack of caring. Wednesday just didn’t show her feelings in outbursts like that. Everything was calculated. Processed.

She didn’t even look up as she asked, “Is that… what you want?”

Well fuck her. What kind of question was that?

“Of course I don’t want it, Wednesday. It’s just—I can’t do anything about—“ suddenly choked up, Enid cut herself off. She refused to sound pitiful when she was the one who caused this. She cleared her throat and blinked her eyes. No tears. She repeated quietly, “I don’t have a choice.”

Wednesday nodded, head still lowered. She was accepting this better than anyone else could’ve possibly done considering how sudden it was. Enid should’ve given her a warning. She knew Wednesday hated surprises, and this wasn’t even anywhere in the realm of a good one.

Enid watched through the beams of light streaking onto the floor as Wednesday’s throat bobbed with a swallow before she looked up. It was probably just the reflection of the sun on the hardwood bouncing up, but her eyes looked a little more glassy than usual. She blinked. Cleared her throat.

“Well, you don’t need to take a cab. I’ll drive you.”

Enid smiled around the pressure in her chest that was seeping up to the bottom of her throat. She shook her head. Her voice was strained with forced normality, and even then she had to break off into a whisper in the middle in order to continue. “That was hard enough last time, and we were just friends. This time it might—”

Kill me.

It was dramatic as all hell and she choked up too much to say it, but she believed it was true. The longer she dragged it out, the more painful it would be. She wouldn’t make it there without telling Wednesday to turn the car around, and Wednesday would in a heartbeat because that was what Enid wanted.

Wednesday must’ve understood. She didn’t try to force her. She didn’t ask anymore questions.

Well, except for one.

“Do you want to watch Grey’s Anatomy?”

And that was when Enid finally cried. Wednesday hugged her. Enid thought about her standing outside the bus station in the rain not even a year prior—when she’d run to her and clung onto her like she never wanted to let her go. And it was still true.

They did watch Grey’s Anatomy. Enid could tell Wednesday was trying to make it normal by commenting on this stupid thing and that stupid thing, tearing down every one of those surgeons credentials like it was her civic duty. But they were both looking at the clock, and the more minutes that passed, the quieter they got. Then it was just them leaned against each other on Enid’s single bed like every other night, soft breathing and warmth. Then Enid had to go.

Her and Wednesday verbally confirmed that they would do long-distance, which Enid honestly figured would be the case but was flooded with relief regardless when she asked Wednesday if she wanted to do that and Wednesday gave her a look like she was about to ask if she broke her ankle or her brain. Yoko came to help her with her stuff since she didn’t think she could handle Wednesday walking down with her.

Wednesday kissed her, and even Yoko had the good sense not to make some teasing comment about it. She waited until they finished, took the handles of Enid’s bags, cleared her throat, and said, “Let’s get you home, Sinclair.”

And after what felt like a lifetime of scratching and clawing her way towards Wednesday Addams, Enid walked away from her. Well, hobbled away. She was on crutches, and the intermittent click of the loose metal made the moment much less cinematic than it felt, but it was still sad all the same.

“You need to take care of Wednesday,” she ordered Yoko as she held open the dormhouse door for her and she clicked her way through.

“What? Like, make sure she doesn’t go on a killing spree to cope with you leaving? No offence, Enid, but I’d have to be an idiot to get in the way of that.”

“You know what I mean. Don’t let her get all dark and broody.”

“That’s literally her entire personality.”

“Don’t let her be alone.”

Yoko just snorted. The cab was parked just up the sidewalk on the street curb like a hearse waiting to take her to the graveyard. But the sun was setting behind it and the air was just chilly enough to need a sweater, and all in all, despite the sound of luggage wheels rolling over the sidewalk and the click of Enid’s crutches, it was a nice day to leave.

“C’mon, me and Wens?” Yoko said. “We’re best buds. She couldn’t get rid of me if she tried.”

Enid warned, “She will try.”

“I know.”

“And I’d be hesitant about calling her Wens.”

“I literally will never say it to her face.”

The cab came too soon. It was a newer one, all shiny and yellow with a fresh black logo on the side. The driver popped the trunk and opened the door to get out and Enid rushed to make peace with it all, because if she didn’t at this point she’d flood the poor man’s backseat with tears, and there was probably some type of damage deposit she’d have to pay for that.

But then Yoko dropped Enid’s bags like they’d caught on fire. She ordered the driver, “Get back in the car,” and upon the furrowing of his bushy eyebrows and a confused point to himself, Yoko reiterated with significantly more urgency, “Get back in the car.”

“Should I…” He looked helplessly at his door and then back to Yoko, and Enid did the same, not having one sweet clue about what was going on. “Should I leave?”

“I don’t care what you do, but these two are about to have one hell of a moment so I suggest making yourself scarce.”

Wednesday called, “Enid!”

The cab driver got back in the car.

Enid whipped her head around. And there was Wednesday. She was still wearing the hoodie, windbreaker, and track pants combo, and it's not like Enid expected her to change into full glam to come down and say goodbye against her wishes, but she didn’t expect Wednesday at all so she was allowed to be shocked by every bit of her, even the clothes she’d seen her wearing two minutes prior. Her braids were still a little loose and a little frizzy, but she must’ve been in too much of a rush to put her sneakers on again because she was donning her shower crocs.

A breeze fluttered by and Enid’s hair blew into her face, and by the time she brushed it behind her ear Wednesday was jogging. Enid was already choked up, which was exactly why she wanted to avoid this.

“Wednesday, I told you—"

“We can get an apartment.”

What?

“What?”

“I can harbour you in the room like we do Thing until we figure it out.”

She stopped in front of Enid, wind ruffling her bangs as she puffed out a breath. Her cheeks were a little flushed even though the twenty foot jog definitely hadn’t exerted her, but Enid had never heard her speak so fast before. Her words were tripping over each other, rushed and unprepared, and Wednesday usually talked fluid and dark like blood from a clean cut, but this was a rip—artery severed and blood seeping out faster than she could cover it.

“I’ve got money saved up and my parents will help if we need them to. I’ve got a summer research position at a forensic biology lab and Bianca said the Seven-Eleven is always hiring down the road.”

Enid had no idea when this crazy idea came to the girl who viewed the world in ones and zeros. She didn’t think it was within Wednesday to have crazy ideas like this. It seemed like some type of unattainable scheme Enid might throw out into the universe—the type of one the universe would throw back at her and say ‘too ambitious. Too good to be true. Lower your standards.’

She didn’t know what to say. Leaving just made sense.

Enid pointed out, “I mean, we started dating a week and a half ago, and for 70% of that time you were three states away." She almost took a step forward, forgetting the cast and the crutches and everything, but remembered just in time to hastily jerk one of her clacking metal poles forward to catch herself (not exactly rom-com worthy). She puffed out a frazzled sigh as she righted herself. “Jesus, this is the kind of shit you think people are idiots for.”

“We’re not like them.”

“That’s probably what they said.”

“We’re not like them. We were roommates first, and even if what you’re saying turns out to be true and this doesn’t work out, we’ll be roommates again and my life will be better for having you in it. It doesn’t matter in what way you’re there, I just want —” she cut herself off, closed her eyes and took a breath.

Enid had never seen Wednesday like this.

Desperate.

Looking at her now, Enid realized she’d rarely ever seen Wednesday in the sunset either, just that one time at the bus station almost exactly a year ago. Enid had refused to look at her then in fear she’d break down and Wednesday would leave, so if Enid was really leaving again now, she made sure she looked this time. Her usually pale skin shone golden in the sun, hair looking more brown than black. Enid could see every part of her in vivid detail—every pore and freckle, every eyelash and faint frown line around her mouth, and when she opened her eyes the sunshine made them glow the colour of honey. Wednesday held her gaze the same bold way she always did under bangs that were bordering on needing a trim.

“I don’t need you to survive,” she stated. “That would be pathetic.”

If this was a plea for Enid to stay, it didn’t start the way she’d expected. The directors of their movie were looking around confused, wondering if they should keep taping or if this was going to end very differently than most rom-coms had the nerve to.

“I can make it on my own as I always have and would be content with that as I’ve always been. This was unexpected—” Wednesday made some uncalculated, uncharacteristically hasty gesture between them as though Enid would be confused about which ‘this’ she was referring to. “Us,” she clarified further.

“Yeah. No, I got that.”

“I didn’t want it, and I didn’t plan for it, and if it ended I would go back to the solitary existence I always expected I would have because for all my life the only thing I avoided more than being needed by people was needing them myself, and I would survive.”

Enid had no doubt that she would. Wednesday was perhaps the most capable person she’d ever met. You could drop her on any corner of the earth, in any city and climate, and if there was one thing that was certain it was that the very environment would submit to her will within the week. She was stubborn and refused help, so adamant about going her own way that the thought never crossed her mind that someone might want to hold her hand along that path. But Enid did.

And honestly, Enid could survive without Wednesday too. Maybe she didn’t used to believe that she could live without anyone, but she was sure of it now, and Wednesday was too because she knew she’d go right back into that building the minute Enid told her she was leaving.

So no, neither of them needed each other. Wednesday was right.

Wednesday took a breath. Held it.

Then let it all out.

“But I have this sickening fear I’ve become reliant on you, Enid. And the only thing more sickening than that is that I’d like to continue to be. Because I love—”

Enid didn’t think she’d ever be cutting off a love confession from Wednesday Addams, but hopefully she’d be nice enough to say it again for her sometime over the summer when Enid's lips weren't shutting her's up like they were now.

Behind Enid, the cab engine started, then faded away like the red in the sky at sunset. Soon it would be dark, and Wednesday and Enid would put the sheets back on her bed and the fairy lights back in the corners. The night would fall and Enid would think that maybe Wednesday wasn’t a missing piece of stardust and light. Maybe Wednesday was made out of whatever substance comprised the dark spaces between the stars, crafted perfectly to fit into all the empty spots Enid didn't have the capacity to fill.

And stars didn't exist without darkness, but Enid knew she’d exist without anyone. Even without Wednesday.

But she didn’t want to.

. . .

“Did you know when I first met you I thought you were a serial killer?”

“A fair assessment. What do you think now?”

“I’m kinda still on the fence about it.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

Notes:

(Translations:
"Te deseo." = I want you.
"Queste zanzare farebbero meglio a contare i loro fottuti giorni" = These mosquitos better count their fucking days.)

So this took over a fucking year.

While I can't apologize enough for the wait, I fear it wouldn't have been able to come any faster. The word count for all the different versions of this chapter that exist is actually more than the word count of the finalized draft, but none of them felt right (and I know that's a sorry excuse considering I could have brought at least one child to term and a fraction of another in the time between updates, but it's the only excuse I have, and if it's any consolation, I AM sorry).

Nothing in this chapter went how I planned. None of the scenes in this version were in any of the other versions. I have changed careers three times, cracked two phone screens, and almost finished watching The Vampire Diaries in the time its taken this god forsaken chapter to become a chapter. It just wasn't flowing in a way I was remotely happy with until now. I've written the last 15000 words of this within the last three days. My computer screen is imprinted on my eyeballs. I don't know why I even bother to make any plans for what I write at this point when clearly the story will choose to write itself whenever its well and fucking ready, no matter how much I beg it.

Anyway, enough about me. This is it with a cherry on top, title drop included at the end and everything. Thank you everyone for coming on this long ass fucking journey with me and being SO FUCKING NICE. Everyone has always been so supportive of this story despite my sporadic (to put it lightly) updates. When I say every single one of your comments warmed my damn heart, I mean that so hard. I appreciate everyone who was involved in this story; from the people who were here from the beginning commenting on every chapter, to anyone who left a kudo, right down to anyone who saw the description and clicked on it before realizing it wasn't their cup of tea and clicking right out.

I will reiterate: you are all sick as fucking hell, peeps.

This is officially the last chapter that I have planned, and the last 'plot' chapter. I've written a couple scenes already of apartment shenanigans, but this was way back when I was writing chapter 8 because, believe it or not, the original plan was for them to move in together at the end of chapter 7 (like I said, the story writes itself despite my say so. I don't know what to do about it). I'm making no promises, but there MAY be a short bonus chapter after this centered around their summer considering some of the scenes are just sitting in my drafts with nowhere to go and it seems like a waste. If I can find a way to connect them, I'll post a little fluffy, no-consequences bonus chapter if that's something ya'll would be interested in.

But please don't hold me to that. The story may decide it's done, and if it does I have no control. But I'll try.

Won't be on my soapbox for any longer. To quickly sum up...

You guys are amazing and wonderful and so fucking appreciated. This story has been my favorite one to write to date. I had a blast with you all and for that I'm forever grateful.

P.S. I relied on online translators for the Italian and Spanish, so if it's not right please correct me and I will change it. Also, I have no idea when NCAA competitions actually are, so this is proably a completely inaccurate timeline, however I needed it so the plot could plot. Just know I'm aware it's probably definitely wrong. Thanks :)

Notes:

Thanks for reading, dudes. If you wanna leave me a review it’ll make my day :)
Part 2 should be coming sometime within 2 to 200 business days. Depends on where the hyperfixations take me.

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