Characters: Dakota and Anna (played by br.)
Content Warnings: None
Location: Diosdado's House
Mika has been unable to access her future visions because of a supernatural issue causing a black void to take their place, which has led her on a self destructive spiral. Anna has been trying to reach out to Mika to spend more time with her, especially after officially moving out of her home and into world renowened musician slash her friend Diosdado's. After a snowstorm, Mika finally accepted the invite.
Mika visits Anna in her new home and is unable to stand the changes from both of their lives. She deems it better to completely rip the friendship to shreds.
The title is a lyric from Sir Babygirl's Cheerleader!
Anna is used to Mika being distant. She’s used to Mika needing space, or not being very talkative. But at this point, she feels distinctly like Mika is avoiding her. When they’ve seen each other in person briefly, she’s practically felt the avoidance radiating off of her.
She’d thought they had worked things out… Is Mika still punishing her for leaving? It’s not undeserved. If Mika doesn’t want to see her, she can’t do much about it… But Mika isn’t saying that she doesn’t want to see Anna. It’s so frustrating.
Then, finally, she got ahold of Mika. After power was restored and the roads cleared, she’d finally gotten a response from Mika. A reply to one of Anna’s repeated invitations to come over and see her, promising food. ok.
Now here’s the awkward part. They’re sitting in Anna’s bedroom, Anna cross-legged on the bed and a large plate of cookies on a little breakfast tray balanced on the bed between them. It feels like they’re teenagers again, sequestered in Anna’s room during a sleepover.
“Have you been busy…? You hadn’t replied to me in a while.” She’s trying to make it sound casual and non-confrontational, but failing miserably with her stone-faced expression.
Mika was never the most social of people in the first place, and in times of high stress she always had a tendency to fade away from her friend’s lives by accident. It was never deliberate, though–the only people Anna ever saw her avoid were those who made her uncomfortable, for whatever reason.
After the snowstorm and after finally making it back to her parents’, the subject of Anna was somehow broached. They encouraged her to reach out again at least for a little bit. So she agreed to Anna’s invite, responded to nothing but attempts to plan, and that was that.
Now she’s sitting on Anna’s desk chair, coat on her lap. Her hair is shorter than it has been since Gazsi stuck gum in her hair in sixth grade.
She’s all stiff. This really, really sucks.
good. working. freelance. how are you.
Thinking about my options, I guess… Anna admits. I have savings, but I’ve been relying on my parents since coming back… I might need a job…
She sighs. She didn’t want to think about that, she wanted to focus on Mika and figuring out what’s wrong. But Diosdado is a good host. He gave me my own room, and doesn’t mind if I have Niko over… We all got snowed in together during the storm. She pauses, hands hovering restlessly.
Your hair looks pretty, she offers. Do you like it? Of course she likes it, she wouldn’t have cut it if she didn’t…
Is it shitty that she’s somewhat proud? Glad? Smug, that she has a stable career and a usable degree and a solid resume when Anna doesn’t? It’s barely a victory–she’s choosing to stay here and work for her mom regardless. But her skills are tangible and useful. She works independently from her parents in her free time. She’s able to spend all her saved up money on frivolous purchases.
She responds: maybe.
She imagines Diosdado (vaguely famous–she never really listened to his music), Niko (who she just argued with in the group chat a few weeks ago. Also insanely hot now), and Anna all stuck together, and that ugly feeling rises again. Anna can see her clench and unclench her fists, (self harmish) ||picking at the skin by her nails which was already dry and scabbed over.||
A question. Mika pauses with her hands. Looks back up at Anna. Others may see a neutral expression, maybe a little tired, but Anna knows Mika well enough to know the surge of annoyance and regret that flash through her eyes.
She’s never been all too good at hiding her negative emotions. ||She keeps picking.||
it’s ok. Subject change. it was nice of him. to give you a place to stay.
Anna’s eyes catch on Mika’s nails. She frowns a little, then she catches Mika’s expression. Guilt overwhelms her again. Mika is still mad. Still hurt. Maybe Anna hasn’t been prioritizing her enough… But then, Mika’s been ignoring her. Why? If she wants to spend more time with Anna… Anna is trying.
It was. I… He argued with my mother on my behalf. She looks down at her own hands. He’s amazing… I’m grateful.
She reaches out then. She lays her hands over Mika’s, stopping ||her picking||. “I’m worried about you,” she says quietly. “I know you’re mad at me… But it seems like it’s… like there’s more going on. What is it?”
She’s grateful. He’s amazing. Of course she is. Of course he is. He’s famous and rich and talented and has caught up to now-Anna. But he didn’t know her back then. Nobody knew her back then. Mika knew her. She thinks. She doesn’t think she does anymore. She thinks she resents Anna for changing.
Mika never reacts when you touch her, Anna, but now she flinches and nearly recoils from your touch. She jerks her hands away from Anna almost involuntarily and then puts them back on her lap as if nothing happened.
nothing. Obviously a lie, and it’s embarrassing how blatant it is. it’s not related to you. It is. it’s fine. how have you been? She already asked.
Anna startles at the reaction. Her expression only shifts slightly but you can tell, Mika– She’s hurt. She draws her hands back into her lap. Why is Mika acting like this…? Don’t look, she thinks to herself. Don’t peek at how she’s feeling. Tempting as it is, it would be an awful breach of privacy… But Mika won’t confide in her, and it’s painful and confusing.
Please, Mika. She looks openly upset now, pained in a way that few ever get the privilege to see. Aren’t you lucky, Mika? I can’t help if you don’t tell me. What do you need from me? What can I do? I’m worried…
Mika’s changed too, and Anna feels helpless and inadequate for not understanding.
She’s hurt. Why is she glad? Mika shouldn’t feel like this. It’s not Anna’s fault. None of it is. But that just makes it worse.
Can you feel anything from here, Anna? It practically radiates off of her. Anger and frustration and resentment and disgust. It wasn’t even this strong when you did fight, back in their house.
She just got here. She doesn’t want to talk about their issues. But luckily there’s many others she can draw from and still mean things all the same. And even though she doesn’t want to bring any of this up…
A distraction is a distraction.
i appreciate it. Really. She does. i don’t need your help. She doesn’t. She knows how to throw Anna off of her trail anyway.
my visions have almost stopped completely. but i still get them. it’s all void. it frustrates me. that’s all.
And if that doesn’t work, there’s always the other thing.
She can’t help but feel it. It isn’t like Anna has ironclad control, she can practically hear the screech of sour strings. Thankfully, Mika starts to open up. Your visions… I’m sorry. That must be difficult. That makes sense. Anna was worrying for nothing. It really wasn’t about her.
… But why resentment? Why disgust? And haven’t Mika’s visions always been a burden to her…? It’s not adding up. Maybe she’s still upset about Anna mentioning Niko… Anna’s learned to avoid talking too much about him, not wanting to make Mika feel ignored.
Okay, she allows. She picks up a cookie. It’s a store-bought dough, those little sugar cookies that have designs on them. These ones have hearts on them, a lingering design from Valentine’s. Hmm. What’s a good change of topic? Something that will clear the tension? And– just maybe –reveal another factor to Mika’s mood…
Are you still seeing that girl? Julie?
She buys it. Drops it. Picks up on her other subject change before Mika can tuck it away for later use.
Mika is halfway through stuffing a cookie in her mouth–(disordered eating) ||stress always makes her eat faster and without limits anyway||. Anna asks a seemingly innocent question.
They’ve known each other for so long that, even if involuntary, reading Mika’s emotions is akin to looking back on sheet music you worked on honing for years. She hasn’t changed too much, and that’s for better or for worse.
She’s changing now, in front of everyone who left her behind. Perhaps waiting until they all returned so she could catch up.
Mika tenses, her free index finger digs into the tender skin of her thumbnail, tugs. Mika shut herself in her room when she got back from Julie’s. She didn’t leave for an entire day. The thought of letting anyone else look at her was unbearable.
yes. Her gestures are softer, looser than usual. i was at her apartment. for the snowstorm. Caught her by surprise, by the looks of it. Isn’t that strange?
… Is that part of it? Mika is tensing, picking again. Maybe they’re fighting… Maybe it isn’t going well? She feels very protective all of a sudden. Hadn’t Parva said that Julie was a bully? Maybe Mika is hiding something because she doesn’t want Anna to worry…
Anna looks at Mika thoughtfully. She seems to be picking her words more carefully as she asks another question. How are things with her… Good…?
She doesn’t know whether to be frustrated or glad that Anna is struggling so much through this conversation. She doesn’t know much of anything anymore. As gruelling and annoying as Julie is, at least she always leads their conversations and cares very little for Mika’s strange emotional intricacies.
She’s not sure why, but she’s almost embarrassed talking about this? She hates that she even asked them for advice on how to navigate their first date. She was still nervous to even get touched by Julie. Now…
Well. She’s basically a glorified novelty toy. But that’s beside the point.
it’s very casual. Quick to correct. nothing serious. she’s ok. Not enough. i don’t like her. Too much. like that.
Anna’s expression of concern doesn’t fade. Maybe Mika wants it to be serious, and Julie doesn’t… Or maybe Julie is pushing her around because Julie wants it to be serious and Mika doesn’t… She’s making up soap operas in her mind now, this isn’t productive.
I’ve had relationships like that, she says carefully. It can be hard… When you don’t have the same expectations… My first girlfriend in New York wanted something serious, and I wasn’t ready for that…
She’s going out on a limb, either Mika will agree or she’ll correct Anna, and then Anna will have more information.
no, an immediate correction, because maybe at the thought of anything serious between her and Julie she immediately cringes. It would be awful. It would be hell.
(“Does it feel good to use others for your self-pity spirals?” She’s still not sure. Something within her is demanding that she keeps going. That she make everything worse and burn it all down. It all comes full circle anyway–she always loved watching things burn as a teenager. There was no better way to relieve her stress.)
neither of us want it to be serious. She’s pretty sure. But then, more harsh and aggressive, body language tense and guarded, she signs: i don’t need your advice.
Anna looks hurt again. Sorry, she signs simply. And that’s the awful thing here, isn’t it? Anna caves so easily, all guilt and apology. If Mika wanted to burn her, she would apologize all the while.
Sorry. I keep fucking this up. I just worry about you… It feels inadequate. She’s inadequate, always failing some kind of surprise test from Mika recently. Only Mika knows what the passing score is, or even the criteria. We can talk about something else. What do you want to talk about…? Is work okay…?
This is the second time. Has it always been that easy to hurt Anna? Mika never tried. For all her physical inadequacies she always tried to shield Anna emotionally as much as possible. She’d be there after people made fun of them and after fights with her mother and after any sort of struggle in town.
She stopped messaging Anna soon after she moved away.
She doesn’t want to be here anymore. She wants to leave. She’s uncomfortable. Talking to Anna is just making her just as mad and frustrated as hearing from her in their group chat or in private messages did. Is it Anna’s fault? It’s not. Maybe. It isn’t her fault. Mika doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. She just knows that it’s severe and unbearable and that the phases of her life where she’s supposed to feel this volatile sort of anger are over.
She takes another cookie and stuffs it in her mouth. Chews. Signing to others requires no usage of your mouth but she doesn’t sign anything while she has the cookie.
it’s ok.
Another cookie. Silence. She doesn’t look at Anna at all.
Anna can’t read Mika. She can’t stand it. Why is she acting like this? Why is she doing this? Anna thought that everything was alright now. They’re best friends, they should be able to figure this out.
She shouldn’t pry, because it would be an awful thing to do. She isn’t entitled to knowing what Mika is feeling, if Mika doesn’t want to share it, she shouldn’t have to. But yet– Wouldn’t it make things easier, if Anna just opened herself up and listened? If she just knew, without any of the messy issue of talking about it?
Wouldn’t that help?
In contrast, Anna stares at Mika. She folds her hands in her lap and stares, straining to listen for those telltale notes that tell her… What is Mika feeling?
Auto-pass: you were best friends. How hard could it be to look through her when you watched each other grow up?
Overpowering, overwhelming: discomfort. Decorating every other emotion–even the positive ones, and radiating off of her in rolling waves (not that it was difficult to see, even without powers).
There’s more bad than there is good. But you already knew that. Frustration, for the most part–though you can’t tell who exactly it’s aimed at. Frustration and anger and jealousy, somewhere, right next to resentment. Too much of it.
Usually with Mika there’s a telltale thrum of anxiety just as present and consistent as electricity in a room. But now its absence is palpable and in its place is the aforementioned anger. Nebulous and loud, a knot tangling itself around every other part of Mika.
Embarrassed, right now, though that’s temporary. Embarrassed and sad, side by side, rolling together (the same issue? Separate? Who knows).
It keeps going. It doesn’t end. A wide array of negative emotions like the world’s nastiest rainbow. And at the bottom, buried, the gold pot at the end–there’s that fondness. Affection. Supporting every other feeling piled on top.
Anna feels like a monster. But she’s relieved. Because at the end of it all, there’s still affection. Even if she’s angry, she still loves Anna.
It’s worth it to have broken Mika’s trust and privacy, for the sheer relief of knowing. And doesn’t that feel awful?
The twisting ebb of feeling makes her head hurt, too many emotions nestling into her mind as if they’re her own. She has to be careful, she can’t get so emotional that she traps herself and Mika in some kind of feedback loop. She lifts a hand to her forehead and kneads at it, brow crinkled.
“Mika,” she says aloud, voice gentle. “I miss you. I’m sorry for upsetting you… I don’t know what happened, or if it was me, or… You don’t have to tell me… But I’m here for you.”
Then, lifting her hands, I love you. No matter what, always.
Mika doesn’t know what happened either. Maybe they just grew up. Maybe Mika finally caught up to Anna and ended up too different to get along. Maybe she’s just mad at herself because everyone else has no issue catching up to Anna and here she is falling behind. And she’s unable to even muster up the mood to make an effort.
She squeezes her eyes shut. Every sentence Anna says feels like a knife to her chest. Why did she agree to this? It’s difficult because none of this is Anna’s fault and she doesn’t want to even see where it begins. When it began or why or how.
Clenching her fists. Unclenching. She digs a sharper part of her nail into her thumbnail. Pulls.
She doesn’t want to keep struggling like this for the rest of her life.
She wants to get as far away from Anna as possible.
She wants to get as far away from New Portsmouth as possible.
Is that how they all felt?
ok. sorry for being weird. She is. we can talk about something else now. Unrelated to their friendship.
Anna catches Mika’s hands gently. Smooths her thumb over a bleeding hangnail. “You’re not weird… It’s okay.” They’re both weird. But it is okay. It doesn’t seem like her words have helped much, though… No. She closes herself off, determined not to use… it on Mika ever again.
“I could paint your nails,” she offers quietly. “And we could watch a movie, or something…” Something normal, something fun. They’re friends, no matter what. They’re going to be okay.
They’re both weird. It’s a lie. There’s a reason they never had many friends in school anyway. Everyone thought they were rude and stuck up.
…if Anna paints her nails then she doesn’t have to talk at all. That’s good. Less of a liability. Safe.
that’s fine. we can do that. It’s childish. Mika’s nails are short and bloody from being picked at and bitten too often. She hates the feeling of Anna’s hands on her despite loving it for so long.
The last time Anna painted your nails was in high school. She had shorter hair, and had only started HRT a few months previously. She was icy, difficult to read for most, and strange. And she was your best friend.
Now the two of you are older, and Anna radiates that sense of peace and contentment that she never used to have. An ugly duckling turned into a swan indeed. She sets up a movie on her laptop and they sit on the floor, and Anna braids her hair back before she gets out the nail polish. She feels like she could spend forever catching up on the ‘girly’ things she was always afraid of when she was young.
Her touch is gentle and familiar. She doesn’t say anything about Mika’s nails being too short or bloody. She just cleans them off carefully.
With Anna’s hair pulled back, her neck is bared to Mika’s gaze. (implied nsfw) ||There’s a telltale bruise where her shoulder meets her neck.||
She used to bring Anna pretty accessories Laure bought for her that she never used. Mika was never too good at being a girl because she never cared much for her own identity in general, but she always tried to share that experience with Anna in private. As much as they both could with their limited resources and their limited knowledge.
It was theirs. It was a time where Mika could be a calmer and more loved version of herself. Anna understood her more than anyone else did.
Anna has grown better at this than Mika did, with her carefully tended to hair and her graceful posture and her styled clothes.
She bites her lip and shuffles in her seat and doesn’t pull away despite the pain from her fingers.
And for no reason at all, while Mika was supposed to be watching the movie with her eyes clearly on the screen, she jerks back, smudging the nail polish all over her ring finger. Stiff. Nothing in the movie is special, Anna, but any sense of calm you two fostered in silence is gone again.
Anna pauses, staring at the smudged nail polish. “Sorry,” she says automatically. She grabs the nail polish remover to wipe Mika’s finger clean, focused. Then she looks up at Mika. Glances at the screen, then back at Mika.
“Are you alright…?” She releases Mika’s hands so she can reply, brow furrowed in worry. She wishes she understood what keeps shattering their equilibrium. She wishes she understood Mika.
It feels like a knife between her ribs to think that she let them grow this far apart. All because of her fruitless attempts to run away from the past.
It was so easy before. There was something so idiotically simple about their friendship when they were teenagers that’s impossible to recover now. She never doubted Anna’s friendship for one second. She never resented her.
She does now.
When they were younger, and just awkward mutual friends of Anna’s, Mika and Parvaneh would head to the junkyard a ways away from New Portsmouth together. They’d make a pile, and then set up folding chairs, dump gasoline over it and watch the ways different types of garbage reacted to a heat. Mika always loved the way small bits of metal would bend and give in to the pressure and fall through the cracks of the bigger items in the pile. It was a meditative and soothing practice that helped her feel better about all the intricate ways her life would fall apart.
Before that, even younger, she’d bring her parents’ shoes to the bathroom and set a kitchen lighter to them, and keep it there until the material was engulfed in heat. It was a way she could communicate her dissatisfaction and unhappiness in a situation when she was unable to use her words.
In a way, she never grew out of the habit of burning things to the ground.
we can’t be friends anymore, she signs. The surviving length of her white hair still works to shroud her face from expressions when she doesn’t want to be seen.
Anna’s chest seizes. “What?” She sounds lost, even without seeing her expression. Can you imagine the look on her face, Mika?
Before Parvaneh even, there was Mika. However much they’ve grown apart, they started as Mika-and-Anna. When Anna first saw Mika… She wanted to protect her. She had seemed so fragile and lost, Anna wanted nothing more than to make her happy. She’d almost brawled Gazsi over Mika’s honor once, had stood up for her time and time again, confided in her.
Mika is just a part of life.
… How awful of her to be upset, when she was the one who abandoned Mika first.
“No. Please…” She must sound pathetic, childish. But she can’t think of anything more eloquent. “I know you’re still mad at me for leaving you alone. But just tell me what I can do to make it up to you, and I’ll do it… Anything but that, Mika…” Her eyes have widened, she looks almost frantic now.
She can’t. It’s funny. She’s never heard Anna’s voice this bad before. Can’t exactly form it in her mind. She always hated seeing Anna upset.
Anna was the first person Mika ever spoke to. They learned sign language together so she could better communicate with someone without having to write. Before she could even warm up to her new parents, she’d warmed up to Anna. During the worst of her unmedicated visions it was her people knew could calm Mika down or, at the very least, sit with her until they were over.
She knew Anna would come back. She also knew they’d never be that close again. She doesn’t know anything for certain anymore.
Anything, anything….stupid, stupid Anna. Part of her chest is screaming to smooth over the pain for her. The other…
it’s my fault. i’m being immature. i can’t get over it. She’s ruining it before it can be ruined involuntarily. it’s for the best. it’ll be ok.
What are you talking about? Her hands move frantically, but Mika isn’t looking at her. “What do you mean? Can’t get over what?” She feels like Mika’s already closing off a door by refusing to look at her, not letting her speak to Mika in their first and most fluent language.
“It’s not for the best. I won’t… I won’t let you. I won’t be okay, Mika…” It’s funny how she can look Parva’s demons in the eye calmly and stand her ground, but sitting in her bedroom with one of her closest friends, no danger in sight, she crumples. “Please, tell me what’s wrong. Tell me how to fix it.”
She hates talking about her feelings, but it’s felt like all she’s done lately. With her parents and with Julie and even now. Every dam time she just feels selfish and gross for forcing people to listen to what she’s feeling, because it’s so messy and endless and unfixable that the only thing she’s doing is taking up space in others’ heads with it.
Not only that: it’s embarrassing, too. Selfish and unnecessary and irrational. She wishes she were in high school again where all of her feelings felt like they were dulled down and out of sight.
i get mad, she begins, and even though there’s no voice to indicate her thought process, the way she signs her words is loose and hesitant–like the gestures she’s doing could fall apart if she just shook her hand a little.
when i see you with other people. being close to other people. Still refusing to look at Anna, focusing on her hands instead.
it’s not your fault. i just hate feeling like that. i hate feeling like i need to catch up. i hate feeling like i’m fighting for your attention and failing by default.
Anna’s brow crinkles in confusion. “Mika… I…”
What can she do? How can she convince Mika how deeply she cares when she’s been showing everything to the contrary? She abandoned Mika.
“You don’t have to fight for my attention. You already have it. We’ve… been friends longer than anyone else. Nothing changes that for me… I know it’s different, with me dating Niko, but… He’s not replacing you. It’s just a different relationship…”
She leans closer, reaches to place her hands on Mika’s knees instead so Mika can still talk. “What can I do… How do you want me to prove it to you? You avoid me when I try to reach out…”
Does time mean anything, really? Sometimes the longest standing things aren’t the best for you–just a stable comfort. If that.
Mika doesn’t allow the touch: she jerks away and pulls her knees close to her chest so Anna can’t touch them as easily anymore.
i told you i’m being immature. i don’t know how to fix it. It wouldn’t be fair to make Anna leave everything that makes her happy behind, especially with Mika as such a lacklustre replacement.
She may not have a job and she may be struggling to get her life together after just managing to break away from her parents, but Anna is leagues better than Mika in so many ways. It’s not fair she weighs her down. She deserves to be with friends who help lift her up without getting irrationally mad every time they see her smile.
i don’t want to be angry anymore.
Anna crumples into herself, chest aching. She’s hurting Mika. That’s the crux of it. She’s hurting Mika, and she doesn’t know how to fix it.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. Her voice sounds strained. Her eyes are burning, threatening to spill over with tears. “I didn’t know I was causing you so much pain.” So much pain that Mika would rather run away from her than try to salvage their relationship.
“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you to be angry. If you think that this is what you need, I…” Anna chokes on the words. Her voice wavers. Her next intake of breath is an awful, shuddering sound. She’s crying, Mika. You can count the amount of times she’s cried in front of you on one hand.
(“Does it feel good to use others for your self-pity spirals?” Not particularly, but it feels better than sitting herself down and forcing them to properly salvage something ruined by Mika’s self-centeredness.)
But seeing Anna cry out of the corner of her eye doesn’t hurt her any less. That, at least, doesn’t feel good: because it is self-pity that’s leading her to burn down this relationship too. Another cycle of things she’s ruining and losing just because she feels like she’s losing control of her life.
She can’t apologise. But maybe she can make it easier on Anna. Make her feel like it is for the best, like she will be better off without her. It’s a challenge to see how much she can make Anna Petrikov hate her before she leaves Diosdado’s house.
i hate Niko. (She doesn’t fingerspell his name–she uses the same sign they thought of back then. A variation on the sign for bitch.) i hate seeing you two together. i hate that you’re closer to Parvaneh now instead of me. i hate your new friends. i hate this living arrangement. i wish you’d managed to stay in new york so i wouldn’t have to see you come back.
Anna’s always known that Mika is abraisive. She can be downright mean, but Anna’s never been on this side of it. It hurts.
She brings an arm up to scrub over her face, trying to muffle the sound of her shaky breaths.
“I wish I had managed to stay away too,” she says, voice cracking. “I tried so hard. But I can’t— I’m going to die here. I’m sorry that I can’t leave.” This feels like her personal hell, a punishment crafted just for her.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I’m not… doing this right.” Another shaky breath. “I’m sorry for fucking everything up. It’s okay if you hate me too.”
The times where she got into arguments with others when they were younger were few, but she was always able to hold her own in anything that wasn’t a physical fight. Observant and blunt by nature–she’s never had trouble hitting where it hurts even when she doesn’t mean to.
It’s still not enough. Mika thinks she hates herself more than she could make Anna hate her. She could take it all back still. It’s not too late. Apologise and talk about how bad it’s been and all of the bad things she’s done to feel better about it. They could go back to the movie afterward. It could return to their closest approximation of normal: the cat’s out of the bag, anyway.
But this would always be a nasty stain in their friendship and the issues would still exist. Maybe the awkwardness would be even worse. Maybe Anna would, retroactively, realise how much she should hate Mika and break it off when she let her guard down again.
She doubles down, trying to swerve away from the personal comments and into more self centered ones. Give Anna less to ruminate over once she’s out. Would Anna kick her out? Why is she still tolerating this? She had no trouble almost getting into a fight with Gazsi when he made Mika react this way.
i hate seeing you happy and satisfied without me. Is that selfish enough? i hate that others know you better. Can she stop crying and be angry? It would be easier then. i don’t want to keep seeing you be happy while i’m not. It’s not Anna’s fault. Can she understand it now? you could still try and leave but you’re scared to. i can’t respect you. Please.
There’s the nerve. Mika finds it and presses hard without even knowing. Anna flinches like Mika struck her. “I can’t… I’ll die if I leave,” she says miserably. “I’m stuck here, and Parva is struggling with all these things I can’t save them from, and you hate me, and I can’t avoid my family here for the rest of my life.”
She bites her lip to repress an ugly sound. “Niko makes me happy here. Diosdado makes me feel normal, like I’m not just- just my last name, or my family, he’s only ever known Anna.”
Good job, Mika. She is getting angry now. “Yes, they make me happy. They make this feel bearable. And I’m trying to make you happy too, I’m trying to get to know you all over again, and you won’t let me.”
She doesn’t know if Anna will leave. She doesn’t know if Anna will die when she leaves. She never predicted a future in which she’d be fighting with Anna right after a snowstorm, but then again Julie never even arrived in her visions and if she tries to look now it’s just a black void.
She has no clue what sort of future she’s pushing them toward. She has no clue if it’s the one she wants at all.
At least it’s working. She has no problem making herself look and sound as awful as possible if it means Anna will give up on them after. And maybe it won’t hurt as much. And maybe she’ll know it was unsalvageable then.
i never changed, anna. Did she? The first time you two saw each other again, as adults, Mika looked like a ghost of the past. The only things that changed were the signs of maturity on her face. Even her glasses were the exact same frames.
But the person in front of Anna now is changing every time they see each other again. Her hair is shorter and her anxious habits have corrupted into something else and today her clothes are mostly black. How does someone change so quickly? Right in front of you?
there was nothing new to know. Was. you always blame yourself for anything bad that happens and then black out anything that proves otherwise.
Mika loves you a lot, Anna. More than she’s ever loved anyone else her age. She hates it.
i don’t make you happy. i’ll always be reminding you of the past. we’ll always be miserable spending time together. we need to let go. you can’t keep trying.
“You’re changing now. You’re different.” Is this how Mika felt? Lost, unrecognizing?
Anna scrubs her hands over her face, tries desperately to stop crying. One breath, two.
“Don’t tell me how I do or don’t feel. Tell me you hate me, or you don’t want to see me. But don’t tell me that you don’t make me happy. It’s not true.”
Another breath. She’s pulling herself together. “Okay,” she says. And she sounds some approximation of her normal self. Not only that, she sounds like she’s talking to someone else. Maybe you’ve heard her talking to her mother with the same neutral tone. Closed off, so terribly acquiescing.
“If that’s what you want from me, okay. But you’re the one choosing this. I’m agreeing because I want you to be happy.” She had told Mika she would do anything, hadn’t she?
It isn’t so surprising a reaction if you think about it, Mika. It took Anna until the age of 31 to step out of her mother’s shadow, bearing harsh words and always retaining some kind of loyalty to her family. She’s grown up understanding love to be something filled with barbs and pain. Something to suffer for.
Mika mastered the art of silent crying before elementary school ended. She barely cried, but when she did she had an uncanny ability to fade into the shadows and be forgotten completely until she was calmer. It’s here now (funny, that both of you are crying when you barely ever cry), but there’s nowhere for her to fade away. Against the guest room she looks a little duller.
She stands (shoves two cookies into her pockets and one in her mouth frantically for good measure). Her goal achieved as much as it could have, even if hearing the distance in Anna’s voice (sui ideation) ||makes her want to die more than anything has in a long time.||
She could’ve been selfish and monopolised Anna’s attention all to herself when she said she’d do anything. But she’s making way for Anna’s new life. A new version of New Portsmouth.
Now to twist the knife.
it won’t. It never would. i’d be miserable either way. i don’t know how to be friends with people without dragging them down anymore.
Not a knife. Self pity again. Is she hoping Anna changes her mind? She isn’t. She shouldn’t chase after Mika.
She doesn’t know what to say anymore.
i want you to feel how i’ve felt. and then you won’t forget even when i’m gone.
“There’s no amount of time that would make me forget you.” Anna looks tired now. Resigned. Everyone always leaves eventually, after all. Anna will never be enough, she’ll never be able to get it right.
Mika is just another person that Anna’s disappointed. Anna should be used to how this feels by now.
She’s offered Mika everything, begged her to give Anna some direction. Doesn’t Mika know that Anna would let Mika drag her down with her? But it wasn’t enough. Maybe Mika doesn’t believe that Anna would do it, with how Anna’s let her down before.
She doesn’t move from the bed, she can’t bear the idea of seeing Mika out.
“I love you, Mika. I’m sorry… I never should have left you alone.”
Mika was still a junior in high school when Anna graduated, but she’d begun pulling away since then. The last few weeks she could chalk it up to junior strain–the last semester where her grades truly mattered if she wanted to make it anywhere good. But Anna already had a plan. Anna was ready to leave.
Mika knew this because, at eleven years old, she had a vision in which she tracked someone’s flight from Seattle to New York City. A year later, she saw Anna–older, pretty, nervous–holding her hand gently and telling her about her finalised plans to move away. A memory of a vision at eight years old of an Adult Anna–graceful and poised and beautiful–running into Mika at a grocery store.
She operated the rest of their friendship accordingly. She squeezed out every moment they could get together and never left Anna’s side unless it was truly necessary. Her small, white-tinted shadow. While she refused to get closer to Parvaneh because she knew of their eventual death, she knew the loss of Anna wouldn’t last. Not really.
But she never accounted for the bitterness of watching your closest friend leave without looking back. The guilt and anger at being part of Anna’s past now that prevented her from ever reaching out. She looked up her name a couple of times. She never visited.
When she was a young teenager she thought they’d finally be able to figure everything out after Anna came back. She’d be more comfortable with herself and she’d be stuck in New Portsmouth and maybe they could both move out and live together. Mika would have a stable and good job and wouldn’t mind covering for Anna while she found her own new path. They’d be just as close as they used to be. This was the path they were supposed to take.
Mika hates crying, but she’s shedding tears like an idiot anyway–her strained breathing is audible even from across the room where she stands.
i love you too. She signs back, then pivots on her heel and closes the door after herself when she leaves Anna’s room.
I’ll call, Anna had promised Mika at the airport. And she had texted, she had called faithfully. But then she got busy with school. Then she started meeting people, she was intoxicated by the novelty of reinventing herself. Her new friends didn’t know awkward, shy teenage Anna. They didn’t know that Anna’s mother wouldn’t let her go out on weeknights until she was 18, they’d never seen a picture of Anna before she started HRT.
A classmate asked her out, not knowing that Anna had never been allowed to be in a relationship until now. Anna had pretended it wasn’t her first relationship, because the classmate had assumed it wasn’t her first.
Relationships erode in small ways, a slowly widening crack that’s suddenly a chasm before you realize anything has changed. Texts became infrequent, calls even moreso. Anna came back to New Portsmouth strictly for brief obligatory family visits.
She’s the one who’s to blame for this, if she really thinks about it. Mika accused her of blaming herself for everything, but it’s true here. It was Anna who let go first.
How awful, how cruel. Crying and acting like the injured party when you struck the first blow.
Anna puts her face into her pillow and she cries again. Heaving, ugly sounds that not even Mika or Parva have been allowed to hear.
Inadequate, she’s so horribly inadequate.