Chapter Text
Monday:
2:00 am
Vi <3: Cupcake! Pow told me you went home early. Is everything okay??
7:00 am
Vi <3: Where are you? We have to go soon, or we'll be late for school.
Missed call from Vi <3
Missed call from Vi <3
10:45 am
Vi <3: Cait, what's going on?? I'm starting to really worry. I couldn't find you anywhere in form, and now it's break time and there's no sign of you anywhere. I asked Claggor if he knew where you were and he has no idea either. Are you sick?
Missed call from Vi <3
13:00 pm
Vi <3: I went to the Sports Hall to ask Powder if she'd heard from you since the party but she said she tried to call you too this morning and you haven't picked up. You've never missed a day of school for the last two years. What's going on??
15:45 pm
Vi <3: I'm coming over. I brought some Lindt from the Coop, your fav. I really hope everything is okay. You've had me worried sick <3
16:45 pm
Vi: I rang the bell but Cassandra says you don't want to see anyone since you're ill and it could be contagious. I left the chocolates with her, call me once you're feeling better <3
Wednesday:
16:00 pm.
Vi <3: Cait, I've only been able to get my phone back now since my dad confiscated it because otherwise I'd 'spiral,' it's been two days you haven't been in school and none of us have heard a trace. Is it serious???
Missed call from Vi <3
Missed call from Vi <3
Missed call from Vi <3
19:00 pm:
Vi <3: Cait, please answer me!
Eleven pm:
Vi <3: Powder went over to your home to check on you this time and Cassandra told her you have the flu so won't be in for the rest of the week. It sounds awful princess, I'm sorry :,(. I know you probably won't see this for a bit until you're feeling better. I'll stop messaging you, so you can rest. I'm sorry for panicking. You can call me anytime, okay? x.
*
I'm staring at the messages Vi had sent me over the past week, my heart sinking. I knew to my very bones I couldn't ignore her forever. But, I couldn't bring myself to even take a look at her after what went down at the party.
And the truth was I had no right to be mad and yet it still hurt like hell when I saw her kiss that other girl in front of me. I'd always known Vi hooked up with girls at parties, I'd done the same. So why did this bother me so much?
Maybe because I'd never actually had to see any of it. Until, that night. When I did, I realised I couldn't pretend anymore, that in fact these feelings that had somehow been festering inside of me since I was sixteen would continue to grow and intensify until I finally let myself acknowledge them for what they were. Strong.
I was in love.
I'd known Vi since I was like eleven and we'd been best friends for that same amount of time. Since we'd been in secondary school I'd either be at her house for dinner or she'd be at mine, we'd spend hours together on the weekend with our friend group jumping rooftops or at our hideout so Vi could work on her fighting skills and Powder could improve her aim with the shooting range with me. Meanwhile, Ekko, Mylo and Claggor could goof off trying to challenge each other to arcade games by inserting 50p coins into the worn-out plastic slots of the machines.
Every weekend we were having sleepovers with our friends, telling ghost stories by the glow of lanterns in the dark, watching movies until our heads ached and Ekko fell asleep.
This was the early adolescence I'd found myself in and continued to be a part of now that Vi and I were 18, and I'd used to love every second of it.
But then, Vi came out as a lesbian when we turned 16, two months after I had. Suddenly, the boundaries between "platonic" and "romantic" started to blurr. If we cuddled before going to bed for too long I'd notice my heart racing a little harder than normal, if she held my hand and twirled me while we were on my way to school the colour in my cheeks would turn too red, if she had her arm around me while we played board games with our friends I'd start to feel chills wrack my body. It only worsened with time. By age 17, I couldn't even look into her eyes for too long without feeling the breath catch in my throat.
And then there came the dirty thoughts that tortured me when she lay too close to my side, when we sat alone on the rooftop looking at the stars or wore clothes that showed off her toned muscles.
However, none of this could compare to the torture of somehow being in this ambiguous in-between of being best friends and just about toeing the line of something more. That longing, yearning for more and believing you're close to getting what you want and then realising it's not going to come, is exactly what had started to keep me up at night by the time I'd turned 18.
Vi had noticed too, the tiredness, the gloom that had entered my eyes and never quite left. She'd started to worry about me, which was typical of Vi, always focused on others and not taking the time to really look at herself.
I'd brushed it off for months as just being the result of sixth form. To this day, I'm not even sure if she'd fully bought it. However, she stopped asking me questions after a while when it had occurred to her I wasn't going to budge.
After keeping it in for the last two years, all this complex web of emotion was finally starting to unfurl, despite the fact I clearly wasn't ready.
Not that life cared much about whether I was 'ready.'
So now, I sit in my bed and turn over on my pillow and switch my phone off with a sigh. My mother hadn't exactly been thrilled when I'd asked her to lie for me. "Communication is key," she'd always said to me.
Easy for her to say. She'd never been friends with dad, he'd just approached her and they'd started talking from that night on until they'd got together a month later. What would she know about going from friends to lovers? Probably, nothing.
I'm thinking back to what Vander had said to me a few days ago. "Sometimes, you need to get those feelings out, no matter how scary they might seem." He'd glanced at Vi as she walked past the door to go help Powder out with her inventions. As he'd told me that, whilst tending to my knee cap injury I'd received after the usual rooftop chase, I remembered wondering if he was onto me. Did he somehow know I was in love with Vi? But, how could he know? I'd never told anyone, and Vi certainly hadn't noticed, or she'd have definitely have said something.
It was exactly Vi's potential reaction that was interfering with my decision to tell her. I knew, deep down, if I chose to confess, that nothing would ever be the same.
I switch my light off and get ready to sleep. Guess, I'd have to find out in the coming days....
*
I woke up to my phone ringing. It was a Friday. I'd officially not been in school for almost two weeks. A little irresponsible on my part since I had A-levels this year but it would have to do for now. In this state, I wouldn't have been able to concentrate in class anyway.
I pick it up and I'm surprised to see, it's Ekko. I'm about to switch it off, when I hear a rock make contact with my window. I rub my eyes and walk towards it, a little dazed still from just waking up. To my horror, the white-haired friend of mine is down below, fixing me with a pissed-off look. I panic and draw the purple blind down as I turn around, squishing my back against the wall.
Guess my inevitable fate had caught up with me.
*
My mother had let Ekko into my bedroom, I did see this as a form of betrayal on her part. Then again, I should've known better than to assume that the cunning Cassandra Kiramman wouldn't find a way to make me face my fears.
In her own way, she was loyal to me. I suppose.
I'm refusing to look at Ekko while he leans against my door, a frown on his face.
"I don't even know where to start..." Ekko begins as I draw my knees to my chin and run my fingers through my loose electric blue hair.
"Then don't," Is all I manage to say.
"What the hell do you mean don't? Cait? You've been absent from school for TWO WEEKS. TWO." He started on his lecture, I could feel the room start to shake in my mind's eye.
"Yeah..I know but-"
"But what?? You had everyone in the Wick home thinking you were in trouble after you ignored their texts and calls, then Cassandra tells them you have the flu and can't see anyone for a while but you'd get back to Vi and the others when you felt better and NOW I come over after Vi and Powder tell me what the hell has been going on, to see if in fact it's all a bunch of baloney like my gut is telling me. And I'm right!! What the HELL is happening???" Ekko let everything that I'd left unaddressed for the last little while come out as he breathed deeply, shaking with anger.
"I'm sorry! OKAY?" I stand up, my fists clenched as I move a strand of blue hair out of my eyes. "I just needed time to think and be alone to gather my thoughts together. I wasn't ready to talk to any of you..."
"So you lie?! I don't give a shit if you 'needed time,' Cait! You could've at least said that!" He cuts me off, before I'm able to fully finish my sentence. "What you did was fucked up. We all thought it was serious, considering you couldn't even pick up your phone to shoot us a message!"
"I know!" I yell at him, making him stop. I rarely got mad at Ekko, so, of course, he immediately fell silent whenever I did. I groan, my mother really was making me communicate. Fine. So be it. I may have been a liar but I knew when to draw the line. I sit back down on the end of my bed and I start to talk. "I didn't tell any of you that I needed some time away, because I knew that information would get to Vi and she'd be by my door in seconds."
Ekko didn't try to argue. He knew I had a point. "Is that so bad?" His tone was softer now, the way I preferred it as he sat beside me.
I look over at him. "Considering, she's the one person I'm trying to avoid. Yes. Very."
This made him arch an eyebrow. "What did Vi do?" He felt challenged, Vi had very rarely upset me this much in all the years of our friendship.
His dark brown irises peer into my blue ones, searching for any signs of pain. I'd always loved Ekko, he'd be there to defend me in a heart-beat. No hesitation. Even from one of our friends, even Powder. The one thing that got to him more than anything else, was a sense of injustice. I start to feel my eyes well up with tears as I begin to let out what I'd been holding in for years.
"I saw Vi kiss someone at the party we went to the last time we all hung out and it-fucking-hurt-" I stammered the last three words since voicing this was never what I'd have seen myself end up doing. I waited, for judgement for criticism, for any affirmation that my intense ass feelings for my best friend were somehow wrong but instead of anything negative, I felt his hand lay on top of mine gently and soon we were squeezing each others palms, like we had countless times in the past few years, whenever the other was going through something.
I finally dared to look at him, I saw a look of empathy and deep understanding. I was shocked.
"How long have you felt this way for Vi?" He asked me, encouragingly, like he'd talk to the children at his gap year work experience thing.
"Two years..." I whispered.
His jaw dropped and I saw tears appear in Ekko's own eyes. "And you've...been dealing with this all...alone?"
I guess I had. "To put it...in simpler terms...sure."
He immediately wrapped his arms around me and brought me in for a crushing hug that almost took me off balance.
"I had a feeling that there was something more between you and Vi...but...I never knew that you had left it untouched completely...felt more like a shared knowledge neither of you had put into words yet." He said and now it was my turn to be puzzled.
"You...knew?" Clearly, he hadn't been too far off, but I returned the weight and hugged him back harder.
At that he laughed a little, as he continued holding me. "Kind of hard to not notice, though I did always wonder why you and Vi hooked up with-"
"Geez, do you need to say that any louder?" I said, a combination of sarcastic, whilst also not wanting to think about that right now, as I buried my head in his shoulder, though a grin found its way onto my features.
Ekko chuckled apologetically. "Guess not."
There was silence between us for a while, as I continued to clutch him and he continued to comfort me like this for as long as I might need until he found the will to speak again. "But Cait...you shouldn't have to blame yourself. You can't. It's not in your control, none of this is. Otherwise, it would all be resolved already. Why didn't you tell me or the others sooner?"
"I don't know..I just felt...ashamed..maybe. I mean, our families are very close..I guess I was scared you guys wouldn't approve or think it's weird?" I said, deflated.
Ekko's jaw dropped. "WHAT? If anything, the opposite! I can't imagine anyone would be more supportive of the idea of you and Vi together. I mean you guys are incredibly compatible, we love YOU and no..in my head there's no one more perfect for Vi."
He knocked the breath out of my lungs by saying that. "You're..serious?"
Ekko laughed. "Of course I'm serious dork." He prodded my chest as I finally let go of him. "Do you have so little faith in yourself that you could seriously believe you AREN'T perfect for Vi?"
I hadn't much thought of it. I was grieving too much over the notion Vi would never return my feelings. "Even if so, it doesn't matter. Vi doesn't feel the same. Otherwise, she wouldn't have kissed that girl IN FRONT OF ME." I plainly stated, anger working its way into my expression as I now ignored it. It's not Vi's fault. She doesn't know how you feel. I reminded myself.
Ekko didn't seem convinced. "What's, that got to do with anything? You've hooked up with other girls at parties too in the past, maybe not since your feelings intensified to THIS extent. But you did so all the same. Did that mean you didn't like Vi?"
No. Of course not. "That's different Ekko, I stopped the minute I started feeling this grow and understanding that Vi and I had something...special to me..."
My friend shrugged. "Vi isn't you. She can go down a whole wrong path when convinced of an idea."
I wasn't following. "What do you mean?"
Ekko snorted and tapped my forehead. "COME ON Cait. For someone so good in school, you'd think you'd know what I'm getting at."
I scoffed as I struggled to follow his train of thought. "Sadly, I'm very heart broken right now."
Now it was little man's turn to roll his eyes. "I'm trying to say, that if Vi did like you, it's not out of character for her to distract herself from her feelings by hooking up with other people. Think about it, the idiot makes rash, impulsive decisions all the damn time. Especially, when she's trying to avoid her feelings."
That made sense to me, but even so, why publicly. "But, why in front of me?"
Ekko chuckled. "Maybe like you, she's certain you could never return her feelings."
I considered this, and suddenly, whatever mind fog I'd had went away and was replaced with a new sense of frustration towards my best friend. "I swear to god Ekko if you're right-"
"Don't break something." He caught my hand before I could throw the cup full of water my mother had laid on my bed side table at the wall.
I growled. "I'll be so pissed off if it turns out we were just dancing around each other for TWO years."
Ekko smiled. "Shouldn't you be glad?"
"Maybe..." My phone dinged beside me with a new text from Vi as Ekko pushed me off the bed in encouragement with a smirk.
Vi <3: Powder said Ekko went to yours...Cait, are you really sick or..did I do something wrong? It kills me to know that I can't make it better if I have.
I cursed. Shit.
Ekko cringed for me. "She's on to you."
I nodded. "I'm done for and now I'm not sure at all whether she feels the same or not."
"Only one way to find out. Call her."