Ricochet
Because survival is insufficient
- Voyager
“When the fuck are you going to do something about this?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Manon replied evenly, not turning to look at her cousin. Asterin didn’t seem too bothered by this state of affairs. She leaned onto the balcony railing next to Manon, the two women watching how the lights from the bar reflected across indigo waters. Far off at sea, a boat set off fireworks and they exploded into a million supernovas against the ink sky. Behind them, Aelin and Co. drank and danced the night away in the pre-party to the bachelorette party.
Between them breathed a quiet. A still, deep quiet.
“Bullshit.” Asterin pulled out her vape pen and took a deep drag. “Oh, don’t give me that look. Petrah’s too drunk to notice and I’m too drunk to care.”
“Lovely.” Manon said, hoping that would be the end of the conversation. Don't you know, a wish is fool’s gold.
Blowing out a thin stream of smoke, Asterin replied, “Elide. I’m talking about Elide.”
“That’s nice.”
“Specifically,” and now Asterin’s voice had a bite, “the fact that you’re in love with her.”
“Fuck off.”
“That’s not a no, Manon.”
“Try this: go to hell.”
“Still not a no.”
“Asterin.” Manon snapped, on the thin edge of her temper fraying past breaking. “Back. Off.”
“No, I don’t think I will.” Asterin thoughtfully took another drag on her vape. “Because I’m done watching you drive yourself insane. Do you think I haven’t noticed? All these years. You’ve been pining after Elide since we were teenagers. You sleep with all these women that you don’t give a fuck about, and you watch her and you love her and you don’t do a goddamned thing about it.”
Manon laid her head on her arms for just a moment, unable to … she just couldn’t … “Are you done?”
“Yeah. I think that about sums your heartbreak up.”
“Good. Then fuck off.”
“God, you can be such a bitch sometimes.” Asterin murmured. “Now please cut the shit.”
“What do you want me to say?” Pushing herself upright, Manon shoved a hand through her hair. “What answer in particular are you looking for?”
“The truth. I want to hear you say the truth.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Manon spat out, temper finally fraying clean through, her hands shaking. “The truth doesn’t fucking matter.”
“That you love her.” Asterin replied evenly.
“Stop.”
“Why, M? Give me one good reason why.” And now some of Asterin’s frustration leaked through in the cut of her voice, in the tense set of her jaw.
“Because she chose him!” Manon threw an arm in the direction of the bar and then bit down on her tongue, bit down on the temper clawing its way out through her voice. Quiet, contained, shaking, Manon finally said, “because she keeps choosing him. Over and over and over. I see the way she looks at me, sometimes, and I – ” her eyes drifted shut, “I wonder. If maybe she thinks about me the way I think about her. But then she keeps choosing him.
So whether or not I love her doesn’t matter.”
“But do you?” Asterin asked, quiet, contained, a little heartbroken.
Manon looked up into her face. My cousin, my sister, my other half. The brightest thing I’ve ever seen on this earth. The first person I ever loved wholly and completely. “Yes. Always.”
The truth, at last.
Turning back to face the black waters, Manon bowed her head. She just … she just couldn’t … not under the weight of it all. Elide Lochan, has there ever been a day when I didn’t love you? I don’t remember it, and lord save me, I wouldn’t want to. Coming to stand beside Manon, Asterin pressed their shoulders together. “Are you ever going to tell her?”
Manon laughed, but the sound wasn’t funny at all. “And lose her forever? I’d rather put a bullet through me.”
“You might be surprised.” Asterin replied softly.
“At what cost?” The temper drained out of Manon and in its wake it left … a beach after the tide pulls away, a wasteland stripped of everything that once made it whole. “It’s better like this. I get a part of her like this.” And her voice cracked on those last words. And Asterin just stayed by her side, holding close.
Pressing knuckles to her forehead – she didn’t crack, she never cracked, but my god Elide – Manon said quietly, “I didn’t know that she was bi, in high school. El was the only girl I wanted to think about, but it didn’t … I couldn’t have her. And that was okay, because she lit up my goddamned life.
Then in college, she started dating Elizabeth and – goddamned it. I had tried out sleeping around and it seemed easier to keep doing that than to think about anything. El chose someone else. But she was still there, lighting up my life. It felt like ... enough. And we graduate and shit, Asterin, I’m dating – ” but Manon couldn’t finish that sentence. The memories sat on the back on her tongue, sharp, like the taste of bitter almonds.
“Iskra.” Asterin breathed the name, shouldering what Manon couldn’t say aloud.
“Iskra,” Manon eventually replied. “That nightmare. I lost a year to that nightmare. I lost – fuck.” Pausing, Manon tried to take a deep breath in. It didn’t work, and the tension cascaded down through her jaw, her spine, her hands. “You don’t know this. Nobody knows this. But the day I ended it with Iskra, I flew halfway across the world. I just wanted to get home. To Miami.
I just … I wanted to see her. El was single and I was finally free. I was going to ask her to be my girlfriend. I got so close. It wasn’t enough.
I remember – I ran up the steps to her apartment and I knocked on that fucking door and when she opened it, there was this second where it felt like the whole world lit up from the inside out. Just one second. I got so close.
Because the first thing she said was Manon, you’re home! and the second thing she said … it was Lorcan! Manon’s here. You remember Lorcan, yeah? We just started dating.
I remember how she laughed. I remember how she hugged me. I remember sitting there in her shit apartment across from her new boyfriend. I remember feeling like a light went out. And I remember every single day of these past three years. So don’t you dare give me shit about loving her.”
Manon fell silent and the ocean water swirled beneath them, around them, carry away what I cannot carry anymore.
Please.
Tangling their hands together, Asterin pressed a soft kiss against Manon’s temple. “That sounds lonely.”
“Yeah.”
“M? Do you even know what you want anymore?”
No. Nothing. Her. Manon closed her eyes. Prayer and benediction and offering. “I can’t leave her. I’ve tried, but I can’t. I don’t want to. She’s got me until the day I die, and then I’d like to see the afterlife try and stop me.” Breathing in the scent of her cousin’s perfume, Manon exhaled, inhaled, tried to let this ground her down. “I’m hers.” Forever and ever amen.
+
Inside, Elide was having the time of her fucking life. Booze and her girls and … god it felt so good to cut fucking loose. It turns out that with a little boost from Lysandra and a lot of drunken cheering from her friends, Elide was pretty damn good at the stripper pole. Her trashed ankle could suck it.
“You’re a great teacher Lys!” Elide shouted, currently and quite happily upside down.
“Never been prouder!” Lysandra gave her two thumbs up, looking like a mother bird watching a chick take first flight.
“You know, Rowan wants us to put one of these in the bedroom,” Aelin said, pointing a neon pink dick straw in Elide’s direction. “I’m not opposed to it. As long as my mother never finds out. Like, ever.”
“Cool story.” Elide nodded, starting to realize that she was, in so many words, very stuck. And then like an apparition out of her wildest dreams, there stood Manon Blackbeak, face-to-fucking-face. Or, well, what do you call it when the woman who’s your insanity is right there, lips level to your own, smiling, while you’re upside down on a stripper pole?
Any good words for that?
“Hi.” Elide breathed out. It’ll have to do.
“Stuck?”
“Very much so.”
“Want some help?”
“You angel.”
“Don’t say that too loudly, El. I’m fond of my reputation.”
“We all know you’re a bitch, Manon.”
“Good.” Manon leaned in closer, just inches apart. Just a breath away. “Don’t ever forget it.”
“Okay.” Elide’s eyes fixated on Manon’s lips, her skin, her jawline. It was just the booze, the blood rushing to her head, the fucking bachelorette party. This insanity had nothing to do with Elide – it would pass, because she was over it.
Over this. Over Manon.
She had to be.
She was – Manon reached out, her strong arms encircling Elide’s body. “Easy there,” Manon murmured, “I’ve got you.”
I know.
Sinking into Manon’s touch, Elide let the other woman cradle her like something out a princess movie that Disney was too scared to make. When her feet finally touched ground, Elide took in a breath. “Thanks.” Except she hadn’t dropped her arms from Manon’s shoulders yet. She should do that. Like soon. Like now.
Danger, Will Robinson, danger.
Elide stepped back. There. See. It was easy (lies).
“Oy!” Aelin yelled, “Idiots one and two, get over here. We’re playing pin the dick on the hockey player. It’s like pin the tail on the donkey, but instead of a tail – ”
“Yes, thank you Aelin!” Elide yelled back, blushing. Again. She really had to get that under control. “Come on Blackbeak, you’re suffering with me.”
“Always.”