Friends
Galinda didn’t know how she had made it to Ozdust alive. Her head was still spinning, her stomach unsettled, and the memory of vomiting something as absurd — no, as poetic — as flower petals clung to her like a bad perfume. Actual petals. What sort of girl expelled blossoms from her mouth when overwhelmed? A cursed princess? A tragic heroine in a bard’s tale? Either way, she should have been in bed, swaddled in silk blankets with a lavender compress on her forehead, sighing theatrically and sipping cold ginger tea between moans of suffering.
But no. The world didn’t stop for delicate girls. Not when they were expected to dazzle.
She had a date. People were watching. Her gown had been picked days in advance, her curls styled with painstaking precision, her reputation staked on a single evening of grace and sparkle. Galinda Upland never let the world see her falter. Especially not beneath crystal chandeliers and judging eyes.
In front of the mirror backstage, she dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a handkerchief embroidered with her initials. Her lip gloss trembled ever so slightly in her grip, but she reapplied it anyway, coating the shine with determination. No more petals. No more panic. She was Galinda — radiant, beloved, untouchable. She told herself — firmly — that the worst was behind her.
The moment she stepped into the ballroom, the music washed over her like a warm breeze. The delicate hum of violins wove through the air, blending with the clink of glassware and the lilting laughter of well-dressed students. Light shimmered off the crystal chandeliers and the polished marble floor, casting the room in a golden glow. For a heartbeat — maybe two — Galinda allowed herself to believe the illusion. The headache faded. Her breathing slowed. The sparkle in the room caught in her dress and made her feel almost — almost — like herself again.
She would survive this night.
She would smile, and twirl, and be the belle of the ball. Tomorrow’s miseries could wait their turn.
She spotted Fiyero lounging near the refreshment table, sipping lazily from a punch glass as if he’d been born in a ballroom. His velvet coat fit him too well for it to be anything but intentional, and the casual arrogance in his stance made her smile despite herself. There was something comforting about his ridiculousness — familiar, easy, harmless.
Gathering her skirts, Galinda crossed the room with her signature swish, the hem of her gown brushing the marble in a practiced wave. She smiled as if nothing had gone wrong — because nothing could, not when people were watching.
Fiyero turned as she approached, and that boyish grin spread across his face like sunshine through clouds. He looked at her like she was the most dazzling thing in the room, and even if it was a lie, it was a comforting one.
She laughed at whatever he said — something about her dress, or the punch, or the weather — nodding as if every word out of his mouth were brilliant. In truth, she barely registered what he was saying. Her mind was too busy cataloguing every movement. Her posture, her breathing, the ache in her ribs. She had to look healthy. Effortless. Untouchable.
Then — it happened.
A sound, small but unmistakable. The clearing of a throat.
It was sharp. Deliberate. And full of authority.
Galinda didn’t even need to turn. Her body stiffened of its own accord, instinct taking over like prey sensing a predator.
She turned slowly, dread coiling in her stomach once more.
Standing just a few feet away, arms folded and lips pursed with distaste, was Madame Morrible. Her expression was carved from stone, her eyes fixed on Galinda as though she were something unpleasant stuck to her shoe.
“You,” the woman said, her voice curling around the word like it was something sour in her mouth.
“Me?” Galinda squeaked, her voice pitched too high to pass as casual. Her heart kicked up in protest. Here? Now? In front of everyone?
Surely she was mistaken. Madame Morrible didn’t speak to students at parties. She didn’t see students at parties.
But then Morrible’s eyes flicked sideways to Fiyero, who still had one hand resting a little too close to Galinda’s waist. Her mouth twisted into something unpleasant.
“And you,” she said to him, her tone acid. “Go back to whatever meaningless thing you were doing.”
Fiyero, never one to take offense when authority figures bristled at him, simply shrugged and gave Galinda a wink.
“I’ll see you later, princess,” he murmured, dropping a brief kiss on her forehead — far more casual than she would have liked, under the circumstances — and then he was gone, disappearing back into the crowd like a ghost in velvet.
And suddenly, Galinda was alone.
Alone with her.
“Madame Morrible,” Galinda said with forced brightness, her voice fluttering like a ribbon in the wind. She dipped her head just enough to be respectful. “You’re looking simply radiant tonight. I truly— I truly admire you, and your—”
“Enough,” Morrible said flatly, the word cutting through Galinda’s sentence like a blade. There was no room for flattery in her tone. Only judgment.
Galinda faltered, her mouth still slightly open as she tried to recover from the abrupt dismissal. Before she could muster a second attempt at charm, Morrible reached into the folds of her cloak and drew out something long and gleaming.
A wand.
Galinda blinked. “A wand?”
“It’s a training wand,” Madame Morrible replied, as if it were the most mundane thing in the world.
“A training wand? For me?” Her voice cracked slightly on the last word, hope blooming wild and fast inside her chest. “Oh, Madame Morrible, I… I don’t even know how to begin thanking you. You have no idea what this means—”
She launched into a speech before she could stop herself, voice rising in pitch and pace like a carriage with a runaway wheel. “It is my greatest desire to become a sorceress. I’ve dreamed of wielding magic with elegance, with poise, with purpose. Thank you, truly—thank you for believing in me, for seeing something—”
Morrible didn’t flinch. She didn’t nod. She didn’t smile.
She simply stared. Bored. Unmoved.
Galinda’s voice trailed off.
“I want to thank you for believing in me,” she said again, softer this time. More fragile.
“I don’t,” Morrible replied.
The word landed like a slap.
“I don’t believe in you,” she repeated, her voice as dry as dust. “This wasn’t my idea.”
Galinda blinked, confused.
“It was your roommate. Miss Elphaba. She requested I include you in the witchcraft seminar. She made it very clear that if I didn’t make the announcement today, she would drop out entirely.”
“Elphaba… did that?” Galinda asked, as though the words themselves didn’t quite make sense in that order.
“Yes,” Morrible said, with a single unimpressed nod.
“But… why would she—?”
“I do spells, not mind-reading,” the woman cut her off. “I haven’t the faintest idea. But I can’t risk losing her. So, here we are.”
Galinda stared at the wand still being held out to her like a reluctant offering. Her fingers twitched at her sides.
“My personal opinion?” Morrible added, stepping a fraction closer. “You don’t have what it takes. I hope you prove me wrong.”
A pause.
A long, intentional pause.
“But I very much doubt it.”
The words fell like weights around Galinda’s ankles. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Her throat burned with a dozen unsaid things — fury, pride, humiliation. Her cheeks flushed, not with joy, but with something far more bitter.
And as she tried to summon a single coherent thought, Morrible’s gaze shifted once more. Something behind Galinda caught her eye, and her lips curled with faint amusement.
“You should thank her,” Madame Morrible murmured. “She just arrived.”
Oh no.
No, no, no, no.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen. Everything was wrong.
Galinda stood frozen, the warmth and glitter of Ozdust now nothing more than a blurred backdrop to the cold dread coiling in her stomach. Her breath caught as she saw her — Elphaba. Standing just beyond the doorway.
She looked hesitant. A little awkward. Like she didn’t quite belong — and maybe she didn’t. Not here. Not among chandeliers and champagne bubbles and cruel smiles hidden behind gilded fans.
Galinda’s stomach twisted violently. Worse than earlier. Worse than the petals. She forced herself upright, heart hammering. Her fingers clutched the training wand Madame Morrible had given her — cold, unfamiliar — but she didn’t care.
She had to find Fiyero.
Had to do something.
Anything to stop the disaster unfolding in slow, merciless motion.
The ballroom had gone quiet.
The music faded like a dream interrupted.
And then — the laughter. Sharp. Ridiculous. Cruel. It rippled across the room like a stone skipping across still water, each splash more painful than the last.
But Elphaba didn’t flinch. She didn’t run.
She stepped onto the center of the dance floor, her chin lifted, her eyes bright with something unreadable. She placed her hat — that awful, wonderful hat — down with deliberate care, and began to dance.
Alone.
A little stiff at first. Unsure. But not faltering. Her feet moved to a rhythm only she could hear, and Galinda watched as she moved with quiet dignity — in front of everyone, despite everyone.
The mockery didn’t stop. Not entirely. But it changed. Faint, confused murmurs replaced the harsh giggles. Something was shifting.
Galinda felt it. Deep in her gut.
“I feel terrible,” she whispered, barely audible above the silence that followed the laughter.
Fiyero glanced at her. “Why? It’s not your fault.”
But it was.
That same pang in her stomach surged up, answering for her. Her throat tightened.
She looked back at Elphaba, at the green girl standing in the middle of a hostile room, dancing alone with something like courage stitched into every step.
Galinda knew what she had to do.
Without another word, she excused herself from Fiyero. She didn’t hear what he said in reply. Didn’t look at Pfannee and Shenshen, though she could feel their judgment like daggers grazing her back.
One step.
Then another.
Her heels clicked softly against the marble, but her heart beat louder.
She reached Elphaba, pausing just before her, uncertain — would she push her away? — but Elphaba’s eyes met hers. Wide. Glimmering.
“I’m sorry,” Galinda breathed, though the words didn’t leave her lips. She let her body speak instead.
Gently, carefully, she mirrored the movement Elphaba had just made. She moved as though pulled by invisible threads, each one spun from guilt, from regret, from something else she hadn’t dared name until now.
The two girls fell into rhythm. Clumsy at first. But growing steady.
Galinda tried to tell her, silently, with every step and every breath,
I see you.
I was wrong.
I’m here now.
And then — Galinda caught it. A tear slipping down Elphaba’s cheek.
She reached up and brushed it away with the back of her hand.
Deliberate. Tender.
I’m here.
Elphaba blinked at her, the smallest tremor passing through her lips.
And something in the air shifted again.
A rustle of fabric. The first hesitant footsteps. One student joined. Then another. And another. Like dominos, the room remembered what joy felt like. Laughter returned — not cruel this time, but warm. Real.
People began to dance again.
Galinda took her first full breath in what felt like days.
And then, without fanfare, without applause, she reached for Elphaba’s hand. Their fingers laced together, and together they stepped away from the center of the ballroom — not running, not hiding. Just leaving.
Together.
Getting back to Shiz was an event in itself.
They bumped into walls. They tripped on roots and laughed harder every time one of them nearly fell. Galinda swore the stars above them had been winking — mocking or blessing, she couldn’t tell. She didn’t remember the walk so much as the laughter — breathless, tangled, echoing between the stone corridors like a shared secret they didn’t know they’d been keeping.
She didn’t know where her laughter ended and Elphaba’s began. It was all one sound, one rhythm, one breathless, unstoppable current. Like they'd borrowed joy from some other world and refused to give it back.
And beneath it all — beneath the lightheadedness and the giddiness and the ridiculous image of Elphaba dancing alone on the ballroom floor like she belonged there — Galinda still felt sick. Her stomach churned occasionally, a quiet but firm reminder that she had, in fact, vomited flower petals earlier like some cursed fairytale girl. But somehow, impossibly, she felt better. Terribly better.
Like laughing while running a fever.
It didn’t make sense. But it felt right.
“I’m not sleepy at all,” Galinda declared once they were inside, collapsing onto the bed with unnecessary flair. She was still in her party dress, glittering faintly in the lamplight, her curls a little mussed but charmingly so. Her cheeks were pink from cold and laughter, her heart racing.
Her head landed close to Elphaba’s pillow — and she didn’t move.
“Neither am I,” Elphaba muttered as she sat beside her, slower, more careful. She didn't quite touch the bed the same way Galinda did — she hovered, almost, like she might still float away. Her voice held that same stunned quality she'd carried since the dance. Like her mind hadn’t caught up with her body yet.
They sat in the soft silence for a beat, the room warm and dim around them. Something about it felt suspended — like if they breathed too loud, it would all vanish.
Galinda turned her head and grinned, her breath still short from laughter. “Let’s tell secrets.”
Elphaba blinked at her, slow and skeptical. “What?”
“Something we’ve never told anyone,” Galinda said, propping herself up on one elbow, her curls bouncing with the movement. Her eyes sparkled with mischief and something else — something more tender. “Come on. It’ll be fun. You can tell me some tragic truth about your childhood or some weird thing you’re afraid of.”
Elphaba stared at her as if trying to determine whether this was a trap.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked, eyebrow arching in that very Elphaba way.
“No,” Galinda admitted with a giggle that sounded a little too light. “But let’s do it anyway.”
Elphaba didn’t agree — not out loud — but she didn’t object either. She folded her arms, looking unimpressed. Galinda took it as permission.
She shouldn’t have. But she did.
“Fiyero and I are getting married,” she blurted, her voice bright and ridiculous and false.
It slipped out too fast, too loud. Like tossing a fake coin into a wishing well just to hear the splash. It was the most idiotic thing she could’ve said — anything to avoid blurting out I’m scared, or I don’t understand what’s happening to me, or I think I might be cursed with petal-barfing magic. She couldn’t say any of that. Not yet. Not even to Elphaba. Especially not to Elphaba.
There was a pause. The air thickened between them.
“…Did he propose?” Elphaba asked slowly.
Galinda turned her head toward her,. Elphaba looked halfway between curious and completely oblivious — like someone peering through fog, unsure if what they saw was real. There was no judgment in her voice. Just a kind of puzzled detachment. Like she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or brace herself.
“Oh, silly,” Galinda said with a flippant wave of her hand, “He doesn’t know yet.”
That got a laugh. Not a big one — more of a half-snort, half-breath — but enough to melt something in the space between them. Elphaba shook her head, biting back the rest of her smile like it might betray her.
Galinda’s breath caught for half a second. The laugh was awkward, yes, but it was genuine. It made something flutter in her chest that had nothing to do with sickness. Or maybe everything.
Elphaba still didn’t know what to make of her. Galinda could see it in the way her fingers fidgeted at the hem of her sleeve, tugging lightly as if grounding herself. She wasn’t used to being invited into moments like this. She wasn’t used to being wanted in the middle of the night, just to talk. To be. This was unfamiliar territory — for both of them.
Two girls, wide awake in the middle of the night, on opposite ends of the same bed, trying to pretend like they were just telling secrets instead of circling something much bigger.
Galinda swallowed, her smile softening into something gentler. Something unsure.
“Your turn,” she said, barely above a whisper.
Elphaba turned her head slowly, her profile catching the golden hue of the lamp beside the bed. She studied Galinda for a long moment — really looked at her — as if trying to read an entire book in the shape of her face.
It made Galinda hold her breath.
Like Elphaba was still deciding whether or not this whole night had been some elaborate prank.
“My father hates me,” Elphaba finally said, so quietly that Galinda almost thought she'd imagined it.
But she hadn’t. And the silence that followed pulled every ounce of attention Galinda had, narrowing her focus to nothing but the girl beside her. Elphaba’s voice had no sharpness now. No bite. Just a quiet, exhausted truth, laid bare.
“That’s not the secret,” Elphaba added after a moment, her eyes fixed on some point far away. “The secret is that… he has a good reason. It’s my fault.”
Galinda blinked. “What?”
Elphaba’s hands were clasped in front of her now, fingers wound tightly together, knuckles pale. She didn’t look at Galinda when she spoke.
“My sister… being the way she is.”
There was a pause, like she was gathering the words in the back of her throat, trying to force them out before they dissolved.
“When my mother got pregnant with her, my father was afraid the baby might be born like me. Green.” She swallowed hard, the word sharp as glass in her mouth.
“Green,” Galinda echoed softly, not quite sure why.
“He was terrified,” Elphaba continued, her voice steadier now, but distant — like she was reciting from memory, not living the story. “So he made my mother chew calla lilies. Every day. Said it was for balance. Said it would… cleanse her.”
Galinda’s brows furrowed, unease stirring in her chest.
“But the flowers… they did something else. They made her come early.” Elphaba hesitated, eyes flickering down. “Too early. And Nessarose… her little legs… and my mother—she never woke up again.”
The words hung heavy in the air. Galinda didn’t breathe.
“This wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for me,” Elphaba said, quieter than ever. “If I hadn’t been born the way I was. If he hadn’t been so desperate. It’s my fault.”
She didn’t cry. Of course she didn’t cry. Elphaba never cried. But her voice cracked on that last word, and it cracked something in Galinda, too.
Something twisted deep in her stomach, so violently that for a terrible second she thought she might vomit again — not petals this time, but the weight of someone else’s pain. Of guilt and grief and years of silence all handed over in the span of one confession.
But she didn’t break. She reached out instead.
“No,” Galinda said firmly, her voice steady even though her insides trembled. “That’s not true. That’s not your fault.”
Elphaba didn’t respond, didn’t flinch or pull away, just kept staring at her hands like they might vanish.
“It’s the flowers’ fault,” Galinda continued, softer now. “Your father’s fault. Anyone’s. But not yours. You were a baby. That may be your secret… but it doesn’t mean it’s the truth.”
Another silence passed — not cold this time, but quiet. Almost reverent.
They didn’t notice the light at first. Not until Galinda blinked and caught the edges of warmth creeping into the room, casting faint golden stripes across the floor.
She sat up slowly, glancing toward the window.
“Look,” she said, reaching out to nudge Elphaba’s arm. “It’s already morning.”
Elphaba followed her gaze. The sun was rising — soft and pale and impossibly gentle, like the world had been holding its breath through the night and was now finally exhaling.
They were still in their dresses. Still on opposite sides of the bed. Still full of secrets.
But the light had changed.
And maybe that was enough.
Being friends with Elphie — because she was Elphie now, and there was no going back from that — was, quite simply, the best thing that had ever happened to Galinda Upland of the Upper Highlands.
It was also, inconveniently, the most emotionally catastrophic.
Because it turned out that being friends with someone meant caring about them. Deeply.Constantly.Devotionally. And Galinda had not accounted for how exhausting that could be when her insides were staging a full-blown floral rebellion with all the grace and subtlety of a battlefield.
She’d thought hiding an illness from her roommate would be easy. A dramatic sneeze here, a fainting couch moment there — she was Galinda after all. She’d built her entire persona on looking flawless while managing delicate crises. But what she hadn’t anticipated was just how often they would be together. Not just roommates. Co-conspirators. Allies. Mirrors. From breakfast to bedtime, they were practically orbiting one another, their days unfolding in tandem like pages in a shared diary.
There were no real breaks. No moments alone to breathe and panic and maybe quietly hurl petals into the nearest basin with whatever remained of her dignity.
And that made things complicated.
Galinda began to notice the patterns. The stomach-twisting moments. The sudden cold flashes of nausea that came not with food or fatigue but feeling.
She started cataloguing them like a secret science project — her very own tragic, undiagnosed condition. If she had been a more serious person, she might have taken notes. Labeled each moment like a symptom, mapped it across her calendar. Instead, she kept it all in her head, playing it back at night like a prayer she didn’t understand.
When Elphaba said something cruel about herself — casually, like it was a fact and not a wound — that did it. A sharp pang in her gut. Like her insides knew it wasn’t true and rebelled at the injustice of it.
When Fiyero spent just a little too long gazing into those impossibly green eyes, as if he could read something there that Galinda couldn’t — that did it too. A violent churn, a heat that rose and refused to be named.
And maybe that was it. Maybe it was jealousy. That was the safe answer, the tidy one she could offer if someone ever asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she’d say with a laugh and a flick of her wrist. “Just a silly little crush gone sideways. Don’t worry about me.”
But it wasn’t.
It wasn’t just that.
Because this wasn’t about wanting to be the center of attention or win some boy’s affection — though, of course, she had declared her fake engagement to him, hadn’t she? Like a shield. Like a smokescreen.
No. This was different. Worse. Softer and louder all at once.
It was the way her chest ached when Elphaba looked sad and pretended she wasn’t — like watching a storm form behind glass, knowing you couldn’t stop the rain.
It was the way her hands felt too still when they weren’t near Elphaba’s. As if they had forgotten what to do with themselves.
It was the way every small kindness from her — every rare, awkward smile or accidental compliment — felt like sunlight cracking through a storm, something warm and golden and fleeting that Galinda would chase to the ends of the world.
And every time Elphaba laughed — really laughed, head back, eyes shining, all walls momentarily forgotten — Galinda felt like she’d been given something sacred. Like she was witnessing a miracle she hadn’t earned.
So yes. Hiding this sickness was harder than she’d thought. Because it wasn’t just in her stomach anymore.
It was in her chest. Her throat. Her fingertips.
It was everywhere.
It had taken root. It had bloomed.
And she was terrified to name it.
So, knowing that she was leaving her prince behind — her prince, as if saying it enough times would make it feel more true — Galinda agreed to Fiyero’s plan. He would take her to the poppy fields, and Elphie would have the library all to herself.
It was logical. Fair. Everyone got what they needed.
So why did it feel like she was making a mistake?
She adjusted her parasol absently, more for something to do than for sun protection. The air was warm but breezy, full of the lazy hum of bees and the distant rustle of poppies swaying like dancers under the weight of their own petals. Fiyero walked beside her, hands in his pockets, posture relaxed in that insufferably effortless way he always managed. He looked like he belonged here — golden, sun-kissed, careless.
Galinda, on the other hand, felt out of place in her own skin.
They walked for a while in a comfortable-enough silence, Fiyero kicking at stray petals with the absent-minded air of someone who had never been taught to feel guilty about anything. Galinda, meanwhile, focused on keeping her stomach still. It hadn’t been too bad today — just a faint fluttering, like the roots were napping beneath her ribs. But she wasn’t foolish enough to believe they’d stay quiet for long.
She could already feel the warning signs. A bit of tightness behind her eyes. The odd sensation that her breath didn’t quite reach all the way down.
“She’s had quite a week,” Fiyero said eventually, as if plucking the thought out of the air. “Elphie, I mean. After Ozdust.”
And there it was.
Something twisted in Galinda’s stomach — not a churn, not yet. More like a seed pushing deeper into the soil.
Elphie.
Only she called her that.
She stopped walking, boots sinking slightly into the soft earth, and looked up, frustrated, the sound of the nickname clanging wrong in her ears like an off-key note in a song she’d written.
“Don’t call her that.”
Fiyero blinked, startled. “What?”
“Just… don’t. That’s not what you call her.” Her tone was sharper than she meant, but she didn’t take it back. She couldn’t.
Fiyero raised his eyebrows, clearly surprised. “Pss, calm down, I’m sorry.” He raised both hands in mock surrender, still confused but trying to smile. “I didn’t know it was copyrighted. I’ll make up a nickname myself, alright?”
Galinda tried to laugh — tried being the key word — but it came out too light, too airy, like it might float away if she didn’t hold it down. “Yes, well… good luck with that. She doesn’t usually tolerate nicknames.”
She turned and began walking again, just to do something with her body. The fabric of her skirt whispered around her legs, her parasol casting a narrow shadow over her shoulder. Fiyero caught up a few steps later, glancing at her sideways, but not saying anything more.
That was true, what she’d said. But truth wasn’t always about facts — it was about the weight something carried.
And Elphie wasn’t just a name.
It was hours sitting side by side on the dorm floor, elbows brushing as they flipped through dusty spellbooks. It was the way Galinda had once said it without thinking and watched Elphaba’s eyes flick toward her like a startled animal — wary, then soft. It was late-night conversations in the dark when neither of them could sleep, and the word slipped out like a promise. It was comfort, and defiance, and something unspoken pulsing between them that no one else got to claim.
Fiyero didn’t know that.
Fiyero didn’t get to know that.
He had no idea what that name meant when it wasn’t just a nickname — when it was a bond, a language of its own. He’d never heard Elphaba say it back, shy and clipped, like she wasn’t used to softness but might allow it, just for her.
Galinda glanced sideways at him — all effortless charm and royal confidence — and felt that twisting again. Not the stomach, not this time. Something lower. Somewhere in the heart.
She looked away before it could settle into anything more dangerous.
Ahead, the fields stretched out like a painted dream, red and green and soft under the sky. A place to rest, to pretend, to be anyone else for a little while. Beautiful.
Temporary.
Just like everything else.
Then, when she returned to the library, she saw a scene that made her heart twist in her chest.
Elphaba was there — not just there, but laughing. Head tipped back, mouth open in something bright and unguarded. Her voice rose above the hushed murmur of pages and footsteps, loud in a space where she usually treaded so carefully, so quietly. It was like seeing a bird sing in a place it had only ever perched, wings clipped and cautious. Galinda nearly didn’t recognize her.
It wasn’t the laugh itself that shocked her. It was how free it sounded. How easy.
And she wasn’t alone.
Boq was there, gesturing dramatically with both hands like he was retelling some grand tale. Nessarose beside him, nodding, a soft smile fixed to her lips like she had all the time in the world. Crope and Tibbett were talking over each other like usual, feeding off each other’s energy in their private whirlwind of jokes. And even Shenshen — for the love of Oz! — was perched on the edge of a table, one leg swinging idly, laughing like she belonged. Like this wasn’t the same girl who used to throw barbed whispers at Elphaba between classes.
Galinda stopped just past the door, frozen.
Her stomach churned.
She could feel the fabric of her dress tightening around her chest. It wasn’t — but it felt like it. Like the whole world had shrunk half a size too small and she was expected to breathe normally anyway.
Fiyero was right behind her, and though he hadn’t said a word, she knew he realized it — realized she hadn’t known. And maybe that was the worst part, the humiliating cherry on top. She could practically feel his surprise, and his curiosity, and maybe even a little smugness that he’d somehow been let in on something she hadn’t.
She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t.
The scene before her was too vivid, too surreal. Elphaba was leaning toward Boq like she cared about the punchline. Her hair was a mess. Her sleeves were rolled up. She looked like someone else. Someone free.
Galinda’s mouth tasted like bitterness. Her palms prickled with heat.
She blinked fast, trying to make the image settle into something neutral, something she could digest. But it wouldn’t. It stayed sharp around the edges, like a broken mirror reflecting all the wrong parts of her.
And then, like poison threading through her bloodstream, came the shame.
What kind of person was jealous of friends?
Friends. That’s all they were. That’s all they had ever been, those people in the room, smiling and listening to Elphaba like she wasn’t the outcast anymore. Like she belonged.
Galinda should have been happy. Should have been proud. Should have wanted this for her.
Instead, something inside her coiled tight, sharp and ugly.
Who gets jealous of friendship? she asked herself, horrified. What kind of twisted, self-centered girl couldn’t watch the person she cared about smile without flinching?
But the truth pressed in all the same: Elphie looked so happy without her. Lighter. Unbothered. As if Galinda’s absence had made the world gentler.
As if she’d been the problem all along.
And maybe… she had been.
The guilt came like a slap — fresh and hot and merciless.
Guilt for how she’d treated her when they first met — not just with petty jabs or cold shoulders, but with real cruelty. With intention. With malice. For the way she’d torn Elphaba’s books, books she’d borrowed from the library, carefully chosen and carried like sacred things. For the way she’d laughed as she did it, making a spectacle of someone who had never asked for anything but space.
She’d humiliated her. On purpose.
And Elphaba had still let her in, somehow. Still smiled at her. Still let Galinda call her Elphie, like the name itself had meaning.
Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.
It echoed like footsteps in a hallway she didn’t want to walk.
Her fingers curled slightly at her sides. Her breath was too thin now, like she was trying to breathe through a paper straw.
And then the nausea surged — fast, urgent. Her breath caught. The roots in her stomach writhed awake, furious.
She turned, bolting for the hall before she could even make an excuse. She didn’t know where the nearest bathroom was, only that she needed one now, because this wasn’t like before. She knew what was coming.
Petals.
More petals.
The kind that scratched her throat and stuck to her tongue and tasted like shame and roses.
To her dismay, footsteps followed. Heavy and familiar.
Fiyero.
Of course he followed. Of course he didn’t take a hint.
She nearly tripped on her own shoes as she rushed around a corner, vision swimming. Her breath came too fast, shallow and tight, and the edges of everything felt too bright, too loud. Her heart pounded in her chest like it wanted to escape.
Behind her, Fiyero called her name.
But she didn’t answer.
She couldn’t.
Because her mouth was already full of petals.