Silence
They slept together that night, tangled up in each other beneath the quiet hush of the dormitory. Elphaba’s arm was draped around Galinda’s waist, her breath soft and steady against the back of Galinda’s neck. And for the first time since the illness began, Galinda truly rested. No racing thoughts. No aching bones. No flickers of fear waking her up in the dark. Just warmth. Just stillness. Just the feeling of being held by someone who mattered.
It was the best sleep she’d had in weeks—maybe even months.
And it made what came next all the more jarring.
When she stirred in the morning, the sheets were cold beside her. She blinked, confused, and reached out instinctively. Nothing. Only fabric. No weight. No breath. No Elphie.
Her heart jumped. A terrible silence settled into her ears.
“Elphie?” she whispered, voice raw from sleep.
Still nothing.
She sat up too fast, ignoring the way her body protested. The bed was already half-made, as if someone had carefully erased their presence. Galinda pressed a hand to her chest, trying to calm the rising panic. Maybe Elphaba had just gone for tea. Maybe she had an errand. Maybe—
But the ache that had gone quiet the night before came roaring back.
By the time she reached Madame Morrible’s seminar, she was nearly breathless. Her eyes scanned the room with a kind of desperation she hadn’t felt since the day she fainted in the courtyard.
And then she saw her—Elphaba. Back row. Head down. Notebook open. Perfect posture.
Galinda’s breath caught in her throat.
She was here. She was safe.
But when Elphaba finally looked up, their eyes met—and nothing happened.
No smile. No flicker of recognition. No warmth.
Elphaba blinked, then turned her attention back to her notes, as if she hadn't spent the night holding Galinda like she was something fragile and irreplaceable. As if that kiss had never happened. As if none of it had.
Galinda sat down slowly, her legs suddenly heavy.
That old ache—quiet, cruel—nestled itself back beneath her ribs. And this time, it whispered something colder than fear:
Maybe it had only ever meant something to her.
Madame Morrible stood, gliding toward her with the air of a vulture circling a wounded creature. Her heels clicked like clockwork against the stone floor, each step deliberate, merciless. “You’ve had ample time to practice this spell, Miss Galinda. Are you telling me this is the best you can do?”
Galinda’s lips parted, but nothing came out. Her tongue felt thick, her mouth dry. She wanted to explain—wanted to say she hadn’t been sleeping, that her hands sometimes trembled when she tried to focus too hard, that she hadn’t been well. But none of it would come. Her throat felt tight, sealed shut like her own magic had turned against her.
“I see,” Morrible said, voice as cold as the wind that slipped through Shiz in winter. “Some flowers bloom only for decoration, I suppose.”
The words sliced deep. Galinda flinched as if struck. Her fingers curled tighter around the coin in her palm, pressing it hard enough to leave an imprint. Her breath came faster, thinner, and she could feel the heat rise to her cheeks—not from embarrassment, but shame.
She turned, desperate. Her eyes sought Elphaba, who sat quietly at the far desk, back straight, expression unreadable. She wasn’t even looking at her.
Not even a glance.
Galinda’s gaze lingered, hoping, pleading. A word. A nod. Even just eye contact—anything to ground her, anything to prove last night hadn’t been a dream. That the soft warmth of Elphaba’s body curled beside hers had been real. That the kiss hadn’t meant nothing.
But Elphaba didn’t move.
Didn’t speak.
Didn’t flinch.
Only turned the page of her notebook, as if Galinda weren’t even there.
Galinda’s heart twisted in her chest. She stared for a beat too long, frozen. The silence stretched and cracked like glass under pressure.
And then, quietly, the coin slipped from her hand.
It hit the floor with a sharp metallic clink that echoed in the still room.
She didn’t pick it up.
Instead, she backed away like someone retreating from a wound too fresh to touch, and sat down. Madame Morrible continued, her voice filling the space like fog, thick and impenetrable. But Galinda heard none of it.
All she could hear was the thunder in her chest.
All she could feel was the echo of Elphaba’s silence—louder than any insult, colder than any rejection.
She had never felt more alone than she did in that moment, in that room, with only the girl who had once held her—now sitting just a few feet away, and a world apart.
Needless to say, after the seminar, Galinda barely made it halfway down the corridor before the nausea surged like something alive clawing its way up her throat. She stumbled into the nearest bathroom, slammed the door shut behind her, and locked it with shaking fingers. The click echoed like a warning bell in her ears.
She dropped to her knees just in time.
The first wave hit hard—wet and metallic. Petals spilled from her lips, torn and wilted, soaked in red. A rose. A dahlia. Something pale and jagged. But then came something worse.
A branch.
Galinda gagged as it forced its way up, a cruel tangle of thorns scraping the inside of her throat. It tore at her as it emerged—inch by inch—a thin, twisted twig lined with tiny, sharp points, red from root to tip. She cried out as it clattered into the sink, blood trailing after it in sluggish, sticky rivulets.
She gasped for air, one hand gripping the edge of the porcelain for balance, the other pressed to her trembling chest. Her throat burned like it had been flayed open. Her mouth tasted of iron and flowers and something raw and wrong.
And she felt it—like something deep inside her had given way.
This time, it was worse.
The petals were one thing. They had always been terrible, yes, but beautiful in their own way. This wasn’t that.
This was violent.
Something had taken root. Something was growing in her—sharp and unforgiving.
Galinda leaned over the sink, staring at the mess: petals curling like dying things, flecked with blood. And the branch. The thorns. It looked like heartbreak given shape.
She pressed her forehead to the cool edge of the sink, her whole body shaking, breath coming in ragged pulls. Her eyes burned, and she didn’t try to stop the tears.
Something had cracked. She knew it. Not just in her chest—but in her belief that everything might still be okay.
This time, she wasn’t sure there would be a way back.
And outside the bathroom door, the hallway was silent.
Elphaba wasn’t there.
She escaped to the poppy field with Fiyero in the middle of classes. The wind tugged gently at her hair, and the poppies bent with the breeze like they were listening.
Galinda sank down into the grass, pressing her palms into the soft earth as if it could ground her. Fiyero followed quietly, sitting beside her but giving her space.
"I don't understand," she said, her voice breaking at the edges. Her eyes shimmered with tears she hadn’t let fall yet. “We were fine yesterday.”
Fiyero said nothing at first. He watched her with careful eyes, like she might shatter if he moved too quickly. Galinda hugged her knees to her chest.
“She kissed me like she meant it,” she whispered. “She held my hand all night. I slept. I actually slept. And then today, it’s like none of it mattered. Like I’m… nothing to her again.”
Her voice cracked on the last word.
Fiyero finally spoke, soft and steady. “Elphaba isn’t like other people, Galinda. She feels things deeper than she lets on. Maybe even deeper than she knows how to handle.”
Galinda shook her head. “Then why pull away? Why shut me out the moment I need her to show up?”
Fiyero looked at the field for a long moment. “Because sometimes, when it matters most, that's when it’s hardest. That’s when fear wins.”
Galinda pressed her face into her knees, letting the wind hide her quiet sob.
And the poppies just swayed, red and brilliant and unknowingly cruel.
Galinda decided she was getting fed up with flowers—utterly, hopelessly tired of their sweetness, their symbolism, their way of blooming and wilting with no regard for her aching chest. But still, she arranged a bouquet for Elphaba anyway.
She wrapped the stems in a ribbon the same shade as Elphaba’s eyes and left the bouquet on her desk in their shared dorm, just before sneaking out to avoid seeing her face.
Tucked carefully between the blooms was a note, handwritten in looping script that wobbled slightly at the edges:
Forgive me
if the date was too much,
if this wasn't what you wanted,
and I misunderstood.
She hesitated, then added a final line, small and barely legible:
I meant every moment.
The room was quiet as she closed the door behind her. The kind of quiet that hums in your ears, that settles in your bones like snowfall. She leaned against the hallway wall for a second, pressing a fist to her mouth to keep herself from crying again.
She didn’t know what Elphaba would do with the flowers. If she’d read the note. If she’d care.
But Galinda knew what she had to do now: give space, no matter how much it hurt.
Still, part of her hoped.
Because no matter how tired she was of flowers…
She still believed in what they could mean.
After leaving the bouquet on Elphaba’s desk—its stems trembling slightly in her hands, her heart heavier than she cared to admit—Galinda returned to her side of the room and sat down in front of her own desk.
Her hands were still shaking.
Maybe Elphaba would read the note. Maybe not. But Galinda had done what she could. Or so she thought.
Because a weight still pressed against her chest—something unfinished, something urgent. And no matter how many times she tried to push it away, it kept returning.
She reached into the drawer and pulled out her favorite writing paper. Cream-colored, with a delicate gold border she’d once found frivolous, but now felt oddly comforting. Then her pen. The one her Popsicle had given her when she was accepted into Shiz.
Her fingers hesitated over the page. Her throat was tight again, but this time not from the illness. She breathed in slowly. The air felt cold in her lungs.
Galinda straightened her back and pressed the pen to the paper.
“If I’m going to die,” she whispered to herself, “they should at least know why.”
She blinked hard, pushing away the sting behind her eyes.
And then she began to write:
Dear Momsie and Popscle,
I needed to write one last time, because I think I’m kind of dying.
I’ve contracted Hanahaki disease.
And I think you know what that is—but in case you don’t (or if you heard about it once at a dinner party and laughed it off as something silly and poetic), here’s what it really is: it’s when someone falls in love with someone who doesn’t love them back. And instead of heartbreak like normal people, we bloom flowers. Inside us. In our lungs, in our throat. We choke on petals. On thorns. It kills us slowly, quietly. Painfully.
I know, I know—that sounds ridiculous, right? Something out of one of those tragic operas you always said were far too dramatic. But it’s real. And it’s happening to me.
It started with petals. Then blood. Then branches. And now… well, now I’m not sure how long I have. Hours? A day? Maybe less. I’m writing this from a window of time when I can still move my hands, when my brain still works enough to string words together. I’ve been vomiting flowers. I think my lungs are half-garden now. And it hurts. Gods, it hurts more than I thought anything could.
I wanted to tell you because you deserve to know. And because I wanted to say I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I didn’t become the girl you wanted me to be. I’m sorry I wasn’t always graceful or brilliant or obedient. I know I was loud. And stubborn. And difficult. But I was trying to figure out who I was—who I am. I still don’t know, not entirely. But I think I liked the girl I was becoming. Even if it took heartbreak and dying in a bed of flowers to get here.
And I’m sorry for this—this messy, shameful thing I’m doing. Dying because I loved someone who didn’t love me back. I know you’ll want to hide it. Wrap it in something prettier. Tell your friends it was something else. You can. I won’t blame you. But just know—it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Not hers. Not mine. It just was.
Her name is Elphaba. And she is… complicated. Brilliant. Brave. Sharp in a way that could cut glass. I don’t even think she knows what she means to me. Or maybe she does, and it scares her. I scared her. I wish I had known how to love her in a way that didn’t feel like drowning.
If Fiyero gives you this letter, it means I asked him to. He’s kind. Softer than he seems. Tell him thank you.
And if somehow—if somehow a miracle happens and I survive this stupid thing, I’ll write again. I’ll come home. I’ll laugh with you at how dramatic I was, and we’ll have tea and complain about the gardenias out back like we always do.
But if not…
Just know that I loved. Really, truly loved.
And that’s something I don’t regret.
With all my heart (what’s left of it),
Galinda
And then Galinda finished.
She stared down at the final lines of the letter to her parents, her signature shaky at the bottom. She didn’t know how she had managed to be so good with words, not when her chest ached like this, not when every breath was a little harder than the last. But maybe that was the truth of it—when you felt everything all at once, the words didn’t have anywhere to hide.
She folded the letter carefully, pressing her fingers against the edges to make sure it wouldn’t come undone. Then she reached for another sheet of paper. This one she looked at for longer before writing, her eyes tracing the empty space. It felt strange, morbid even—but she knew if she didn’t do it now, it would haunt her later.
Instructions for My Funeral
The title alone made her pause.
If this is all too dramatic, she almost wrote, you don’t have to follow it exactly.
But then again… she wanted it done right.
She began again, each word quieter than the last:
I’d like something small. No crowd, no show. Just family—please. I don’t want anyone reading poems they didn’t really mean, or pretending they knew me better than they did.
Don’t wear black. Wear pastels. Something soft. I always liked yellow, you know. That dress Momsie wore at Aunt Ferra’s spring party? That yellow.
No big flowers. No orchids or funeral wreaths. Just… daisies, maybe. Simple ones. Or whatever’s blooming at the time. That feels more honest.
She swallowed hard, her hand trembling again as she wrote the final lines.
You don’t have to say much. Just remember I tried. That I loved as much as I could. That even if it ended badly, at least I was brave enough to hope.
She then set down her pen, taking shallow breaths. Outside, the wind rustled the trees against the windowpane, a soft hush like the world was exhaling. Inside, Galinda sat alone at her desk, the candlelight casting flickers of gold across her face. Her eyes, rimmed with exhaustion, stayed fixed on the two letters she had written—now neatly folded, side by side like twin promises. One for her parents. One for the funeral.
Then she closed her eyes, resting her head gently on the cool wood of the desk, and allowed herself to feel the weight of everything she had not said out loud. Not yet. Maybe never.
But Elphaba’s name sat in her chest like an ache. The note she’d left with the bouquet had been small, impulsive—just a whisper of a confession. Not enough. Not nearly enough.
And so, with a deep, steadying breath, she sat up once more.
A third piece of parchment.
A third goodbye.
Her hand trembled as she dipped the pen in ink again. And then, in a script far more careful than before, she began:
Dear Elphie,
I wasn’t sure if I should write this. Maybe the note next to the flowers should have been enough. Maybe I should’ve just stayed quiet and let things happen the way they always do between us—half-spoken, tense, full of what-ifs.
But I’m writing this now, because I don’t know how much longer I’ll have the strength to say anything out loud.
I have hanahki.
It’s a strange word for something so cruel, isn’t it? A disease born of love. Or rather, unrequited love. I didn’t want to believe it at first. I told myself it could be anything else—stress, a cold, bad luck. But then the petals came. Soft at first, like secrets. Then thorns. Then blood. And now, it’s hard to breathe without feeling like something inside me is coming undone.
I kept it to myself. I smiled through it. I wore pretty dresses, kissed the air, and pretended I wasn’t coughing up pieces of my heart when no one was looking. Because how could I tell you? That I love you? That I’ve been in love with you longer than I’ve known how to say it?
I think even when I tore your library books at the start of the semester—when I teased you, when you drove me absolutely mad trying to be the smartest one in class, always needing to know more—I was already slipping.
But hanahaki doesn’t wait for courage. It grows. It blooms. Even when you beg it not to.
And now it’s too late. A part of me always knew you didn’t feel the same way. That whatever this was—or might’ve been—was always sharper on one side. But hope is stubborn. I thought maybe the date, the flowers, my laughter—all the pieces of myself I tried to offer you—might be enough.
They weren’t. And that’s not your fault.
You don’t owe me anything, Elphie. Not your love. Not even your kindness. I’m not writing this to make you feel guilty, or to ask for anything in return. I’m writing because I don’t want to leave without telling you the truth—not just the polished, palatable truth, but the whole messy, painful heart of it.
I loved you. I love you. I probably always will, in a quietly ridiculous way.
If this letter finds you after I’m gone, I ask only one thing:
Please don’t throw it away.
Galinda
So she carefully left the letters in the desk drawer—half open, half closed. Not quite hidden, not quite revealed. The way secrets sometimes want to be kept, but still hope to be discovered.
Her fingers lingered on the edge of the drawer for a moment, trembling slightly. A breath caught in her throat. She wasn’t sure if she truly wanted anyone to find them. Maybe she hoped someone would. Maybe she hoped no one ever would.
The soft rustle of wind brushed against the windowpane again, as if the world outside was listening.
Then, quietly, Galinda stepped away.
She didn’t look back.
When Galinda found the bouquet in the bathroom trash that night—petals crushed, stems snapped, the ribbon she had chosen so carefully stained and crumpled—it felt like something inside her broke clean in two.
She had only gone in to wash her face, hoping the cool water might calm her nerves. But instead, she found it there—shoved between damp paper and a used comb, her offering discarded like it had never meant anything at all.
Her stomach twisted, not with illness this time, but with something sharper. Meaner. A kind of grief she hadn’t known she was capable of feeling. The kind that didn’t come with tears at first, only with silence so loud it echoed in her ears.
She stood there, hands trembling at her sides, staring down at what used to be hope.
She didn’t cry. Not right away.
Instead, she turned.
The few steps back into the bedroom felt longer than any hallway. The walls seemed to close in. She didn’t wipe her face, didn’t fix her posture. Shame didn’t matter now.
Elphaba was lying in her bed when Galinda re-entered the room, already under the covers, eyes closed—or pretending to be. The space between their beds felt wider than ever. The silence in the room was thick, dense, like fog that refused to lift.
Galinda didn’t say a word.
She didn’t ask why. She didn’t demand an explanation. She didn’t even give Elphaba a glance.
She ran.
Across the floor, out the door, down the stairwell—barefoot, breath quick. She didn’t stop to grab a coat or shoes. The cool stone bit into her feet, but she kept going. Past the dormitory entrance, across the lawn, past the fountain still running in the chill of the spring night.
The wind tugged at her thin pajama sleeves, the grass cold and damp beneath her soles. Her breath hitched in her throat, but she didn’t slow. She ignored the startled glances from the few students still outside, their whispers rising like echoes she couldn’t quite hear.
By the time she looked back, Shiz’s gates were far behind her.
She crossed them without hesitation.
Didn’t stop.
Didn’t think.
Didn’t care.
The further she walked, the colder the air became. Her breath came out in quick puffs, shoulders trembling. Branches brushed her arms like searching fingers. The moon rose higher, silver and indifferent, casting long shadows between the trees.
Eventually, the path disappeared. Roots tangled beneath her steps. Twigs snapped against her ankles. Still, she kept going—until the forest surrounded her entirely, tall and watchful, whispering like it remembered something she had forgotten.
And then, at last, her legs gave out.
She collapsed into a small clearing, the grass chilled and dewy beneath her. Her hands clutched at the ground like it might hold her together. But it didn’t.
The cold settled in her bones. The ache in her chest bloomed again, no longer dulled by distraction or charm.
And there, under the hush of moonlight and trees, Galinda finally let herself cry.
Not for the flowers.
Not even for Elphaba.
But for the moment she realized love alone had never been enough.
For everything she had dared to hope, and everything now unraveling in her hands like wilted petals in the dark.
She curled into herself, knees to chest, breath ragged and uneven.
The forest didn’t offer comfort. It didn’t ask questions. It simply let her fall apart.
And maybe that, for now, was enough.
When Galinda woke up, something was wrong.
At first, she thought she might still be dreaming—still tangled in the grief and wildness of the night before. But the ache in her limbs was too sharp, too real. Her head throbbed, her throat was raw, and the taste of dried blood clung to her tongue like iron. She tried to move.
She couldn’t.
Her wrists wouldn’t lift. Panic surged through her as she looked down—or tried to. The morning light filtered through the trees in faint shafts, and it was only then she saw it: branches. Twisting and gnarled, like skeletal fingers, they coiled around her arms and pinned her to the ground. The earth held her like a second skin, grass and vine wrapping tight around her legs and hips.
She was trapped.
No—planted.
Petals dusted her skin like fallen snow, stuck to her arms, her cheeks, tangled in her hair. Pink and yellow and red, some of them crushed, some impossibly fresh. She blinked up at the canopy overhead, unable to understand how the night had ended like this.
And then she realized: the forest hadn’t let her go.
It had claimed her.
She gasped, but it hurt to breathe. Her ribs protested, sore and bruised. A thorn scratched her collarbone when she shifted. She winced, teeth clenched, heart pounding harder with every second.
She wasn’t just in the garden anymore.
She was part of it.
The roots held her like arms that refused to release their grip. The grass had woven itself beneath her clothes, cool and damp. Her hands were scraped and raw from struggling in her sleep, and the back of her head pulsed with a dull pain like she'd fallen—hard.
She tried to cry out, but her voice was weak, barely a whisper.
“Elphaba,” she croaked, before her throat tightened again.
No answer.
Birdsong echoed in the distance, too cheerful, too normal. The sky above her was a gentle morning blue, mocking the fear rising fast in her chest. How long had she been out here? Hours? The whole night? Her pajamas were soaked with dew, clinging to her like vines themselves.
She swallowed hard, the taste of blood still thick.
This wasn’t the illness.
This was something else.
Something the forest had done to her—maybe something she had done to herself.
She remembered the bouquet. The crushed petals in the trash. The cold silence in the room. Elphaba lying still, eyes closed, mouth unmoving. Galinda had left because she didn’t know what else to do. She had run because it was the only thing left. But now—
Now, the forest had taken her, just like the sickness had been taking her inch by inch for weeks.
She tilted her head slightly, catching the soft crunch of leaves beneath her ear, and there it was: a low, pulsing hum. The same hum she had heard once before, when the flowers first bloomed from her mouth. A rhythm beneath the soil. A heartbeat not her own.
And it was getting stronger.
Galinda squeezed her eyes shut, tears finally falling. She didn’t know if they were from fear, pain, or heartbreak anymore. It didn’t matter.
She was alone.
And this time, she didn’t know how to get free.
This time, she realized: she was going to die.
Here. In this garden of grief.
With roots in her bones and flowers in her chest.
And no one was coming.
Hours passed.
Time unraveled slowly beneath the trees, each second dragging its nails through Galinda’s body. The ache had long since settled into something deeper—less like pain and more like erosion. Her muscles burned, stiff from strain and cold. Her fingers had gone numb where the branches still pinned her down, her wrists tingling in that sickening way that meant the blood wasn’t flowing right anymore.
She had tried to scream again earlier, maybe once, maybe twice—her throat was too torn to keep track. The effort left her coughing, spitting flecks of blood into the grass beside her face. The petals that had once clung to her like some eerie decoration were wilting now, browning at the edges, curling as if they too were dying.
Her legs ached from being held so still for so long, the pressure of the vines biting in like tourniquets. Every breath hurt. Every thought came slower. The wind had shifted, bringing a chill that settled into her chest and refused to leave.
She thought about Elphaba.
Was she looking for her?
Did she even notice she was gone?
Galinda tried to picture her face—those sharp, serious eyes, the deep lines of her frown when she was concentrating—but the image was fading at the edges now. Like fog on glass. Her brain felt like it was shutting down piece by piece, conserving what little warmth and energy she had left.
Her lips were cracked. Her eyes burned.
And still, no one came.
The forest had gone quiet around her, as if it, too, was waiting.
She didn’t cry anymore. Her tears had dried up sometime in the afternoon, soaked into the earth like the rest of her. Now there was only the dull, throbbing pulse of her own heartbeat—and even that was slowing.
She should’ve stayed.
She should’ve asked Elphaba what the bouquet meant to her.
She should’ve fought for answers, not just fled.
But now it was too late.
Galinda's eyes drifted shut again, lashes fluttering like brittle wings. Her chest rose shallowly, then fell. The sky above had turned gray, the edges of twilight creeping in.
As the first stars blinked into being above the treetops, Galinda thought she heard a voice—far away, or maybe only in her head.
Soft. Sharp. Familiar.
Maybe it was Elphaba.
Maybe it was the trees.
But Galinda couldn’t answer. She was too tired now.
And in the hush of the coming night, surrounded by roots and wilted flowers, she let herself drift closer to sleep—if that’s what it was.