Hate
[Senior year at Nevermore]
If Wednesday thought that after the first few months that situation would alleviate, she was really doing a bad job of reading between the lines.
Towards the middle of the term and during her family visit, it was very noticeable that Enid shunned even her own family.
Wednesday was tempted more than once to approach the Sinclairs, as repulsed as she was by that pack of people, but she restrained herself as she listened to her parents' spiel about the importance of the last few months of school.
— Little scorpion?
— mmm...
— We only want the best for you
— Okay, I heard you.
— Your ears may be here, but where is your heart?
— What? —Wednesday snapped out of her stupor by looking at Homer for the first time since the family reunion began—
— My torment, as accurate as a sharp razor, my instinct tells me that you would rather be somewhere else right now. I'm wrong?
— I'm not interested in your reading.
— So, do you want us to continue our meeting?
— ...
— I thought so. We will wait for next message soon then.
— But darling —Morticia interrupted— there's still a lot to cover from our visit and I was hoping we could share a mother-daughter moment with Wednesday.
— Tish, our little scorpion needs space, because right now there are many questions that he must solve on her own.
— Oh dear, you don't mean that...
— Yes, mon amour. It's the moment.
Wednesday sensed a terrible game of praise ping-pong was coming up between her parents so she jumped to her feet, crossing her arms.
— Before you continue with your "routine", excuse me. I have business to attend to.
She turned and headed back down the hall toward the bedrooms. On her way she passed close to the Sinclairs where a snatch of conversation slipped in, audibly to her.
— What shall we tell the pack of wolves? —Asked the father looking at his wife—
— Nothing, what should be silenced, will be silenced. Even if I have to solve it with my own hands, that girl is no longer a Sinclair.
Fury, that's what she felt, as if she had bathed in gasoline and someone had thrown a match at her because it burned, that fury burned and only fueled a strange deep hatred for each of the members of that "family", if she could call it that.
Since she met them, she knew that the Sinclairs, although they acted as a clan, had a certain premeditated rejection of Enid, whom they blamed for everything they could not control, and that only fed a parasite inside her that expected to vomit acid on the table. in which they were gathered, but held back. All that fury was consumed in an instant as she remembered what that little outburst could cause in her.
She didn't want to cause Enid trouble.
So, she kept walking.
The sooner saw Enid she would feel calmer.
And there it was again, that secondary effect of dependency that she couldn't fit where it came from, did she really care so much for her? Her own feet had already led her to the entrance of the room they shared, she wanted to turn the knob but... .remembered. She rapped a few times with her knuckles to avoid upsetting her mood.
When she entered the room she was strangely silent, the usual previous movement that she knew belonged to an Enid that was wrapped between her multicolored blankets did not exist. But she saw her bulge on the side of her room, which rose and fell rhythmically, as if it were a small metronome for her. She had fallen asleep.
Wednesday relaxed her gaze a bit and took a few steps in her direction, counting them mentally.
One, two, before her there were always excuses to interrupt her day between classes, her writing times, her music moments, there was always something she had to say to her and she could never wait,
Three, four, and just like a candle thrown into the wind it went out, and she knew something was up, she noticed the first day when she got up to go to class, the bed was made and she was no longer there.
Five, six, she tried to keep up with her retreats, but she was unable to find a space where she could exchange more than one word, she could almost say that she misses the blue of her eyes, fixing herself obsessively as at the beginning, yes, yes. missed; as if she needed to drown in that eternal sea, if it meant that she would be fine, only if looking at her would never leave her again.
Seven, eight, what was he thinking when she walked to his side of the room? She felt her heart, as dead as it was, begin to scratch at her chest, as if little needles were exerting pressure at the same time, her leg brushed against the corner of the bed and she swallowed, a large, rough, implausible knot seemed to have settled. in the pit of her stomach, she felt strangely overwhelmed and mesmerized by this bulge that kept rising and falling at such a sluggish pace that it could compose a requiem in her mind.
—Wends...
She thought that her silent intrusion had been noticed by Enid, but she didn't flinch after saying her name, she was clearly dreaming. With her? She reached her hand to the edge of the blanket where a bit of Enid's head was visible, she was so close to her.
But why was she so desperate to touch her?
She restrained herself, and closed her hand into a fist, turned around slowly and melancholy, ready to leave that half of the room, it was there for her, it had to be enough but something was poisoning her.
A hand protruding from under the bulge that was Enid grabbed the hem of her uniform and stopped, her multicolored fingernails no longer there, now just a hand that seemed to have lost that peculiar pink hue, the nails almost dwarfed and faded and her arm... her arm.
Wednesday reacted very quickly when she took Enid's wrist and lifted her a little higher, pulling her out of her shiny hiding place, her forearm had slight lacerations, like cuts, some seemed to have healed long ago, others still showed a reddened panorama that gave her eyes. understand that they must be slightly recent. That knot that was kept tied to the pit of her stomach finally decided to loosen, as if a tide of awe washed over her, was that what she had been hiding all along, but why?
— Enid?
She took a deep breath and made an extra effort not to force her out of bed, she knew that she still shouldn't force her— Enid?
She resumed the path her hand had initially approached and caressed the blonde's head carefully, letting her fingers disguise themselves among her strands of hair that didn't even have any flash of color to accompany them. She repeated this process a couple of times still holding her wrist with her other hand, she felt in an awkward position as she was leaning slightly forward.
— Wends? —Enid's free hand ventured under the blanket and slowly revealed her face.— What are you...? What are you doing here?
A blue sea hit her and she simply felt like a shipwrecked person clinging to a sad plank, blue, eternally blue, and she couldn't explain how she was so isolated for so long from that look that silently screamed at her that she was there, that she hadn't left.
— Enid, I know you don't want to talk to me, and I don't need to know everything that happens to you but. I'm… —no, no, I had to say it, when else would I face all of this?— intrigued by everything that's happened in the months we've been here at Nevermore.
— It's okay, don't worry. —Enid tried to get out of Wednesday's grip, but she could feel her fingers closing possessively over her wrist.— I told you it's okay.
— This —she pointed to her lacerations on her forearm— I imagine you must have it in more than one place, this is "nothing", Enid.
— It's nothing you should worry about it. —she heard on that last word as her voice cracked slightly—
— Why are you so tight with me?
— Why do you meddle in all this?
— Shouldn't I care?
— It is important?
— Why don't you even talk to your friends? They torture me day after day for you.
— Don't worry about them —she could feel how she was spitting out every word— I'll make sure that no one else bothers you again because of me.
— Enid... —she made an extra effort to get away from Wednesday who hesitated for a moment but simply let her go—
— Stop calling me that, I hate that name.
And she didn't hear from her again all night.