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“Wednesday,” she whines, the grating sound of her high-pitched voice a ruder awakening than any early morning summer sunrise. “Wednesday, it’s freezing.”
“It’s winter,” Wednesday corrects, eyes still stuck stubbornly shut. “The cold is good for you. It’ll help you assimilate to your eternal slumber, six feet underground where the frost is much more unforgiving.”
Now go back to sleep, she’d like to add, but she’s been challenging herself to say more with less lately. It’s something she’d like to infuse into her writing, and she figures real life is the best place to start. It’s more impressive to be concise, and then let the reader find satisfaction in piecing the puzzle together on their own. Only idiots need every complexity explained to them, which is not Wednesday's desired audience.
Enid is no idiot, but she certainly isn’t one to pick up on subtleness, either. Despite Wednesday's fairly obvious dismissal, her presence is still looming over the bed. She hasn’t budged even an inch.
“Unless you prefer cremation, that is.”
Enid whimpers. “I don’t want to be nothing but ash.”
Wednesday flicks an eyelid open at that, inspecting her roommate’s expression. Enid’s face is open and sincere, big blue eyes hiding between fluttering lashes. There’s a touch of fear to her, and Wednesday has always found any sort of fear at least a little alluring. Perhaps that’s why she hasn’t jumped out of bed yet to banish Enid back to her side of the bedroom.
“C’mon,” she mumbles, tightening the blanket around her shoulders and giving a little shiver for effect. “Move over. We can share body heat.”
Wednesday raises an eyebrow. “I’d rather have the threads of your rainbow book bag sewn into my skin.”
“You’re so dramatic, Wednesday,” she exclaims, ignoring the dig. “I know for a fact that you’re cold, too. You’re literally always wearing a sweater. Play corpse all you want, but you’re still human and at this rate we’ll both get frostbite.”
“Dying from exposure is actually in my top five ways to go,” Wednesday muses. “Quiet. Slow.” And, with a little luck, solitary.
“Yeah, well I’m not planning on dying tonight and neither are you,” Enid says firmly. “Now move over.”
Just to be perverse, Wednesday retreats less than a quarter of an inch deeper into her bed. The intention, of course, was that there wasn't nearly enough space for another person to fit, but puppy-brained Enid views it as a full invitation. She dives into the gap on the bed, eliciting a soundless gasp from Wednesday as she rushes to press her back against the wall to keep space between them.
“You’re being ridiculous,” she hisses. “And you’re absolutely scorching, by the way. I’m not entertaining this facade of frostbite for even another second.”
Among the many not-so-charming quirks Wednesday has discovered about her new dorm room, the draft that pokes between the metal seams in their mosaic window might be one of the most unsavory. Wednesday has made her peace with it though, since the chill keeps her alert when she’s writing late into the night. She’s always wondered how Enid tolerates it though, and now she has an answer. Enid is radiating heat. Wednesday’s skin still tingles from the sensation of their brief contact.
“Wolves run warm,” Enid explains, undaunted. “But we still feel the cold.”
“We are not sleeping like this,” Wednesday tells her seriously. She can practically feel herself shaking with rage over the invasion. Why does Enid always take things too far?
“Spoilsport,” Enid accuses.
“Furnace,” Wednesday snaps back.
“Ice queen.”
“Reject.”
That shuts her up.
Wednesday sighs. This always happens. Wednesday makes one of her usual, pithy remarks- the same ones that everyone else in her life giddily glosses over- and Enid takes them fully to heart, considering every implication and acting accordingly. It’s frustrating. It makes Wednesday begin to rethink everything about herself, which she hates.
“I didn’t mean that,” Wednesday offers, albeit quietly.
“I know,” Enid whispers.
They’re quiet for a moment, and Wednesday wonders for a while if that’ll be the last words of their strange, spontaneous sleepover, but then Enid turns over. They’re eye to eye.
“I think I’m gonna break up with Ajax,” she says, immediately pulling back an inch or so to better gauge Wednesday’s reaction. Admittedly, Wednesday is surprised. That’s sort of a rare thing, since Wednesday prides herself on her observant nature. Enid has always been somewhat of an exception to that rule, though. How is Wednesday supposed to make predictions of the nonsensical?
Keeping her face unreadable, Wednesday blinks exactly twice as she adjusts to the information.
“Is that the real reason you’re crawling into bed with me?” she asks plainly. “For a heart-to-heart? I think you know by now that I’m hardly the person you should turn to for girl talk.”
Enid blinks back at her- once, twice.
“You’re not even going to ask me why?”
“I get the feeling you’re about to tell me,” Wednesday replies, bored. Whether I want to hear it or not.
In all honesty, teenage relationships have always seemed sort of asinine to Wednesday. At the exact time people are meant to be defining themselves, they latch themselves to other people in hopes that they’ll do it for them. It’s why Wednesday has trouble even entertaining romance at this stage in her life. It would only be a distraction from realizing her true self.
Enid has always had other priorities, though- traditional rites of passage such as attending dances with a date and finding a mate. It’s simply not something Wednesday can relate to. Still, she can admit to being at least a little morbidly curious about the idea of heartbreak, and this information could be useful to her later. People like to read about heartbreak the same way they like to pick at their own scabs. They’re not so different from Wednesday in that way- they simply re-live their pain instead of experiencing it in full the first time.
Finally, Enid decides to overlook Wednesday’s mild disinterest and sucks in a breath.
“Well, when we kissed…”
She pauses, waiting to see if Wednesday will react to that piece of information. Wednesday stays stone still, same as always. If the idea of kissing was enough to embarrass her, she never would have lasted a day around Morticia and Gomez. The only thing surprising here is that Enid isn’t turning pink and giggling girlishly. She’s uncharacteristically serious. Wednesday, begrudgingly, respects the sudden maturity.
“There was something about it that just didn’t feel right,” she continues, choosing her words carefully. “Do you know what I mean?”
In a word, no.
“Like, you’ve kissed someone before. Right?”
Gut-twistingly, Wednesday hasn’t. That’s never been something that’s bothered Wednesday before, but the idea of Enid having experienced something that Wednesday hasn’t is strangely infuriating. Wednesday isn’t behind, she’s ahead. Wednesday isn’t timid, she’s bold. Wednesday doesn’t trail a path, she blazes it.
But right now Enid feels miles up the road, and that makes Wednesday burn.
“Enid,” Wednesday says sharply. “Surely you understand that the last thing we are going to discuss tonight is the topic of my romantic affairs.”
“You don’t kiss and tell,” Enid realizes, slightly startled. “Okay. I can respect that.”
Wednesday feels a brief squall of relief, beyond grateful to be released from the hellscape of that conversation. But Enid isn’t finished, not by a longshot.
“I don’t know,” she laments. “I’ve liked Ajax for so long, and after all the books and movies and radio hits, I just thought… I just thought it would feel different.”
“Different how?” Wednesday asks, interested. “Be specific.”
Wednesday knows that she isn’t the perfect confidant when it comes to matters of the heart, but she is good at analysis. She’s certain she can make sense of this muddy situation quickly with the right information. Plus, if she can help Enid come to a conclusion, it’ll get them both to sleep faster.
Enid squirms in the bed, scrunching up her face with distaste.
“It just,” she tries. “It just felt like nothing.” When Wednesday’s face turns even more unamused than usual, she adds, “Like… answering a question on a test, or tying my shoelaces. Like it was something I was supposed to be doing, not like something I actually wanted to do.”
Again, Wednesday and love existed in two very different planes of existence, but she’s seen enough of Morticia and Gomez to know that kissing should elicit more enthusiasm than lacing up a pair of sneakers.
“How does it compare to other kisses, then?” Wednesday asks methodically. Their experiment needed a control.
“I’ve never kissed anyone else,” Enid admits, looking worried.
“That’s your first problem,” Wednesday remarks. “How are you supposed to know how it’s meant to feel unless you’ve made the proper assessments? One kiss can’t adequately explain the full range of what kissing should and shouldn’t be.”
Enid’s eyes go wide with horror.
“It would be like saying vanilla is your favorite flavor of ice cream without ever trying red velvet confetti cake batter!” she gasps. “Or midnight chocolate fudge brownie!”
“Precisely,” Wednesday tells her with a bit of smugness, ignoring the toothache that the descriptions of those flavors incite. “You simply need more variety.”
Enid juts out her lower lip into a pout, which is never a good thing. It’s a harbinger of certain meltdown.
“B-but,” she blubbers, “Then I have to break up with Ajax, and if I break up with Ajax and kiss a bunch of other people just to find out that that really is as good as kissing gets, and then I try to get back together with Ajax, but he’s already moved on with someone else and doesn’t want to–”
“Stop,” Wednesday demands, throwing a hand up between them. “Unjustified run-on sentences make me nauseous.”
Tears well in the corners of Enid’s eyes. She’s been known to turn them on like a faucet. It’s something Wednesday really doesn’t have a tolerance for.
“If you promise to stop crying,” she coaxes, “I’ve come up with a solution to your quandary.”
Enid’s face lights up, tears dissolving instantly. “Really?”
“You do want a solution, yes?” Wednesday asks seriously. Enid nods.
“More than anything.”
Trailblazing. Bold. Ahead, not behind. Wednesday steadies herself with a breath. These are all accurate descriptions of her, but what captures her best of all is the fact that she is unafraid. Wednesday doesn’t even allow herself a moment of hesitation before she acts. She doesn’t need it. The bed is small enough that closing the gap between them takes little to no effort and even in the darkness, the shape of Enid’s face is easy to navigate.
Wednesday jerks forward and stops her motion the second their lips make contact.
It’s gentle, grazing, and- with the warmth of Enid’s skin- almost pleasant. Wednesday isn’t exactly sure how long a kiss is supposed to last, but a good one usually isn’t anything quick. If they were going to collect accurate data, this had to be a real kiss, not just the suggestion of one so Enid could emptily flit back to her boyfriend without care. This kiss needed substance.
She presses closer. The other girl has had plenty of time to pull away, So Wednesday doesn’t feel bad about deepening the kiss slightly. She slowly sneaks her lips closer, letting them rest in the valleys of Enid’s and pressing with just enough to briefly trap them between hers. Wednesday had always thought kissing to be a brash and violent thing- a battle of wills between lovers to better prove their devotion- but this is something different entirely.
It’s creeping and tentative and insidious, falling over both of them like night. The phrase that comes to mind is Kiss of Death. The possibility of poison laced on either of their lips. The thrilling gamble of letting someone in close enough to kill you. The final seal that ensures disaster when the ship is already starting to sink. Wednesday has always thought the most impressive means of murder were the quietest, the ones you least see coming. A kiss like this, thumbed like the delicate skin of a rose petal, is a fresh and exciting brand of fatal.
There’s a dark sort of beauty in it, Wednesday thinks, daring to linger just another second. Neither of them have so much as breathed since this began, all but suffocating just for the sake of it. Enid hasn’t so much as moved other than to shut her eyes. They’re as still as a painting, as quiet as a beat between lines of poetry.
When Wednesday pulls away, she thinks about the lines of prose she’s now equipped to write because of this experience. Enid bobs forward slightly, stiil a bit dazed. With a little luck, they’ve both gotten what they wanted out of this.
“There,” Wednesday says, voice unwavering. “Did that feel different?”
“Yes,” Enid breathes.
Then Wednesday has done her job. Enid can make an educated decision about the fate of her vapid infatuation with that classmate of theirs. Perhaps now they might actually sleep. If Enid had inquired about the other items on the list of Wednesday’s preferred departures from this world, she’d know that sleep deprivation did not rank highly. It would involve slowly going mad, and if Wednesday has a choice, she’d like to be herself when she goes.
The clock over their door clicks hollowly as they lay still. Wednesday expects Enid to continue their previous conversation, but she doesn’t. Enid must expect Wednesday to chase her back to the other side of the room, but that doesn’t happen either. Instead they stare straight ahead, accidentally locking eyes. Enid blinks first.
“Wednesday,” she whispers, face shrouded in shadows. “Your lips were so cold.”
“If it wasn’t to your liking,” Wednesday retorts with venom, “Might I recommend–”
“No,” she interrupts, not bothering to hear the scathing second half of that sentence. “I did like it. I liked it very much.”
They don’t speak again after that. Wednesday falls asleep that night thinking about the same thing she always does: her novel. For the first time ever, she ponders giving her protagonist a love interest.