Parings: Wednesday X Female Reader. Wordcount: 13k-ish.
Summary: Wednesday's frustration made her say something irreversible. But now can she heal what she broke?
Theme: Angst? Comfort? Who knows?
Pain, she could handle. She welcomed it, even, when it came with a purpose, broken bones, torn flesh, bruised knuckles from a well-landed punch. There was logic in physical suffering. A beginning, a middle, and an end.
But this? This was different. This was formless. Unyielding. A ghost that kept haunting her.
Nevermore hadnât changed. The ravens still cawed overhead with their usual menace, and the wind still flowed, the students still chatted like no tomorrow and she still hated this place more than she hated her parentsâ open displays of affection. But it all felt hollow. It felt like walking through the echo of a place that used to mean something because of a certain someone. It felt like punishment now, for her sins.
Your absence wasnât loud. It didnât scream. It lingered. Like the silence after a scream, like the stillness after a fall. Like something she refused to acknowledge⌠grief.
Enid was still furious, still heartbroken on your behalf. She hadnât spoken more than ten words to Wednesday in days, and even those were delivered through clenched teeth and narrowed eyes. She was trying to be civil, but it was all too obvious that she hated what Wednesday had done. Hated how coldly sheâd said it. How final it had sounded. âI donât want this anymore.â The words tasted like ash now.
Wednesday had never hated her own voice before.
Her words had been weapons. Blades she drove into your chest over and over, because she thought that was the only way to save you. But then, there was the way your voice broke on her name. The way your fingers trembled when you whispered that you wouldâve done anything for her.
She thought about that a lot. The anything. She wondered if that was still true.
And then there were nightmares. Fire and blood and screaming monsters wouldâve been beautiful dreams. But, all she saw now, was you.Â
You, sitting across from her with empty eyes. You, walking past her without a glance. You, on the infirmary bed again, lips pale, limbs cold, chest rising so shallowly she had to count your breaths. She woke with clenched fists and tears she refused to let fall. It was a ritual now, wake, ache, write, ache more.
She barely ate. What would be the point? Food didnât taste like anything. Time didnât move like it used to. Everything was after now. There was no more before.
She tried to catch glimpses of you in the halls when the starvation was out of her control. Sometimes, she saw the edge of your hair turning a corner. You didnât smile, you didnât talk. You barely looked up when people spoke to you. And she knew, with sick certainty, that she had done that.Â
She watched you disappear, in the horrifying way a person begins to dissolve when they stop believing they matter. And you believed that now. You believed you were forgettable. You believed you were unlovable. And you believed that because of her.
She had done everything right, hadnât she? She had calculated the risk. She had seen the damage forming and decided to cut the wound clean rather than let it rot. But emotions didnât follow logic. Love didnât follow plans. She had made you a promise, quietly, wordlessly, with her presence, with the way she touched your hand beneath the table, with the way she let you in when she let no one else come close, and then she broke it. She made you feel safe and then made herself the danger.
And now⌠there was nothing. Just the hollow.
Just the echo of what used to be.
She remembered the way your head used to rest against her shoulder during quiet moments, the warmth of your breath against her collarbone. She remembered the way you used to reach for her hand without looking, like you didnât need to see her to feel her. She remembered the way you used to say her name, not with reverence, not with fear, but with familiarity. With love. As if her name belonged to you.
And now, it didnât. Now, it was a word that made you flinch. A word you avoided.
There was nothing left in her daily rituals to keep her grounded. She stopped playing her cello. It sat in the corner of her dorm like a gravestone. She hadnât gone fencing in weeks. The thought of competition felt absurd. What was the point in sparring when she was already bleeding in silence?
She had wanted to protect you.
That had been the entire reason. It was never about her. Sheâd seen you starving yourself, punishing yourself, shrinking into something she didnât recognize, and she had panicked. She had thought, If I go, sheâll stop. If I make her hate me, sheâll eat again. Sheâll sleep. Sheâll stop trying to be less for me.
But you hadnât. You had kept fading. Only now, you did it quietly. Alone.
She wondered if you still cried at night. She wondered if anyone heard it.
She wondered if you still loved her.
She didnât deserve it. Not anymore.
But she missed you with an ache so deep it had become part of her bones. There was no second of the day that passed without your name etched beneath it, ghosting through her thoughts. You were the undercurrent of everything. The weight in her chest. The ache in her lungs. The shadow in her reflection.
She hadnât just lost you.
Wednesday had been expecting it. Maybe not tonight. Maybe not with this kind of venom. But she knew it was coming, the reckoning, the moment when someone finally said aloud what sheâd been forcing herself to endure in silence. What sheâd been carving into her own skin, wordless and alone.Â
She didnât flinch. She didnât even look up. She recognized the weight of the footsteps immediately, all fury wrapped in rainbows, Enid.
Wednesday didnât say anything, didnât look back at Enid. She waited. Her hand still hovering over her typewriter, as if it wasnât like this for the past hour.Â
âWeâre not leaving this room until we talk about it.â Enid snapped. Her voice wasnât loud, it was sharp. Measured. The kind of tone that didnât yell to be heard. It was rare, something Wednesday never heard from Enid. âYou donât get to sit here in this crypt and act like you didnât destroy her.â
Wednesday didnât blink, âIâm not acting like anything.â
Enid stalked forward, every step sharp. âYou broke her. You broke her, and youâre just sitting here like a corpse pretending none of it matters.â
Wednesdayâs fingers twitched, her jaw tightening. âIâm not pretending it doesnât matter.â
âThen what are you doing?â Enidâs voice rose, breaking at the edges now, fury mixing with hurt, with exhaustion. âAll I see is you hiding. You sit up here in your stupid tower writing your little guilt poems and pretending youâre mourning something you chose to kill.â
That landed. It landed hard. Wednesday flinchedâbarely, but Enid saw it. And she didnât stop. She couldnât. Not now.
âShe eats in the mornings now,â Wednesday said, quiet. It wasnât a defense. Just an observation. Something she'd been watching from across the cafeteria like a ghost watching the living.
Enid took a step closer. âShe pretends to eat. And you know it. You sit there and watch her push food around like itâs some performance and you still do nothing.â
âI donât want to make it worse.â
âYou already did!â Enid hissed. âShe barely even talks. She looks at the world like itâs something that doesnât belong to her anymore. Like sheâs already halfway out of it.â
âNo, you donât.â Enid stepped closer, lowering her voice, but somehow making it feel sharper, more precise. âYou donât know what itâs like to sit with her and watch her force a smile because she doesnât want to make me sad. You donât know what itâs like to hear her say she understands why you left, like she deserved it. Like she was lucky to have had you at all.â
âI neverââ Wednesday started, but the words stopped. Died in her throat.
Enid went on, and the words came fast now, like sheâd been holding them in for too long and they were clawing to get out. âYou know what she told me that night? She told me she understood why you left. That she was too emotional. Too needy. That she shouldâve just worn the stupid dress and smiled and stayed quiet because then maybe you wouldnât have gotten tired of her.â
âI never got tired of her,â Wednesday snapped, getting up before she could stop herself. The words shot out fast, raw. âI loved her.â
Enidâs expression shifted. Pain flickered in her eyes and she didnât try to mask it. âThen you shouldnât have lied.â
âI was trying to protect her.â
âNo, you werenât,â Enid hissed. âYou were protecting yourself. You didnât want to watch her break anymore, so you ran. You made yourself the villain because that was easier than sitting with what youâd done.â
Wednesday didnât deny it. Because Enid was right. That was the worst part of all this how deeply, how thoroughly, Wednesday had become the thing she hated most: a coward. She had tried accepting it long ago, that loving you made her weak in ways she could live with. But the moment her love started hurting you, she didnât fight. She didnât stay. She didnât try. She just destroyed everything and walked away, convincing herself it was mercy.
âI thought if she hated me, she could start to heal,â Wednesday said, quieter now. âThat sheâd let go.â
Enid shook her head. âShe didnât let go. She let herself go.â
That sank in. Deeper than any of the other blows.
The weight in her chest pressed harder. She felt hollow and swollen all at once, every emotion buried beneath the surface swelling up until it ached.
âI didnât know what else to do,â Wednesday whispered, and it was the first thing sheâd said tonight that sounded truly broken. âShe was wasting away. Every time I tried to pull her back, I only pushed her deeper. I was.. I am the reason she was fading and she still held onto me tightly, so tightly that it was killing her.â
Wednesday sat back down. Slowly. She felt⌠hollow. She had never felt this before, numb and directionless. This was sharper. This was something new. You always made her feel so much new things.
Enid stared at her, watching her carefully. âYou made her believe she was hard to love.â
Wednesday closed her eyes.
It didnât matter that she hadnât meant it. It didnât matter that sheâd hated herself every second of it. What mattered was that you believed it. You had taken her words like knives and buried them into your own skin.
And she had done nothing. She had stood by and let you bleed.
âI donât know how to fix it,â she said, barely audible.
âFight for her Wednesday.â Enid said.
Wednesday looked up. âWhat if she wonât let me?â
âThen she doesnât.â Enidâs voice was softer now, but still firm. âBut at least sheâll know youâre trying. At least sheâll know you care.â
Wednesday didnât answer right away. She stared at the wall, at the faint cracks in the stone, at the shadows dancing across the surface from the candle burning beside her desk.
Enid stood beside her. Close, but not touching.
âI know you miss her too,â she said after a long pause. âAnd she misses you. Even if she doesnât want to.â
Wednesday swallowed. Her throat burned.
âI never stopped loving her.â
It was the simplest thing. The most impossible thing.
But for the first time in weeks, Wednesday felt something other than emptiness rise up in her chest.
It wasnât enough to mourn you. It wasnât enough to feel regret. She had made a choice, a brutal, cowardly choice, and now she had to undo the damage. Not with apologies. Not with silence. With action.
She had to earn you back.
It wasnât the first time Wednesday had watched you from a distance. But it was the first time she allowed herself to truly see.
And what she saw was unbearable.
You had always been more alive than anyone else. Not in Enidâs way, not loud, not blinding, not in colors that hurt the eyes. You were alive in subtler ways, in the spark that danced when you teased her, in the way your lips curled around words like you had been waiting all day just to say them to her. Even when you were quiet, even when you were tired, you had a warmth that pulled her in despite her pushing away with all of her strength.
Now, it was like the warmth had been cut from you. Like someone had taken a knife and carved it out, leaving only the shell behind.
Your fingers idly turned a page you hadnât read. Your hair hung in your face, and you didnât bother to move it. You looked like you were somewhere else entirely, and that somewhere was far away, unreachable.
Wednesdayâs chest felt tight.
She had told herself, again and again, that leaving you had been necessary. That it had been an act of mercy. That by making herself the villain, she had freed you from the slow suffocation that came with being tethered to her. She had convinced herself that your pain was temporary, that you would recover, that hating her was better than loving her if loving her meant you were hurting yourself.
But staring at you now, pale in the sunlight, hunched as if you wanted to fold yourself out of existence, she understood the truth.
She hadnât left to save you.
She had left to save herself.
Because she hadnât been able to stand watching you fade. She hadnât been able to bear the weight of your suffering, the way your eyes had grown dimmer, the way your hands had started to tremble when you thought no one was looking. She hadnât wanted to feel this
She was searching for reasons to play by the rules. And she quickly found out, they were just for fools.
The ache in her chest was relentless, pounding, sharp. She couldnât look away. Every detail stabbed into her with precision: the way you pressed your lips together when someone passed close, the way your hands gripped the book a little too tightly, the way you stared at nothing like you were waiting to be swallowed whole.
She had always prided herself on her honesty. But with you, she had lied more than she had ever lied in her life.
She had told herself she didnât need you. That she could endure the hollow as long as it meant you were safe. That she could walk away and remain intact.
But she wasnât intact. She was fractured, unarmored, broken.
And there was nothing healed about you. There was nothing mended. She had cut you open and then abandoned you to bleed out on your own.
And for what? For this? For the hollow version of you sitting in the courtyard like a ghost no one else noticed?
The ache in her chest worsened, and for once she didnât fight it. This was what she had been running from. The truth that loving you meant she would hurt, and seeing you hurt meant she couldnât stay untouched. She had been so desperate to control the variables that she forgot you are not numbers. You are blood and fire and laughter and silence, and she had stripped all of that away until all that was left was this empty shell.
And now, she had to decide whether she was going to keep watching you dissolve or whether she was going to fight for you, risk everything, risk herself, risk the fragile walls she had built around her guilt....
She had never feared anything in her life. She had faced monsters without flinching, walked into death traps with serenity.  But she feared you, she always did. The thought of walking across this courtyard, of looking you in the eyes and telling you the truth, made her chest feel like it was collapsing in on itself.
She feared the distance in your eyes, the silence in your movements, the possibility that when she finally opened her mouth, she would find she was too late.
The courtyard felt uneven under her boots, as if the entire world was trying to pull her off balance. Her chest ached with every pace she took closer to you, but she forced herself forward.
She saw the exact moment you sensed her presence.
Your gaze was sharp in its emptiness, piercing in its hollowness. Not anger. Not hatred. She could have withstood those. She could have fought against them. But this...
This quiet, resigned look, like you had expected her to come eventually and it didnât matter anymore, was unbearable.
By the time she reached you, her hands were trembling at her sides. She curled them into fists, willing herself to stand tall.
âMay I sit?â Her voice was low, brittle.
You blinked, hesitated, âDo what you want.â
The words landed like knives. Still, she lowered herself onto the bench, leaving space between you, space she hated but knew she didnât deserve to bridge.
Then, finally, she spoke.
You stiffened. Your fingers closed tighter around your book.
She looked straight at you, unblinking. âEnding what we had. I told myself it was to protect you. That it would stop you from⌠from unraveling the way you were. But that was a lie.â
Your lips parted, but no sound came.
Wednesday went on, every word scraping out of her chest like broken glass. âI didnât leave for you. I left because I couldnât bear to watch you fall apart. Because I couldnât endure what it did to me, this⌠helplessness. I told myself cruelty was mercy. That if you hated me, it would be easier for you. But all I did was make you⌠this.â
Your voice was soft, frayed at the edges. âThis?â
âA ghost.â The word nearly broke her. âYouâre here, but youâre not. And I see it. Every day. The way you vanish in front of everyone and no one notices. But I do. I see everything. I always did.â
Silence. A breeze tugged at your hair, but you didnât move to fix it. You just stared at her, eyes glassy but unyielding.
âYou think you can just come here and say that?â Your voice cracked, just slightly. âYou think words are enough after youâŚâ You trailed off, shaking your head. âAfter you broke me, Wednesday? After you looked me in the eye and told me you didnât want me anymore?â
Wednesdayâs chest tightened so violently it almost stole her breath. âI wanted you then. I want you now. I never stopped.â
âThat doesnât matter,â you whispered. âBecause you said it. And I believed it. I believed I wasnât enough for you. That if I had been better, quieter, less, whatever you wanted me to be, maybe you wouldâve stayed.â
Her hands curled into fists against her knees. âNo. You were never the problem. You wereâŚâ She swallowed hard, voice catching. âYou were everything. And I ruined it because I was afraid.â
"Afraid?" you asked, bitterly.
âAfraid of losing you,â she said simply. âAfraid of how much I needed you. Afraid of how it felt to care more than I ever thought I could. Afraid, most of all, that my presence was killing you.â
Tears burned at your eyes, though you blinked them back. âSo you killed me another way instead.â
Her breath faltered. She couldnât deny it. âYes.â
You shook your head, standing abruptly, clutching your book to your chest like armor. â You donât get to come back here and say these things when youâre the reason I feel this way.â
Her body lurched forward, like instinct, like she couldnât let you leave. âI know that, I was wrong. And I will spend however long it takes to prove it. Even if you never forgive me.â
You froze, just for a second. Then, slowly, you turned your face away, blinking hard. âI canât do this right now.â
And then you walked. Past her. Away from her. Again.
Wednesday didnât follow. She was rooted to the bench, her chest heaving, her heart hollow. She felt eyes on her and realized Enid had been standing just behind her, watching everything.
âHave you ever told her she is beautiful, Wednesday?â
Wednesday turned, meeting Enidâs gaze. The werewolfâs eyes were soft, but tired. She wasnât cruel. Just⌠honest.
Wednesday didnât answer. She didnât need to. The answer was obvious.
You didnât even remember walking all the way back here, didnât remember climbing the stairs or shutting the door, but here you were, the four walls of your room pressing in like they were conspiring to suffocate you.
You don't know what time is it, how many hours had passed, all you knew. was that the tears wouldnât stop now. You had thought maybe, maybe you had run out of them months ago, that there was no more left to give after everything she did, after every night you curled into yourself and begged to be numb.
But then she had to come back. She had to stand there in front of you with those black eyes that once felt like home, had to speak in that voice that could unravel you in a single syllable. She had to open her mouth, spill words that sounded like regret, sound like sorrow, sound like everything you had begged for back when it mattered. And now all it did was split you wide open all over again.
Why did she come back? Why couldnât she just leave you in your ruin?
You pressed the heel of your palm against your eyes, as if you could push the sobs back inside. But it didnât work. Nothing ever works.
She looked broken. You hated that you saw it. You hated that your own chest twisted at the sight of her pain, because hadnât she left you with enough of your own? The way she looked at you, the hurt in her eyes, and some twisted part of you hated yourself for still recognizing it, still caring. You wanted to scream at her. You wanted to fall into her arms. You wanted to hate her, to cut her out, to forget.
And yet your chest ached with those same endless, ruthless feelings you had never been able to kill. She wasnât allowed to come crawling back with guilt in her eyes, making you feel everything you had been trying so desperately to bury.
But it was Wednesday. Always Wednesday. Every cruel word, every sharp silence, every cold dismissalâŚit hadnât erased what she had been to you before. It hadnât erased how much you had given her, how much of yourself you had poured into her with the kind of reckless devotion you couldnât take back. You still loved her. God, you still loved her.
And that was what made it unbearable.
You curled tighter, fists knotted in your blanket. What were you supposed to do with all of this? How were you supposed to live with this war tearing inside you, half of you begging for her to stay away, the other half screaming for her to never let go again? You felt so lost. As if every part of you was pulling in different directions until there would be nothing left.
A sound broke through the silence.
Soft, deliberate. Not at the door. At the window.
Your head jerked up, your body stiff. For a second, your mind went cold with dread, is Wednesday back again?
Sitting on the narrow stone ledge outside your window, his fingers drumming impatiently against the glass.
You blinked, torn between disbelief and confusion. âThing?â Your voice cracked, raw from crying. âWhat are you doing here?â
He pointed toward himself, then made an exaggerated motion of carrying something, then pointed back to you.
You turned away quickly, dragging in a shaky breath as you pressed a hand against your face. âWhatever it is, take it back to her. I donât want it.â Your voice was sharp, though it trembled at the edges. You couldnât do this. Not tonight. Not when your skin still burned with the memory of her words, not when your heart was already bleeding from the sight of her.
You stayed facing away, waiting for the sound of him climbing down, retreating back to where he belonged. But the room was silent.
When you finally turned around, the ledge was empty.
And in his place, sitting neatly on the windowsill, was a small black notebook.
Your stomach twisted. You froze, staring at it like it was dangerous, like if you touched it, it would burn you alive.
For a long moment, you didnât move. You didnât even breathe properly.
Finally, with trembling fingers, you reached out and took it. The leather cover was cool beneath your touch, smooth, unfamiliar, yet⌠hers. It was undeniably hers.
A part of you screamed to throw it out the window, to hurl it as far as you could, to never give her the satisfaction of knowing you even considered opening it. You wanted to be stronger than this. You wanted to hate her enough to reject even this.
But then, another part of you, small, fragile, whispered that you had to know. That maybe, hidden between those pages, there was something she couldnât say aloud. Something real. Something that might make sense of the wreckage she left you in.
Your fingers trembled as you sat back on the bed, staring at the closed notebook like it held both your salvation and your damnation.
And you⌠you gave up.
Wednesday never missed class. Not once. The structure of her day, the ritual of it, the expectation of control, it was all too essential to who she was.
And yet after Enidâs question, that single, simple question, she had walked straight back to her dorm instead of to her next lesson.
She didnât even realize she had done it until the door clicked shut behind her, leaving her standing in the quiet emptiness of their room.
And, she understood what was happening, the thing she never thought she would do. Letting her body carried not by her mind, but by her emotions.
So she sat at her desk. Opened her drawer. Pulled out a notebook that had never been touched. Blank. Cold. Waiting. She set it down in front of her, and for once in her life her hand trembled as she uncapped her pen.
She stared at the first page for a while. hen, with slow, deliberate strokes, she wrote the words that had burned their way up her throat.
Your beauty never ever scared me.
She paused, staring at the sentence as though it were something dangerous. She had thought beauty should have made her recoil, dismiss it as superficial, irrelevant. But with you⌠she had only ever wanted to look closer.
Her pen moved forward and her mind dragged backwards.
The first time I saw you was in the quad. It was midday. Bright, insufferable light cut through the trees, but somehow, it all fell around you. There was no reason I should've noticed you. I never notice anyone unless they serve a purpose. Unless they are a piece to a greater puzzle, an answer waiting to be extracted. But you were nothing of that sort. You were simply there. Just another student in the uniform I have come to despise. And yetâŚ
Wednesday hesitated, fingers tightening around the pen. She had to force herself to write the next words.
And yet my eyes betrayed me. They lingered. You did nothing exceptional. You spoke to no one. You carried yourself with no theatrics. You were not adorned in colors or glitter like Enid. You were simply yourself. And still I found myself staring. As though my body recognized something my mind was too stubborn to name. You were beautiful. In a way that made me furious, because I could not explain it, could not classify it, could not dissect it. I only⌠saw you.
She hated admitting it, but it was the truth.
I thought about you the rest of that day. I thought of you when I should have been focusing on the equation before me in class. My hand stilled mid-sentence, my mind caught on the curve of your expression when you had looked up briefly, unaware of me. I stared long enough that Enid elbowed me and whispered something I refused to hear. She noticed, of course she noticed. She always notices. But I could not stop. You had already taken root. I did not understand it then. I am not certain I understand it now. Only that it was the beginning of something I could not control.
She wanted to stop, to shut the notebook, bury it where no one would ever find it. But her hand moved again, compelled, as though some part of her demanded that you know this, even if she never gave it to you.
The second time I found you beautiful was in the library. I had been searching for a book, one that should have been on the shelf, and it was not. I turned with irritation, prepared to tear into whoever had misplaced it, and there you were. You held it. Not carelessly, not in passing, but as though it were your companion. Your brow furrowed in concentration, your lips parted slightly as your eyes consumed the words with a hunger I recognized. You did not even notice me standing there. It was infuriating. I am used to being noticed. Even in disdain, even in fear, I am always noticed. But you⌠you did not lift your head. You gave all of yourself to the page, and I stood there watching you as if you were the book I had been searching for all along.
Her heart thudded painfully as she wrote the next line.
You were beautiful like that. Not adorned, not polished, not pretending. Just⌠you. My hand twitched to reach forward, to take the book from you, to claim some fragment of your attention. But instead, I said the first words I ever spoke to you. I asked if you were finished. My voice was flat, as it always is, but my pulse betrayed me. You looked up, startled, and for a second I saw something that etched itself into my mind like a carving in stone. The way the light hit your face. The way your eyes, surprised and curious, met mine. It was burned into me. I will never forget it.
The ink bled deeper into the paper as she pressed harder, her hand tightening with every sentence.
That was when I realized this would not be fleeting. That you would not leave my mind simply because I willed it. That your beauty was not something I could turn from or diminish. It had carved itself into me, and I was powerless against it.
Her pen hovered again, a faint tremor running through her fingers. It was unfamiliar, this hesitancy. Wednesday Addams did not hesitate. She cut, she struck, she carved without falter. But now, with every word bleeding onto the page, she felt exposed. But she also knew, she had only just begun.
I have never feared much in my life. She scrawled the words with sharp strokes, each letter a blade. Fear is for the weak. For those who cannot embrace the inevitable end that awaits us all. To me, blood was a comfort. Pain was logical. Fear itself had been irrelevant. I had built my life upon the foundation that I was immune to it.
But her hand slowed, the ink blotting in a dark smear as the truth forced itself out.
I was wrong. I feared you. Not because you threatened me. Not because you could wound me or best me. I feared you because you held me in a way nothing else ever had. I feared you because you made me want to stay. You made me want to remain in places I would have walked away from without hesitation. I feared you because I could not understand how one glance, one silence, one half-smile could unravel me more effectively than any blade.
She swallowed, breath uneven, before dragging the pen across the page again.
That day in the library, I did something I had never done before. I stayed. Not out of necessity, not out of strategy, but willingly. I remained in your orbit, not because I needed you, but because I wanted to. That was my first betrayal of myself. I should have walked away. Instead, I took a book I had read years ago, a novel I could recite from memory, and I sat across from you. I pretended to read, but I did not care for the words on the page. You read yours in silence, your brow furrowed, your lips curving ever so slightly when a passage caught your attention. And then⌠you looked at me. Briefly. Just once. But it was enough. I looked back. And I did not stop. We sat there, two statues in the dim light of the library, pretending at study, but truly only studying each other. It was unbearable. It was addictive. I stayed because of you. You were the first reason I ever stayed.
Beauty is not something I notice in people. I have never cared for the triviality of faces or bodies. My attention has always been for what is perfectly perfect to me: the macabre. The grotesque. Blood dripping down marble. The guttural cries of the dying. The sweet inevitability of decay. These are what I once considered beautiful. They were constant. Unchanging. Safe.
Her pulse pounded louder in her ears as she wrote the next line.
And the truth of the matter is⌠your eyes needed none.
She froze there, the words hanging on the page like a confession, like a betrayal to everything she thought she knew of herself. Her jaw clenched, but she pressed on, the pen cutting forward as though her heart itself was guiding it.
Your eyes were unlike anything I had ever known. They did not demand attention, they did not glitter or scream for it. They simply existed, quiet, endless, and they undid me. I found myself staring too long, and every time I did, I felt it. The pull. The abyss. If I looked long enough, I would lose myself in them. I would drown.
She should close the notebook. She should hide it. She should bury it somewhere no one could ever find it.
But she didnât. She turned the page. And kept going.
The third time I found you beautiful was still that day. The library. When you closed your book and began to pack your things. I should not have noticed you. I should have lowered my eyes, finished my page, pretended I was absorbed in something more valuable than your departure. But I could not. My eyes followed you as though chained to your every movement. The careful way you stacked your things, the slight tilt of your head as you brushed a strand of hair away. All of it held me captive.
Her hand stilled for a moment, the ink forming a blot where she had paused, then she forced herself to go on.
I hate smiles. They are hollow performances, contortions of the face to mask truth, to placate, to deceive. I rarely give them. The only times I have felt the corners of my lips turn upward, it has been at blood spilled across the floor or the promise of chaos in the air. Smiles are a mask, and I despise masks.
But then you looked at me. You smiled. Warmly. Not because you wanted something, not because you needed to soften me or trick me. You simply smiled as though I mattered enough to warrant it. As though seeing me there was enough. My eyes did not obey me. They followed you. Every movement. Every breath. I did not understand it. I still do not.
She could not stop. The memories were tumbling out, demanding to be written.
And then you stopped. At the door, you looked back. You should not have. You had no reason to. But you did. And again, you smiled. That second smile was worse. Worse because it was directed at me. And before I could recover, before I could shield myself in my usual armor, you lifted your hand and waved. A gesture so trivial it should mean nothing. But it was not nothing. Not to me. It was unbearable. It was⌠beautiful. The kind of beauty that split me open, raw and unprepared, because I had no weapon against it. You left then. I stayed frozen, staring at the empty doorway long after you had gone, wondering why I had not moved, why I had not breathed.
She drew in a breath, let it hiss out between her teeth, and forced herself onto the next page.
The fourth time I found you beautiful was the very next day. In the quad again. The same place where I had first seen you. I had not expected you to notice me
And yet I felt it. The pull of your gaze. You looked at me. You glanced back, not once, but twice. I tried to rationalize it, to file it into some convenient explanation: perhaps I was in your line of sight. Perhaps it was chance. Perhaps it was nothing. But I knew better. You looked at me because you wanted to. And that was enough to undo me again.
She stopped, her hand hovering just above the page, the words echoing inside her as though she had spoken them aloud.
I tried to play by my own rules. I tried to treat you as I do everyone else: as a piece on a board, an answer to a question, a shadow to be filed away. But you kept breaking the rules. You wormed your way into my mind even when my eyes could not see you. I searched for reasons, for excuses, for order. But there was none. There was only you. Always, you.
The memories were too sharp, too clear, too merciless. They demanded to be spilled.
The next time I found you beautiful, Enid was to blame. She had asked you to sit with us at lunch. I still do not know if she did it because she wanted you to have company, or because she had already noticed what I was too stubborn to admit. You agreed, though I could see the hesitation in the way your steps faltered before you lowered yourself onto the bench beside her. Your hands fidgeted against your lap, as if you were trying to make yourself smaller, as if being there required an apology. Nervousness clung to you like a second skin. And yet, all I could see was beauty.
Wednesday tightened her grip on the pen.
You were simply there, fragile and quiet, yet even in that nervousness, in that hesitancy, I could not look away. There was a fragility to it, but not weakness. It was honest, and in that honesty, you were beautiful.
She remembered her own hands, idle on the table, her eyes refusing to move even as Enid chattered on. She remembered how still she had been, pretending indifference when every nerve in her body burned.
It should have ended there. It did not. The next time I found you beautiful was minutes later, when Enid said something insipid. I do not recall what it was. The only thing I do remember, is your laugh. It was not loud. It did not roll across the room the way othersâ laughter does. No, yours was small. Almost accidental. It slipped out before you could stop it. A sound you seemed immediately embarrassed to make. Your head tilted back just slightly, as though the sound pulled you with it, and your hand came up to cover your mouth, as though you owed the world an apology for daring to find joy.
And for the first time in my life, laughter did not feel like mockery. It did not feel like noise. It felt⌠real. Soft. Something alive burrowed beneath my ribs when I heard it. I froze. I hated myself for freezing, for letting a sound undo me so completely. But I could not help it. It was you. And it was beautiful.
Wednesdayâs chest rose unevenly as she wrote the next line, her lips pressed thin, her jaw tight enough to ache.
I know now what I did not see then. Your laugh. You thought it was something to hide, something unworthy. I did not understand in the moment. I only knew that you looked away the second you caught me staring. I let you believe there was something wrong with you. I let you tuck that sound away, as though it were not the only sound that had ever made me want to listen forever.
She pressed on, because if she stopped she might never start again.
The truth is it wasn't hate, it was... fear. I was raised to find beauty in darkness, to find comfort in the grotesque, to see poetry in the macabre. That is where I believed perfection resided. But then there was you. Nervous. Fragile. Laughing like you were afraid of being heard. And it shattered everything I thought I knew about what beauty was. Because beauty was you, in that moment, even when you did not believe it yourself. Especially then. And it's still there now... even if I am not worthy of deserving it.
Her pen lowered again, as if it already knew where to go next.
The greenhouse was not a place I frequented willingly. she wrote, the letters tight, precise. It smells of wet earth and chlorophyll and the faint something sweet that plants exhale when they are alive. I arrived to take notes. To control the variables. But there you were: crouched between two rows, knees speckled with dirt, unintentional, honest, disgracefully human. You looked up when you heard me approach, startled, embarrassed to be caught mid-tend. Your hair had escaped whatever order you usually kept it in; a loose strand lay across your forehead.
"I just⌠I like watching things grow," you had said, voice soft, quiet, as if this was something sacred, something not often spoken aloud. "Helping things live."
How utterly opposite of me, my work was the study of deathâs architecture, the calculus of endings. The violence of my own life had trained me to love decay; you, with your quiet cultivation, loved persistence. It was obscene and beautiful. You tended plants like you rescued the small, breakable things in the world, like you repaired them with care so they might not learn to die on purpose. It felt obscene that I wanted to be the thing you repaired. That I wanted to be tended.
Her pen dipped, the ink blotting where her hand had trembled. She didnât let herself justify. She only wrote.
It was another way you were beautiful: unselfconscious, earnest, a ridiculous human thing that should have been mundane. And yet it was not. I had never wanted to be mundane at all. I wanted to be the exception. I wanted to be the only thing that mattered in your small rituals. The realization hollowed me and made me greedy.
Time blurred after that. We crossed paths in dusty corners and humid glass rooms more than I expected. The greenhouse became a small planet where you existed with the uncanny simplicity of being alive. Sometimes I found excuses, assignments, errands,to be where you were. I told myself it was research. I told myself I was cataloging. The truth was that I just needed you.
Turning the page, the next memory claimed her with the slow inevitability of a storm.
The storm night, I'd been irritated before the blackout. A dorm blackout. Enid had been in high spirits, candles, she lit them everywhere and had invited Yoko for what she called a âgirlsâ night.â I wanted to scuttle them off the balcony or jump off myself. I had imagined the night would be a nuisance: flickering laughter, forced games, the banalities of human bonding. But then you came. You came because Enid had asked, because you were kind in ways I thought I despised.
Wednesday closed her eyes for a second and the memory pushed through like cold water.
You sat with your chin cupped in your palm, the candlelight throwing long, honest shadows across your face. There were faint crescents under your eyes, exhaustion, but your skin glowed in the flicker as if the light had decided to favor you. Enid jabbered on and the way you leaned forward to listen was not performative; you were present. The candlelight made your cheekbones carved and your lashes long and absurdly gentle. You looked vulnerable and entirely unaware of the effect.
Wednesdayâs pen hovered as she forced herself to confess the words she had long avoided.
I understand patterns in decay; I understand the aesthetic of ruin. Fire and rot speak the same language I speak. But there, in that imperfect glow, I had the irrational and unwanted urge to protect you from a world that did not deserve such softness. I wanted to gather you up into my arms and hide you from the unkindness of daylight. I wanted to stitch you into my bones so you could not be taken by slow erosion.
You were tired. Your jaw slack in an honest kind of way. You barely laughed that night, but you smiled when Enid said something absurd. It was a small, almost private smile that belonged to someone who had learned to conserve joy because it was scarce. And for the first time, I felt something more like yearning than possession. It was terrible. It was inconvenient. It was ruinous and divine
She wrote the last lines of the page with a hand that shook but refused to stop.
You were beautiful then because you did not try to be. Because you were a person surviving small devastations and still offering attention to anotherâs nonsense. Because you were honest in the way you said nothing and because the candlelight made you look like youâd been soft-bodied by life and kept standing anyway. It made me weak. Unnerved. Furious with myself for being unmoored by something as fragile as your presence.
She could not bring herself to stop. She had to let the ink carry it, because her voice would never survive saying it out loud.
The first time I felt it was a burn. I had read about it, dissected it clinically when poets and dramatists wasted entire pages on it, and dismissed it as fabrication. They called it Jealousy, Possession.
The useless heat of wanting what someone else had. I never envied. I never wanted. I was born with no room in my body for envy, or so I thought. And yet, you disassembled that certainty with the most mundane scene. Of all people, of all absurdities, you made me feel it of Enid...
Enid was sick, I returned to our dorm that evening with medicine that Enid needed. You were on Enidâs bed, curled in the corner with your knees tucked in and a book in your hands. Enid was beside you, listening, her bright eyes wide, her ridiculous grin softened by some kind of peace I had never seen in the overexcited puppy ever. And you, your voice filled the room. Soft. Uncertain at first, like you were not sure if you were allowed to take up air that was not yours. But you read anyway. You read because Enid asked you to, and because you, unlike me, could not say no when someone needed you. And she did need you. I could see it in the way she leaned into your words.
I could have walked in, announced myself, reclaimed the space that was supposed to be mine. But I didnât. I stayed there and listened. Your voice moved through me like something I had no name for. I have studied hypnosis. I know its tricks, its cadence, its false weight. I have been trained to resist.
And yet⌠I was not immune. You caught me in it, with nothing more than the sound of your lips shaping words into breath. My chest ached with it. My stomach burned. I knew it was jealousy, though I wanted to call it anything else. I wanted to name it poison. I wanted to name it fury. But the truth was simpler: I wanted to be where Enid was. I wanted to be the one you read to, the one who urged you to continue, the one who got your smile.
And then⌠you saw me. At the door. You stopped reading. Your eyes met mine, startled, uncertain. My stomach twisted, the burn spreading sharper. I expected silence, expected you to retreat into yourself the way you often did. But you did not. You used your voice again. You used it on me. You said my name.
Her pen stopped. Her breath caught.
Just one word. Just my name. âWednesday.â
She stared at the paper for a long time before she kept writing, the letters jagged, uneven.
I have heard my name countless times. Usually sharp, usually cursed, usually delivered like a warning. But in your mouth it was different. It was simple, nothing dressed in ceremony, no pleading, no disguise. Just my name in your mouth. And that was enough. Enough to undo me. Enough to make me forget how to stand properly. Enough to set me ablaze from the inside out.
Wednesdayâs hand cramped, but she didnât stop. Her pen felt like it weighed a ton.
You changed it. The entire concept of beauty. Before you, beauty had been symmetry in decay, the way blood bloomed on pale skin, the elegant stillness of death. I thought beauty was in ruin, in endings. But you⌠you altered that definition without asking me. Without permission. And suddenly, beauty was not in the grotesque, but in the small, silent things I found with you.
She scrawled faster, as if guilt itself was chasing her.
I did not understand it then. I despised myself for it then. I never showed you, not the way I should have. I let silence be my offering when words might have spared you pain. I thought it was enough to stay, to linger in the greenhouse as you dug your fingers into soil, as if that was not the most fragile, beautiful rebellion I had ever seen. I thought it was enough to sit across from you in the library, turning pages I had already memorized just to keep you in my sight. I thought it was enough to watch. To keep the truth chained inside myself. But it wasnât. And now you carry the absence of what I should have given you, every unspoken word, every withheld truth, like it was proof that you were never enough. You were always enough. I was the coward who was not.
Her hand trembled. For the first time, the pen slipped. She smudged ink across the page but refused to tear it out. The mess was part of it now.
Even now, I cannot name it. I cannot trace the order of events, the sequence, the trigger. It was in the library. It should not have happened. I know every move I make, every strike, every step, every breath is deliberate. I am the master of myself. I am precise, always. And yet that moment defies me. I donât know who leaned forward first. I donât know whose hand faltered, whose breath broke. All I know is that suddenly your lips were on mine, and everything I thought I knew about control dissolved into something I still cannot comprehend.
You tasted beautiful. That is not a word I ever thought to use that way, but it is the only one that comes close. Beautiful. You tasted like something forbidden, like something I could never earn, and yet I was drowning in it. My body, the body I command as if it were nothing more than a finely-tuned weapon, betrayed me. My hands did not move. My breath faltered. My pulse surged until I thought it would tear me apart. I have been stabbed before. I have bled, broken, shattered bones. But never have I felt what I felt then, the burn that was not pain but promise, the fire that spread not to kill but to consume.
Her breathing came ragged now, shallow and uneven.
And when you pulled away, because of course you would, because you thought I did not want itâI broke again. But this time, I did not let control dictate me. I did not let calculation or fear win. I did something I never thought I would do. I initiated the second kiss. Deliberately. Desperately. I leaned in before you could retreat fully, before the distance between us could become permanent. And that kiss was mine. It was not stolen, not accidental, not confused. It was chosen. I chose you, in that moment, against everything I had told myself I was. Against every rule I had written. Against the control I worshiped. I kissed you because I wanted to.
I have lived unafraid of monsters, of blades, of death itself. But I was afraid of you. Afraid of needing you. Afraid of showing you how beautiful you were, how beautiful you are. I thought my fear was for you, that you would break under the weight of my distance to affection. But the truth, the truth I hate to carve into these pages, is that I was afraid of myself. Of how much I wanted you. Of how much I still do. And what I am willing to do, to show it to you.
The notebook was heavy in your hands, though you knew it wasnât the paper that made it so. It was her.
Her words. Her bleeding confessions scrawled in the same sharp, precise handwriting you had always seen across assignments and essays, but now⌠stripped of all armor.
You had read so much already, pages of moments she found you beautiful, words you had never imagined would exist in her vocabulary, let alone directed at you. And the more you read, the harder it became to breathe.
You had seen her watch you before. You had felt the weight of her stare across the library tables, in the greenhouse, in the chaos of classrooms. Never once had you thought it could be admiration. Never once had you thought it could be love. And yet here it was, inked into permanence, page after page.
Tears blurred your vision, falling onto the paper, bleeding into her ink until the two were indistinguishable. You wiped at your eyes, but it didnât stop. You couldnât stop. The guilt in her words carved into you, each confession a knife twisted back into the moments you had replayed in your head a thousand times. You thought you had been invisible to her. You thought she didnât care. All the while she had been drowning in you, silently, secretly.
Your breath hitched when you turned the page and saw the shift in her handwriting. Jagged, furious, breaking. You read on, her words dragging you back to that day.
That day in the shopping mall. I cannot erase it. I do not deserve to. You stepped out in that dress, purple, soft, alive in a way I could never be, hesitant, uncertain, waiting for me to tell you how beautiful it was and it was beautiful, because you were beautiful. Painfully beautiful. You were sunlight caught in silk, you were everything I would never deserve. I should have said it then. I should have told you that you were beautiful. That it made me forget the very air in my lungs.
But I did not. I let my frustration poison me, and instead of admitting the truth, I cut you with words I can never take back. I saw your face fall, and I knew. I knew I had ruined it. The Raven mattered to you. Our first dance.... It was something you wanted, something you hoped for, something you trusted me to share. And I destroyed it. With my cowardice. With my cruelty.
You remembered that day, how badly it hurt, how small you had felt under her sharp tongue. You remembered standing there in that dress, wanting so badly for her to see you, only to feel crushed instead.
But here it was, her guilt poured raw onto paper.
I cannot forgive myself for that moment. It replays like a curse, like a vision I cannot outrun. You were radiant, and I reduced you to nothing. I destroyed something sacred to you, and in doing so, destroyed myself. I know you may never forgive me. I know you may never look at me again. But I cannot leave it like this. I cannot let the memory rot without giving you what I should have. What you deserved from me all along. I need to give you this dance, even if it is the last thing I will ever have with you. I need you to know, even if you walk away, even if you never come back, that I saw you. That you were always, always beautiful.
You pressed your hand to your mouth, trying to stop the sound that wanted to escape, but it was no use. A sob tore out anyway, muffled, desperate. You turned the page with shaking fingers.
Our first dance in the Raven. You had wanted it. You had dreamed of it. And I destroyed it. I made you believe you werenât worthy of it. I couldnât handle how much it shook me, how much I wanted to drag you away from the world and keep you to myself. So I broke you instead. I broke you because I could not face what you were to me. And I know, I know I may never be forgiven for it. I know you deserve to forget me, to move on, to despise me for the way I poisoned the one thing you wanted. But I cannot leave you with only that. I cannot leave you with ruin.
If you never want to see me again, I will respect it. I will vanish from Nevermore. I will not plague you any longer. But before that, I need to give you back what I stole. I need to give you what you deserved that day. I need to give you the Raven. I want you to have the dance, not as some cruel mockery, not as an afterthought, but as the truth I should have spoken then. You are th entire concept of beauty to me. And even if it kills me, even if you leave me behind forever, I will give it to you. Just one dance. If you allow it. One chance to put the world back into your hands.
The next lines were smaller, almost trembling across the paper.
So I will ask, here, if nowhere else. Will you come to the Raven with me?
Your vision swam as you stared at the words, your chest tightening with every shallow breath. She had asked you. She had asked you like it was the last plea she would ever write, like she had poured her blood into the paper.
And just as you tried to pull yourself together, to wipe your eyes and close the notebook, the knock came. Sharp, soft, again at your window. Your heart stuttered in your chest. Slowly, almost afraid, you turned.
There, resting against the glass, was a package.
Your hands shook as you reached for it, sliding the window open just enough to take it inside. The box was simple, plain brown, tied with black string. It sat heavy in your lap as though it knew what it carried. You pulled at the knot, fingers clumsy, your breath uneven. And when the flaps fell open, when you pushed the tissue paper aside, you felt your entire body freeze.
The purple dress. The same one. The same fabric you had once wanted to love, the one she had turned into a wound. Folded carefully, reverently, like an apology made tangible.
On top of it, a note. Small, just two sentences, written in the same dark ink.
This time, I will not waste the moment. This time, I will say it.
You couldnât breathe, couldnât move, couldnât think. The dress stared back at you, a ghost resurrected, and the words in the notebook still rang in your ears. The dress glimmered faintly in the low light, and for the first time since that day, you werenât sure if your tears were from sorrow or hope.
And you didnât know what to do. Not yet.
The Raven was loud. Too loud. The lights were dim but fractured, colors flashing across pale faces and glittering dresses.
She stood still, black and sharp against the swirling colors around her, watching students sway and spin under the lights, her arms folded tightly against her chest, her spine rigid, her expression as unreadable as ever. But inside... inside she was unraveling, she was waiting.
She hated dances. She had said it a thousand times. Pointless rituals of hormones and noise, desperate groping masked as romance. And yet, here she was, waiting. Waiting for something she wasnât even certain she deserved.
Her fingers flexed against the fabric of her dress, a cage she had agreed to wear because of you. Because for once in her life, she had needed something beyond control, beyond her own walls of logic. She needed you. And it infuriated her. It terrified her.
The students moved in pairs across the floor, faces lit by strobe flashes, hands grasping at one another as if to keep from drowning. Wednesday watched them with disdain, with a contradiction so sharp it made her jaw ache from the tension. She imagined you there among them, imagined what it would have been like if she hadnât destroyed it all.
The thought was a knife twisting deeper with every passing second. She felt it sink between her ribs, bury itself where she was weakest. She thought she knew herself. She thought she was unshakable, immune to the frailties that plagued others. But now she saw the truth written across her chest like a confession carved into flesh: you were her weakness. Not because you broke her, but because you made her want more than what she was. You made her love.
The word nearly choked her even in silence. Love. A parasite she had always mocked in others, now burrowed so deep in her she could no longer tear it out without bleeding to death.
Her eyes found Enid across the room. The werewolf hovered near the music booth, bouncing with anticipation, her hand poised over the controls. Enid had sworn she had the perfect song, the one that would frame the moment when Wednesday finally gave you what you deserved. A song meant for two, for you and her.
The plan was simple: Wednesday would take your hand, lead you to the floor, and maybe, just maybe, the Raven would restore a part of what could've been.
But now, none of it mattered.
Because you werenât here.
A dull, familiar ache pressed into her ribs, sharp as knives, and for once she didnât fight it. Perhaps this was what she deserved. She had carved you apart with her silence, with her cruelty, with her refusal to show you what she felt until it was too late. You owed her nothing. Not even your presence.
Now Enid only looked at her with quiet sorrow, the smile gone from her face, her shoulders softening as if she too could see the truth. The look in Enidâs eyes only confirmed what she already knew, she had ruined everything. You werenât coming. You shouldnât come. You deserved better than this. Enidâs hand hovered over the controls, waiting, and then slowly lowered. Even she seemed to know it was over.
Wednesday felt her chest hollow. She had failed. Not in some case, not in unraveling mysteries or defeating monsters. She had failed where it mattered most, where it terrified her most. You.
She had let her cruelty eclipse her love. And she was paying for it now, standing in the ruins of her own pride, knowing you would never come. She deserved it. She told herself that. Again and again. She deserved the silence, the absence, the punishment of waiting for something she had already broken.
But then, something changed. Enidâs face shifted. The sadness in her eyes melted into something else, something brighter. Her lips curved into a grin, wide and knowing, her gaze flicking over Wednesdayâs shoulder.
Wednesdayâs body went still. A cold wave rushed down her spine, meeting the heat flooding her hollow chest. Slowly, as if the moment itself demanded reverence, she turned.
Time did not slow. It stopped. The entire world seemed to collapse into silence around her, the colors and the lights, the music, all of it muted until there was nothing but the sight of you standing in the doorway.
That dress. That same purple dress she had ruined once with her careless words.
But this time it was not marred by her cruelty. This time, it was a vision she could not deny. Her breath caught, her chest ached, and something inside her gave way. The fall she had fought so long, so viciously, consumed her again. She was falling, helpless, into you.
You stepped forward, every motion searing into her. The way the light caught in your hair, the way your shoulders squared as if you had forced yourself here despite the weight between you, the way your eyes met hers with fire and fear all at once. You were beauty and fury, tenderness and strength. You were everything she had feared and everything she had longed for, standing there in a dress that felt like fate itself.
Wednesdayâs heart clenched, unrelenting, merciless. Love. The word she had denied, the sickness she had sworn never to catch, it was all she could feel now. She had never admitted it, never dared to carve it into herself with such clarity. But now, there was no denying it. You were her weakness, her undoing, her inevitable fall. And she did not care anymore. She let herself drown.
Your eyes locked with hers, steady, fierce. And then your voice, quiet but sharp enough to pierce through every wall she had ever built.
âDonât make me regret this, Wednesday.â
Her lips parted, the words spilling out without hesitation, without armor, her voice softer than she thought it could be, steady with a vow.
Enid clicked on play. "Finally" She smirked.
We were speeding together
Down the dark avenues
You stood in front of her in that purple dress, your posture straight though she could see the tremor in your hands, the hesitation in your breath. She wondered if you knew what you did to her, how every glance at you felt like being carved open and remade.
But besides of the stardom
All we got was blues
She wanted to reach for you, but she waited, because you had already given her more than she deserved simply by being here.
But through all of that sorrow
We were riding high
Then, finally, you stepped closer.
And the truth of the matter is
I never let you go, let you go
The space between you narrowed, unbearable, fragile. She lifted her hand, slow, deliberate, and you let her. Your fingers touched hers, warm, trembling. Her palm slid against yours, and with her other hand, she dared to rest against your waist, the fabric cool under her touch, the heat of you beneath it setting her nerves alight.
We were scanning the cities
Rocking to pay the dues
It wasnât a dance floor anymore, it wasnât a Raven. It was you, just the two of you.
But besides of the glamour
All we got was bruised
Her chest ached. She wanted to speak, to pour every word from that notebook onto the floor between you, to tell you that she had never let you go even when she pretended she had. But the music carried those truths for her, in the way you swayed against her, in the way your hand clutched hers as though you couldnât quite let go either.
But through all of that sorrow
We were riding high
Her eyes found yours and the rest of the world fell into a blur of motion and color. In that suspended second, the thing she had been denying for months surfaced with a clarity that nearly frightened her: she was in love. There it was, heavy and damnable and real, the word sheâd avoided like a trap now settled inside her like an animal that would not be moved.
You go down just like Holy Mary
Mary on a, Mary on a cross
The first step was clumsy; Wednesdayâs left, your right, two souls relearning how to breathe in shared rhythm. Her hand settled at the small of your back, surprising her with how naturally it fit. You eased into her touch with a trust so complete it hurt. The crowd dissolved into a halo of moving bodies; all that mattered was this, just you and her.
Not just another Bloody Mary
Mary on a, Mary on a cross
She understood now that the ride had never been about escaping pain; it had been about refusing to do it alone. For months she had convinced herself that cutting you out was mercy, that removing the thorn would spare the rose. But, now she knows, all she needed, was you, and how you led her across the floor with a gentleness that made fury and grief taste like dust.
If you choose to run away with me
I will tickle you internally
And I see nothing wrong with that
She noticed everything in the way only she could notice: the small tremor beneath your jaw, the little exhale you made. In the past, when she had tried to parse beauty, sheâd looked for the grotesque, the uncanny precise.
We were searching for reasons
To play by the rules
But here, under the pulsing lights, beauty translated into movement, the soft arc of your shoulder, the honest inclination of your head, she understood love was not absence of fear. It was acting despite fear. It was standing under a strobe-lit sky with someone who had the audacity to look like all the absolution she would ever need in her life.
But we quickly found
It was just for fools
âYouâre trembling,â you said, like a small accusation wrapped in tenderness.
âBecause I am finally allowed to be honest.â Her voice trembled too âBecause I canât pretend anymore that Iâm not⌠undone.â
Now through all of this sorrow
We'll be riding high
Your hand tightened. âThen donât pretend, Just⌠show me.â you said, and there it was again, capacity to forgive, to accept, the simple offer of continued presence. It knocked the last of her composed edges off.
And the truth of the matter is
I never let you go, let you go
She had always thought of herself as an island, impermeable and precise. But the island had been ravaged by love and now it was more like a ship with sails ripped and masts broken, and the only harbor she could think of was where you wanted to go next.
You go down just like Holy Mary
Mary on a, Mary on a cross
She had been cruel. She had been scared. But now, pressed against you, feeling your pulse in time with hers, she was ready to carry that guilt like a promise. To be better, to do better.
Not just another Bloody Mary
Mary on a, Mary on a cross
She found a different, braver path: the promise of being present, of cherishing you, of fighting for you, of loving you wholly, without reservation or hesitation.
If you choose to run away with me
I will tickle you internally
And I see nothing wrong with that
You leaned closer, your forehead nearly touching hers as the bridge between beats allowed a breath to pass soft and private. âJust stay with meâ you murmured, so low she might as well have whispered a spell.
She did not make promises lightly. But she could promise this, "I will never let you go." Her fingers tightened around yours, and for the first time in a long time, she finally felt whole again.
The months that followed the Raven became something Wednesday had never dared imagine for herself. Healing was not sudden, nor was it clean. It was jagged, filled with silences that sometimes pressed like a blade against her throat, but also with quiet reassurances that stitched her open wounds together. You and she learned each other again, slowly, cautiously, like two creatures circling, wary of the otherâs sharp edges, only to find that those edges fit perfectly when aligned with care.
There were nights you walked with her through Nevermoreâs grounds, the moonlight silvering the grass. Youâd talk about inconsequential things. books you were reading, plants you were tending, dreams youâd half-forgotten, and though Wednesday rarely responded with more than a murmur or a clipped phrase, she listened. She remembered. She carried every word with her, turning them over in her mind when she was alone, letting the sound of your voice soften the silence of her room. And you knew that too.
The first time you fell asleep on her shoulder in the library, Wednesday sat rigid for almost twenty minutes, pen frozen above her notebook. She had never been anyoneâs pillow before, never been trusted so carelessly with something so vulnerable. At first, she wanted to move you, not to reclaim her space, because she thought her rough shoulder might hurt you, but then she looked down at your face, softened by dreams, lips parted in the smallest sigh. Something unfamiliar unfolded in her chest, warm and terrifying. So she stayed still, her body an anchor, and wrote with her free hand instead. Later, when you woke and apologized, she had only replied, âYour lack of spinal discipline is concerning.â But secretly, she had missed the weight when it was gone.
There was the evening in your dorm when the two of you sat cross-legged on the floor, Enid sprawled across her bed with headphones on, mercifully pretending to ignore you. You had shown Wednesday how to braid a strand of your hair, your hand guiding hers. She was stiff, awkward, clumsy with the gesture, but you had smiled as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Later, when you turned to leave, she had found her hand catching yours without thinking. You had squeezed back, gently, and she had held on longer than necessary.
There were darker moments too. Nights when you cried without reason, when the past crept in and stole your breath. Wednesday never knew what to do in those moments. Words always failed her. But she stayed. She sat beside you, back stiff, hands folded, until finally, tentatively, she let her fingers brush against yours. The first time, she thought you might pull away. Instead, you clung. And so, little by little, she learned that staying was enough. That silence, when shared, could be a balm.
She had fallen, and she kept falling, deeper and deeper, until she wondered if she would ever want to stop.
It was months later, when the frost had thinned and spring breathed quietly through the soil, that you took her hand one morning and led her to the greenhouse.
"I planted a new batch of roses," you murmured after a moment, taking her toward the far side of the greenhouse.
The roses were different from the others.
They stood side by side, carefully planted, one deep black and the other a striking red, their petals unfurling as if reaching for one another.
You crouched down beside them, fingers grazing over their stems without touching, careful, reverent.
"I planted these as a symbol," you murmured, your voice just above a whisper. "Of you and me."
"As long as weâre together," you continued, brushing a strand of hair from your face, "these roses will be too."
Something inside her twisted. Tightened.
Her throat worked, but no words came. Her instinct was to scoff, to dismiss it as foolish sentimentality, and yet the words lodged in her mouth refused to form.
âYouâre probably going to hate this,â you admitted, a wry, almost nervous smile flickering across your lips. âBut I want us to take care of them together.â
Wednesday stared at you, her dark eyes unreadable. Then her gaze dropped to the watering can beside you. Then back to you. The silence stretched, long enough that you shifted, as though ready to retreat, to laugh it off.
And then, hesitantly, almost against her will, Wednesday reached out. Her pale hand brushed yours as she took the handle of the can, her touch cool and deliberate.
The contact was brief, but it was enough. Enough to catch her breath in her throat, enough to remind her of every promise she had made that night at the Raven. She shifted beside you, her shoulder grazing yours as you both tipped the can forward, the water darkening the soil around the roots.
For the first time in longer than she could remember, Wednesdayâs lips curved, not in cruelty, not in irony, but in something quiet, something genuine. A small, fleeting smile, just for you. Only you.
The two of you stood in silence, watching the roses drink, her mind, usually a battlefield of jagged thoughts, felt strangely still.
And yet, as stillness settled over her, another memory rose unbidden.
Enidâs voice chattering about Valentineâs Day.
Wednesday had dismissed it, scoffed at the saccharine idiocy of a holiday that reduced affection to cheap tokens and hollow gestures.
But now⌠her gaze lingered on the roses, black and red, leaning toward one another in the soil you had chosen. She thought of the Raven, of how you had planned for her, how she had ruined it with her own fear, how she had clawed her way back to fix what she had broken. And though you had forgiven her, though you had given her more than she deserved, a part of her still remembered the sharp pang of failure, the ache of knowing she had taken something from you that she could never return.
Valentineâs was near. And though she despised it, though every fiber of her being rejected its frivolity, she felt the faintest spark of defiance rise within her, not against the day, but against herself. If it was absurd, so be it. If it was sentimental, she would endure. Because perhaps this was the way to give you what you had once tried to give her. To give you something whole, unspoiled, hers and yours alone.
Her eyes lingered on your profile as you knelt beside the roses, sunlight brushing over your face. And in the quiet recesses of her mind, Wednesday Addams decided.
She would take you to the new restaurant opposite the Weathervane cafe on Valentineâs Day.
Just you and her. She found you, and you found her.
And she would make you a promise... whatever you want her to.
[Author's note: And this is it, It was soo hard to come up with something to fix the mess Wednesday created in part 1, but Ghost's Mary On A Cross song helped, and yeah... those who know.. know... this is suuuch a happy ending... Yeah please don't hate me...]
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