Fiona

Marie has always been attached. To people. To places. She’s never moved out. She hasn’t let go of her favorite childhood toys. Shortly after her grandparents had passed away, she’d walk around the house and stare at their ghosts as they went about their day. They were still there, making coffee at 6 a.m. and listening to the local radio news at 8. They’d bicker over grocery money, doctor’s recipes and grandma’s soap operas overlapping with grandpa’s Chuck Norris shows on Tuesday and Friday evenings.

Once Marie had started to attend University and had to live at a cheap student dorm three hours away from home, she began having panic attacks. She’d come home every weekend and cry into her pillow. That lasted until January, during her first year, when she met Fiona. In the months that followed, one problem had ended and another started.

When Fiona comes through the door, time stops and Marie’s room comes alive with music. “House of Memories” by Panic! At The Disco plays through a Wi-Fi speaker and the sun shines slightly brighter through the blinders. For a time, the dorm is no longer a prison.

Marie springs from the table. She almost knocks Fiona down when she wraps herself around her. “I missed you!”

Fiona’s arms find Marie in turn, as they always do, even if she’s straining against her tight hold. “Can’t breathe, kitten.”

Marie so often dreams of burying her nose in Fiona’s hair, of feeling her blonde wavy locks fall down to tickle her arms as they squeeze her. When she pulls away, giddy and flustered, she dangles the bag between them. The one Fiona didn’t have time to notice. The gasp Marie hears in response slaps the stupidest smile on her face. “You didn’t! Oh my god, they look so fluffy. How did you get them like that?”

“I’m just that skilled. My mom might have given me some directions, but that doesn’t count! I made them all by myself.”

Fiona pushes the bag of muffins gently aside. “Can I come in properly first?”

Marie hops on the bed, which is only two steps from the door. She hums to the song while Fiona takes off her shoes and throws her backpack next to her. The fleece jacket lands on top of it, and Fiona plumps down beside them. Marie doesn’t know why it happens that way, but she decides that Fiona and her mother have stayed over at her aunt's that weekend. Fiona never liked her aunt much. “She has to show off every time. She went on about her hair being so perfect. Said she doesn’t use chemicals, that’s why my hair is frizzy, because I damage it with cheap shampoos. Like, no? It’s because your stupid house is on a stupid hill and it’s windy and humid.” She goes on, but Marie tunes out and the words turn to gibberish. She focuses on the details, on the way her burgundy tank top hugs her slender body, how her black jeans show off the contours of her legs. Her cheeks are soft and flushed and Marie can’t help it but plant a long adoring kiss on them.

She likes it when Fiona rambles, but she loves it when her attention is all on her. “I’ll say it again. Your aunt sounds like a loser.” When Marie leans close, Fiona does, too, until their foreheads touch.

“I wouldn’t trade places with my cousin.” Her breath is a summer breeze on Marie’s lips.

“So, are you gonna try my muffins?”

“I think I’ll save them for later.” Gentle fingers explore Marie’s cheek, tracing every crease and imperfection. No, here she is perfect. “Because I’m eyeing you at the moment.”

That might have been a tad too much. Would Fiona really say that?

They lie down on Marie’s pillow, their legs tangled next to Fiona’s things, and they caress each other’s temples. Yet Marie’s eyes swell with tears. She should be happy. She’s wearing the red shorts with black hearts Fiona loves, the black tee with the dumb cat drinking bubble tea that she’s felt cute in because Fiona said she adores it. No, she adores Marie wearing it.

“I love you,” Fiona whispers.

“I love you,” Marie whispers back.

She indulges in the moment a little longer. It’s not perfect, and no matter how much she practices, it never feels genuine. But it’s warm and Marie needs her happy Mondays.

Tuesday is boring. Marie wants to pay attention to Professor Ashbridge talking about the ancient Greeks' view on gender equality, but after a half-hour effort her mind wanders and she falls back into daydreams. Fiona sits next to her in the lecture hall and they draw sketches of the professors. Mrs. Parsley, who Marie calls Tangled because she always shows up with unkempt hair, is wrapped in long colorful scarves, whipping her strands of hair around the page like a less glamorous medusa. Mr. Hughes is Wolverine, with pens for claws and bolts of lightning zapping off a wool costume. He always wears wool sweaters and pens spill out of his pockets. Marie used to do this in High School. She had shown Fiona some of her old drawings, and she laughed and called her amazingly talented. Marie’s heart had been pounding that day as it’s pounding now while the scene plays out.

Breaks are depressing, because the University halls fill up with the din of mouthy students and Fiona is snatched away from her. She knows she is supposed to do something, to partake in conversations with her colleagues. But she can’t do that. Her mouth runs dry whenever she tries. She doesn’t get their jokes, doesn’t enjoy their gossip and she knows they wouldn’t get her. Marie, who’s been navigating through silly online communities for years. Who picked up Fiona from a Discord server about cats, through a spontaneous nonsense role-play in the public chat that'd be too embarrassing to share with anyone. That part of her is best kept hidden from the real world.

Wednesday is uneventful. But Thursday it starts. Marie can feel the dread creeping under her skin as soon as her 9 o’clock alarm nudges her awake. Luckily, the kitchen is empty, because her eyes won’t focus and she stands there, bread in hand, turning left and right like she forgot where the dumb toaster was. When she finally does put the slices in the two slits they need to go in, it’s not that hard, someone walks in. That girl with glasses from two rooms down. Beatrice? Only, she doesn’t wear her glasses now. Marie’s heartbeat quickens and she finds it harder to breathe even before Beatrice opens her mouth. “There’s hair in the sink again. I keep telling everyone not to let the windows open. Ever since I came from classes to find a cat on my desk….”

Marie can only reply with a nervous chuckle. She nods and hums whenever Beatrice says something, and when her toast is done, her shaky hands make a hasty and sloppy job of coating the bread in strawberry jam. Marie says nothing when she leaves, barely carrying her body back to her room. It takes her three bites to decide she will probably choke from eating the rest.

While Marie is putting on her clothes, Fiona lays on the bed, her blouse loose above her bare stomach. Fiona sits at the desk, flipping through Marie’s sketch book. Fiona leans against the door, baggy trousers tucked into fur-trimmed boots, waiting for Marie to join her. There’s another Fiona in the room, one that Marie can’t see, but she can feel more strongly today. The judgemental Fiona. The one who spends hours talking about herself, neglecting everyone else. The Fiona who pays so little attention that she is oblivious to Marie’s feelings. The real Fiona. Or is that one the fake? One modeled by Marie’s pain, while the pleasant one is genuine?

At 9:43, Marie resolves that she can’t go to her Latin course. She won’t even be able to pretend she’s paying attention while she’s completely cracking from within, but she can’t stay in her tiny room either.

She trudges through the student's park near her dorm building, the chill of early spring keeping her from falling off her feet. Blank silhouettes whisk past her, their voices muffled.

She puts in her earphones, chooses a random playlist from YouTube, and there’s Fiona on another walkway, surrounded by rows of violet and white hyacinth that should not have bloomed yet. Her eyes twinkle when she sees Marie, and in a blink she’s at her side, latched onto her right arm. “Hey, kitten! What’re you doing out here? I thought you had a lecture at 10?”

“Yeah. I skipped it.”

Fiona notices the effort it takes Marie to even exist, because she always does, her Fiona. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. A lot. Everything. It’s… it’s just not fair.” Marie’s voice is little more than a whimper. She shuts her eyes. Tears leak from the corners. “Why can’t I have it easy like you? Why do I care so much about everything? I’ve only known you for a year, but I… I want to be good for you.”

Her eyes open when she feels the warmth of Fiona’s fingers on her wet cheek.“I love you, kitten. You are everything to me. And you are beautiful and cute and sexy.”

A shadow wraps around Marie’s other arm, and its voice makes her stomach churn. “What would Fiona think if she knew how pathetic she is in your dreams?” It’s Marie’s own voice, spiteful and scolding, but also hurt. Like the shadow has been crying, too.

The world breaks apart, leaving the three of them on a paved walkway winding through oblivion.

Marie’s arms grow numb. The music playing through her earphones is just a distant echo. “I just want her to love me.”

It scoffs. “Love you for what? For being a ghost in your own life? You’re weak and a coward and you can’t hold a conversation to save your life, and you need her love?”

“It’s hard.” Marie’s chest threatens to cave in from both sides, but she can’t run. She can’t escape the fingers dug into her skin.

“Only for you. Everyone else has it so easy. No one likes a person who can’t hold her own in life. Who can’t move on.” The shadow’s anger seems to drown in sorrow. “When will you be worth loving?”

“Don’t listen to it.” Fiona cups her cheek. Marie doesn’t want her hand to ever pull away. “You are worth so much to me. To everyone. Don’t you ever think otherwise.”

“Those words mean nothing coming from her and you know it.”

Every step chips away at Marie. It’s only Fiona that holds the cracks from spreading. “But I need to hear them.”

Silence stretches through the infinite. “Then why don’t you say them?”

Marie turns towards the shadow, eyes swollen and tired. So tired. “Because I don’t believe them.”

It wails. It’s ugly and all too familiar. Wisps of smoke rise and hiss into the void around them. The shadow is gone.

Marie falls out of Fiona’s grasp and on her knees, clutching her chest like a sharp cold just hit her.

Fiona is at her side, arms wrapped protectively around her hunched back. “I’m here Marie. It’s alright. You’ll be alright.”

Marie doesn’t know how it feels to be held by the real Fiona. She is thousands of miles apart, and they had never met. “Promise?”

“I promise. I’ll always be here.”

Marie pulls out her phone. A hand grabs her wrist.

“Don’t.”

Marie ignores her plea. Everything that Fiona has ever said rings hollow in her mind. ‘Those words mean nothing coming from her.’

She scrolls through past conversations with a Fiona she’s never held nor caressed. She checks all the saved messages, all the compliments Fiona had ever made. Marie spent so much time just churning them over for clues. For a deeper meaning. The ones about her hair. About her funny jokes. The one about that dumb cat on her T-shirt. There are a lot of complaints, too. About Fiona’s family, her part-time jobs, her bad hair days or stubborn pimples. They go on and on. Sometimes Marie can barely get a word in when Fiona feels particularly moody on a given day.

She scrolls back to the present, to the picture of Fiona’s muffins. She always made them much fluffier than Marie could.

But she smiles. She remembers her now, the Fiona she’s been talking to for over a year. The laughs they’ve shared. The movies they’ve watched together through bad Wi-Fi.

She glances back and forth between the phone and the Fiona next to her, and she can’t reconcile the two of them.

Marie looks the dream firmly in the eyes. “I can’t go on with you.”

The dream looks back, hurt and puzzled. “Let me take care of you, please. Don’t push me away.”

Marie finds the strength to chuckle. Heat blooms in her chest again. “You’re stubborn. You always have been.” She tufts a strand of blonde hair behind the dream’s ear. “I know I can’t keep you away for good. You’ll find me again when I’m feeling down. But today, I want to try living on my own.”

A long moment of stillness passes between them. The dream smiles and nods, and Marie finds herself alone on a bench at the edge of the park. She only vaguely remembers sitting down. She watches young people walk by, and when thoughts start working again, Marie feels lost. It’s strange being part of the world. Without Fiona, it almost feels like something is missing. Like a skyscraper had been ripped out of the city and she can see the beautiful sky, yet it still feels wrong, somehow. Out of the ordinary. But Marie smiles. Fiona isn’t gone. She cradles her in her palm. She can’t touch her, but she is the only Fiona that matters. And perhaps, one day soon, Marie will believe that she matters, too. And if not, she will work at it until she does.

“heeeyyy so guess who skipped uni today….”