☀ @siennabook { WITH. sienna.
sienna’s toxic trait is that she cries when she gets angry. ( ha, 'toxic trait’ implies that she has only one and that she is not heaps and loads and mounds of toxic traits shoved into a sienna-shaped body-thing. she’s just going to leave it at that. ) on the topic of one of her toxic traits: she tries to channel her anger into the fist clenched around her cane, and, fuck it, her other fist is clenched too. it’s a buy-one-get-one-free type of situation. it’s all she can do to try to contain everything, everything, everything inside.
she has no right to cry for someone who was never hers, someone who never even bothered to look at her twice. actually, sienna’s not even sure ishtar looked once. why would she? sienna wasn’t compelling — she wasn’t that forced exposure that led ishtar to a husband, she was just that awkward international student with a cringey obsession with theatre and viruses. now that she thinks about it ( hindsight is 100/20, but that’s better than ∞/20 ), maybe she and ishtar didn’t have that much in common. two outcasts, sure, but ishtar was an outcast by choice and no one could fucking stand sienna ( she couldn’t stand herself, either )! they were drawn together by ishtar needing a couch to crash on and sienna having a single dorm because her brain was too fucked to have a roommate. it was a childhood fantasy, a fleeting obsession — or not so fleeting, if sienna is honest with herself — bound for nothing. they didn’t end in disaster or in heartbreak ( well, sure, sienna’s heart broke, but that mattered nothing in the grand scheme ). they just didn’t end because they never started. sienna was a fool to have fancied anything else.
sienna is silent, because if she opens her mouth, she will say something unkind and unfair. it’s not ishtar’s fault she found someone who could do everything sienna couldn’t. it’s not ishtar’s fault sienna felt entitled to her companionship. if sienna is miserable now ( and she is ), it is all because of her own doing. they’re in their thirties; it’s time for sienna to take responsibility. a sideways glance at ishtar shows her that it’s going to be a perfectly happy little family, a white picket fence, a child, husband, affection for life, love for life, a life worth living. she allows one tear to fall, just the one, and she quickly wipes it away with a hand still fisted.
❛ congratulations. ❜ sienna’s always-monotone voice is perfect for now. it reveals nothing. her face reveals nothing either, save for the now-gone tear. only her fists reveal something, but what it is, sienna doesn’t want to qualify. she has nothing else to say, and a part of her wants to leave, but the other part — and sienna can’t tell how large that part is — misses her old… friend… though they were never really friends. still, she was the closest thing sienna ever had to a friend, so she’ll treasure her forever for that, even though the larger part of sienna is riddled and whipped with hate — yes, hate — because sienna’s soul is the ugliest thing to ever walk the earth.
a step here, a step there, and out into bilbao’s streets. the day is lovely, a happy, carefree sun that doesn’t burn but simply warms, a few perfect, fluffy clouds, lovely streets full of colors and chatter. sienna just wants to slink back to her hotel room and hide for a long time. maybe forever. but hiding with bertrand wasn’t very much fun either.
sienna doesn’t know what she wants.
❛ glad you let yourself stay long enough for that forced exposure to lead to something. ❜ sienna can’t meet ishtar’s eyes. she looks away instead, looks at the lines of people wanting to enter the museum, the security guards explaining that it’s a private event, children drawing on the sidewalk across the street. ❛ that's—good. that’s really good, and— ❜
no, what she was going to say is unkind. sienna grips her cane tighter.
❛ life is treating me… alright, i suppose. ❜ that’s dressing up her life to the Nth degree. ❛ actually, it’s less about how life is treating me and more about how i’m treating life. i, uh, disrespected life — humanity, you could call it — and i’m trying to… ❜ she doesn’t know what she’s trying to do. step, step. ❛ congratulations, really. a family. that's—that’s great. ❜
the truth is that ishtar is terrified. she never thought she would get to this part of the story. she had become accostumated with the idea that she would never leave her teenage years and that something would take her out, either her own reckless decisions or fate itself, deciding it was enough. she always imagined that life would stop, in one way or another, and that she would never see the other side of her twenties. past twenty-five, she convinced herself thirties wouldn't happen. and yet here she is, thirty and married and happy. terrified, yes, because none of this was imagined beforehand. the test came back positive without her being completely sure she wanted to be a mother. with the bad example of mamma and the very obvious lack of a mother figure in her life, how could she imagine being one herself? the only thing keeping terror from leading her straight to the abortion center was caranthir, and only because she knew that he would not let her fuck up. perhaps this is what had been problematic with sienna : ishtar had never been able to trust her to hold her accountable. sienna loved her too much. and she didn't love her the right way. it was all wrong, the way she would kiss the ground ishtar walked on, and how she would never scream at her for all the bad decisions that ishtar kept making. sienna had been an angel, yes, letting her storm in & out as if nothing mattered, but ishtar needed someone to anchor her. she needed to know that if she were to fly away, someone would hold her & look at her & remind her that she wasn't some wild concept. she was real, and needed to take responsability for her life.
sienna couldn't have done that. she could barely do it for herself. in that way, they had been atrocious for each other. « thanks. » the word is quiet, but ishtar's eyes are searching. sienna's face used to be much more expressive ; ishtar could read her in a moment and use it to her advantage. that was a dirty trick, one she is still rather fond of when interactions are needed. but the difficulty she has in knowing what's happening behind sienna's eyes is rather striking, in the sense that she doesn't remember things ever being this way. the years have left a gap so big between them that ishtar can't even read between the lines. and so she keeps silent, and simply walks away. away from the big party and the loud talking noises, away into the street.
« it wasn't... tha' way. it ain't happened just 'cause i suddenly stopped runnin'. » she isn't sure why it is necessary that sienna understands, but ishtar feels like the pill might be easier to swallow and fists might be easier to loosen if sienna knew that it was more of a "him" situation than a "i suddenly decided i could settle and kept the first boy who wanted me". « he's, he's borin'. and too serious. and sometimes he doesn't get my jokes and just follows along 'cause he knows i'd get annoyin' if he didn't. » and it should be all bad things, but she is smiling softly, and if you were to look at her face, you'd say she's talking about the best thing that has ever happened to her. « and when i was younger, all of this would have made me run away so fuckin' fast. but, i really really wanted 'im. i wanted the borin' and the seriousness of it all. » she looks at sienna, now, hoping she understands. « went through forced exposure so that i could have 'im. not the other way 'round. » and that's the depressing conclusion, is it not? she wanted him enough to stay. she needed to stay if she wanted him. sienna never managed such an ultimatum, and when she tried her hand at it, ishtar flew away so fucking fast an army plane would have looked like a toy next to her.
sienna's story gets a small chuckle, eyes amused as she opens the door of the coffeeshop. « disrespected humanity, uh? that's a big one. how did ya even manage that? » door close behing them, and ishtar looks down at her changing body, red washing across her cheeks, « yeah. yeah it really is. thank ya. »
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