“it’s maddening, really,” glinda thinks, voice caught somewhere between laughter and breaking. “sharing a room with them. elphaba. everything is sharper with them near — the silence, the air, even the way the light bends. i can’t breathe without noticing it.” she twists her hands together, restless. “they irritate me. they mock me. they glare as though i am a sin painted in pink ribbons. and yet—” she swallows hard, “and yet i find myself waiting for their voice, the sound of it low, barbed, but real. when they leave, the room feels empty, and i… i hate myself for that.” glinda sits on the edge of her bed, the distance between their desks feeling like a chasm and yet too close. “i watch them read until dawn, their head bent, shadows under their eyes, and i think — no one has ever been so alive. no one has ever been so impossible.”
“they hate me,” she admits in a whisper, her smile brittle. “and still, i… gods help me, i want them near. it’s torture, loving someone who would rather burn you with their eyes than hold your hand. but my heart doesn’t listen to reason.” she leans back, staring at the ceiling as if the truth might disappear there. “maybe it’s because they’re everything i’m not. maybe it’s because every fight, every clash of words, leaves me trembling — not with anger, but with wanting.”
a pause, her chest rising unevenly. “they will never know. i’ll never let them. it’s easier if they see only the enemy, the pretty fool across the room. it’s safer that way. because if they ever guessed what i feel…” her voice falters, breaking into silence, “…it would ruin us both.” the lamplight flickers. elphaba shifts in their sleep, murmuring something she cannot hear. glinda watches them in the half-dark, aching, furious with herself, loving them more with every breath.
| drabble, glinda reflects on elphaba years later. being a roommate, an enemy, a lover all in one. @fabala
