I posted this but I’ll also post it here.
It’s about Malia and Erica and what if. What if they had met? or fell in love?
It was gritty like dirt growing under her fingernails. Humanity didn’t come easy, or rather, it did but it was terrifying and car crashes and Malia, as brave as she was, ran from both. Humanness was a vase she ran around, all too aware she was going to knock it over. She’d step on the remains of glass like atonement, but would get no forgiveness. Getting close to people after losing most of her family came off as counterproductive. Not only could she lose more loved ones, she could also kill them herself. She didn’t need more bloody hands.
Falling in love again was achingly easy and like a slap in the face. It was sudden and soft and it made Malia want to destroy it and keep it safe with her fangs and will power all at once. That boy with the freckles and his fickle words, she wanted to hold him forever. When it it splintered and frayed without her knowing, it was like waking up to dead bodies all over again. Only this time, she was burning. Would she survive? She almost didn’t want to, and her humanity clanked against the wall.
Her friends caught her, her old lover put her back on the table carefully. Love never left, it just…changed form like they did every full moon. She had never thought herself akin to love before.
Erica fought people in the hallways with words once she had her armor. It was of lipstick and leather jackets and she wielded high heels like a broadsword. She never liked thinking of her life before, of skinned knees, seizures on the floor, and the horridness of children. She pretended she was bigger than they were, that she was a superhero or a villain, she could play both parts. She didn’t care, as long as she was powerful. Her new friends were just as broken and had unsure footing. They tripped over roots as they raced through the woods; they fell over throats they thought themselves better than. Humanity was an old sweater she never wore anymore. Humanity was eaten by the wolf. Humanity never served her until it did and she had to stare death and friendship and love right in the face.
In some stories, she doesn’t make it. She watches above as Derek finds her body, as Boyd dies and Cora disappears. She aches for her humanness in those moments, begs for another chance, for a better ending.
In other stories, she grows up and out of her anger. She learns her withering ways are of no use to her now that she’s blooming. She still wears lipstick but she doesn’t spit words like bullets.
Malia and Erica meet while Derek brings his cousin to visit where they buried her. Malia and Erica meet when Derek brings home his cousin and they fight each other almost immediately while Cora plays referee. Malia and Erica meet while the whole gang tries to save her from being murdered by her own father.
Two beautifully scarred humans clash against their knives and claws and realize they have similar weak spots. They notice what makes the other grow cold and what cracks a smile. Slowly, over time, there is fondness for each other. Like sandpaper they whittle away their walls and come face to face with a mirror, with a tree with touching branches, with understanding.
Malia breaks first. She rushes at Erica, and Erica readies herself for a sparring match when Malia collides into her and smashes their lips together. Erica is stunned but readily kisses back. Malia is floored that this strong woman loves her when the world has been so cruel. Erica thinks the same thoughts for Malia.
Erica breaks first and agonizes for weeks about what to do about loving her friend. About loving Derek’s cousin and aren’t there rules about this? Isaac reminds her that she’s never been one for rules, and neither has Malia. They are sitting on Erica’s bed and Erica tells her that sometimes, before they bite, her parents would argue about when she would die and if they wanted that to happen. She learned to close her heart on those nights, until it rusted. Malia listens and tells her that her birth mother killed her family, and that she tried to kill Malia. They aren’t so different, and we aren’t our parents. We stand despite them.
In another story, Erica says nothing and does not cry. They stay in an ocean of doubt, floating between each other and nothing.
Erica sobs. Erica says, “I love you.”
Malia says, eyes wet, “Me too.”
