UK2UR fic challenge - Dressing Room
“Hold still.”
Tia huffs, her breath blowing right into A’whora’s face. A’whora closes her eyes pointedly, before opening them to glare at Tia. “Don’t anger the one with blunt objects right near your face! Though if you don’t stop wriggling then me poking your eye out will merely be an accident instead of deliberate.”
They all thought that tour would be a good place to smooth out grievances of the past. As Veronica very diplomatically said, they’re going to be together for a long time so it only makes sense for them to act professionally at the very least. A’whora agreed with the sentiment although it seemed for a time that the others didn’t get the memo – standing alone in a crowded room while not speaking to any of them was not her idea of a fun first group rehearsal.
Gradually things got better – Lawrence started joking with her properly again, Joe offered her a chair when they sat down to lunch, and Veronica made sure to hug her after every show and tell her how well she did. The only exception to this rule was Tia.
Tia who seemed to be reading a completely different book to everyone else, to hell with simply not being on the same page.
A’whora pictures the book – The Story of Us with their promo pictures on the cover maybe, some terrible cover of a fanfiction – in her hands, her brown eyes moving slowly as she reads. She’s almost tempted to pluck the book from Tia and flick through it herself, scared to see the ending but she can predict that it involves tragedy.
“Explain to me why I’m your doll tonight.” Tia says grumpily, looking up through her eyelashes to glare at A’whora. It would have been all well and good if A’whora had not just put on the first gloopy layer of eyeliner which she now blows on frustratedly.
Instead of the usual snarky comment that had become common place between them, A’whora gestures at her leg. “Because I’m otherwise incapacitated for this evening and you’re the only one who wasn’t half finished when I said I wanted to do someone’s make up.”
(It wasn’t actually her idea, if she’s being truthful, but the fact that the suggestion came from Veronica was one secret A’whora swore to take to the grave.
“It’s like you guys had it set up for such a good story and then what happened between us ruined it and I’m really sorry, I just want the two of you to be happy again.”
There’s a gap in her words, a missing something between ‘good’ and ‘story’, but Veronica is too delicate to bring it up and A’whora isn’t going to fall into her trap.)
“Never thought my bad timing would send me such a cruel punishment.”
A’whora physically reels. The makeup brush falls from her hand in a clatter as she stares at Tia, eyes full of hurt. She forces herself to pick it up as if nothing happened, gaze again at Tia with the same glazed over expression that she’s become an expert in over the tour period. It’s easy to see that Tia is holding her pride – doesn’t mean it hurts any less that she’d rather hold her pride than A’whora.
She wants to retort but everything she wants to say – I’m sorry, I was awful and I don’t know what I was thinking, I’m so sorry, I’ve apologised over and over why won’t you listen, your best friends have forgiven me why can’t you, I miss you, I still love you – gets stuck in her throat, plunging them both into the loudest silence that either of them have ever heard.
“Yeah well.” She finally says. There’s no humour in her voice. No malice either, nothing but a dullness, a tiredness. “Here we are.”
Tia waits until her eyes are closed again, their faces cruelly close until she speaks. “It feels like it did when we first met. Sparks flying but for all the wrong reasons.”
If A’whora freezes, she pretends not to notice it. “You never liked the right kind of sparks with us.”
“I liked them. Just didn’t like you smearing my best friend’s name everywhere.”
“I didn’t smear her! She got such an outpouring of love after that video got released, and it’s not like it was even a video that had been filmed the night before! It was old Tia, before you and me, I wouldn’t do something like that because I know how it would hurt you!” It’s a tale as old as time, their arguments that never get smoothed over properly because A’whora always seems to cause the equivalent of throwing water on an oil fire and it’s only a matter of numbers on a page until one of them blows up.
Every word is just another brick, building up that wall that they thought they’d knocked down together.
“Fine! Fine!” Tia stands up abruptly. “I don’t care any more A’whora, I’m done fighting you.”
It takes everything in A’whora not to laugh, Tia standing in the centre of the room having shoved her away, face only half made up with powder falling on her cheeks with every sharp word. Fill a book with those words and create the story of them.
“I feel like I’m losing my mind.” She mutters and they’ve swapped positions, A’whora falling onto the chair and looking up. “How many times do I have to say sorry until you forgive me?”
“I’ve forgiven you for what you said about Veronica.” She sighs. “It’s not simple anymore. I can’t call you babe and everything will go back to normal. Because in all of this, amongst the fact that I let someone else in just to hurt me like you did, amongst all of it you’ve only ever apologised for what happened on the stage. You’ve never once said that you missed me.”
On a Friday, the two of them in a dressing room, A’whora figures out how to reopen their story.
“I don’t know how.”
“You don’t?” It’s there again, she’s missed it like a homesickness burrowed deep in her chest, Tia’s voice going quiet and soft, the equivalent to a warm hug and an extra squeeze of reassurance.
A’whora shakes her head. “I don’t know how to tell you that I still reach out for you at night. Or how I used to know I always had a spot next to you and having to look for an empty seat is killing me.”
She’s tired of fighting. She sheds herself of her armour, lies it down on the ugly carpeted floor, with her only hope being that Tia won’t pick it up and put it on herself.
“There’s so many things I wish you knew.” She continues. “But the fact that I miss you so badly some days I think I might die is definitely on the top of the list.”
And A’whora leaves the room, tears building in her eyes.
She could burst into someone else’s dressing room, turn tonight another instance of standing alone in a crowded room, think some more about how Tia is adamant about being against her and then think some more about how, despite it all, she still loves her.
“Wait!”
She stops still.
Tia stands at the top of the corridor, her features contorted into an expression of a wounded animal. “I didn’t know.” They both swallow hard. “I didn’t know it was killing you like it’s killing me. And I’ve hardly known what to say since we broke up, I just thought we were going down and it was better not to say anything at all.”
“Yeah.” A’whora nods. “Yeah, that’s fair. I’m sorry. Again.”
The next few moments could be a lot of things. It could be a contest to see who can act like they care less. It can be a moment from the films where a swell of music happens as Tia rushes towards her and dips her and their lips meet and fireworks inexplicably go off in the background.
Or it could be what it is. Tia awkwardly shuffling towards her, having to stoop at several doorways. Placing her hands on her shoulders and saying, “We’re good then, yeah?” And though A’whora is the one who is injured both physically and emotionally, she’s the one to risk everything and bounce up on the balls of her feet to crash their lips together and Tia tastes like foundation and setting spray and home.
“We’re good.” She whispers on her mouth, and she doesn’t have to open her eyes to feel Tia’s lips curve into a smile.
“We’ll resume writing our story?”
“I’m not a writer, Kofi.”
“Neither am I, bitchtits. But if we both pick up the pen, what can go wrong?”
“It can turn into a tragedy.”
“I won’t let it. The story of us looks more like a good love story now.”
They’re moving onto a new chapter really, but A’whora can only think of it as one thing.
The End.
And a new beginning.