Rumi loves making lists. All kinds of lists. To-do lists, event lists, gift lists, lists within lists further breaking down larger bullet points into smaller more manageable steps. Lists that merely catalog specific thoughts/feelings/events. Basically anything she can categorize, she will. It's something she's always done, helps her maintain her composure. By sorting all the things in her life, she's able to feel less consumed by it all.
It's how a particular list came to be, and how its reveal allowed Zoey and Mira to understand her thought process better. The list, which became housed in its own dedicated notebook, documents every time Rumi wanted to tell the girls about her patterns. Dating all the way back to when they first met. Pages filled with point after point, paragraphs turning into essays about her feelings throughout the years.
Each bullet point is headed with a date, followed by a description of when/where/why she felt compelled to tell the truth but instead chose to hide. Every declined invite to the bathhouse, every time they had separate dressing rooms, or separate hotel suites. Every time she woke up knowing the others had a sleepover without her (because she wouldn't allow herself to join them despite how desperately she wanted to)
Every moment Rumi had the conflicting feeling, she chose to write it down. To express what her heart felt, only to explain it away with some convoluted rationale that oftentimes wasn't of her own volition. Typically guided by Celine.
After the Idol Awards, when the girls finally have a serious talk about Rumi's secret, she finds it's easier to show them the proof of her torment than trying to explain it with a couple snappy sentences.
Mira notices how the entries get longer the more recent they are. How the closer the girls got, the more Rumi toiled over it all. Zoey hones in on every instance that reveals Rumi loves them, it's never explicitly written, but there's always a tell. It's the way Rumi refers to them as "her girls" instead of using their names like many other entries. Or the way she speaks of a yearning Zoey's many years of reading fanfic has her all too familiar with.
The most recent entry is from the day of the Idol Awards, not long before they took the stage. The words spoke of a renewed hope that had been missing since the early days of the journal. Expressing how perhaps even if they didn't succeed in sealing the honmoon that night, Rumi could possibly tell them anyway. Because she's too tired of keeping them at arms length. It's becoming physically impossible...
The girl's hearts ache at seeing this side of Rumi-scared, lonely, silently breaking apart. But it gives them a much better understanding of the events that led them here. It does a lot to melt away the majority of the anger either of them felt toward her for lying to them for so long.
Zoey asks Rumi if she could write one more entry. This time about her finally telling them. From the events of the Idol Awards to her thoughts about them reading this list. "I think it'll help-all of us."
And she's right. It helps heal a lot of things between them. Opening up conversations they weren't sure how to begin otherwise. Being able to read and then directly respond to Rumi's written thoughts was the perfect segway to being able to share their own feelings about it all.
They can talk about the lying, about her not trusting them, the betrayal they felt seeing her cozy up to Jinu, the absolute heartshattering disbelief reading about what Rumi asked Celine to do. Every card was laid on the table because of this final entry. Including the one Zoey was most hoping would be evident.
Mira gets it. After reading the words, it's crystal clear. Rumi loves them. And they love her. And so, with no stone left unturned, no grievance unaired, they talk about that too. And with that Rumi has a new list to document: every polytrix first/anniversary
