Chapter Text
Nicole still does not know she is a good person when a knife is plunged into her gut, the truth carved into the blade, the words foreign and metallic and bitter.
Nicole figures she is a bad person when the knife feels like absolution.
Any mantra on good and evil could be seared into her skin and she’d still look up the meaning of the phrases she's learned to know by heart.
Nicole is certain and Nicole is uncertain and no she will not explain it.
She pulls out the knife, eyes trained on the weapon, body stoic and unfazed; she's learned not to fret over the seemingly irreversible by now.
Nicole does not read the legible carved words and she meticulously cleans the blade of her blood and adds it to her ever growing collection of tribulations.
Perhaps the heap of metal agony will save her someday.
But for now Nicole sits and watches as the silver glares in the hot sun; the wind blows her away, but still, she watches.
Her veins scrawl ‘contradiction’ under her skins’ walls and sometimes she shakes and sobs in bed before she sleeps, but she does not acknowledge it.
*******
When it is too quiet and when it is too dark, Nicole succumbs to fantasises. She dreams of Gods and monsters finding her and taking her away to another place.
Deities with horns, sharp teeth and tails capturing her and taking her to the sky.
Nicole is waiting to be rescued.
Her parents vanished into thin air and sometimes Nicole wants to be mad at their absence. But her father used to bake cookies for the basketball team after everyone passed tryouts and her mother used to take half days on Thursdays to help her with her French homework, and you can not stop loving someone no matter how often you tell your heart to.
It's been two months since she’s seen her parents and Nicole lies to herself that it's normal for a 16 year old girl to be left alone for so long.
She may not be drowning and she may not be swiming but she is drifting and maybe somehow that's worse.
And there is no water, she would know, she’s parched; and there is no silence, she would know, she listens to a myriad of branches snap. A monster is coming.
Nicole wonders if she’ll have to use her knives or if she’ll finally be saved.
Alas, the auricular obstructions fade. The monster went home, it seems, like it always does.
*******
Nicole wants claws and extra limbs and red eyes and she wants to scream and hurt and hurt. She wants to screech deep, visceral roars, she wants to tear out throats, gorg eyes, rip hair.
She wants- no needs for people to feel the same way she does. The way her clothes do not cover her body, the way her skin does not enfold her bones, the way her flesh does not hide her anger.
Nicole does not do or voice any of these things and prays the void inside herself will swallow up her excrescences and her tumors and her hate.
Nicole Haught stays silent and Nicole Haught is smart and she has learned anger is scary and she has learned if you let nobody close, nobody can leave you.
*******
She is considered homeless and she has nowhere proper to pee and nothing to eat and life is so very hard.
She is supposed to be in her junior year but on account that she no longer has parents, no longer has a house and any amenities that accompany it, she does not go to school.
And Nicole is tired and Nicole is weary and, while stuck in seemingly cyclical rumination, she realizes she’s starting to learn you can only grow so old until death comes, and then even sometimes, you can surpass death itself.
Sometimes she wondered if she could be suffocated by the silence.
*******
When Nicole is too cold, and is shivering too fast, and is too scared to breathe, she thinks about the past.
~~~
“Guys, c’mon, we're gonna be late!” Nicole good heartenly shouts.
“We’re coming, we’re coming,” her dad, Cody, assures as her rushes down the stairs adjusting his tie. “Your mums trying to find silver earrings to match her pink shirt! Can you believe that?! Heinous! Pink obviously goes with gold. Max!” Cody screams up the stairs. “Gold and pink! C’mon!”
Her dad shakes his head and points his thumb up the stairs comically as if to say ‘can you believe this?’
Seconds later, Max, Nicole’s mother comes rushing down the stairs, “I'm sorry! Don't worry though, I've asked Chris to grap a bouquet of flowers for you since we're running late,” Max says to Nicole. “And hun, you look amazing, the suit fits well?” Nicole nods quickly, as to hurry this conversation along but nevertheless, her mom continues, “I was a bit worried the tailor was going to alter it a bit too tight. Ya know, Melinda at the diner? She said her son got a suit tailored there and it was too tight! It costs about as much as an arm and- in my opinion- it should fit perfectly! I just-”
“ Mom !”
“Yes, yes okay, in the car, I know,” Max grumbled, hiding a smile.
The ride to Purgatory high school was quick.
And soon enough the family was at Purgatory High, Nicole rushing into the drama department entrance as her parents laughed at her eagerness and parked.
Inside Nicole glanced at the navy blue bricked hallways before breaking from a fast walk, into a run.
Finally she gets to her high school's theater, seeing her drama teacher gesturing wildly at the rest of the cast.
A moment later someone noticed her presence, “C’mon, Nic!”
Nicole smiles brightly and races over to all her friends before quickly getting into costume.
Nicole stares at herself in the mirror of her tiny dressing room, checking her elaborate and colorful makeup and realizes she is happy.
She has her family and she has her friends and Nicole is happy .
~~~
But right now Niole is laying on a pile of leaves and she thinks she may have heard a bear and, truthfully, she is starting to question if that memory really ever happened.
Because she is not there she is here and maybe seeing is believing.
*******
There is a girl in the woods Waverly sees everyday on the way to school.
The walk to the bus stop is almost half a mile and it is hot, and Waverly gets bored, so she watches her surroundings.
The first time she sees her it’s the beginning of junior year; a flash of red obstructs the green and brown of the forest and she stops. The girl is sitting on the hard terrain and only wearing a thin tank top and running shorts and Waverly wonders where she goes at night.
It gets cold, you see.
But it’s already 6:32 am and Waverly has more to walk and her bus comes at 6:55.
Waverly leaves and does not hear the cries that the wind masks.
Everyday she looks, her eyes study the forest for movement. And everyday she sees her.
Most of the time she is sleeping and sometimes Waverly creeps farther into the trees for a better vantage point and she stands and watches the ups and downs of the girl's chest.
Only a few times she has been awake, and Waverly is always very careful not to draw attention. Sometimes she’s just walking around looking for food and sometimes she is crying.
Waverly always has food on her and Waverly always has extra tissues but she does not offer any amenities.
*******
She has started to refer to the girl as Red. Everyone needs a name, Waverly figures.
Often at night when her father is drunk and her sister is high, she walks out and stares into the woods and watches for the redhead. Sometimes she sees her and sometimes she doesn’t.
But it’s Sunday night and Wynonna's room is cloudy and everywhere else in the house is littered with beer bottles and cans and sometimes all you need is an escape. A break.
The walk feels long and strenuous and suddenly Waverly is all too aware of the tissues in her pockets.
Weird.
*******
Nicole does not know how long she’s been here, much less what day it is when the sun starts to set.
She is hungry and she can feel her ribs and she knows is going to die here.
Alone and hungry and empty.
Nicole hears branches snap but she has yet to run out of tears today so she sobs.
The ground is hard and dirty and her hair is oily and in her face but her throat burns and maybe the pain shouldn’t feel as good as it does.
The monster has arrived, it didn’t turn back this time.
The monster has arrived, a long way from its cave, Nicole assumes, and is hungry.
The monster has arrived and Nicole is now more than willing to be sacrificed.
Closer and closer and closer, until:
“Red?”
Nicole snaps.
She lets out an inhumane roar, the scream exploding from her chest, the burn or the previous sobs that wrecked her body sharp but it hardly matters now.
The monster has come and it taunts her endlessly.
Her dad called her Red, shouting, “That’s my daughter! Fuck yeah! Go Red!”
Her mom called her Red, cooing, “I love you so much, honey. Sweet dreams Red.”
Nicole screams and howls because it hurts so much and more branches snap and suddenly a girl steps in her clearing.
She slams herself against a thick tree and the sticks cutting into her stomach leaves Nicole quieting, still unaware that the aforementioned tears have not stopped, and stares.
The girl looks young and she looks scared and Nicole wonders if she has a family. Maybe hers ran too.
Maybe this monster is not much of a monster at all.
“Hi,” Nicole whispers like what just happened didn’t , her voice hoarse from the crying.
“Are you okay?” The girl asks. She looks concerned and scared.
Nicole wonders if she’s scared of her.
“Yeah,” Nicole slightly whimpers.
She’s not okay. She’s not okay. She’s not okay.
“No you're not,” Waverly whispers back.
Nicole swallows, even in the dark, this monster is very pretty.
“Are you hungry?” Waverly asks, and Nicole wonders if Waverly can see her ribs in the loose, dirty tank top she’s clad in.
“Just a little,” Nicole admits.
Waverly smiles a small smile and Nicole lets go of a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.
*******
The monster hasn't given her name so Nicole hasn’t given hers.
The girl explained her sister is sick and so is her dad so they have to eat outside, but she has a faraway look when she says this and Nicole has learned how to spot white lies.
The girl brings out cheese sandwiches with pickles and chips, 2 soft blankets and a pillow.
Nicole is not curious, Nicole is tired and she appreciates the kindness, but is still wary nonetheless.
Every monster has claws.
Silently the monster lays out one of the soft blue blankets in Nicole’s clearing, putting the other to the side, fluffs and places the pillows and gestures for Nicole to sit, handing her a sandwich. Their fingers slightly touch and Nicole shivers but it is not from the wind.
She tells herself she’s cold, anyways.
“Allergies?” The girl asks and Nicole shakes her head no.
The girl sits down across from Nicole and starts eating, chewing the meal.
Nicole takes a bite of her own and the cheese tastes a little off but she knows she can’t have her cake and eat it too.
Once the sandwiches and the chips have been scarfed down they sit in peculiar silence.
“Thank you,” Nicole whispers.
The monster nods her response and lays down her head on the pink pillow, pulling the previously set aside blanket over her body, laying rigid on her back.
Nicole follows suit, laying down next to her, but a good distance away.
She has no pillow and no blanket to block out the cold with, but it’s nice.
It’s nice to share a meal and it is nice to lay with someone and Nicole forgot how much she’s missed the most seemingly mundane things.
But then the monster is moving and suddenly a pillow is under her head and a blanket is covering her body and the girl is only just a few inches away and Nicole feels so warm .
The monster does not ask her name, and so she does not ask the monster's name.
“Can we sleep here tonight?” The girl asks so soft and vulnerable that Nicole wants to cry.
“Okay,” Nicole whispers back.
“Can I hold your hand?” The monster asks somehow quieter.
Nicole grabs the monster's hand under the blanket and learns the girl does not have claws.
Her hand is so soft and so warm and Nicole feels so cared for in the moment and she starts to cry.
Shallow sobs whimpered into the night and the monster hugs her under the blanket whispering, It’s okay, I’m here , over and over.
Nicole does not want to fall asleep and for this all to be a dream but sometimes you are too exhausted to want things.
*******
Waverly watches Red sleep, and for some reason she’s never felt so okay.
But she has school in the morning and a physics test first period so she carefully untangles herself from Reds arms and the blanket and stands.
“Wait,” Red whispers suddenly and Waverly froze, her head turning to the no longer sleeping body next to her.
“If, um, you’re gonna leave, can you at least… uh, give me a hug?” The redhead tiredly rushes out.
Waverly admires the way her hair falls for a second and Red mistakes the silence as rejection and trails on.
“Not in like a gay way or anything… I would never do anything to make you uncomfortable. I just… I don’t know the next time I’m gonna get a hug, or if I will ever get another, you know?” Red asked and her voice cracked hard and Waverlys heart sped up.
Waverly knows this girl is truly as broken as she is and she kneels down and pulls Red's body to her own.
It is a bit awkward, a bit uncomfortable; Red laying on the ground and Waverly on her knees but they stay in the embrace for some time till Waverly pulls away.
“I have to go,” Waverly says, feeling guilty.
“Yeah…” Red agrees. After a moment of stagnant silence, the taller girl asks, “will you come back?”
Waverly stares at the girl. She’s pretty, beautiful really, and frankly she doesn’t think she’s ever seen someone as pretty as Red. Not attractive as in “I want to look like her,” but as in “I want to be with her.”
Waverly sucks in a breath, the realization hitting her like a train.
Before Waverly can say yes, Red interrupts her with a strangled chuckle, “Sorry, I take it back. I don’t want to be a burden.”
And then she is up and walking away. Away from the blankets, away from her clearing, away from her home. Away from Waverly.
Waverly whispers, “You could never be a burden,” into the air and prays Red heard her.
Waverly looks at the blankets on the ground and feels an emptiness she’s all too used to.
She leaves the blankets there and heads back inside into the house with blank walls, cloudy with no sun, bottles void of beer.
Waverly cries herself to sleep and it’s like nothing has changed.