Chapter Text
When I wake up, the room is stained a soft gold from the setting sun filtering in between the curtains. I feel slightly more rested, but my insides still feel like lead, and I can’t tell if it’s lingering stress or if I’m just hungry. I grimace at the fact that I’m still wearing my street clothes and grab my pjs out of the pile of laundry in my desk chair. My phone buzzes, and I notice several texts from Mac and Duke. I ignore those in favor of a single text from Martha.
‘You missed school today, is everything alright? I feel like I haven’t heard from you at all since Sunday.’ Ah Martha, always so considerate. I shoot her a quick text back and put on my pjs.
‘It’s complicated. Talk tomorrow at school.’ After I change, I’m surprised to find Heather in the kitchen, standing by the stove. She turns around when she hears me.
“You look like shit,” she says, not unkindly. I chuckle.
“Whatever you’re making smells like shit too.” I sit at the kitchen island and watch as she waves a bit of smoke out of her face.
“Fuck off, I was trying to make some rice but your measuring cup doesn’t have numbers and I had to guess, now there’s too much rice and not enough water.” Heather gives up trying to salvage the rice and turns off the stove, before turning to sit opposite of me. “Well?” She looks at me expectantly. It takes me a moment to realize that she’s asking how I‘m doing.
“I’m fine.” My answer clearly isn’t satisfying enough for her because she simply narrows her eyes at me, silently. “Really! I’m okay, I just...don't like loud noises.”
“I don’t really like them either but that was...quite the reaction,” she says. I sigh. Do I want to explain this to her? The only person I’ve talked to, really talked to about what happened is Martha, and telling her took a lot. But when I look up at Heather, the words just start spilling out, like she’s reached inside me and pulled them out like a ribbon.
“Remember when I said J.D. died? He killed himself. He blew himself up with a homemade bomb after I stopped him from trying to blow up the school and…” I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “He couldn’t just leave me alone, he just had to leave me with that fucking image in my head.” I shift in my chair, playing with the rings on my fingers as I try to compose myself.
“Veronica holy shit.” I can feel Heather’s discomfort alongside my own. “That’s...Jesus Christ…” We sit in silence for a while, neither of us sure what to say, until I finally shake my head dismissively.
“Nothing I can do about it now. Just gotta avoid fireworks for the rest of my life.” It’s a weak attempt at a joke, but I’m not sure how else to ease the tension. It feels weird to be telling Heather Chandler of all people about this, especially since a few months ago she probably would’ve used this against me. But somehow, deep down, I know that version of Heather is gone.
“I…I’m not good at this. The whole ‘comfort’ thing. But… if you need anything, I’m here for you,” she says. The rest of the evening is blissfully uneventful.
I find Martha in the library the next day, tucked way in the back in between the fantasy and sci-fi sections. She gives me a warm smile when I approach, and pushes a seat out next to her.
“I missed you yesterday! Is everything alright?” I sit down and set my bag aside with a shrug.
“Uh, it’s complicated. And kind of weird. And you might not believe me.” She frowns and takes my hand.
“You know I’ll support you no matter what, right?”
“Yeah! Yeah, of course I do, it’s just… I brought Heather Chandler back to life ,” I say in a rush. “By accident. And she’s living in my house.” I watch Martha’s face cycle through several different emotions before settling on confusion.
“Like actually back to life? This isn’t some kind of…” she lowers her voice. “Trauma response? Like a hallucination?” I shake my head.
“No, she's alive . I found an old spell book and decided to try it out. I just wanted to like, apologize to her ghost or something, so I’d stop feeling so guilty,” I explain. She leans back in her chair and remains silent for a long while.
“Okay. I’ll be honest, this is not what I expected to hear on a Wednesday morning. How did you even manage that? Magic is basically a lost art at this point, I thought only really rich people could afford to even get into the basics.” I give her a basic rundown of the past few days, starting with the mistranslated spell and ending with yesterday’s panic attack. Her facial expression is tinged with worry as I talk. When I finish she nods slowly, clearly thinking. “So how are you handling this?” A wave of tiredness washes over me when I realize that I actually hadn’t really thought about how I was doing, I’ve been too focused on Heather.
“Honestly? I don’t know. It’s...a lot to handle. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really glad Heather’s not dead, but I don’t really know what to think,” I reply. “And I haven’t even talked about it with my parents yet! I’ve avoided the topic entirely because I don’t know what to tell them. Do I just say ‘hey I used Gran Gran’s old spellbook to raise my friend from the dead.’?” I take a breath and plow on. “And I can feel Heather’s emotions. Not all of them, but somehow the really strong ones get beamed into my brain and the worst part is it’s a two way street! Martha I don’t- Heather’s changed a lot, and I doubt she’d try to use anything against me anymore, but…” I trail off. Martha’s quiet again, and I kind of feel bad for unloading all that onto her but she sets her hand over mine gently and says:
“I think you should talk to your parents. I mean, you literally live with them, you can’t ignore them forever.” She’s right, obviously. Honestly, her advice is rarely (if ever) wrong.
“Okay, yeah, I guess. I’m still not sure what to tell them exactly but I’ll figure something out. When things have settled down again we should go back to doing our Friday night movies, I miss you.” Martha’s smile is so kind it almost makes me feel… bad . Despite everything that’s happened between us, she’s still been such a good friend. I thank her and decide I’ve taken up enough of her time, giving her the lame ass excuse of needing to meet a teacher. There’s this itching feeling under my skin, telling me I don’t deserve her kindness. I don’t really deserve anyone’s kindness, but I don’t have time to wallow in whatever nastiness my brain is conjuring. Class before mental health, obviously.