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“I didn’t want to come, you know,” Pippa admits, tracing a finger along the spines of Hecate’s books. “I almost sent my deputy instead.”
It isn’t surprising, but it still hurts, rips at something in Hecate’s chest she thought she’d long buried, drags it out into the light.
“Why did you?”
Pippa shrugs. “I wanted to be there for my students,” she says easily, then pauses, stilling, and lets out a heavy sigh. “And I suppose I can’t stay away from you, no matter how hard I try.”
It’s hardly a ringing endorsement, hardly the words Hecate has longed for most of her life, but she supposes she deserves it. Deserves Pippa’s wariness and her distance and her edges. It doesn’t stop her eyes from stinging, doesn’t quell the rolling nausea in her stomach, the way the words, their almost resigned tone, make her feel the need to gasp for air.
Everything feels too tight, too claustrophobic, too sharp between them, and Hecate barely resists the urge to press her hand to her chest, to contain her heart, or make sure it’s still beating, she doesn’t know which.
“I’m sure Miss Cackle didn’t intend for you to feel obligated,” she says, and knows her voice is too clipped, too curt, by the way Pippa startles and turns, eyebrows creased in a frown.
“I didn’t mean—” she starts, stops, softens her expression. “I meant that I missed you.”
“So you said.”
“But you aren’t hearing me,” Pippa says, almost agitated. Nearly desperate. “I’ve always missed you. I miss you now, and you’re standing right here.”
Hecate swallows down the acid tang in her throat. “It’s been years,” she offers, almost blithely, curses her voice for shaking ever so slightly.
Pippa nods, but her eyes are wet and her voice thick with tears. “And you’ve changed. You…hardened. You’ve built up all these walls to keep everyone out. Including me.”
I built them because of you, she wants to say, but wouldn’t ever—it isn’t true, and as much as she tends to lash out when backed into a corner, Pippa has always been the exception. The one she tries so very, very hard not to hurt; the one she keeps hurting again and again.
Pippa looks away in the silence, down at her hands, and fiddles with the bright pink bracelet around her wrist. “I want to fix this, Hecate, but I don’t know how to do that unless you tell me what I did wrong.”
Hecate blinks, startled, words reverberating, fix this fix this fix this. “What you did wrong?”
“It had to be something, didn’t it?” Pippa says, glancing up at her again, her voice trembling. “You didn’t leave because I was popular, or whatever rubbish you said earlier. That’s an excuse, and a poor one at that.” She takes a deep breath, and barrels on before Hecate has a chance to interject, “I know things weren’t easy for you, growing up, but I don’t understand… I never hurt you.”
It’s a question more than a statement, Pippa’s eyes pleading with her to agree.
You would have, Hecate thinks, but it’s too much to voice aloud.
“It wasn’t you,” she says finally, dropping her eyes to the floor. “It was me.”
“You were my best friend,” Pippa says again, like it means something even now, but the past tense is what catches and holds fast.
“I’m sorry,” she manages, somehow, but it’s met with a scoff.
“Is that all you have to say?”
“What else do you want?”
“I want you to tell me why. After twenty years I think you owe me that.”
Hecate bristles even as her heart screams at her to just tell Pippa the truth. To tell her it was too much, then, how much she loved her - that it’s too much now, that she would rather lose this precious, budding thing between them than lay herself bare. It’s cowardice, Hecate knows, and hates herself for the way Pippa looks at her, so imploring, so hopeful.
She’d always believed Hecate was better than she was - than she is. Always believed her to be stronger, braver, kinder.
She isn’t.
She isn’t any of those things, never has been, and she thinks it’s perhaps time Pippa realized that. If nothing else, at least one of them will be able to move on.
Hecate’s always known it was never going to be her.
The silence stretches, and Pippa finally looks away.
“I wish you would tell me why,” she says again, barely a whisper, but Hecate can’t. Couldn’t then, can’t now, far too terrified of the fallout.
It can’t be worse than this, her heart says, but she knows it’s wrong. Knows how it feels to offer herself, every jagged piece of her and be turned away and she can’t, won’t, can’t bear that from Pippa.
So she says nothing. Stays silent and stoic, keeps her face devoid of any emotion, despite the cracks she feels splinter their way through her chest.
“I should go. I’m already late.”
Hecate nods dumbly. There’s nothing she can do, nothing she can bring herself to say that would keep Pippa here, and she isn’t sure she wants to. Isn’t sure she can survive another minute without telling her everything, without breaking down.
“If you change your mind, you know where to find me,” Pippa says, soft, but clinging to some desperate hope. “I’ll be waiting.”
She leaves before Hecate can reply, and the moment she’s gone, Hecate feels herself crumple. Her knees give out, and she just manages to catch herself on the chair near her desk, sinking into it, tears stinging her eyes no matter how hard she tries to will them away.