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The first time Mia complained about Diego, she was completely shit-faced.
Mia was a sad drunk. Lana never really drank enough to feel intoxicated, but when she did somehow manage to get drunk, she was usually just mildly confused by her surroundings and gained a hazy recollection of events. Mia would just cry and cry until she was delirious. When she finally quieted her sobbing, her line of thought was startlingly clear.
So, Lana let her cry it out in Mia’s living room. They never drank at Lana’s place anymore, because the last time Lana let that happen, Ema started crying and Lana had two crybabies to deal with. Lana was fine with babysitting while Mia worked it all out, because she knew Mia was too smart to keep herself down for long.
“You know all about that case,” Mia finally said that night. “With my mother. And Gregory Edgeworth. I know you know about it.”
“Yes, I do.”
Mia sniffed. “The Kurain Channeling Technique...it’s real.”
“I believe you.”
“Please, Lana, don’t just humor me, I’m not a child.”
Au contraire. “I really do believe you, Mia.”
“Well, I’m glad it’s real. Maybe one day, I’ll channel Diego’s mother...and I want you to tell her she raised a jerk. A self-absorbed jerk.”
“I, er...I don’t think you should do that.”
Mia looked up at Lana, eyes wide and wet and shiny. She had grown so much since their first years together in college, but there was still vulnerability. The things that she hid at the bottom of the glass. “But would you tell her?”
Lana would also tell her that Diego ought to back off. Lana would tell her that she didn’t raise a man built to handle this kind of woman. Lana would say, your son ought to leave women like Mia to women like me.
“...Well, if presented with the opportunity, I suppose I’d relay the message.”
The second time, Mia was a little more conscious. It had been weeks since the last complaint, and Mia was back to humble-bragging about Diego’s achievements in the courtroom. Lana swallowed it all, because that’s what friends were for.
They were at Lana’s place, then, because there was no liquor involved and therefore no need for Ema to weep over Mia’s despair. However, the opportunity still presented itself in the end. Diego could tear Mia’s heart in half, even without a little bit of help from the devil’s nectar. “We had an argument.”
“An argument? Quite vague.”
Mia smiled solemnly. “Yes, true. I don’t even know why I bothered trying to hide it from you. It’s just...he can be a little degrading, sometimes. The pet names and such were cute at first, but sometimes it just feels like thinly-veiled misogyny.”
Lana raised her eyebrows. She’d assumed the problem with Diego would be more about his arrogance, or perhaps infidelity. But when she thought about it, thinking himself above any woman who crossed his path or cheating on them could be seen as misogyny. He didn’t seem like the type to go around respecting women all day long, anyway. “Did you speak to him about it? Perhaps he didn’t mean for it all to come across like that.”
“Of course I did. Sometimes, it just feels like he's doubting me, even if he pretends like he has faith in my abilities. So I told him that the jokes had stopped being funny. I explained myself clearly, and told him how it all made me feel, and even if he didn’t understand, I just wanted him to tone down a little bit,” Mia said. She had been sitting up ramrod straight, but then she began to slouch. “And he just laughed. And tousled my hair like I was some little kid. ‘A kitten is a kitten, Kitten,’ he said. And that was that. And...I know it’s small, Lana—”
“Nothing is too small of an issue.” Lana stopped Mia in her tracks. She knew where Mia was heading. Mia was stubborn to those she didn’t know, but too relenting to those that she loved. “If it is for your comfort, and he truly loves you, then he should have no issue with listening to you. And, Mia...” Lana almost sounded like she was scolding, lecturing. But her and Mia were friends. They were just having a little girl talk, trading ideas and advice. That’s all. She had to stop herself from sounding too...invested. Or, biased, rather. “Just don’t let him forget: even kittens have claws.”
The third time Mia complained about Diego, she swore it would be the last.
The breakup wasn’t as outwardly explosive as Lana had imagined it to be. “I told him I thought it best if we started seeing other people,” Mia said, indignant. Lana saw through it.
“Interesting. What was his response?”
“The bastard. He said I’d be back, with one of his lame little metaphors,” Mia said, rolling her eyes. Then, surprisingly, she laughed. “I guess it’s just the same old Diego. I think we’ll still be friends. Besides, we work together. I want to be civil.”
“But are you going back to him?”
“Oh, no. That’s over with.”
Lana was too smart to believe that (although she’d never say). And so was Mia.
She went back.
The fourth time Mia complained about Diego, she held a bra in her hands. A bra that was far too small to be hers.
Lana and Mia both examined it, chin in hand, as if they didn’t know what it meant. Like they were in a courtroom, waiting for the truth to unveil itself. “Where did you find it?”
“In his laundry.”
“You do his laundry?”
They made eye contact, the kind that usually called for a moment of laughter. But they couldn’t laugh. Not with the mystery woman’s bra between them.
“Looks like your size, Lana. Wanna tell me something?”
“I’d be offended, if I cared what anyone thought about my body.”
“Aw. My opinions on your boobs don’t matter?”
Lana was starting to wonder just how many opinions Mia had on her breasts. (Moreover, did she really think Lana was only a B cup?) “I think we are avoiding the obvious conclusion here. Another woman’s intimates has turned up in your boyfriend’s laundry, and what does that mean?”
“What kind of lawyer-in-training would I be if I didn’t put those two pieces together? Yeah. I get it, there’s another woman. Can you fault me for being a little humorous in the face of something like this?” Mia said. Then, she looked down at the bra again. “But perhaps...no. No. There’s no way it’s mine.” Lana was surprised that Mia had even tried to stick to that reasoning. “Okay, what now? I break up with him, yes?”
Lana should have said yes. But the bottom line was this: either Mia would go back to him anyway, or she’d be sad and lonely. And Lana knew her role in the current drama they were acting out. She played the jealous friend, trying to get in the way of a perfectly fine relationship, even if that relationship was maybe just a little bit horrible.
But, Christ—why the hell was Mia asking her for obvious answers, anyway?
“What now, you ask?”
“Yup.”
“...I suppose you ought to show him this.”
“Okay, and then what?”
“Mia, whose boyfriend is he, again?”
That had a little too much bite in it, Lana knew. But Mia laughed. “I don’t know. We bitch about him so often, I think we own him in equal parts.”
It was less of a “we bitch” and more of a “Mia bitches while Lana listens”, but whatever. “Is that so...”
“Yeah.” Mia looked at the bra, a lacy red thing that was (thankfully) untarnished. She seemed calm. Too calm. “Hey, Lana?”
“Yes?”
“Our boyfriend sucks.”
They broke up again.
Mia turned up to Lana’s place with bloody knuckles and a tote bag full of belongings from Diego’s apartment. She placed the bag on Lana’s couch, and Lana imagined how things would be if all of those little toiletries and personal landmarks were at her house instead of Diego’s.
“So...the knuckles?”
“He kept yanking my arm when I walked away, so I gave him one last kiss...just not with my lips,” Mia said, shaking her fist. “And I snagged his teeth. I guess this kitten really does have claws.”
“I didn’t expect you to take me so literally...but I can’t help feeling a bit of satisfaction, knowing that you punched him square in the face.” Lana got a first aid kit, cleaning up Mia’s hand. Then, while Lana was tending to her, Mia started to cry silent tears. Lana tried to ignore it, knowing that Mia didn’t like to be seen like that, but it was hard to do that when her tears were dripping into her wound. Lana looked up, and cradled Mia’s cheek in her hand.
Mia sighed, shakily, as if that breath might be her last. “You know what? Mostly, I don’t care about our relationship. Even if he cheated, even if he put me down all the time, even if he was an arrogant prick, I still...sort of feel like I’ll be okay. But, only sort of. Because he made it seem like...he chose me.”
“I suppose he did, if you were together,” Lana said. She wanted to hit Mia with the facts, and tell her to stop thinking, because Lana had done too much thinking about Mia and Diego and it made her hurt.
“No, Lana. He chose me. It’s not the fact that it was me that he chose, it was the fact that somebody chose me,” Mia said. “And, I know, on paper...I guess I’m choosable. I’m a choice. Because I’ve done some pretty good things. I’m doing well by your standards, and those are some tough standards. So I’m a choice. But he always made himself seem like hot stuff, y’know? So much that I kind of believe it now. So the question he gave me is, will anybody else that good choose me? I guess that’s the only thing I’m angry about. I know you’re getting sick of me whining about him, Lana, but—”
The fifth time Mia complained about Diego was silenced by a kiss.