Chapter Text
when she was here
When she was here, it was all laughter. It was waking up in the morning to a mouthful of hair because she’d gone to bed without brushing it, it was waking up with empty cupboards because she’d eaten the last bowl of cereal at 3am, it was knowing random facts about niche topics because she’d get obsessed with a new something every week, and you’d be her student. When she was here, it was all pizza for breakfast and brownies for dinner, it was staying up late Friday nights because she’d say there was a ‘peace’ to the night, and you’d have work early at the weekends, but you’d do it anyway because you loved seeing her face in the dim light of your bedroom lamp. It was all long walks, purple hair dye, stained hands, and full moons. It was fire and brimstone, and it was both the calm and the storm, and it was bitter and sweet, and fast and slow, and sometimes it gave them both whiplash, and they’d be screaming at each other in the middle of the street. When she was here, though, it was unlike anything Uma had ever known. It was black coffee at five in the evening, and milkshakes at nine a.m. It was the feeling of home in small arms and the scent of jasmine, and it was the feeling of home in the early hours of the morning, in whispers. It was in the dancing, and the singing, and the laughter, and it was in the tears and the tantrums and the heartache. It was in their parents trying to keep them apart, and in the sneaking around, and in their friends counting down the days until they finally admitted they loved each other, but it was especially in the shy smile of their first kiss, and the shakes in Uma’s hand when it took Mal’s for the first time. When she was here, life was in technicolour and motion pictures, and it burned bright purple and green.
but she’s not here anymore
Life’s a party now she’s not here. It’s a fucking party because she’s not fucking here. Uma was asked if she was a bad person last night, and her answer wasn’t clear. Those who knew Uma before Mal, and especially during Mal, would tell her that she was. Those who knew her after are the answers Uma doesn’t care to hear. She doesn’t care about anything because she’s not here. Mal’s not here, but Harry is, and with Harry comes numbness in the form of cheap beer, and powder, and parties filled with people to take the pain away. Now she’s not here, her camera roll is filled with blurred selfies, lacking in any purple. It’s filled with missed shifts, failing grades, unanswered text messages and slurred voicemails.
don’t leave me
this pparty sucks without u
-unsent message-
whhwy did u leav me .
It’s filled with arguments with parents, and unidentifiable faces, and beer bottles. Now green eyes and purple lips aren’t here to fill her time with weird documentaries and crazy conspiracy theories, Uma makes some of her own. It wasn’t a boarding school, or a chance of a better life away from abusive parents that made Mal leave, it was Uma. She’d pushed Mal too hard, wrapped the bandages too tight around her neck, suffocated her. Now, there’s no one to hold and whisper to in the middle of the night, Uma gets creative with her insomnia in other people’s houses, beds, parties. Anything she can find. Mal isn’t here, but Uma feels exposed, vulnerable, like another piece of her is walking around in the world, and she doesn’t know how to heal it nor how to stop it from hurting. They were always pitted against each other, Uma knows that. It’s why she took so many photos of them, so many polaroid’s, all strung up in her room by string, still there, even if Uma can’t look at them anymore. Uma can’t look at most of her room anymore, she can’t look at all the bandanas and sweaters strewn across the backs of chairs and floorboards, she can’t look at postcards and faces tacked up on her walls, nor can she think about how the line between love and hate is so thinly drawn, about how her lifeline is a thousand miles away, and she’s struggling to stay afloat without it. Now that she’s gone, Uma can’t even look in the mirror anymore, because there’s fire in her blood, and she can see the smoke in the reflection.
It’s time to build my Empire, baby.
Uma liked the castle they’d built between these four walls, because they’d stuffed it with pillows and blankets, secrets, and kisses.
It’s my chance, I have to take it.
She took Uma’s ability to breathe with it, because there’s seafoam in her veins, but that fire Mal had put there is overpowering, taking up her whole being. They’d hurt and healed each other so many times, but this time, Harry can’t pick up the pieces. The world is in black and white, and silent picture, and there’s only one screen in her town. It’s not showing films anymore.
she’s never coming back
It’s dark in her room now, she can’t turn on the light, because of the faces on the walls; they’ll become voices, and memories, and Uma’s mind is barren. She’s walking, and talking, but she’s barely breathing, barely seeing. She’s on autopilot, she needs someone to fly this thing, because she’s about to explode, her room a haven from the outside world, from the ability to feel. Harry’s name is flashing on her phone, beer emojis galore, but it’s turned over pretty quickly. Because his name hasn’t flashed on her phone in a while. Nothing has flashed on her phone in a while. Words replay in her mind, as fresh as they were a year ago.
I’m not your fucking wife, Uma. How long did you really think we’d last?
You’re just holding me back, you always have.
Uma’s spent enough time over the last year, and enough time with Mal, to know her tells. Her eyes roll when she lies, her mouth forms an ugly pout, and her breathing gets shaky. All three had been present at the court case, Mal both the defence and prosecution. Even in the moment, Uma knew what was happening. It was typical of Mal, of both of them, hurt before you’re hurt. They know, knew, each other like the back of their own hands, the other’s strengths and weaknesses all carved into the other’s mind, etched into the back of their eyelids.
Life hasn’t been much of a party lately, Uma’s roommate does it all for her. They say college gives you the best years of your life, but she’s not really getting that feeling. Now she’s not here, life is assignment extensions, all-nighters, dark circles under Uma’s eyes that have burrowed permanently. It’s a faded picture of a face she once loved, but pain, routine and fresh all at the same time. It’s cold coffee in soggy paper cups, and overfilled laundry hampers with the genuine intention of emptying it tomorrow, yesterday. It’s hearing loud moans and thumping through the walls in the middle of the night, and staring up at the ceiling, because she can’t even remember what it’s like to touch another human.
but she’s here now
She’s breathing again, and sleeping, and she feels like she has one hand on the wheel now, even if the pedals are too far for her to reach. She’s not here anymore, and she won’t ever be, but it’s starting to be okay. Uma’s life is hers now, and classes are being passed, her walls are filled with new faces, her thoughts filled with fresh ideas, the whole in her chest scabbed over, even if it threatens to rip every time, she moves too fast. Her weekends are filled with hot coffees in china mugs, textbooks, and pens underneath her fingers, sat opposite smiles, meeting them with small ones of her own. Her evenings are filled with hot chocolates, and calls to home, and music.
I miss you, Umes.
Harry texted her that, a few months ago, and she tentatively let him back in. He’s clean now, and they’re both dealing with their own shit, but he’s home, and she didn’t realise how much she missed him until she’d wrapped him up in a hug. She hadn’t let go for a while, not when a person was holding her. She was so touch starved. Now Uma’s back, her camera roll is filled with funny texts, artwork, colours, study notes, pages of textbooks, and photos of home. Her eyes are brighter, her smile wider, even if sometimes it feels fake, and she feels like her breath has been taken from her again, ripped cruelly from her chest. Those moments are rare now.
She thought they’d find each other like waves, love each other like water, never-ending. Now, she knows never to depend on a person again, and her walls have transformed into a stronghold, impenetrable, unbreakable. It’s not healthy, but it’s working.
If you don’t let them in, they can’t hurt you.
It’s funny, because that’s what Mal had said to her when they were in her room two years ago, her faded purple hair pulled back into a bun, pale fingers entwined with dark ones, stars projected on the ceiling and the walls. Uma will never forgive her, not after she lost all faith in herself and the ones around her, after she shut her heart out to everyone and everything, after bitterness became her fuel, her life’s purpose. Not after she’s finally moved on in her own fucked up way, after she scratched out Mal’s eyes in every photo she had of them together, after she shut out and held every person she loved at arm’s length and still, to this day, continues to. Uma still feels Mal’s lips against her own, and her arms around her. She still hears that musical laugh, even when it’s cruel and at her expense, and especially when it’s light, or full of love, and warms her blood.
So, when her door knocks, and she’s met with bright blonde hair with traces of purple, and wide green eyes she’s stared into a thousand times, and lips as plump as she remembers them being, every memory comes flooding back to her. Mal’s breathless, her eyes swollen, and Uma just stares, fists clenched, mind empty, seeing red. Mal’s the one to break the silence.
“Hi.”