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Enid and Wednesday stand alone in Ophelia Hall, face to face. Little do they know, thirty years ago, none other than Morticia Addams and Larissa Weems stood in the exact same place.
Enid and Wednesday hate each other at first. They don’t want anything to do with one another.
But between Larissa and Morticia, it’s love at first sight. Where Morticia is, Larissa is.
They spend nights talking and gossiping, speculating about teachers being a bit too close, and students holding hands when they thought no one was watching. When Morticia feels down, Larissa shapeshifts into her classmates and makes terrible imitations to make her laugh. When Larissa falls ill, Morticia is right by her side with chicken soup and fairy bread because it’s her favorite snack. They win the Poe Cup together, multiple times.
They push their respective beds together to form a queen mattress at the center of the room, under the spiderweb window. Weekend mornings are spent lazily lying under the covers, sunbeams falling delicately on them.
They tell each other everything.
How Larissa misses her father, and how life’s fucking unfair because she has no one to walk her down the aisle when that day comes. Weems is a bit insecure and so shy; she admires Morticia for being so unapologetically herself. She’s not afraid of rising above the crowd, and when she speaks, everyone listens.
She tells her friend, looking out the window pensively.
Morticia’s mask falls at last, and she admits how angry she is because no one seems to understand how she’s so much more than just a pretty face. How tired she is of constantly having to prove herself to the world. She keeps failing classes, but that doesn’t mean she’s dumb and lazy, like everyone’s telling her.
She ends up confessing to her friend that, indeed, she’s popular and Nevermore’s queen bee, but most of the students don’t like her, really. They think she’s living for the spotlight, and rumors are that she’s entitled and stupid at that.
Honestly, she just wants to be loved.
Larissa hugs her tight and murmurs against her temple that she’s the smartest person she knows, and fuck everyone else’s opinion because one day, she will crush them all, just like they did at the Poe Cup. It’s them against the world, after all, right?
And one day, Morticia mentions this new student, Gomez Addams.
Her voice is a bit dreamy, and Larissa thinks it’s no big deal. Morticia had tons of boyfriends. She doesn’t really like them, but they’re funny, and every queen needs a king.
A part of Larissa wishes she would need a queen instead.
But she quickly understands that something else is happening, something different, something she has never seen before. Morticia falls in love with this boy.
Larissa’s heart breaks in her chest when she sees them kiss for the first time.
It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair.
They end up separating their beds again because Gomez sometimes sneaks in at night to cuddle with her.
Larissa doesn’t understand why she feels this way. She doesn’t know there is a word for it; she has never met anyone like her before. She knew Morticia wasn’t like her, but it didn’t stop her from falling in love. It didn’t stop her from hoping.
She asks her out to the Rave’N, because they always go together, but this time, Morticia smiles at her, kisses her cheek, and leaves with Gomez.
It breaks her bones and tears through her skin, to the point where she can’t look Morticia in the eyes anymore after that.
She closes herself off and tries to forget, but it's hard when she’s right here. Breathing, laughing, and not understanding her roommate's sudden shift in behavior. She doesn’t really care in fact, Larissa understands. Morticia just met the love of her life. No one else counts.
Larissa grows bitter, and as the school year ends, their last year, she watches Gomez being taken away by the police, and she thinks that finally, she will see she's better than him, she will leave him after that, and they’ll be back to making hot chocolates on rainy days.
But Morticia stands by him and loves him even more because he’s everything she’s not. She can’t compete.
Larissa leaves Nevermore and works at her mother’s company for a while, and the days have never been so gray. There’s nothing waiting for her out there, she decides, so she comes back to Ophelia Hall.
She becomes headmistress ten years after her return, and she loves her students. They’re so full of life and energy. They become her whole life. Little by little, the tears dry up, and the wound closes.
But Fate is such a bitch; she brings her back.
Thirty years later, Morticia is here, in her office, with Wednesday, her daughter.
In another world, she’s their daughter. She toys with the idea in her mind not to fall apart in front of them. In another solar system, Morticia is hers, and Wednesday is theirs. In another galaxy, she has a family. In another universe, she’s happy.
It doesn’t make it any easier, because she sees how much of Morticia her daughter carries within herself. They have the same eyes, the same voice, and the same soul.
She watches her as she despises Enid and fucks around on school grounds, poking her nose into things that are in no way her business. Wednesday is arrogant, annoying, and uncontrollable, but Larissa is so fond of her.
It’s only when she sees Enid, in tears in her office, begging to switch rooms, that she realizes that history is repeating itself.
Roommates falling in love, but being too young to process it. Fate toying with feelings and despair meeting destruction. And so, so many tears.
But, to her surprise, Enid returns to Ophelia Hall after a while. And she puts Wednesday back in her place, like she never dared to do with Morticia.
Larissa chuckles against the door, eavesdropping discreetly.
Maybe Fate will be kinder to them after all.