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This was not how Wednesday had intended to spend her evening. The bathroom floor was cold beneath her, and her chest hitched every few seconds, her hands gripping onto the edge of the toilet. Her body, normally an extremely durable vehicle for her mind, had decided that enough was enough for one day, and had forced her here after she had entered her and Enid’s room through the window, soaking wet.
Okay, entered might not have been the right word. Fallen into was better. Thankfully, Enid had stayed asleep during the ordeal, and Wednesday’s pride hadn’t been wounded along with her body.
She let out a small sigh, her leg and shoulder pleasantly throbbing from where a knife had grazed them during her escape. Her stalker had been throwing them. Thankfully, he (or she) wasn’t very good at aiming. Her breath hitched again and she wrapped her arms around her stomach. Her wet hair stuck to her face, Wednesday having taken out her braids upon arriving in the room.
She might have been poisoned. It wasn’t very likely, though. Enid had randomly given her a small black water bottle at the beginning of the new semester, with only a smile and a brief, “use this, for the love of all things holy. Or unholy, I guess.” Wednesday had used it. Though she would never admit it, it was quite useful. She had a tendency to forget to take a break to drink when there were more important things at hand, and fainting from dehydration had been becoming bothersome. However, having a specific container she drank from wasn’t the safest idea. Realistically, she knew that she had likely not been poisoned, as she had been carrying her water bottle the entire time. But it was better than accepting the alternative. That her annoying human body had decided to be stressed and cause her trouble.
Wednesday’s brain and body didn’t always connect as well as they should have, though she had disciplined them to the best of her abilities. Perhaps that was part of the reason for the disconnect, the fact that she viewed her body as a separate entity. Kinbott, while she was still alive, had suggested that perhaps this was a symptom of a greater “neurological disorder.” Wednesday had ignored her.
She pushed her hair away from her face, gritting her teeth as it stuck to it again. She really should try and change her clothes.
She pushed herself up on unsteady feet, walking out of the bathroom and checking the window in her and Enid’s room for a few moments. The stalker realistically knew where she lived, considering the amount of information they had on her. But they also would probably know that Wednesday had weapons scattered across the room, and multiple alarm systems skillfully set into place, courtesy of Thing. It would be much harder to kill her in her room then it would be in, say, the woods.
She should probably stop walking alone in the woods at night.
The sound of quiet growls met her ears and she looked over at Enid’s bed, the other girl rolling to the side in her sleep, her arms stretched out behind her head. She looked so much more… relaxed, then she had last semester. So much more confident. It had made her presence even more tolerable, and had stirred a feeling inside of Wednesday that she had mostly ignored, a pride, of sorts. Or perhaps something deeper. For the first time in her life, there was a person she wanted to succeed.
She swallowed as a wave of nausea overcame her. Her wounds, though shallow, started to ache fiercely. She procured the desired black nightgown from among her limited collection of clothes and limped back to the bathroom. She’d heard from a wide-eyed Enid before that most of the other girl’s sharing rooms were fine with changing in front of each other. That had never been her and Enid, though. They always changed separately.
She sat down on the bathroom floor once more, rolling up her pants leg to look at the wound on her leg. The area around it was dark brown with drying blood, and it was shallow, like she had suspected, but also long. She removed her wet dress after, peering at herself and the wound on her shoulder in the mirror. It was dirty, red, and similarly long. Well. She’d have to clean them out and stitch herself up. Again.
Her eyelids drooped against her will and she rubbed them, her stomach turning. She had quite literally been soaked to the skin, and removing her wet clothing hadn’t helped with that. She glanced down, realizing that her hands were shaking. Traitors. It would be quite difficult to stitch herself up like this.
“Oh! Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Wednesday quickly turned around, seeing an extremely red-faced Enid standing in the doorway of the bathroom, currently wearing pajamas so pink that they made Wednesday want to go go find the stalker and ask him to finish the job, along with a matching pair of slippers.
“...Enid,” is all Wednesday could say, still not currently clothes. Enid took a few steps back,
“Sorry - you left the door open - wait, why are you bleeding?” Enid furrowed her brow as Wednesday quickly slipped into her nightgown before her bare chest could be left visible for any longer. “Wednesday, what the hell?”
“Go back to sleep,” Wednesday replied, going to the cabinet and taking out the supplies she needed. Enid had insisted on keeping the cabinet full of medical supplies after what had happened last semester, and Wednesday had added a few of her own touches, “I met the stalker in the woods while returning, and I was grazed with a knife as I left. I am about to stitch myself up, you have nothing to worry about.”
“What is it with you and getting stabbed?” Enid grumbled, leaning against the doorway.
“Technically, I’ve only been stabbed twice, including the present moment,” Wednesday pulled a large pack of bandages out of the cabinet along with the other supplies.
“Most people aren’t even stabbed once.”
“Thing was.”
“Thing is always an outlier to any study, we’ve already talked about this,” Enid walked over to her side, her eyes still misty from sleep, “can I see the wounds, Willa?” Her voice was so soft and firm at once that Wednesday moved her nightgown from her shoulder without hesitation, Enid looking at the wound there for a moment, “that’s a long one.”
“Yes, the other one is the same.”
“Which leg is it?” Enid crouched down, Wednesday motioning to her left one, letting Enid look at the mess of blood there as well. Though Enid didn’t have the stomach for more serious injuries, she was quite reliable when it came to smaller ones. Even ones that Wednesday deemed small, which tended to be much larger than what most people would call it. “You plan to stitch them up?” Enid stood back up.
“Yes.”
“How? I know you can do it, but your hands are shaking. Actually, your entire body is shaking. Why are you wet?”
“It was raining,” Wednesday said, her stomach starting to turn uncomfortably again.
“Okay. Sit down.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re in no state to stitch anything up, let alone your own injuries. I can do it,” there was that confidence again. Wednesday’s heart skipped a beat, an annoying reminder that it was beating in the first place.
“You know how?”
“Yeah, my parents are afraid of hospitals and my brothers were always getting into fights back at home. Or falling out of things. Or running into things. Boys are weird,” Enid said with a small laugh. Wednesday had to agree. Her experience with boys from the previous semester had been less than ideal. They had been emotional and clingy, as well as unwilling to give her the information she had needed. “Wednesday? Will you let me?” Enid pulled her from her thoughts. She looked down at her hands, which were indeed shaking from exhaustion. She gave Enid a quick nod,
“Yes.”
“Okay, sit. Don’t worry, I’ve also watched TikTok videos on this too. And practiced with stuffed animals.”
How reassuring.
Wednesday sat down and let Enid clean the wound on her leg after putting on a pair of gloves, also kept in the cabinet. Wednesday kept a stoic face, able to soldier through pain better than most grown adults. She and her brother had practiced most of their weapons on each other as children, and that had built up her pain tolerance immensely.
Despite having gotten her knowledge from TikTok, stuffed animals, and teenage boys, Enid was good at sewing the wound shut, Wednesday realizing with some disappointment that a deadly infection wasn’t likely anymore. She watched Enid’s fingers move in a well-practiced manner, the other girl's face still carrying a smile despite her intense concentration.
Moments like this were becoming quite common. Moments where she and Enid were alone, and no matter what had happened before or how stressed things had been, the world was suddenly quiet. Enid finished with her leg, looking up at Wednesday, her smile growing wider, “okay, I’m all done here. What’d you think?” Wednesday gave her leg a closer look. The blood had been cleaned off of it.
“While it is disappointing that it is no longer leaking blood, you pay acceptable attention to detail.”
“I’ll take that as a thank you Enid, I love you so much,” Enid replied, Wednesday rolling her long sock back up. Enid looked to Wednesday’s shoulder next. Wednesday pulled her shirt down in the area the second gash was located. She clearly had not accounted for this situation properly, she realized, as Enid started to clean the wound.
A shiver ran up Wednesday’s spine, even as she felt her cheeks grow… warm. Ah, right. Females were often more responsive to touch, when it came to sexual attraction.
Wait a minute.
Enid started stitching up the wound, Wednesday leaning her head back, fighting to keep her breathing in a controlled pattern. The other girl finished up after a few minutes, Wednesday quickly hiding her shoulder away from sight once more.
“There, you should be good. Hopefully you don’t die later,” Enid washed her hands thoroughly, then turned back to Wednesday, who had currently wrapped her arms around her stomach, a confused look on her face. The nausea from before had doubled, and now it felt like there were little bugs flying around inside her stomach. Murder hornets, of course. “Oh. Are you going to throw up?” Wednesday quickly shook her head,
“No. Not right now.”
“Okay, cool. You sure?” Enid walked closer, a finger brushing against Wednesday’s hand. There were the murder hornets again. This time Wednesday actually did move to the side, leaning over the toilet and throwing up. Enid dutifully looked away. “You know,” she said once Wednesday had finished and stood up straight, “maybe you shouldn’t walk alone in the middle of the night.”
“We know the stalker is easy to bait now, though,” Wednesday left the bathroom and walked back into their room, sitting on the edge of her bed, “once we have a plan, we can potentially capture and interrogate them.”
“Yeah, I heard your last interrogation went really well,” Enid smirked, sitting beside her. She almost never crossed the line to Wednesday’s side of the room, Enid much better at boundaries and trust then most people would unfairly think.
“Who told you that?”
“Bianca, Kent, Yoko, the school newspaper -”
“- Okay, I get it,” Wednesday said, checking the time. 3 am.
“Yeah. You could tell the teachers about it, you know. The threats and the stalker, I mean. The new principal isn’t that bad.”
“You do not consider anyone bad until you have spoken with them. And you have never spoken with him,” Wednesday stood up, rubbing her hands across her face, leaning her head back to remove her hair from her face and allow her to braid it again.
“I’m just saying there are options. I know you can solve this, but don’t forget that you have people on your side. And that there are other important things too.” Wednesday didn’t respond, in the middle of putting braids back in. She turned around once she was done, Enid meeting her with a bright smile, “do you swear you won’t forget?”
Wednesday sighed, the murder hornets buzzing inside of her stomach again. She would never have promised that at the beginning of the last year. Maybe even the middle. She would never have let someone stitch up her wounds, or talk to her, or sit beside her on her bed. “I swear on Thing’s life.” Thing vibrated from inside a drawer, tired of always being the life sworn on in promises.
“Okay,” Enid left Wednesday’s side and went over to her own bed, crawling back underneath her blankets. Wednesday laid on top of her own, feeling surprisingly content. She was no longer wet and cold, and though the feeling of blood against her skin had been pleasant, the strange and tight feeling of stitches was always enjoyed. “Good night, Willa,” Enid whispered, her voice barely audible. Wednesday looked up at the ceiling for a moment more, then closed her eyes,
“Sleep well, Enid.”