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Daniela can’t move. Her limbs refuse to listen to her, her body glued to the sheets by sweat and horror. Her mind is so loud that it becomes silent, her ragged breathing and pounding heart the only sounds she can pay attention to. The world outside of her stopped existing at some point, though she can imagine that Angie is somewhere drinking, and you … oh god, you.
You, you, you, you, you, you, you you you you you youyouyouyouyouyouyou-
“I’d like to know more about you, Daniela.”
“The older we get, the lonelier we become.”
Skateboarding, venting, hickeys on her stomach, broken curses. She finally feels free.
“First of all, there is no phantom; secondly, I got locked in for the whole damn night; thirdly, I have a job.”
No, you’re working at the flower shop. You’re blushing when Angie mentions Aunt Donna.
“A project I’m working on with my friend is finally underway….. The main stage production of Romeo and Juliet.”
“Why do I get the feeling both you and Angie are trying to set something up?”
But that’s not quite right, because Cassandra came in and swept you off her feet like she does with every girl she meets.
“I signed up for the student council”
“You haven’t lost her yet.”
Except for when Bela got to you first, and her sister’s icy demeanor melted in your company.
“....”
…. Yet you chose her mom anyway.
Of course you did. Why wouldn’t you? Why would you keep your promise?
Tears she doesn’t feel run down her cheeks. That family dinner is burned so brightly into her mind that she feels like she is still there. She remembers the way her world stopped. The connections she was rebuilding with her mother, the ones you were helping her rebuild, shattered in an instant.
She knows what your lips taste like. She will never be able to forget that. She will never forget the way you looked at her, the way it felt to be loved by you.
And you chose her mother.
Living right beside those memories are all the rest. She had actually been happy for you in most of them. She put on a smile and congratulated her sister on the success of her play, clapping alongside the rest of the crowd at the kiss you shared. She was glad that you were helping her aunt out of her shell, and fully supported you and Angie getting together.
She saw Bela again thanks to you, instead of the awful, emotionless statue that had walked around in her big sister’s skin.
She still is not sure what you did. Once upon a time, Bela understood her better than anyone. She knew what Daniela was going through because she was going through the same. Running away was hard, and maybe it was not running away, technically, but it felt like it when she was fourteen and packing her bags to leave. A routine she had done endlessly growing up, something that had become so automatic and ingrained that she could cram a room of belongings into a suitcase in minutes. Yet her arms had felt like lead, every shaky movement and wiped away tear making her pause and second guess. Should she stay? Could she really leave Cassandra behind? Ever since seeing that musical, it was like she was a whole different person. Daniela never saw her anymore, she was always busy practicing or studying, or hanging out with her new theatre friends at their latest school. Bela was gone, it was just the two of them, but Daniela couldn’t be farther from her sister. Would she even care that Daniela wouldn’t be around anymore?
It was only when Bela and their aunt showed up that she found the will to finish packing, sobbing into their shoulders the whole time. She just couldn’t be strong about it the way Bela had been, standing her ground against the wrath of their mother as she threw some clothes in a bag and stormed off to the airport. But her aunt told her she didn’t need to be strong all the time, and while Donna took the best care of them that she could, Daniela knew who to go to when the guilt was too crushing, and the rose-tinted memories of a happy family threw her into a downward spiral. Even as they got older and more distant, Bela was still her reliable older sister, still just as ready to give a hug as she was to fight over a shirt or give words of wisdom.
But at some point, things changed, and Daniela was not worth the effort anymore. She became Daniela the problem child, Daniela the naive, Daniela the one that stopped belonging and maybe never actually belonged in the first place. She became unworthy of the Dimitrescu name, just a lazy romantic that only made bad decisions. That is how her mother sees her, and for a while, Bela did too. Her older sister stopped talking to her, unless it was to criticize what she was doing. There were no more hugs, no more smiles, no more anything. Just cold, cold emptiness.
Then you came around, and suddenly she’s getting a call late at night from Bela. The older girl couldn’t stop sobbing long enough to finish half of the apologies she was frantically trying to put together. And it was all thanks to you.
You really did have an effect on people, didn’t you?
She never thought she would see Cassandra slow down for someone. She never thought she would see her aunt open up to others.
She never thought she would break her curse.
You, you … you. Just … you.
She is undone by you, she is made by you. Your care made her feel like she was more than the idiot black sheep in a pride of perfect lions.
Your discarding of her is devastating. You built a village in her heart to hold your love, then released a plague and set it all ablaze.
Your jokes, your laughter, your mouth on her abdomen. Your fingers in her hair, your stupid jokes.
You chose her mom, you chose her sisters, you chose the Benevientos.
You chose Daniela.
The contradictions make her head spin, a million realities all stacked atop one another, a million ways this is all impossible. These memories should not exist, but even her most vivid dreams cannot hold a candle to the way all of these impossibilities feel. Other lives, each just as real as the rest, all merging together into one migraine, all merging into one Daniela helplessly lying in bed.
She loves you.
You love … everyone?
Anger swirls into heartbreak into sadness, all of it swallowed by murky, bottomless fear.
What is happening?
Why is this happening? Why her? Why now? Did you do something? Did she?
Something prods at the back of her skull. It whispers about her curse, but she cannot hear it. She doesn’t remember what happened with her curse, just that it was broken. It was broken, right? She does not recall your relationship ending in violence. If anything, it … it, it was happy, right? Did something happen?
She tries to find the last memory of the two of you together, but every timeline has become the same, each crying for attention in equal, escalating volume. She closes her eyes, manages to flop her hands against her ears, but it does not muffle the screaming. It gets louder, it gets more panicked, it starts sounding like you.
“Daniela!”
Shock shoots through her, and her eyes open to a soaked shirt and freezing water clinging to her eyelashes.
“H-huh?”
“Oh my god, it worked,” comes Angie’s voice.
A hand is on her shoulder, and the world starts coming back into focus again. Angie is to the side of the bed, holding an empty glass tankard that you all stole from a bar a few weeks ago. You stand next to her, closest to Daniela, eyebrows furrowed.
“Are you okay? What happened?” Daniela flinches at your voice, fighting waves of nausea as the memories try to resurface.
“Jesus, you were freaking us out,” adds Angie, looking uncharacteristically serious, “We nearly called an ambulance.”
Daniela sits up, wiping the water from her face. She has no idea what to say, how to even begin explaining what she has seen, especially when you are looking at her with so much genuine concern. How can she possibly tell you what she remembers? You look ready to lift her up and carry her to the hospital on foot if you have to. What’s worse is that she can’t remember this timeline. She has no idea if you’re already seeing her mother, or have joined the student council, or the play, or if there have been any other little indicators signalling you’ve already picked your lover. Even just thinking that to herself makes her feel like she’s lost her mind.
“I’m fine, just some … sleep paralysis, I guess.”
The tension immediately dissipates. Her roommates shoulders both drop, the worry easing out of your faces, and she knows immediately that she made the right decision keeping her madness to herself. She can’t burden either of you with this.
Angie leaves, muttering something about making use of the tankard, but you stay by her side. Daniela has half the mind to make up an excuse about why she needs you to leave, but every time she opens her mouth to say the words, her heart stutters and aches.
“Hey, we can just stay here if you’re not feeling up to it today.” Your voice is soft and warm, both a blanket of comfort and a crushing fist. Looking at you has her seeing double, triple, millions of yous, a million hers.
“Yeah,” she manages to grumble amidst the dizzying realities surrounding her.
“We can always skate tomorrow. Anything I can get for you?” You pick a shirt of hers off the floor and sniff it, then toss it to her, oblivious.
“Wait, what- what did you say?” Did she hear you right?
Before you can answer her question, she blurts another,
“When did you learn to skate?”
You look at her oddly, and the way she’s near hyperventilating is probably not helping the strange vibe she is giving out right now.
“You’re teaching me, remember?”
She remembers showing you how to position yourself on the board, how to build up momentum, how to brake. She remembers the way she felt being able to share that with you after winning the competition. Like someone had finally started to see her. You saw worth in the things that mattered to her, the things her family dismissed as meaningless and wastes of time.
If she’s teaching you in this reality, then, does that mean you…?
“H-how do you feel about my mom?”
It’s out of left field and absolutely ridiculous, but she needs to know, needs to hear you say it. If you’re going to break her heart, do it now, before she lets herself fall for you all over again.
(As if she could ever stop herself.)
“Um, I’m not her biggest fan after hearing the way she’s treated you…. Are you sure you’re okay?”
The cacophony in her head quiets, filling instead with shiny, mushy, complicated feelings. Wet drops are sliding down her cheeks again, but it’s not the icy tap water Angie dumped on her earlier.
“Yeah,” she gasps, and she means it, hopes that you can somehow hear the relief and dizzying, confusing affection. She feels like she’s breathing for the first time, her chest no longer clogged with fear. She could laugh, almost does, but is acutely aware of how insane she already looks.
“I’m feeling better than ever, actually.”