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The first time Enid and Wednesday share a bed is entirely by accident; a happy accident, too.
They’re watching a murder mystery on Enid’s laptop, Enid on the right side of her bed and Wednesday on the left. The laptop is sitting between them, propped up on both of their abdomens and sinking and falling as they breathe. It’s a Friday night in October, just a week after Wednesday turned seventeen, but Wednesday isn’t counting the passage of time based upon her age. Instead she’s counting it based upon how long she’s allowed Enid to share a piece of her cold, dead heart.
Five months, give or take. If they’re tracking their relationship progress based upon everyone else’s view on what it means to be in love, they’re extremely delayed. They still haven’t shared the same bed, nor have they moved past touching over their clothing. It’s taking an exponentially lengthy amount of time to get from point A to point B, but neither of them are really complaining about it.
Wednesday continues to remind Enid, in her own funny way, that she still only has eyes for her, even if they’ve yet to do most things couples have already done by this point in their relationship. They’re moving slow, never wanting to rush a perfect piece of art. Their budding relationship is like magma forming a rock or island; it doesn’t happen overnight and could take a millennium to become something beautiful. But Enid doesn’t think it will take that long, realistically. They’ve been coming along nicely, even if she has to be extraordinarily patient.
Enid allows Wednesday to set the pace. She, herself, has been through this relationship thing before and knows what to expect, but Wednesday is another story. Her only love interest prior to Enid turned out to be a monster set out to manipulate her on behalf of someone out for her family’s blood, and Enid can only imagine how much is must worry Wednesday to open part of her soul to let her in like this.
So, she doesn’t push or plead or beg. Instead, it’s been five months, and they’re watching a murder documentary on Enid’s bed, perfectly content with not having done anything intimate yet.
“I think the neighbor did it,” Wednesday suddenly tells Enid, turning her head to face her.
“Really?” Enid asks as she wiggled closer to Wednesday and rests her head on her shoulder. “I think it’s the sister.”
Wednesday pauses the documentary. “It was the neighbor. His story does not align by logic alone. He said he woke up, read the newspaper, and got the mail once it was delivered that afternoon. The murder happened that Sunday afternoon, when he supposedly fetched the mail.”
Enid shrugs. “So?”
“So there is no mail on Sundays,” says Wednesday, resuming it and settling down so she’s sinking into Enid’s side.
She never fails to impress Enid. She’s always so quick to consider the little things, such tiny details that wouldn’t necessarily make obvious sense to everyone else. Enid completely overlooked that fact, too engrossed with watching Wednesday absentmindedly play with her fingers to keep herself occupied so she can focus on her whodunnit content and crack the mystery faster than anyone involved could have.
Halfway through the documentary, when the two suspects are being separately interviewed and blatantly accused of murdering a man in his own home in the countryside of New York, Wednesday’s head begins to loll about, eyes suddenly heavier than normal. She’s had a long day, between a tiring fencing match with Bianca and a painfully boring alchemy exam she could’ve aced in her sleep.
“You getting sleepy?” Enid softly asks, pausing the film to sit up and assess Wednesday before she can doze off right there. “We can finish it tomorrow. I’ll pause it here so you don’t miss anything.”
Wednesday makes a purring sound as she rubs her eyes with her fists and tries sitting up against the pillows. She dragged her own pillow with a black pillowcase over it, and her black and white checkered blanket, over to Enid’s bed so her allergies to colors and dyes won’t be violently triggered and send her into anaphylactic shock, and she’s more than comfortable right here, even if this isn’t the way things normally pan out for them when they have a movie night together.
“I’d like to finish it,” she insists, reaching out to press play again. “It’s only twenty-five minutes. I think I can survive.”
Enid doesn’t know how true that really is, given the fact that the whites of Wednesday’s pretty eyes have gone bloodshot with exhaustion and she’s furiously rubbing at them to keep herself awake. Still, she doesn’t push Wednesday to admit she’s too drowsy to finish the documentary, fearing that Wednesday will assume she doesn’t want to spend quality time together, so she helps Wednesday settle against her again and pulls the checkered blanket over her.
“The neighbor did it,” Wednesday sleepily mumbles.
“You said that already, babe,” Enid quietly giggles to herself, offering Wednesday one of her hands to play with in hopes it will keep her at least halfway awake so they don’t have to watch this a second time. “Because there’s no mail on Sundays.”
“Mhm,” she hums as her eyelashes flicker. “You’re very intelligent, Enid. Not many would catch that detail.”
Maybe it’s way past Wednesday’s bedtime. She’s usually in her own bed by ten and fast asleep half an hour later. Enid is always the one to fall asleep last, taking advantage of the quiet time she gets after lights out, when she can mindlessly scroll TikTok and catch up on her friends’ social media posts in peace, knowing that Wednesday is safe in her bed and not worrying herself to death over things she can’t control.
The clock is barely creeping up on ten o’clock, and Enid is surprised that her partner is so sleepy this early on, but she’s not going to be inconsiderate and rouse her. Instead, she allows Wednesday to decide when she’s ready for bed, and it doesn’t take very long, because the next time Enid looks her way, she finds Wednesday asleep against her shoulder, lips slightly parted and tiny, audible breaths leaving her mouth.
Enid quietly closes the laptop and reaches over Wednesday to place it on her desk. She isn’t able to reach far enough to plug it into the charger, so she’ll have to worry about it in the morning. It’s fine, though, because Wednesday seems so content and relaxed in her arms and she would never do anything to disrupt what little peace the seer does receive out of life.
Once she’s settled down next to Wednesday and pulls her own blanket over herself, she gropes around the bed for her phone and frowns when she realizes that she left it on the edge of her desk, about a foot too far for her to reach. She mumbles a few swear words to herself and tucks a stuffed animal under her neck, sighing in relief as it presses up against her pressure point.
“Thing,” she whispers, eyes shifting around the room. “Thing? You here?”
She doesn’t receive a response for a few seconds, and then the severed hand is climbing up onto the bed with her phone between his fingers. She smiles with gratitude and takes it from him, nodding her head at sleeping Wednesday.
“Think I should put her in her own bed?” she asks him. “We’ve never slept in the same bed before. Do you think she’ll kinda freak out if she wakes up here? Think she’ll assume we did something we definitely didn’t do?”
Don’t wake her up, he taps at her.
“I don’t want to,” Enid assures, fondly smiling down at Wednesday and running a tentative finger over the faint freckles painted over her cheeks. “I’m just so in love, Thing. I don’t know what I did to deserve her, but she’s perfect. I know people see her and think she’s this horrible person out for blood, but she isn’t. She’s the only person to not treat me like I’m some sort of freak because of my scars. I mean, Yoko and Divina are my best friends and don’t care about them, but Wednesday. . .she just pretends like I’m normal.”
You are normal, Thing says.
“Hm, well, I really only feel like it when I’m around her,” Enid replies.
She can’t take her eyes off Wednesday for a single second. Those freckles, the fluttering eyelashes, her pouty lips; they’re Enid’s weaknesses. She’s careful about leaning down to press a kiss to Wednesday’s nose. It’s so light and quickly leaves her skin, but her nose still twitches in her slumber.
“That was so fucking cute,” Enid gushes, looking towards Thing. “Did you see that?”
She’s very ticklish, he says. But don’t push your luck.
It’s tempting, but Enid knows better than to wake a sleeping Wednesday by any means, especially by tickling her. She genuinely believes her when she says that the last person who tickled her lost an appendage. Perhaps that’s what happened to the rest of Thing.
“This is gonna be fun to explain tomorrow,” she says, finally deciding to settle down next to Wednesday, phone in the hand that isn’t brushing back the wild black hair from Wednesday’s forehead. “Goodnight, Thing. Could you turn out the light?”
Suddenly the room is dark, only the light of the moon sweeping across the middle of the floor from their window. Enid fixes herself against the pillows and scrolls through Instagram and Snapchat, keeping her volume to a minimum.
Wednesday’s head falls into her shoulder as an exhausted sigh leaves her mouth. Midway through one of Yoko’s Instagram stories, Enid fondly smiles at her girlfriend and leans down to press a kiss to the messy flyaway hair that’s coming undone from its braids.
Enid wonders what this conversation is going to be like in the morning.
—
When morning arrives, it’s already too late for breakfast. Enid wakes first, rolling over and tossing one of her stuffed animals to the floor. She’s still succumbing to that intoxicated, drowsy feeling, eyelids fluttering in protest of the morning sunlight kissing her face.
By the time she turns over onto her side and bumps into something cold yet pliable, she forces her eyes to peel at least halfway open. She first registers black hair, and then pale freckles decorating an even paler face, and then the familiar lips she loves to kiss.
“Wednesday?” she groggily whispers. “Wednesday?”
She quickly tugs at her clothes, finding them in place and not strewn across the room. She has to make an odd note that her underwear are still on her body and not hanging off a doorknob or something. And more comforting than that, Wednesday is also clothed and doesn’t show any signs of having taken them off last night.
“Thank god,” Enid sighs to herself, sitting up and reaching over sleeping Wednesday to grab her water bottle off the desk.
She takes a few sobering sips and takes a minute to ponder. The last thing she can remember was watching the murder documentary with Wednesday, and then Wednesday began to get a little drowsy. Anything that might’ve occurred after that is just a lost tape in the back of Enid’s mind. She doesn’t think they did anything they shouldn’t have, because she definitely would remember that.
Wednesday would never allow her to touch her in that way, anyway. Even if Enid did try, she would’ve lost all of her fingers and a generous thumb. She still has all of her body parts, so she decides that they fell asleep together somewhere after the documentary and managed to stay asleep the entire night without Wednesday waking up and taking a hammer to Enid’s skull.
Enid visibly tenses the moment Wednesday stirs awake. She quietly sets her water bottle down and reclines back into the pillows before running her fingertips over the soft flesh of Wednesday’s forearm.
“Buenos días, Enid,” Wednesday yawns as she allows her arms to fall away from her chest. She kept them crossed the entire night, even when Enid threw hers over her waist and hugged her close to her body last night. “Enid?”
Dark brown eyes spring all the way open, suddenly aware of their surroundings. Wednesday sits up like a rocket, hands desperately clutching at the blanket that’s been kicked to the foot of the bed.
“Hey, relax,” Enid assures as she also forces herself to sit up. “It’s okay, Wednesday.”
She’s careful about laying a hand on the small of Wednesday’s back, and as expected, Wednesday jerks away from it. Enid quickly retracts her touch, even if her feelings are a bit sore about it.
“We both fell asleep last night,” Wednesday concludes, taking stock of the mix of colorful and bleak fabrics strewn over Enid’s bed. “I don’t recall anything after the documentary.”
“I don’t think we ever finished it,” Enid says, gesturing to her laptop. “I mean, we have our clothes on. It’s fine.”
Wednesday ducks her head the slightest bit to hide the blush creeping up her pale skin. Enid has had that effect on her as of late. With anyone else, they would never be able to draw forth signs of life from Wednesday’s face or see the crinkle of her eyes when she smiles, but with Enid, she receives every bit of it, and it’s just so lovely to watch Wednesday flourish behind closed doors.
“We missed breakfast,” Enid says, checking the time on her phone. “It’s almost nine.”
“I suppose I need to prepare for archery now,” she says, and it sounds like that’s a complaint. “It’s in an hour.”
“Aw, but I wanted to cuddle some more,” Enid teases with a pout.
Maybe Wednesday doesn’t understand the concept of teasing or sarcasm when it’s Enid, because she genuinely takes it into consideration.
“Five more minutes,” she agrees, laying her head on Enid’s shoulder and shyly grabbing her hand so she can play with her fingers. “And this is not cuddling. It’s physical affection in bed.”
“That’s literally what cuddling means,” Enid giggles, but she doesn’t push her luck.
She kisses Wednesday’s forehead and brings her a little closer, until the five minutes run out, and then they both have to make their separate ways for the day.
—
At lunch, Wednesday is sitting in the quad with a plain peanut butter—and no jelly—sandwich on her plate. She selected carrot sticks for her fiber and sliced strawberries for her fruit. The kitchen staff forced her to take a carton of milk, insisting that dairy is a requirement for all students who don’t have selective dietary restrictions. Wednesday wonders how she can go about obtaining one of those accommodations so she doesn’t have to toss out a perfectly good carton of milk after every meal.
Today’s lunch makes her feel like a preschooler. Everyone else seems to be enjoying their meal, but she has difficulty scraping the thick peanut butter off the roof of her mouth every time she goes to take another bite. The woman manning the food line frowned at her with disappointment when she noticed that Wednesday rejected any sort of jelly to soften the blow of the peanut butter, and when she dared offer her a little blackberry jam, Wednesday quickly shook her head. She hates blackberries.
She regrets not taking something to balance it out, because the moment she feels the lump of what she identifies as crunchy peanut butter, she gags and spits out a half-eaten bite into a paper napkin.
“That’s gross,” Yoko says as she takes it upon herself to sit in front of Wednesday. “Before you complain, I’m waiting on Enid and Divina. I’m not here to make small talk with you, unless you’d prefer that.”
“I would not,” Wednesday says, pushing her tray away and picking up a carrot stick. Suddenly she’s lost all of her appetite.
Divina follows suit, sitting next to Yoko and reaching up to kiss the vampire’s cheek before putting a napkin over her lap. Wednesday notices that her sandwich is full of jelly and no peanut butter and is cut into perfect triangles.
“They’re serving chunky peanut butter today,” Divina says, sticking out her tongue. “The lunch lady was arguing with me about not having a protein if I didn’t get peanut butter, so I told her that my parents will sue if I go into anaphylactic shock because she forced me to eat nuts.”
Wednesday looks up and carefully pulls her tray back to herself. “You’re allergic to nuts?”
“Only the human variety,” Divina responds, tearing the crust off the bread. “I just hate chunky peanut butter.”
“The. . .human variety?” Wednesday asks, tilting her head. “I’m confused.”
Yoko pulls her sunglasses down the slightest bit and squints at the harsh sunlight overhead. She gives Wednesday a look of stark disbelief, before snorting in amusement and returning to her blood bag.
“That was a joke,” she tells Wednesday. “Get it?”
If she was meant to understand it, Wednesday doesn’t, and she thinks she’s quite stupid for it. She’s smart as a whip and too intelligent for her own good, but these little jokes have her stumped.
“You don’t get it,” Divina says. “Let me break this down for you.”
Yoko puts a hand on Divina’s. “Don’t corrupt her brain even more than it already is.”
Wednesday’s eyebrows angrily furrow. “I’ll have you know that I’m not a child. I’m a year away from being able to vote in the 2024 election. I may not understand your tasteless jokes, but there’s no need to censor yourselves around me like I’m an infant or a parrot.” She looks to Divina. “Do continue.”
“Not this stupid joke again,” Yoko whispers and continues drinking her blood.
The siren’s lips begin to quiver. “Nuts is another word for testicles, as you know. I’m not attracted to the male anatomy as a whole, at all. So therefore I am allergic to nuts, but only on the human body.”
Wednesday bites her carrot stick and blinks once at Divina. “And how long did that take you to come up with?”
“I didn’t. I saw it online,” she says, shrugging. “You don’t think it’s funny?”
“Do you see me laughing?” Wednesday deadpans. Now her afternoon is genuinely ruined.
Divina takes a bite of her sandwich and mumbles to herself, “Tough crowd.”
“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” Yoko says as she’s swallowing a mouthful of blood. She nods at Wednesday. “Crabby pants.”
“Actually, I slept well,” Wednesday corrects, and before she can stop herself, she follows up with, “Enid and I slept together.”
The table falls silent. Yoko and Divina share a concerned look before their eyes flicker back to Wednesday, who fidgets with the butter knife in her hand.
“Wait, you did what?” Yoko asks. “I think I’m losing my hearing.”
“That’s a lie,” Wednesday accuses, pointing the bitter knife at her. “Vampires have extremely prominent hearing. Any louder and I’ll burst your eardrums.”
“Say that again, Wednesday,” Divina says. Her eyes are wide, like she’s just seen a horrible accident.
“Enid and I finally slept together,” she repeats. “It was nice, dare I say. I suppose, despite my cold and unforgiving demeanor, I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
She doesn’t want to admit such an intimate event in her relationship with Enid, but it’s already too late. What’s been done is done, and she cannot backtrack on her statement. It should come as no surprise, really, but it doesn’t stop the embarrassed blush creeping up her neck.
Yoko and Divina are still dumbfounded and somewhat uncomfortable by the time Enid joins them. Enid offers Wednesday a gentle kiss to her cheek as she sits next to her, careful not to make a scene of it in front of everyone else in the quad.
“So,” she says, picking up her sandwich, “what did I miss?”
—
Later that afternoon, when Wednesday is busy on her typewriter at home, Enid is out with the girls for their weekly shopping trip in town. As much as she loves having Wednesday as a Velcro girlfriend, permanently attached to her hip, she also enjoys having time to herself to get back to who she is outside of a loving girlfriend.
And yet, almost every conversation circles back to something about Wednesday. Yoko and Divina don’t mind it; they’ve been together long enough to understand what fresh love is like.
They’re taking a coffee break at the Weathervane after shopping at a few different stores around Jericho. Divina orders a green tea, Yoko orders a black coffee with exactly two spoonfuls of sugar and one dash of heavy cream, and Enid just has to order her favorite pumpkin spice latte that the shop is famous for this time of year.
Yoko and Divina agreed not to bring up anything about Wednesday’s confession in the quad earlier this afternoon, but after hearing Enid blabber on about how precious Wednesday’s freckles are and how adorable her fidgeting is, all they can imagine is just how inappropriate and dirty they get when the cuteness of those things wears off.
“. . .and yesterday, she went to the cemetery and brought me back a flower she picked from a grave,” Enid rambles on, waiting for her coffee to arrive so she can work up enough energy to continue word-vomiting about her dead-but-adorable partner.
“That’s nice,” Yoko says, tapping the table.
It’s not really nice, because she can only imagine what that little act of service led to, and the more she thinks about it, the more she views Enid as some sort of wild freak in the sheets. She knows it’s inappropriate to concern herself with the sexual and intimate activities her friends partake in, but she wants to congratulate Enid for finally taking that step in her relationship.
“She’s a stage five clinger, too,” Enid tells them as a barista serves them their drinks. She smiles at the young girl, who likely took over Tyler’s job, as she’s walking away. “I know she really hates everybody else in the world, but she loves to be near me when we’re alone.”
“Just near?” Divina asks. “Not inside?”
Yoko’s foot kicks Divina’s from under the table, but Enid winces and looks down.
“That was my foot,” Enid tells Yoko. “What was that for?”
“Nothing,” Yoko passively says, stirring even more sugar into her coffee. She’s so aggressive about it, it sloshes over the rim. “Sorry.”
Divina continues to wordlessly dunk her tea bag in her mug, wondering how to further the conversation without asking Enid how the sex was. She’s had this conversation with Yoko and agreed that it shouldn’t matter, even if they’d like at least one little detail. They don’t want to know the graphics, like the way Wednesday likes it in bed or how long it takes for either of them to finish, but a little girl talk would be nice. Enid is acutely aware of some minor details of Divina and Yoko’s sex life. She’ll never know everything, but they at least informed her the day after it happened. Of course, theirs was planned and they weren’t shy about it.
Finally, when Enid goes on to say how sweet Wednesday was for offering her a shoulder massage yesterday, Divina breaks.
“Did that massage lead to anything else?” she quickly asks. “Sex, maybe?”
Yoko rips off her sunglasses. “Divina! We took a vow to not bring it up!”
“I’m sorry! But I can’t just sit here and listen to her babble about how innocent Wednesday actually is when she literally told us earlier that they’ve been fucking!”
Enid snorts into her coffee, sending melted whipped cream flying all over the table. She quickly wipes her face with a napkin and dries up the wet spots on the table, fumbling around like a fool. The next table over stares at them with unease.
“What?!” Enid exclaims, licking over the burn mark on her lip. It’s going to blister by tomorrow. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Yoko nudges Divina, giving her an encouraging nod. She isn’t going to take responsibility over this. Really, she wants to pack up and head home to sit alone and meditate and cleanse her brain of the impure images she’s been having all day.
“At lunch, Wednesday said that you two slept together last night,” says Divina, apprehensively glancing at Yoko. “I didn’t think you guys would get that far, to be honest. So I was just taken aback by it, I guess. I was shocked that she said it so openly. She’s pretty quiet about her private life.”
“Oh my god,” Enid sputters, unsure of where to put her hands or what to do. “Oh my god, why would she say that?”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” Divina says. “We talk about it. It’s part of life.”
Yoko would have taken a more subtle approach, but she has to respect Divina’s boldness. Divina doesn’t believe in taking things slow or beating around the bush; she’s alike Wednesday in that way.
“But it’s not true,” Enid indignantly says. “We haven’t had sex yet. All we did was just sleep in my bed—oh. Oh. That’s why she said that.”
Yoko replaces her sunglasses when the sunlight hurts her eyes. “What’s that mean?”
Enid half-laughs, half-sighs, hand over her chest with utter relief. “She takes things literally. Autism, ya know. When she said that we slept together, she meant it literally. We fell asleep in my bed together and stayed there the whole night.”
Divina raises an eyebrow. “So you haven’t had sex?”
“No, not yet,” she replies with a shake of her head. “She was just speaking literally. I don’t think she realizes what that means to everyone else.”
“Well, you’d better tell her so before she goes around telling everyone else that you slept together,” Divina replies, stirring her tea, though she has no plans of drinking it after this unsettling conversation.
“She won’t do that,” Enid assures as she returns to her latte. “She doesn’t talk to anyone else. I’m surprised she told you.”
“Well, she kinda just blurted it out,” Yoko justifies. “She looked really embarrassed afterwards. She doesn’t consider us her friends, so it was probably weird for her to tell us about it. I was a little confused as to why she wasn’t as humiliated as I thought she would be to admit something like that. Now I know.”
“I swear we haven’t had sex,” Enid promises. “If we do, I’ll let you know. It’s girl talk. But I won’t ever tell you anything she wouldn’t want you to know.”
“So nothing,” Divina says.
“Probably,” Enid replies honestly, shrugging. “I love you two, and I know we know way too much information about each other, but I think I’m gonna have to keep quiet about it. She’s already picked out our plots for when we die. I’m not sure if that was a threat or a sweet gesture, but I’m not gonna find out soon.”
“That’s kinda cute, in a creepy way,” says Yoko. Then she looks to Divina, folding her arms over her chest. “Why don’t we have matching plots yet?”
“We already have matching rings and now you want a burial plot, too?” she exclaims, growing concerned. “Why are you so eager to die?”
“It’s poetic,” Yoko says, giving her neck a soft kiss with a hint of fang to it. “Til death do us part, darling.”
Divina shivers and takes a moment to glare at Enid while Yoko is on the brink of drinking from her. “Tell Wednesday I hate her for forcing me to have to go out and choose my own burial plot at the ripe age of 17.”
—
Wednesday’s typewriter is still clacking away when Enid arrives home an hour before dinner. She quietly places her shopping bags on her bed and sneaks up behind Wednesday to wind her arms around her. Wednesday jolts in surprise, scrambling for the knife she stashed in her pen cup, but then the soft scent of Enid settles in. She relaxes and kisses the arm that’s across her chest.
“Hello, Enid,” she formally says. “You were gone for quite some time.”
“I know. I was caught up with the girls,” she replies, and hands Wednesday a small paper bag. “A croissant. Heavily buttered. I know you like the oily feeling.”
“On my tongue. Not on my hands,” Wednesday corrects, and she smiles the slightest bit when she’s offered a napkin. “You’re so attentive.”
“You deserve it,” Enid says, quickly kissing her lips as she stands up.
She’s quiet for a moment, chewing at her lower lip in concern. Wednesday tears open the croissant—she has to start from the center or else it’s “out of order”—and begins to slowly eat while Enid ruminates.
“Wednesday, I have to tell you something,” she finally decides to say.
Wednesday swallows her bite and freezes. A sense of doom washes over her as she counts all the horrible ways this conversation might proceed. Does Enid not love her anymore? Did she make a mistake to deserve to be deserted like a wounded animal? Was choosing their burial plots too far of an act of service?
Maybe they aren’t meant to be together. Maybe they Enid doesn’t see their relationship blossoming. Maybe they don’t work after all.
Just when Wednesday thinks she’s going to vomit, Enid takes notice of the sudden green hue in her face and quickly kneels down so she can look Wednesday in those big brown eyes.
“Hey, don’t worry,” Enid assures. “It’s nothing serious. I just wanted to tell you something, because I think you misunderstood something.”
“If you don’t love me, you can simply say that,” Wednesday mutters, staring at the croissant in her hands. Maybe Enid gave it to her to soften the blow to the gut.
Enid applies a little pressure to Wednesday’s arms, trying to bring her attention more towards her face and not the pastry. It works after a minute, but Wednesday seems so dejected.
“Don’t ever say that,” Enid demands. “I know you like when people get to the point instead of hinting and implying. So I’ll just say it, okay?”
“I’d prefer that,” Wednesday murmurs to herself, not knowing what to do with her hands. She’s still holding onto the croissant, but she also wants to hold Enid’s hand, but her fingers are also very oily and it’s so gross.
“You told Divina and Yoko that we slept together last night,” Enid says. “Right?”
“Yes, because we did,” she replies with conviction. “Despite enjoying privacy, my mouth got ahead of my brain and simply admitted it. I was a fool to let my guard down so easily, but what’s done is done. At least I was telling the truth rather than embellishing it with unnecessary lies, which is more progress than my ridiculous therapist claims I’ve made.”
Enid laughs. Wednesday doesn’t understand why that’s so funny. It’s almost offensive that Enid is making a mockery of her like this.
“Oh, Wednesday,” Enid giggles. “That’s not what that means.”
“We fell asleep together,” Wednesday says with conviction.
“We did, but when you say that we slept together, people think that means we had sex,” Enid explains. She’s trying not to burst into laughter. “Sleeping together is basically slang for having sex. So Yoko and Divina thought you were saying that we had sex last night.”
Wednesday pauses. “Well, that is very stupid.”
“You took it literally,” Enid says, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “It’s okay. I got it cleared up. Language is just weird like that.”
“I suppose I owe them an apology for tainting their small brains with images that do not even exist,” she says, even if she would rather have her teeth extracted without painkillers.
“You don’t have to. They don’t think anything of it,” Enid promises. “They’re worse. You should hear the things they tell me.”
“I never want to know,” Wednesday immediately says, wrinkling her nose.
Enid kisses the inside of Wednesday’s wrist and carefully wipes the oil off her hands for her. Wednesday relaxes as she watches Enid attend to her needs the way she knows how. She doesn’t have to be asked.
“Enid,” she suddenly says with a hint of panic, “I need to visit the Hummers shed.”
“Why?” Enid asks, still cleaning Wednesday’s hands and treating her delicate skin to a decoration of kisses.
“Because.” She pauses. “I might have also told Eugene. That would explain why he covered his ears and ran away from me.”