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Wednesday Addams has always been honest.
This honesty—biting and harsh and brutal—has never won her any friends. At best, it earns her a begrudging respect from her peers, but never anything more.
Not until Enid, at least.
Her routine flips on its head when her easily-excitable, boisterous roommate unapologetically carves herself a place in Wednesday’s life. She does so without permission or remorse, sitting squarely in the center of all the things that make Wednesday who she is.
Wednesday learns more truths in the face of Enid Sinclair.
She learns that Enid takes her at face value—something nobody has ever done—and doesn’t push or prod the way everyone else does; only takes everything Wednesday is willing to give her with gentle hands and sincere smiles.
In return, Enid respects Wednesday and her boundaries. She will only ever cross them once, and never again. She helps Wednesday simply because she wants to, without the need for the latter’s machinations or subterfuge.
Wednesday learns that, as Enid had previously put it, they work. They shouldn’t, but they do—and that is the truth that loosens Wednesday’s vice grip on her own heart.
That is the truth that makes Wednesday’s smile curl unconsciously when Enid rambles about some idol group she likes. That is the truth that makes her consider her words carefully with Enid, where she would otherwise speak freely. That is the truth that she keeps in the back of her mind when Enid comes to her rescue in the woods.
It’s this truth—that they work when they shouldn’t and somehow they make each other better—that tears down any reservations she has toward Enid. Remembering those words allows Wednesday to be vulnerable enough to hug her in front of the whole school, and collapse into her arms, unfortunately also in front of the whole school.
Wednesday Addams has always been honest—but never with herself. Not until Enid.
Wednesday wakes up in a hospital bed, unfamiliar sheets and comforter greeting her as she regains her sense of touch. Slowly, she hears the white noise of the room filter through the cotton in her ears.
Her eyes are still bleary, swimming and unfocused as she blinks. Her head swivels to the side.
The blob that is Enid is curled into a ball in a chair on the other side of the room, knees pulled to her chin, arms wrapped around her shins. Her fingers are tangled in the sleeves of her sweater—a garish, utterly disgusting shade of yellow that makes pain lance through Wednesday’s eyes into the back of her skull as she comes into focus.
Enid is staring directly at her over the tops of her knees. Her eyes are tired, dark circles seeming to chase all the light from them as Wednesday searches her gaze. Wednesday clears her throat.
“How long was I out?” Despite her best efforts, her voice still comes out hoarse, catching in the back of her throat.
“Almost a whole day.” Enid’s voice wobbles. It nearly sounds like a whisper from where Wednesday lays in her bed.
“Oh,” Wednesday says, laying back against the pillow. She swallows, takes a deep breath, before speaking again. “I suppose it could have been worse.”
There’s a moment where—for a number of reasons she can’t quite articulate or understand—Wednesday feels tension in the air. It crackles with the same energy and ferocity of the magic of Laurel’s ritual. It burns with the same heat as the flames that engulfed the quad, uncontrolled and dangerous. She looks back at Enid, who watches her with an incredulous fury on her face.
“Wednesday,” she starts, bristling and sharp and so unlike her typical sunshine, “you nearly died. You should have died. And for those first few hours after you passed out, I thought that you would.”
“But I didn’t,” Wednesday says, and Enid is suddenly halfway across the room and stomping closer. It catches Wednesday off guard and she attempts to sit up, but Enid has always been stronger than her. She’s shoved back into the mattress before she can stop it, grunting as the wound in her shoulder creaks under Enid’s grip.
“You’re unbelievable! Would you stop being so indifferent for five seconds and think about what happened to you?”
It’s only when Wednesday looks up at her—feels a tear that’s not her own slide down her cheek—that she realizes Enid is crying. Enid is angry, and sad, and scared, and a thousand other things in the dusky light that spills through the windows of the hospital room. But Wednesday can only focus on the pain in her voice and the red around Enid’s eyes that she’s noticing for the first time since she woke.
“I thought you were going to die,” Enid says, physically shaking. “You passed out in my arms. We tried everything, but you wouldn’t wake up. Xavier said you took an arrow for him. The doctor told us you had a half-healed stab wound! You lost so much blood that you—“ Enid gasps, seeming to remember to breathe as pain flashes behind her eyes. Her lip wobbles. Her balance falters and she sits on the edge of the mattress, hands still on Wednesday’s shoulders. Enid looks down at Wednesday, trying and failing to blink away the tears. “Your heart stopped, Wednesday,” she murmurs, bowing her head. “I’ve never been so scared before. Not like that.”
For perhaps the first time in her life, Wednesday is stunned into silence.
Another truth faces her in Enid’s words; one that takes the facsimile of independence and indifference Wednesday had so carefully crafted, and shatters it. As the dust of that façade is wiped away, she sees a lonely girl mourning her pet scorpion. She sees a child boiling, just beneath the surface, with barely contained rage. She sees a girl threatening to tear herself apart in her own anger and confusion, a girl fighting for independence she knows she isn’t ready for, begging to be left alone when all she really wants is….
… is what? Wednesday has never known what she truly wants. For all her honesty, for her obsession with finding the truth about the murders, about everyone around her, she hasn’t ever thought about what it means to be honest with oneself. She’s been inside her own head, picking any impractical thoughts apart with a scalpel and a pair of tweezers, dissecting her emotions but never feeling them. She hides all that she is behind walls so tall that she can’t see herself in their shadows anymore. She hides so that she can be in control; so she can write the narrative and guide it to a forgone conclusion.
But now, she lays pinned under the hands of the only person that has ever been entirely honest with her. The only person that never expected more from her than she was willing to give. The only person at this godforsaken school that's shown her genuine concern. Wednesday realizes she doesn’t know what to do. She’s never learned how to do this. She doesn’t know what happens next.
Enid seems to deflate at her silence, collapsing atop Wednesday. Her claws are out, poking holes in Wednesday’s plain black hospital gown as she cries. Enid repeats a broken mantra into Wednesday’s collarbone; a mess of “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you,” and, “you didn’t deserve this.”
Wednesday lies still under Enid’s sobbing form. Her hands hover uselessly over Enid’s back. Her words continue to fail her, instead gathering into an uncomfortable lump in her throat. Her eyes burn and her jaw aches as she holds back wretched tears of her own.
Wednesday has been broken in the eyes of others for as long as she can remember. She doesn’t remember what, or who, broke her. Only that she is, and that she has lived with that pain, and been its slave. She built the mask she wears now out of discarded pieces of herself; the sharp, jagged bits that nobody else wanted. To protect herself and her control. Wednesday Addams decides she will not be beholden to those things anymore. She will not be a puppet—not even to the name, expectations, and judgement that have shaped her life. So, here she lies. Her strings are cut. She is free to push Enid away, should she wish to.
She doesn’t. That is the truth that Enid has shown her.
So Wednesday allows her hands to slowly, gently fall upon Enid’s back. Her roommate startles, but only briefly before she locks her arms around Wednesday in an embrace tight enough to rival the one they shared but a day ago. It hurts a bit, but not enough for Wednesday to even consider letting go. Before she knows it, she’s holding on as tightly as Enid is.
Wednesday knows the truth now. It is bright and singsong and colorful. It has colored hair and painted nails. It smiles at everything and everyone. It has a competitive side to it. It has her wrapped in its arms. It’s crying into the crook of her neck.
Enid Sinclair is her truth. She’s the truest thing Wednesday has ever known.
They work, after all. They shouldn’t, but they do. Wednesday knows that’s enough for her.