Chapter Text
I know all your habits
You keep the window open when you're asleep
And you don't even know who I am
Every day was a slow one. The industrial hum of a modernized Michigan town filled the air like cicadas in the summertime. Mara sat by her bedroom window like a sick puppy, watching the curtains of the open window across the street blow in the cool breeze. She'd been obsessing over those curtains for two years of her short life, when they blew out the window, when they were open, when they were closed, when she could see her silhouette through them... her friends all new, she liked to think that old money bitch was jealous (she wasn't); she had a slight obsession with her neighbor. The way her hair moved when she walked, how she looked when she talked to her sister on the phone... everything about her was perfect. And that night, unbeknownst to either of them, Mara was going to do something she'd only dreamt of.
It happened in broad daylight.
S*nny went out for a walk, Mara watched her leave the house. And for minutes after that, she watched their desolate street. Minimal movement, she'd be the only one there. She was just going to invite herself into the yard, really, that was it. No further. Anything that got her closer to the girl of her dreams, not like she was the kind of weirdo who would think that way. Not Mara, no, of course not.
She was able to climb (with some difficulty) their picket fence and stumble into the yard, where she was met with, well, not much. A plastic playhouse overgrown with weeds, a small flower bed, and otherwise...green turf. There wasn't even a dog. Mara sighed; she wasn't feeling the excitement she had anticipated would come with such a moment. That was until she noticed a slight gap in the sliding door. It was open. Something funny happened between the next occurence; it was as if she were out of her body.
One second she was standing, unamused, in their yard, and the next, she had entered the house and was walking up the stairs like she'd been there before. Surprisingly, she hadn't, yet she knew by instinct where S*nny's room was; those days spent staring at curtains really paid off. As she reached for the knob, the reality of where she was hit her like a ton of bricks. Somewhere she'd only dreamed of. She had little time, she was sure. S*nny's walks never lasted too long. But fear was irrelevant to her now. She could do it. The door swung open silently, with a sharp inhale of breath.
The room was...normal. A plethora of band posters smothered the left wall, under which sat an unmade bed. A dark stained dresser stood at the foot of it, and a vanity littered with makeup was placed across from the two against the opposite wall. Mara made her way over to the vanity slowly, consumed by the obsession that had driven her since the very moment S*nny had come into her life. She ran her hands over the scattered products, just barely touching them; her hand moved faster than her brain, jerking forward and retrieving a tube of concealer, holding the cool plastic to her cheek. She thought about how weird she must seem, doing all this. She thought about it still as she sat down in S*nny's chair, as she screwed off the applicator, as she applied the cool, beige solution to her under eyes and pretended for a moment there that it was normal, that she was S*nny, and this was her room and her makeup that she wore every day. She patted on foundation, drew thick wings with her eyeliner, and applied lipstick with her eyes shut, licked it off, and did it again.
She moved from the vanity to the dresser, tugging a t-shirt from where it was wedged into a half shut drawer. She plucked up a pleated skirt from the ground, unbuttoned and discarded her pants, shoved on stockings from the bed over which she buttoned the skirt. One more swift movement and she was dressed head to toe in S*nny's clothing. They smelled like her, she noticed, with a heavy heart.
But you're wiser than me
And it hurts that I'm not like you
Mara slid down the wall in the square of carpet at the end of the bed and closed her eyes, moving her fingers through the knotted fabrics until they stumbled upon something else. On the verge of tears, Mara saw through blurry vision a translucent bottle of capsule pills. She curled her fingers around it hesitantly, bringing it to her bent knees. The white sticker stated VALPROATE 15 MG. and a name Mara could only recognize as S*nny's. She was nervous at first, staring at the bottle, not sure what she was going to do next. Noticing the time on S*nny's bedside table clock, she realized she had little time to decide.
Screwing the top off in a moment of impulsivity, she stuck two fingers into the cylinder and moved the capsules around with her nails.
One wouldn't fuck her up too bad, would it?
S*nny came home to find the back door ajar. Her stomach dropped to her feet. She crept through quietly, too scared to close the screen behind her, and quickly weaponized herself with a kitchen knife before following the footprints left in the carpet that covered the stairs.
A normal person wouldn't do that, she was aware. A normal person would call the police, wait outside, maybe even cry. But S*nny knew this wasn't your usual burglary situation; when she opened her door to find her neighbor covered in her makeup and her clothes, tears streaming down her face and her pills scattered on the floor, she wasn't the least bit surprised. Well, she was, but not at the who. More at the what.
"Mara." S*nny said, trying to remain calm, but tears pricked her eyes. "Mara please go home."
Mara's jaw was on the floor. She had stopped crying. "S*nny, I--"
"Please."