Those small, small things aim to take the beauty away. They're said to help the tightening of the chest, the quickness of breath, the complete and utter surrender of self that accompanies the feeling I've always been taught was love.

But this isn't what I've been taught about. This isn't a storybook or a rhyme song sung while skipping rope. This is not my mother's wedding dress altered to fit my slender frame and full bust. This is not sitting as a porcelain doll that does not breathe until a man finds you fit to put his children in you.

This is – was – something altogether different. This wasn't supposed to happen, this was unthinkable. (Well, not unthinkable, but definitely unadvisable and quite unfortunate.) And so when I felt it in the beginning I treated it like something it wasn't, and then I treated it as if it didn't exist. Because it didn't matter if it did exist, because nothing would ever come of it. She loathed me as much as I loathed her, and while my loathing was – is – still quite a part of me, it was and is still wrapped up and tangled in something else.

Something treatable.

Something that involves brain chemistry and neurons firing and scientific fluff stuff that was and is meaningless to me, but it was something to Elphaba. She told me, when we spoke, about how stupid we were. We, not her and me, she corrected. And a different sort of fluff stuff fluttered when I realized there actually was a her and me.

We, human beings. Stupid. Ignorant. Foolish. Stubborn. Or, maybe not, she would ramble. They probably benefit from the lies they sell, they're sold, after all, so there's money involved, and where there is money involved there is no humanity.

I listened. I drank her like wine. Her voice, her hair, her skin, her mind. I never feigned interest, but I never feigned understanding either. I asked questions, risked what she might have thought of me for asking stupid things all because I wanted to know inside and out what it was she was passionate about. What did she really care about? If not other human beings, then what?

I was enthralled with her and she was enthralled with the idea of having an audience. So we fed each other that way, secretly. I adored her and I'd like to believe she adored me. She must have thought me worthy, though, or she wouldn't have wasted her time with me.

But it was never enough. I always wanted to know more. I became interested in the material of my lectures, because I wondered what she thought. I wanted to have something to talk to her about. I wanted her to think I could keep up with her, and sometimes when I caught her smiling at me with that wild, almost scary, glimmer of excitement in her eyes, I knew for that moment I was good enough.

There it is. It creeps. It's always in me, but she brings it out of me more than anything. Even when she's gone.

Glinda?

That's him. He's going to ask me if I've –

Have you taken your medicine today, love?

Yes.

They make me dull, those things. And I think of her less. There's a collection of little white things in one of my jewelry boxes, an ugly thing I inherited from my mother-in-law. I do not approve of those things (nor do I approve of that hideous box), and Elphaba doesn't either.

They don't know what they're doing, she'd say. And her jaw would tighten and her eyes would spark and she'd become strangely illuminated as she paced. They don't know enough about the side effects before they hand it to everyone like candy. We're not sick, Glinda, don't you see? We're alive.

I do see, I said as I stared at her. She looked down at me, her chest heaving and her black hair falling into her dark eyes. Eyes that weren't so dark once you got close. Those eyes pierced you from across a room and scared you and others into wondering what she was thinking, and you prayed to whatever god you did or did not believe in that she wasn't thinking something horrible about you, because if she was, well... those black wicked eyes could draw you in and rip you apart – your physical body was at risk, your mind, your soul, if you believed in one.

But her eyes were brown. Almost mahogany, if you took the time and risk to look deeply. Black flecks. Different browns, depending on the light, or her mood. Not as frightening as you assumed. Intimidating, yes, because she holds your eyes longer than is customary. Maybe she never learned people don't like to be stared at, or maybe she likes the control she derives from someone else's mild discomfort.

There was vulnerability, she knew. There was control, she knew. She was keenly perceptive and aware of it all. She really shouldn't have asked anything of me – although be it far from me to criticize the woman. She asked me to come with her, and I said yes. But I would have gone with her, even if I hadn't said yes. Because she knew I belonged to her. She knew I couldn't have refused her even if I wished to. And she knew I wished only to please her.

I'll never know if I succeeded. There it is. Here it comes. It sits, it lingers, until something sets it off. A memory, a thought I shouldn't entertain. The breathing is hard. The lungs don't expand as they should. The walls, I can't stand. I close my eyes and create my own darkness that becomes her hair. The shadows behind my eyelids become her mouth, and her eyes, and her voice, and the feel of her. I don't exist but the sound of my breathing is loud in my ears, with the rushing of blood and the pounding. It slows. She fades. I fill my lungs with air without those things.

They're completely useless. They don't succeed at anything real. I want to tell that to the man I share nothing more than a home and a bank account with. Sad, really, that that is all he shares with his wife. But he loves her. He was one of the few who knew of her ailment. So when he wished to marry her, well, how does one refuse? But he didn't know much of it, just that Glinda the Good is very good at constructing her mask. But everyone knows that, if they're not completely dim. Few know what's behind it.

The man I married, he knows. He is the brother of a school friend who saw me when I returned from the Emerald City that first visit. Her family was well-to-do, the eldest son in search of a wife, and I, graduating Shiz without an idea of what I was meant to do with myself — the two of us were perfect together. And we are, still. He lets me alone when I need. He accepts that I require my own bedroom. He accepts that we never make love.

He takes care of me. And he does care. He does love me.

Glinda, my love, awake and writing still? You know how you are when you don't get enough sleep.

I'm fine, dear.

May I tuck you in? I've barely seen you all day.

Yes, I suppose.

I awake the next morning to find that hideous jewelry box not in its regular place hidden behind my mirror on my vanity, but on the stand beside my bed. There is a glass of water and a note.

Just one, darling. I love you.

The box is open. The pills are inside. The water is thoughtful, but I'd rather have wine.

We're not sick, we're alive. This is life, where beauty and pain are inextricably married, and as a woman of many corsets, I am living proof that beauty often is pain. We breathe. Even when it hurts. We feel. A range of things from the ecstasy of connecting with a person we have become fixated with, to the dull, dry, agonizing ache of their absence. We suffer longing, and loss. And we love. Through it all, and even after it is over, we love.

But life isn't meant to last an eternity. Not in Oz. Not in this universe. (Or in any other, Elphie said.) And I have breathed, and felt, and suffered, and loved with every part of my being.

Now, I rest.