Which the Victor
Chapter One
Molly Davis was at university training for a degree in dance. San Francisco State. Beautiful campus, wonderful atmosphere.
Not all was lovely, however. Andy, her older brother, never came to see her anymore. He had a four-year-old daughter to take care of. His wife, Beatrice, made Molly cringe whenever she came near. Andy was usually a very king older brother but his wife didn't take the same fancy of Molly as he did. And now she had no one.
Oh, she had friends. But sometimes she felt that she was happiest when she was twelve. The year Andy was a senior in high school. Now Molly was older than he had been back then. And she wished to be twelve again.
She never voiced this in front of Andy, though. He probably would have understood her, but within her she felt that he would say that those days were over and it was time to move on. But she didn't want to move on. She just felt so hopeless.
She had just completed her assignment for a core class, American history. This was a summer class and she wrote about the legalization of gay marriage that had just been passed by the Supreme Court.
Why was she thinking about gay marriage? Well (and this was the tough thing to admit to herself), she liked girls a lot. Way more than she ought to have, were she straight. And being around boys just didn't feel like a situation where a dating partner would come up.
A long time ago she had read a comment in her Tween magazine about how homosexuality was abnormal and though quite a few people underwent it, there were cures to help save them from their own destruction. When she had feelings for a girl, one Cammie Sanders, she tried to think of that, but it just made her feel awful. She stopped looking at Tween magazine after that.
But the feeling grew as the years passed. Being a lesbian made her a bad person. She was responsible for all the evil that ever occurred on Earth. Though born in 1994, she was responsible for the Holocaust. The Great Depression. World War I and World War II were all due to her ineptitude. Or her evil. Whichever side the coin landed on.
These thoughts ate at her for years. But there were times when joy shined through. When she said, "I'm a lesbian, I like girls, but that is perfectly all right. I'm not evil. Or at least, being a lesbian doesn't make me evil in of itself."
But at other times depression overtook her, and she thought, "If I weren't alive anymore, no more evil would take place in the world. Israel and Pakistan would stop fighting. Human and drug trafficking would end. Women in India would be allowed to be free of the torment many of them are forced to undergo. There'd be no more bombings or shootings or bank robberies or mail fraud or arsons setting people's houses on fire. The world would be a better place."
Misery swallowed her down an esophagus of melancholy at such times. Oh how much better things would be for everyone, if she, a lesbian, were not alive.
Then she had to remind herself that she wasn't the only lesbian on the planet. If she were, then there might have been a case for her to go by. But there were others, if she could just find them.
However, her gaydar was often on the fritz. She liked girls who turned out to not having any lesbian leanings. Until senior year in high school...oh, that was the best.
Then she met Erica. Cute, with long, curly black hair. Skin as pale as the moon. Eyes big and always looking as if she had discovered something new. Constantly excited. She didn't seem to have a sad bone in her body. In fact, Molly had often wondered if Erica -could even feel sadness. Her inclination told her she couldn't. And so whenever Molly was feeling gloomy, Erica could always cheer her up.
Molly's mother never knew Erica meant more to Molly than a mere friend would. That they often explored each other with their fingers, when no one was watching them while they were supposed to be studying. Erica had three AP classes, Molly two. They wanted to do well on their exams. But oftentimes they found that holding each other was more enticing than knowing whether cosine and tangent having an affair with a quadratic equation while sigma notation took a catnap by the bowl of imaginary numbers would lead to a sum of efficient coefficients.
That's what studying with Erica was like...one minute everything could seem to make sense, then it would all swirl together into gibberish. But it didn't matter. There was Molly and Erica. What more was needed?
However, Molly's bliss was not to last. The senior play, An Ideal Husband, which Erica had scored a role in, while Molly worked on set design...had its dress rehearsal the week before Molly and Erica were scheduled to take their AP exams. Erica donned her nineteenth century garb, and then, after Molly braided her hair, she said, "You'd make an ideal wife, you know, for a damsel in this dress."
"America doesn't allow gay marriage in every state," Molly said.
"Yeah, but you're going to college in California, right?"
"I am," Molly said.
"Gay marriage is legal there."
"I suppose. But this is still my home state."
"Eh, don't be so bummed out. You'll marry one day and it'll be lovely. Just promise that you'll treat your wife like a queen, okay?"
Molly stared at Erica. "Of course I'd treat you like a queen. Nothing less would do for you, my sweet."
She rushed in to kiss Erica's cheek, but Erica turned away and Molly got her ear. Thinking this had been intentional, Molly licked Erica's ear profusely. After a couple of minutes of this, Erica drew up.
"Miss Terrault, you're on in a few minutes," said the drama teacher, Mr. Krenek.
"Wish me luck," Erica said, as she moved vivaciously toward the exit.
"Good luck," Molly said.
"See you," Erica said, waving. She looked back at Molly, tears ready to emerge. "Goodbye," she added.
Molly had wondered at this. Why was her girlfriend suddenly upset? She had just exhibited her first signs of sadness. And why did she say goodbye? They'd see each other the next day. And the next. And the next.
But Molly had to go to her brother's postgraduate ceremony. He had earned a graduate degree from his university, having finished his dissertation in business media. Molly had to be there.
She stayed to watch a few minutes of Erica's performance before heading out. If she had known it'd be the last time she'd ever see Erica, she would have remained there to prevent what happened. She would have gladly traded the good evening celebrating her brother for his disappointment in her not having showed up if she had known what Erica had planned...
The other cast members of the play dropped Erica off at her locker, according to later reports. They probably figured she was fine, after all, the happiest girl in the school didn't mind being left alone for awhile. (One of the actors in the play, Ryan Perrit, got punched by Molly after saying that the players couldn't take any more of Erica's cheery happy-go-lucky Pollyanna attitude. Molly got suspended for two days because of that, and Ryan lost a tooth. But it was worth it.)
Erica pulled a knife out of her locker, kept it hidden beneath her shirt, and went into the bathroom. Cheerleaders were in there. One said, "Oh, it's Miss Everything is Wonderful here to damper our spirits!" And they all giggled before prancing out.
Erica locked herself in a stall, and struck the knife in her heart. Blood poured all over the toilet, down Erica's blouse, and she wasn't found till the next morning, for the cleaning staff usually didn't bother with the girls' bathrooms after cheerleader tryouts till five A.M. before school started.
Meanwhile, Molly had a good evening, with no awareness that her friend was now no longer among the living.
She tried to call Erica's cell, but there was no answer. She began to get worried and sent her a text message. Then she checked again, and found a recent text from Erica, which said, "I love you to the very end. XOXO."
Molly sent another text which said, "I love you, too." Then she settled into bed, smiling to herself. Erica loves me. We'll attend the same college, be roommates, and then marry each other.
She chuckled softly to herself at the thought that Erica would be on the stage as a woman married to a man. Ha, if they only knew! The thought of being married to a man for Erica was like being told she'd have to marry a tiger. For Erica could only love Molly, and Molly could only love Erica, to the very end. To infinity and beyond.
