Disclaimer: I own nothing. Also, spoilers.
It started the first night that Ivy walked into their new dormitory.
Nadia had been minding her own business and unpacking her things into her new bedroom. The anxious edge she had felt earlier was dissipating, knowing she had her older brother here if she ever truly needed help. Not that she would need help; she could take care of herself. Still, it was weird to be in the higher part of the school now.
Then Ivy had to walk in and ruin Nadia's chances of feeling confident. The blonde, petite girl walked into the room with her bags, her parents close behind her and crying. Ivy swayed her hips as she moved, and her grace seemed to seep at her heels like a drainage pipe was leaking. It was frustrating to see somebody so beautiful walk in, but it wasn't just that. Her parents cried some more and then left, surprisingly not caring to meet their precious daughter's new roommate.
Once her parents had left, Ivy strut over and bent down to Nadia, who was sitting on the ground to trifle through her suitcase. With a smile that could probably catch somebody's attention from across the school, Ivy extended her hand.
"You must be Nadia," Ivy greeted, and Nadia couldn't tell if her smile was conniving or sincere. "I'm Ivy. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."
Something stirred inside of her that she had never felt before. Nadia felt so many things that she couldn't keep track. Her stomach felt like it was exploding - her heart, too - and irrationality stabbed her brain. Unable to figure out what she was feeling and why, she replaced it with a seething anger very suddenly.
"Yeah, I'm sure," she scoffed in reply, rolling her eyes and continuing to place her things away. "You must get pleasure from a lot of things, judging by how short that skirt is."
Ivy seemed taken aback at first, staring with an almost forlorn expression at the overweight girl on the floor. Finally, with a quiet huff, she stood up straight and walked over to her own bags. Nadia caught a glimpse of her rear, and she sighed at how perfect it was. Why couldn't her own ass be that perfect?
"Well," Ivy finally spoke up, picking up her purse and smiling, "at least I can get both of my legs inside of my skirt."
And so it began.
"Oh, thank God, I haven't seen your belly button for hours."
"Does it look good? I don't have the advantage you do of it being way out in front of me."
Nadia sat next to her cello, watching as Matt walked in and seemed completely switched around from Ivy's promiscious outfit. She could see the hearts in his eye and the hard on in his pants, and it made her want to hide under the blankets until she didn't breathe anymore. It made her want to burn the clothes she had stolen from Ivy to compare herself to, and burn all of everything that made it so Ivy existed at all.
Matt asked if she was going, and she ended up yelling at him. This anger was getting out of hand, as everybody knew, but it was becoming something she couldn't even control anymore. Maybe she didn't want to control it; maybe she'd rather be seen as a bitch than a fatass.
"Well, you have a good night. And don't touch anything."
"Said the whore, uncharacteristically."
The pair left, and Nadia found herself sitting alone once again. Absent-mindedly, she slipped her fingers against her cello, feelings its smoothness and perfectly-made curves. It wasn't as simple as wanting to be Ivy because she didn't feel like that. Ivy was simply beautiful and it enraged her.
So, once more, she spent a quiet night at home playing her cello as Ivy kissed her brother and broke every boy's heart in the room... and one girl's.
The night that Nadia realized it was when she found Ivy puking in the bathroom. At first, Nadia had been pissed, ready to blow her top off at the pompous, yellow-headed twat for missing rehearsal. Instead, she felt something in her chest, another new, stupid feeling, at the image of Ivy trying not to cry as she yacked into the toilet bowl.
"Hi," Ivy mumbled, wiping her mouth with a piece of toilet paper.
"If you say so," Nadia replied, staring at how Ivy even looked absolutely perfect and gorgeous, even as she was flushed and had excess puke on her glossy lips. "I can't believe you missed rehearsal again, you know, it affects the rest of us what you do."
Being criticized by Nadia wasn't something that Ivy was new to, but it seemed to hit her as if it were. The same expression adorned her face that she had when Nadia had first snapped at her. Everything about her was so lithe and weak right now, yet Nadia couldn't help noticing how smooth her skin looked, or how her figure was still accented, even kneeling on the ground.
"What is wrong with you?"
And that's when she found out that Ivy was pregnant, from her brother. Something inside of her sparked again, but this time, she couldn't tell if she was angry or horribly depressed. Ivy started crying on the bathroom floor, gripping her skirt and rambling about being an adult now. How she was all grown up. And Nadia left the bathroom to the bedroom, sitting on the bed and burying her face in her hands.
Because it was jealousy for her brother that she felt, and it was compassion she felt for Ivy. And it was love deeper than anything she'd felt before that she felt when she looked at Ivy.
The funeral was the worst thing Nadia had ever experienced in her life. She would take every night sobbing on the weight scale over that. As much as she knew this tale that her brother was spun in wouldn't end happily, she still had blinded herself to this kind of ending.
Looking down and seeing her brother's face in the coffin seemed dementing. It were as if the funeral holders wanted everybody to sob all over again, upon seeing the sane-looking face of Jason. The pain and anguish that Jason was filled with didn't even leave a scar on his pretty face, and it broke Nadia's heart all over again.
Peter had cried more than Ivy had.
Nadia now sat in her room, things packed and the dorm painfully bare. Her fingers were laced with a rosary's beads, muttering the prayer of Hail Mary. All the selfishness and rage inside of her had melted way into some other person, and now she just felt sad and empathetic. The look on her parents' faces, the misery in Peter's voice, the forced way Jason had his hands clasped in that coffin...
"Nadia?" a voice perked up from the door, and she slowly looked up. Ivy stood there, and for the first time, she looked like shit. Nadia still thought she was pretty, though, and she almost became angry again. The rosary seemed to burn in her hand when she did, so she took a deep breath and nodded her head at the blonde girl - no, woman - in the doorway.
Hesitantly, Ivy tiptoed over and sat next to Nadia on the bed. They sat in silence, both of them looking at the rosary. Slowly, Ivy extended her hand and twined her fingers in the beads as well.
"Hail Mary, full of grace..." Ivy began, gripping Nadia's hand tightly as she recited the prayer. Nadia stared at her with shock, but slowly began speaking with her. Their vows, so unlike and inverse of the other's, somehow sounded harmonious put together.
"... now and at the hour of our death. Amen," the two stopped simultaneously. Silence filled the room. Nadia felt this was the most awkward, yet most not awkward moment of her entire life.
"You know," Ivy slowly said, looking up and straight at Nadia, "I always thought you were beautiful. More beautiful than me."
Nadia's jaw dropped, but she quickly recollected herself in order to not let herself be vulnerable. Nonetheless, it was so uncharacteristic and sudden, and her heart was beating so fast. In all honesty, she was scared it was going to pound straight out of her chest and wiggle around on the floor in a puddle of frustrated blood.
"Yeah, I... I get that often," Nadia laughed, shaking her head in amusement. "Oh, Nadia, dear, but you have such a pretty face..."
"No," Ivy interrupted her, leaning over and pushed Nadia's hair behind her ear. "I always thought you were beautiful, all over. The only ugly thing about you was your sadness. I mean, being big doesn't make you less pretty. You're prettier than me."
Then Ivy was kissing her cheek, and then Ivy was leaving. Then Ivy was picking up her bags and closing the dorm room behind her, leaving her life behind her. Nadia should have cried, but she didn't; instead, she continued praying on the remaining beads of the rosary with a soft smile on her face.
For the first time in her life, she swore she felt her guardian angel's lips on her cheek.
