"I can't do this anymore." Andrea shook her head and, without meaning to, Miranda copied.
"It will not happen again," Miranda's teeth vibrated with effort. It was a wonder they did not crack. But then perhaps they were accustomed to this kind of treatment, this kind of poorly managed grief, and perhaps they could take the abuse. "I give you my word."
"But it will be the same." Andrea's face was full with a grief Miranda had been quite unprepared for.
"It will not be the same." Miranda shoved to enforce her meaning. The chair rocked a little and Andrea's hands shot up to Miranda's forearms for stability, but Miranda dared not acknowledge it. Not when she had something else to say and had to keep her head. Miranda zeroed her attention onto Andrea's face, and prayed she had the words to fix this. "We can go back to before all of this; your unprofessionalism, my screaming idiocy, we can pretend it never happened." But Andrea laughed softly, and Miranda's thread of hope snapped in ten places.
"Well, I can't keep on playing games with you Miranda. I am not strong enough." Andrea's eyes filled with water. She cocked her head, faking reason. "Or we can pretend you never…and I didn't…either way, I have to leave."
"Why?" Miranda remained perfectly still. Despite Andrea's imminent tears, Miranda felt strangely warm on account of the soft palms that for some reason remained on her forearms, as though they were a part of her. It shouldn't have, but the touch wrapped her in cashmere. How inappropriate, at a time like this, to be thinking of comfort. She deserved a cold concrete floor. A dark room and an empty chair was what she deserved. Not this vibrant young thing pouring out all of her emotions right into Miranda's lap.
"Either of those will probably put me in a mental institution Miranda. Either way, I'm screwed."
Andrea's whole body shook with vivacious danger, and Miranda knew she was about to be thrown an insult. And she would take it and hold it in her heart until she died, so as to have a lesson learnt if nothing else. You see, Miranda will always make the most of a bad situation.
Even so, Miranda knew perfectly well she deserved the subsequent insult. All those smiles and reassurances she had received from Andrea over the months, when had Miranda ever responded in kind? When had Miranda ever done anything to deserve Andrea's friendship? This is what she deserved, this hell.
"Because what he was doing that night, what he was doing to you, I want to do to you. I want to do that to you Miranda. Except I want it to feel so good, and that is unacceptable. So I quit."
"Bitch," Miranda spat. It took a handful of seconds for them each to recover. "How dare you mock me in my own home." Miranda's tone was vibrating and low, and she shifted her hands to grasp fistfuls of Andrea's hair, preventing her from moving. Then, Miranda delivered her own poison. It could not be helped. "Listen to me very carefully Andrea Sachs. Are you ready?"
"Always." Miranda stalled, blinking, before making herself recover enough to push that word and all of its connotations right to the back of her head. It would not do to speculate.
"You want to quit? You can't stand me at all?" Miranda waited for Andrea to jump in, sprouting regret. When she did not, Miranda knew beyond all doubt she had just lost a friendship that could have been very near perfect. The only thing left was to make sure she was one with less severe bruising, and thankfully she was well-versed in that.
"Well then I accept your resignation. The moment you leave my home, you are no longer employed by Elias-Clarke." Miranda's eyes danced around Andrea's face, watching the grief manifest. "I never want to see your face again. You disappoint me constantly, and I will tolerate it no longer. Do I make myself clear? Do you get it Andrea?"
Andrea turned pale as a ghost. The sight caused an image for Miranda. One where they were both old and grey, sitting beneath a blanket by a log fire. Holding hands in secret. Toes wrapped in ugly slippers. She was distracted by a single sorrowful sob.
"How can you say that Miranda, I have…I have been your friend. I thought I was," Andrea's voice was loud, bouncing off the dim walls, wrecking an already bruised heart. "I thought we had an understanding and you went and ruined it just because you could," Andrea was gasping. Miranda hated this; hearing the truth, but it would not be long before she never heard Andrea's voice again, so she would take what she could. "What was your reason Miranda? Why did you do it?" Miranda's grasp tightened. Strands of hair snapped between her fingers. Andrea did not wince. "You're the bitch Miranda."
"Touché." Miranda spotted one grey hair at Andrea's scalp. The future was perhaps not so far away. How she wanted to grow old with Andrea, how that feeling smacked her in the face like a brick.
"Just because you're rich and have people like me falling at your feet, you think you can do whatever you want."
"That is not entirely true." Miranda's thumbs stroked a line down either side of Andrea's face quite by accident. In response, Andrea's eyes closed for a second or two, and the moment was silent and beautiful. One for Miranda to keep forever. And she would, because she sure has hell was never going to see it again.
"You're telling me you don't always do what you want?"
"Not at all Andrea. Quite the opposite."
Andrea snorted. Miranda pulled hard. Andrea's smiley mouth clashed with Miranda's, and one of them moaned so erotically it caused the other to replicate in triplicate.
"This is what I want to do," Miranda hissed into Andrea's unreasonably soft mouth. "But I don't."
"Oh no."
Andrea yanked her head back. Miranda paled. Pressed her hand against her mouth like it could lock that feeling of complete belonging into her body for eternity.
"Get out," Miranda growled behind her hand, humiliated and lost, but Andrea did no such thing.
Instead, she forced Miranda's head back towards hers, and pounded another kiss onto her mouth. Miranda's boney knees buckled beneath the determination of keeping her head and she ended up kneeled awkwardly on the floor, dumbfounded to find Andrea's mouth had followed her there. Andrea was bent forward in the chair, kissing the life back into her.
"You took it too far." Andrea dug her nails into Miranda's scalp, and Miranda wondered why it felt so right when it hurt so fiercely. Miranda never thought herself a masochist. Perhaps then she didn't know herself as well as she thought, despite the years, despite the men she fucked and the women she did not. "You can't just fuck who you like when you like Miranda."
"I know that," Miranda found a strength from somewhere, and then she was climbing on-top of her assistant, her ex-assistant, who despite the recent resignation, assisted quite competently at scooting Miranda into her lap, hands confidently cupped against Miranda's fat ass. Because in comparison to the rest of her, Miranda's ass was indeed quite fat.
"You regret it?"
"Yes," Miranda gasped into Andrea's mouth. "So much." Miranda coursed a hand down Andrea's neck, across her collarbone. She couldn't stop herself.
"In front of your assistant for God's sake. Who does that?"
"Stop it." Miranda tried to kiss Andrea into silence. Andrea would was having none of it. She shifted her head to the left, and stopped the kiss. Miranda growled like a dog and latched her mouth to Andrea's neck.
Three thuds, something solid against something hollow, sounded from down the hallway.
