Fiyero just wasn't sure that she truly wanted to be independent.
--
Chapter Forty-Seven:
"I found this this morning," Glinda said as she dropped the bag she held on Elphaba's desk as the green woman studied the Grimmerie, "in Nessa's shoe. I cannot believe that you have taken to hiding drugs in Nessa's shoe… in your shoe!"
Elphaba stared at the incriminating bag that now sat, mocking her, on the Grimmerie's pages. "You had no right to go through my things," she said quietly but though she was angry she did not sound as such.
"The day that you chose to be high around my daughter was the day that you chose to give me that right!" Glinda snapped back and the blonde did not bother to try and hide the anger from her voice.
"I was sleeping in my room this morning. How could you have gone through my things without me knowing?"
"You were so passed out from the drugs that a war outside your very window would not have awoken you!"
"You're angry."
"I have every right to be angry!"
"What I choose to take is just that… my choice."
"Not when it involves my daughter!"
"I'm not giving my drugs to Mirelle so I do not see what the problem is."
Glinda slammed her hand on the desk which finally drew Elphaba's eyes from the bag to her friend's furious face. "Mirelle has seen you high!" Glinda screeched. "And she was scared! You don't understand because you cannot remember how ridiculous you act when you are high!"
Elphaba stayed silent, simply staring at Glinda with little life left in her eyes. It scared the blonde, to see Elphaba like she was, but she was determined not to let her compassion overtake her anger. She had to be a parent now, no matter how much it hurt her to yell at the broken green woman before her.
"Don't you care!" Glinda continued. "Doesn't it hurt you to know that you have scared Mirelle!"
"It was not my intention."
"Intentional or not is not the problem here! You cannot be around her when you are high! For Oz's sake you shouldn't even be high to begin with! I thought you had given them up! I thought you were over them!"
"One is never truly over an addiction. I would think that, by now, you would have realized that."
"Does this even bother you at all? Do you care at all for the pain you have caused our daughter!"
"Yes."
"You're not acting like it!"
"Because I'm high," Elphaba replied and her words were such a shock that Glinda was temporarily at a loss for words. "It's hard to care for anything when you are high… it's why people chose to become high."
"So you just get high and study the Grimmerie?" Glinda asked in shock. "That is what you have been doing this entire time since Avaric's death? That is what has kept you holed up in your room for all these weeks? You are… you are unbelievable!"
Elphaba stood up and turned her back to Glinda; slowly walked over to the opened doors at her balcony. "Well believe it," she whispered, "because it is true."
"You are… you are pathetic!" Glinda screeched. "Look at you – you can't even face me!"
"I never intended for you to see me high ever again."
"Yet Mirelle can?"
"She is a child, I did not think she would notice… or care. If I have harmed her then I am sorry, it was not my intention."
Glinda stormed over to Elphaba and grabbed her shoulder, forcefully turned the green woman around. "Look at me! Damn it Elphie! Just look at me!"
"Why?" Elphaba asked as she stared Glinda directly in the eyes, a scowl plaster on her face. "So you can see the true monster I am? So you can see the murderer that lays within me?"
"So that I can see that some part of you, no matter how small, still cares about her friends and family!"
"All I do is harm those around me. I have no friends, no family. Don't you see? It's easier that way."
"Not for us!"
"That is your problem, not mine."
"It's my feelings! My emotions! And you are part of my life! So it is your problem just as much as it is mine!"
"I need glasses."
Glinda's mouth dropped opened in dumbfounded shock at Elphaba's completely irrelevant statement but the blonde knew that it was due to the drugs. Yet still it shocked her. "You need… glasses?" she repeated, not sure that she had heard correctly.
"Yes. Don't you remember? I had glasses back at Shiz. I've had them since I was nine, I think. Perhaps that is why the Grimmerie is so hard for me to read now. Maybe I just need to get glasses again."
"What happened to your old ones, to the ones you used to wear at Shiz?"
Elphaba shrugged. "I lost them along the way, I think. Or perhaps a cruel classmate broke them… just for shits and giggles. Kids did stuff like that to me, tormented me, just because they could. Just because I was different. Just because I was green."
"Are you doing drugs again because of what you did to Avaric?" Glinda asked, trying to steer the conversation back on track.
"Because of how I killed him? Yes."
"But why?"
"Because I am a murderer and if left to my own devices I will murderer. I cannot allow that. Don't you see? I'm protecting the people around me. If I'm high I don't feel pain and if I don't feel pain then there is no need for revenge and if there is no need for revenge then there is no chance of me murdering."
"You seem to have thought this out."
"I have."
Glinda raised her hand and brushed a strand of loose hair off of Elphaba's face, tucked it behind her ear. The green woman flinched at the touch but forced herself not to pull away. "You frighten me, how easily you will let yourself fall back to the drugs," Glinda muttered. "Has all your work been for naught? Are you really willing to give up everything because of one mistake you made?"
"This wasn't the first mistake. But it damn well will be my last!" Elphaba shocked herself at the level of emotion in her voice.
"It seems that the drugs don't take all the feelings away, do they? Part of you still cares, part of you will always care, no matter what you do." Glinda's hand trailed down Elphaba's face, making both women shiver, until it rested on her chest – just below her collarbone. "You told me you loved me, I said I never could feel the same towards you. Now, now I know why."
"I will never be able to save myself."
"I can't love a broken person. I cannot live without guarantees. I'm so sorry Elphie but this… this life… it can't go on like this. Something has to change."
"That something has to be me, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"Change or leave – is that what you're telling me?"
"Yes."
"And Fiyero says –"
"Fiyero doesn't matter," Glinda interrupted. "I'm the only one here with a solid head on their shoulders. If Fiyero leaves because you do than that is his choice, I won't stop him. But I am thinking of Mirelle… and sometimes I think I'm the only one who does. Her life is chaotic and it cannot stay that way less she turns out like you."
"This is who I am. This is me. I cannot change the poison in my soul."
"I believe you can."
"Your belief means nothing if I don't believe. And I don't Glinda. That is a fact. I cannot change. I have tried and tried and I'm just so damn tired of trying! I just… I've found that I don't seem to care anymore."
Glinda dropped her hand from Elphaba's chest and took a green hand in her own. She fingered the engagement ring that sat there – a mirrored image of her own. "You promised to marry Fiyero… to marry us… don't you love him still? Don't you want a family of your own?"
Elphaba pulled her hand from Glinda's grasp and felt a shudder go through her body. She was beginning to crumble inside; the drugs affect on her starting to wear off. "Sometimes I wonder if I ever really loved him or if I just loved the idea of him. And of… of a family."
"It doesn't have to be an idea anymore. It doesn't have to be just a dream. It can be reality, if you would let it be. If you would just give up the drugs."
"It seems like such an easy choice – drugs or family – but yet I find it to be such an impossible decision."
"The right choice is not always the easiest choice. But you know that already, don't you? You chose to go against the Wizard, back when we were all so very young, and that was the right choice. I chose to go with the Wizard, and that was the easy choice. I've led a relatively easy life but full of worry and guilt. You've led an impossibly hard life but with the knowledge that you did the right thing, that you were making a difference… no matter how small." Glinda wrapped her arms around Elphaba's waist and pulled the trembling green woman close to her so that they stood back to chest. "That's worth something."
"What?"
"Pride. Joy. There are many things you have done in your life that I could never have fathomed. You are so strong Elphie, I just wish you could see that in yourself."
"A strong person does not need drugs, does not need alcohol, and most certainly does not need the relief that hurting one's self brings. I am not strong… I am a façade."
"You only wish you were a façade because then it would be easier to give up on life."
"I wish I didn't care so much."
"I know."
"I wish I could be better, could do better."
"I know."
"I wish I could forget."
"I know."
"I wish I could just heal!"
"I know."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all my failures. For all my pitiful attempts that have turned into nothing but disaster. I try. And every time I do I only fail in the end. I'm tired of trying."
"If you give up now then all that effort and time was for nothing. Do you really want to throw all your hard work away?"
Elphaba brought her hand up to Glinda's and gently peeled the blonde's arms off of her body and stepped away, giving herself room to breathe. "I don't know."
"Yes you do. You know the answer. Why can't you just say it?"
"I'm afraid I cannot do it. I'm afraid I cannot succeed."
"Fear drives desperation and desperation drives fear. We're here to help you, to listen, if you would just allow yourself to be helped!"
Elphaba wrapped her arms around her stomach in an attempt to will away the nausea that had settled in her as the drug's effects began to wear off. "It's starting to hurt again," she muttered. "I can't stand it!"
Glinda stepped forward and took Elphaba's hand in her own again. "I'm here for you… even if all I can do is be here and nothing more."
Elphaba squeezed Glinda's hand tightly to offer herself some sort of measure of comfort. "Will you allow me, one more time?"
"To use again?" Glinda clarified. When Elphaba nodded her head Glinda shook hers. "No," the blonde replied and the strength in her voice made the green woman realize that she would not be able to use Glinda's compassion for her own destructive needs anymore. "It is never just one more time," Glinda said quietly. "Never. If you use again you will be on the street, as much as that hurts me to say. You cannot stay here as you are. Perhaps now, with such a despairing future in your mind, you may be able to kick those horrible drugs once and for all."
Elphaba frowned then nodded before slipping her hand from Glinda's grasp and returning to her desk. The blonde watched in horror as Elphaba grabbed the bag – fearing that her friend had chosen the drugs and the street over the prospect of a family and love – and followed, tentatively, as Elphaba went to her practically useless bathing room. But as she entered, a step behind Elphaba, she felt relief flood through her entire being.
Elphaba stood at the sink, the tap running, and was carefully shaking the drugs from the bag and watching them turn into paste in the stone sink before being washed down the drain.
"There is something wrong with me… something inherently wrong with me," Elphaba whispered; her voice so quiet that Glinda could barely hear her above the noise of the running water. "Something is missing. Something must be patched. There is a hole within me that needs to be filled. What will fill that now, if not the drugs?"
"Let us," Glinda answered but she stayed by the door, afraid of startling Elphaba by moving to close to her. "Let us be the missing piece within you."
"I have done a lot of bad things," Elphaba said as she dropped the now empty bag in the sink and turned the tap off. "And I'm a really bad person but… but I hope to be a good person, if you will just give me yet another chance."
"You can have all the chances in the world as long as I know that you will never stop trying."
"Just please, promise me this one thing."
"What?"
"Do not cast me out onto the streets." Elphaba turned pleading eyes to Glinda. "Do not send me out to survive only as a whore. I could not do, not again, never again!"
"That is not my choice to make… that is yours."
"But –"
"Perhaps the fear of such a life," Glinda interrupted, "will help to keep you sober."
Elphaba's eyes widened in fear and horror. "You wouldn't, you couldn't, you never, you can't!"
"This is my house. It is my rules or nothing. The drugs and the street or sobriety and a family. The decision is yours… I only ask that you think long and hard over it."
"You can't turn me back into a whore!"
"If you become a prostitute again then that is brought about by your own decisions. You have a home here, and a family, if you only stay away from the drugs. That's all I ask of you… keep away from the drugs. Not the drinking, not the self-harm, just the drugs. Just the drugs."
Elphaba fled from the bathing room, nearly knocking Glinda down in her frantic escape, and ran from her room. Glinda stared at the now empty space in shock for a few moments before gathering her bearings and turning on her heels – following Elphaba as fast as she could. She caught a green arm in the hallway, forcing Elphaba to a screeching stop, and took the trembling green woman in her arms.
"I can't… I can't… I can't…" Elphaba muttered as she collapsed to her knees, bringing Glinda to the floor with her, and buried her head in the blonde's chest. "I can't go back to that!"
"I know," Glinda whispered as she rubbed soothing circles over Elphaba's back. "That makes the choice easier then, doesn't it?"
"I can't be a whore but I can't give up the drugs," Elphaba snapped out but her voice was muffled by Glinda's chest and lacked any strength due to the hiccupping sobs that choked at her throat. "You have given me an impossible choice!"
"I know right now it seems hard, impossible even. But please, try to look at is as choosing the lesser evil, if that helps at all."
"It doesn't!"
"Then what do you fear more then – living as a whore or living with nothing to numb the pain?"
"The life of a prostitute would only bring me more pain, and more drugs, and the cycle would never end. I just want it to be over!"
Glinda pulled away from Elphaba just enough so that she could catch the green woman's eyes. "Then that is your answer, is it not? You can end it now, right now, and I will be here to help you… we will be here to help you."
Elphaba stared at Glinda with an expression of both confusion and understanding. Slowly but surely her mind began to wrap itself around the words that Glinda was saying and the logic her friend spoke of. A small smile began to grow on her face, which was an odd contrast to her blood-shot eyes, as she registered the decision she had just made. "You will throw me out then, if I touch the drugs again?"
"Yes."
"No matter for what reason?"
"No matter."
Elphaba nodded, slowly, as if she was weighing the pros and cons of some great and terrible decision. She stood up then, brushing at her eyes with the back of her sleeve, and then took Glinda's hand in her own – led the blonde by the hand down the hallway. Glinda was confused when Elphaba led her into one of the many spare guest rooms but said nothing on the matter as she was afraid of sounding accusing and sending Elphaba into silence.
"By the dresser, there is a loose board."
Glinda looked at Elphaba in confusion but found no answers on the green woman's face. She let her hand slip from Elphaba's grasp as she approached the dresser and then kneeled down. She knocked on the floor in a couple different spots before she heard a hollow sound coming back to her. She slid her perfectly manicured nails into the edge of the floorboard and gently pried it loose, setting it to the side.
"It's where I keep the most of them. Nessa's shoe – I don't even remember hiding any in there. But that tends to happen… I sometimes lose my memory when I am on them."
"Sometimes?" Glinda asked incredulously as she ever-so-carefully lifted the bottles of alcohol and bags of drugs from Elphaba's hiding place. "You never remember what you did or said when you're high."
"I do, sometimes."
"Rarely. Is this a needle?" Glinda asked as she delicately held the object, which was in fact a needle, in her hand. She twisted around to look at Elphaba over her shoulder. "Why would you ever need a needle?"
"It's faster," she answered with a small shrug. "Sometimes I get desperate, if I haven't had it for a while, and I need it as fast as I can get it."
"How long? Honestly, how long have you been back on the drugs?"
"Since before I made Mirelle walk again. I used them to keep me up, to help me study the Grimmerie, to help me find a way to save her. I told myself I would stop as soon as I fixed her but then I did and I just… I never stopped. And then there was Avaric, and it got all so much worse after that."
"So it was my fault then, wasn't it? For pressuring you so?"
"No!" Elphaba shouted, far too forcefully. "You can never… my failures are not your fault! You cannot… you mustn't ever blame yourself!" Elphaba approached Glinda, suddenly frantic. "You just… you can't! Do you understand? You mustn't blame yourself for my inadequacies! They are mine, only mine!"
"You cannot accept the fact that some things in this world are not your fault, can you?"
"I am the embodiment of wrong! I am everyone's sins! I am the sin! Can't you see that? I! Am! The! Sin!"
"You're still high."
"Stop with the drugs!"
"But that is where your problem lies, how can I stop talking about them? It's why we're in the place we are. It's why you're acting the way you are. You're still high and you're high from the drugs. You aren't the sin Elphie, the drugs are."
Elphaba stared at Glinda in shock. The thought that the drugs were the cause of her problems and not the problems being the cause for her drug use had never crossed her mind. It seemed such a simple answer but yet no one had ever told her and she had been completely unable to come to such a realization on her own. The drugs had clouded her mind; had fooled her into thinking that she needed them to numb the pain when the fact was that the pain was caused by the drugs.
"The drugs… the drugs are the problem?"
It was now Glinda's turn to look confused. "You didn't know that?"
"No."
"You've never even had the inclination that the drugs are causing so many of your problems? That the drugs are the reason you are unable to heal the hurt of your past?"
Elphaba slowly shook her head back and forth. "It's not my fault, is it then?"
Glinda sighed and stood up. She took Elphaba's hand in her own and led the green woman to the bed where they both sat down. "You started using drugs again, which was your fault," Glinda answered as she made sure to keep eye contact her friend – so that Elphaba would know that she was serious. "But you're addicted to them, which I do not blame you for. And it's your addiction that is the problem now. But you must take responsibility for the drugs themselves, not the problems that they cause."
"It's the drugs… I never even thought of that. I always thought that they were helping, that they were there to help the pain. I never even comprehended the fact that they could be the cause of so much of my pain."
Glinda smiled but her eyes were full of sadness. "You never realized that," she muttered, more to herself than to Elphaba, with a short laugh. "Perhaps if I had just told you that sooner… perhaps then we could have helped you end this long ago…" Glinda trailed off and dropped her gaze to her lap. "It's true that I've enabled you, that both Fiyero and I have enabled you, and so part of the blame must lay on us. But still, the choice is ultimately yours… ultimately yours…"
"You don't sound very convinced."
"Tell me Elphie, how many times have we been in this place? How many times have you promised me that you will get better? That everything will be alright? It never lasts. It's true, you do good for the first little bit, but then you slip back into its grip. I've learnt now not to get my hopes up because I'm tired of having my heart crushed time and time again by you."
"I don't mean to hurt you."
"I know but that doesn't make it hurt any less."
"I'm sorry, for… for everything I've done. I never meant to drag you into this Hell of mine but I can't survive it on my own."
"And I don't have the heart to leave you behind. So here we are, in limbo once again, with fleeting promises muttered on the cusp of the wind."
"Perhaps the wind will stay this time, and the promises aren't as empty as they once were."
Glinda shrugged. "Only time will time. And time, it seems, has not been your friend." The blonde stood up, letting Elphaba's hand slip from her grasp. "I'll come back later, when you are not so high on the drugs, and see how you are doing. I won't hold my breath for your sobriety but I won't let go of all hope. The choice is yours, remember that, okay?"
"A family or drugs. Sobriety or prostitution. You have made your point clear, and sometimes I wonder why I still call you my friend."
"I wonder that myself," Glinda said; her tone somber, "every single day."
