Content Advisory: Mild Suggestive Content, Self-deprecating thoughts
✉ Chapter Eleven: The Dance Around ✉
Being on unfriendly terms with people was hardly new to Elphaba, so she had a hard time figuring out why her falling out with Fiyero felt so different. Galinda, who admittedly didn't have the whole story, was cross that they'd backtracked after 'making so much progress'. She stated that they seemed to be on worse terms now than before. Elphaba concurred.
Elphaba didn't have time to linger in her discontentment for long, however, for an unexpected shift in Yero's writing began captivating the majority of her attention. She'd been trying not to read too much into his prose, especially because he was seeing somebody, but things between them had…changed.
Elphaba, staying true to herself, first processed these observations in a logical way as she gathered and analyzed evidence.
Since Yero's first letter stating the existence of his significant other, he had not mentioned them at all. Perhaps he was private about his romantic life, which was within his right, but it felt strange. It felt intentional. Elphaba had been trying in vain to manage her jealous feelings towards the mystery partner seeing as she had no claim over Yero. However, if that were true, then why did he write her in the way he did?
Dear Fae,
I've had the worst day. I don't know how to explain why without going into too much detail, so I'll just say that sometimes people aren't who you think they are. Sometimes you're pretty sure you can tell how someone is feeling and then you find out you're totally wrong.
Then there's you. I wonder about you constantly, Fae. I think about where you are, what you're doing, if you're close to me at any given moment. I wonder what your voice sounds like. I wonder if you have curly or straight hair. I wonder if you're tall or short. I daydream about the color of your eyes. The weird thing is that as much as I want to know those things—they don't matter much. I feel like I already know you. I couldn't know you better if I knew your name.
I'm not usually one to overthink things but I feel so…psychologically mixed up. I'm sorry if this letter is a lot but I can't stop thinking about you, Fae. Do you feel the same?
Sincerely, Yero
While Elphaba was a total stranger to the concept of romance, it didn't take an expert to construe that Yero's letters were toeing the boundary line between friends and…more. Elphaba wanted to share her secret with Galinda more than ever, if only to validate her theory that Yero was, for lack of a better word, flirting.
Damned though she may be, ever reasonable Elphaba began feeling in earnest the throws of her crush on Yero, which she now freely admitted to…if only to herself. Even if it ended too fast, for now, she gave herself permission to feel beguiled. After all, it may well be her only chance in life to feel such things at all. She had never felt that way before—
With one exception, Elphaba's brain intruded.
But no, that didn't happen. The closet, the Cub…it wasn't reality. After hours of pondering her predicament, Elphaba came to a conclusion regarding her 'glitches' with Fiyero. Proximity and prolonged eye contact, like when they were trapped together, were psychologically proven to increase self-awareness, signal trust, and generate feelings of…arousal. In the end, simple brain chemistry was the culprit regarding what she thought she felt with Fiyero.
Moreover, acknowledging the unfortunate coincidence that her pen pal's nom de plume was strikingly similar to Fiyero's given name, it was only natural for unintentional comparisons to arise. It was just her luck, after all. Out of everyone in Oz, the two people she found herself entangled with had almost the same name.
Not that she was entangled with Fiyero.
Yero, however, was a different story.
For maybe the first time in her life, Elphaba's brain relinquished control over to her heart. It shied away in the corner as her hand, as if guided by a force greater than herself, penned the words:
Dear Yero,
I can't stop thinking about you either.
Elphaba didn't need her crystal ball to predict how her and Yero's little game would end. It was unwritten yet understood between them that their dalliance had an expiration date. Elphaba would sooner drop out of Shiz than reveal her identity to Yero, so there was no way for their relationship to progress beyond the pages. Even so, they continued to exchange affectionate letters daily, recklessly hurtling towards their inevitable fate.
Yes—they exchanged letters, for Elphaba, despite her rational understanding of their situation, could not help but to reciprocate Yero's sentiments. Here was someone who took an interest in her words and ideas. The things she said mattered to someone. After everything…Elphaba was too lonely to resist that. So, acting in an irresponsibly vulnerable way, Elphaba waited for the other shoe to drop as she and Yero began dancing around an unspoken subject.
Dear Yero,
I want to know everything about you.
Fae divulged little details of her life, hungry to be known by Yero. She shared her love of blackberries and how she was currently reading 'Discord and Discontent'. Then she danced around the idea of how profound the mundane details about him had become to her.
Dear Fae,
I've never had feelings for anyone I've dated.
Yero described his hollow romantic history. He relayed stories of nameless dates and meaningless rendezvouses. He wrote of evading anything real for the lack of a letdown. Then he danced around the idea of how much he now wanted to feel something real.
Dear Yero,
I've never had feelings for anybody.
Fae stressed how unlike her this all was and how she was unaccustomed to romance in any form. She relayed how her growing feelings for him were new and frightening. She timidly yet trustingly confessed the fact that she had never been kissed. She danced around just how much she longed to be kissed by him.
Dear Fae,
I want to hold you.
Yero boldly committed his scandalous thoughts to paper. He narrated dreams he kept having about the two of them and described his desires in blushing detail. He confessed to his sexual experience, but stated that it had always meant little to him. He then danced around all of the things that he longed to show her, do to her…
Dear Yero,
I want to be with you.
Fae poured out her lonely heart onto the page. She revealed years of loneliness, of putting on a brave face to hide what she felt. She cited traumatic examples of mistreatment and neglect at the hands of her family and others. She danced around just how much he meant to her.
Dear Fae,
I want to meet you.
And the shoe dropped.
There it was, the dreaded conclusion to their game. Elphaba closed her eyes and leaned her back against their oak tree, clutching the letter to her heart as a despair she'd been anticipating for weeks spread through her. They had, as she knew they would, taken things too far. The coy curiosity had gotten to be too much. Yero needed to see her, know her as she is, he needed to meet Fae. He needed to meet…Elphaba.
Elphaba, her whole body straining to maintain composure, turned her body and pressed her forehead against the bark of the tree. Why had she let this continue? Why had she given so much of herself into these letters? She opened her eyes and read the rest of the damning script, as if it would change anything. As if it could.
Dear Fae,
I want to meet you.
I know what you're going to say about your rules, but things are different now. How long can we go on sharing our feelings without acting on them? I know that you must have some reason or secret to be so against meeting but whatever it is…I don't care. There is nothing that you could reveal about yourself that would make me not want to be with you.
"Yes, there is," Elphaba whispered aloud.
Please, Fae. If you care about me at all, you will consider it. Meet me at the café on the west side of campus on Wednesday at 4:00pm. Bring a book and put the flower in it so that I know it's you. Please don't write until then, take the time to think about it. If you don't show, I'll take that as your answer.
I don't know how much longer I can keep this up without losing what is left of my mind.
Love, Yero
Elphaba brushed her thumb over his signature with a lump growing in her throat.
Love. The crumpled drafts, the scrapped post-scripts, the thing that has been on the tip of their pens at all times. That word, the word that hid in plain sight within their valedictions…that was their dance.
Galinda had it right from the beginning.
Elphaba opened the envelope further and pulled out a fragile red poppy that looked like it had previously been pressed by a book. She looked back to his letter and spotted a postscript.
P.S. Look at the tree.
Elphaba turned and, after a few clock-ticks of inspection, she spotted it. A small but deliberate carving was now visible upon the tree right beside the hollow. Y + F. Elphaba's fingers traced the etching in awe, chuckling to herself as she pictured Yero resisting the urge to also carve 4ever afterwards. He would be the type. But no, their discrete initials were perfect. There was a permanence to it, a promise.
Elphaba's pulse rushed as she considered Yero's proposition. Certain disaster was ahead for Yero and Fae, she knew that even if he did not. But didn't she owe it to him to try?
Didn't she owe it to herself?
Betraying the firm convictions she'd outlined in her letters as well as every morsel of self-preservation she had, that next Wednesday Elphaba Thropp pushed into the little café with a book and a flower in her bag.
She ordered a black coffee, sat down at an empty table, and tried not to attract any more attention to herself than her existence already provided her. She opened her copy of 'Discord and Discontent' and carefully pulled the flower out of the top of the page. Elphaba peeked around to see if there was an immediate recognition, but when nobody paid her much mind, her shoulders relaxed. Her eyes scanned her page as she waited for her doom, but it was mostly for show. Her brain was on fire with fearsome doubt. Her heart came through so fluidly onto the page, but this was different. There was no more hiding behind her paper and pen.
Will he like me when we meet? Elphaba thought, but the answer charged through right after. No.
She closed her eyes.
Nobody likes you. Nobody could.
"Elphaba?"
Elphaba's eyes sprung open in surprise, but the person who spoke was not her mystery suitor. Her eyes came into focus and she saw the last person she expected in front of her.
"Nessa?" Elphaba asked faintly. Nessarose regarded her and pursed her lips, as if on the fence about engaging or not.
"You look dreadful," she settled on.
Elphaba gave a short, humorless laugh.
"You do wonders for my confidence."
"I only meant that you look rather pale…clammy," Nessarose pointed out. "Is something the matter?"
Nessarose's sudden appearance had thrown Elphaba off guard.
"Why are you talking to me, Nessa? In public no less."
Nessarose winced and folded her hands in her lap. "You looked off, is all. If you don't want me to bother you, I'll go."
"No, I do," Elphaba said hurriedly. "Did you…want to join me?"
Nessarose joined Elphaba at the table with a simple nod. She looked pale as well. Elphaba couldn't help but reflect on how strange this all was. Here she was about to meet her mystery admirer only for Nessarose to approach her for the first time in weeks.
"Something has been troubling me," Nessarose began slowly. Elphaba gave her a nod to continue. "My helper Amalia, the Badger? She was fired."
"Fired?"
"Yes, and I don't know where she has gone," Nessarose shared, gripping nervously at her skirt. "It happened the same day that the professor was fired, the Goat. I think you had him?"
"Yes, Doctor Dillamond."
"She was always a nervous creature but she'd been getting increasingly more paranoid. I thought it was nothing, but now…" Nessarose trailed off. "She kept saying things before, about bad things happening. She was warning me. Do you know anything about that?"
Elphaba recalled seeing Dillamond getting dragged away and nodded solemnly. "Yes, I do. A little bit," Elphaba amended.
"I thought you did. Boq told me all about your protest," she mentioned off hand.
"Boq, huh?" Elphaba couldn't help but prod. "Galinda told me about you two."
Nessarose nodded sheepishly and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Yes…and I think he's wonderful. He's a perfect gentleman."
"Are you happy?" Elphaba asked.
Nessarose hesitated.
"I think so. Yes, indeed. I think so. Anyway, I wanted to let you know about Amalia. We'd grown rather close, in fact, and…I miss her. I know she wouldn't have left without saying goodbye. Not if she'd been given the option," Nessarose said with a troubled look before clearing her throat. "Probably nothing but I was feeling a little nervous, I suppose."
The bell on the café door opened and Elphaba looked back in panic, only now remembering the reason she was here in the first place.
"What is going on with you? You're fidgety, I've never seen you so fidgety," Nessarose pointed out.
"It's nothing."
Nessarose shook her head and tapped a finger at Elphaba's book. "What is that?"
"A book."
"The flower! You hate flowers!" Nessarose sighed in exasperation.
"I don't hate flowers!" Elphaba blurted out. "I-I like this flower."
Nessarose arched an eyebrow and Elphaba's shoulders sagged. She sighed, sparing the café one more glance over before looking back towards Nessarose. Galinda had tried and failed to get details about Yero out of her, but Elphaba historically never stood a chance against Nessarose. Besides, after today, Yero would be inconsequential.
"I'm…meeting somebody."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"You're meeting a stranger?! Elphaba, that's dangerous. I'm surprised at you."
"I don't know his name—
"His?"
"—or what he looks like, but I actually know him very well, Nessa! I know all of the things about him that matter, I've just never…met him. That's all," Elphaba explained badly.
"You've talked to him, though?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"How?"
"Well, you should know, Nessa. You signed me up for the program!" Elphaba rebutted defensively.
Nessarose's jaw dropped. "Your…pen pal? You're still writing your pen pal?!"
"Well, I've always been better about follow through."
Nessarose continued to gape at her sister before breaking out into a fit of mocking giggles.
"Well, seeing as I'm the cause for you two meeting I'd better be present at the wedding," Nessarose sighed as her laughter began to dwindle.
"What exactly are you laughing at?" Elphaba asked tersely.
"I'm sorry, Elphaba. It's just so absurd! I wrote one letter to mine before quitting, only to find out you've fallen in love with yours!"
"I really wish people would stop saying that," Elphaba mumbled, placing her burning face in her hands.
"Wait…are you serious?" Nessarose asked slowly as she gauged her sister's face. "Oh, Elphaba, don't do this. Don't you see that this is all probably some petty trick on you?"
"Is it so crazy, Nessa? Is it so crazy that I could like someone and that they'd like me back?"
"You just said that you didn't know what he looked like. Does he know what you look like? Did you tell him that you're green?!" Nessarose asked.
Elphaba flinched as if she'd been smacked and turned her head away from Nessarose. Nessarose noticed the hurt on her sister's face and began to stammer, trying to find the right words to back track.
"Go and join your friends," Elphaba said coldly. "You wouldn't want to be seen with me."
Nessarose stared at her for a moment before obeying her sister's command and wheeling away. Elphaba's face twitched with rage and disgrace. She spotted the poppy and, thinking quickly, plucked it towards the middle of the page and slammed it into her book. She hastily grabbed her things and moved to leave the café before she could get caught.
Head ducked in shame, Elphaba forcefully pushed on the door to exit and nearly ran headlong into Fiyero Tigelaar.
Figures. He was always present for her humiliations.
"Hey, are you okay?" Fiyero asked with a furrowed brow.
Elphaba merely scowled at him with bloodshot brown eyes and sniffed as she shoved past him to make her escape.
She'd apologize to Yero later.
