"That was SOOO cool!"
Marcy's voice was absolutely ecstatic, and as she watched her make the usual fist pumps, Sasha mused that Marcy's love for fantasy stuff hadn't really changed.
"Like… "You sent him to the sky to die, assassin… But the winds and skies are mine. I claim them, as I now claim your Life!" Ugh, so good!"
Sasha grinned, as on the screen the ending sequence of the Stormlight Archive played out, accompanied by its rocking Sabaton-like music.
"Well, if you think Kaladin was cool there, then next episode…" "Don't spoil it!"
Sasha grinned even more at that.
"Anyway, the next episode is as far as Anne has gotten sooo…"
Both girls looked up at a clock that Sasha had on the wall.
"Eh, it's fine, she should be here in about… 20-40 Minutes? We can wait, no problem."
Then, she began lightly patting her knees while looking around, all while wearing that cute, and energetic smile of hers. Man, that took her back.
"Man, I CAN'T believe I NEVER so much as heard about The Stormlight Archives before!"
"Eh, the Anime is pretty new. It hasn't even reached the halfway point yet."
"Yeah but… Like, these books have been around since 2010! You'd have thought I'd have at least heard about them by now, especially given how many fantasy stories I go through every year! But no I hadn't even HEARD of this setting before, and to think there's EVEN MORE stories in this setting than just the Stormlight Archive!" She squeed as she finished.
Sasha chuckled as she took another sip of Fanta.
Yeah, there were a lot of areas Marcy had changed, but the enthusiastic love she had for fantasy was not one of them.
As it turned out though, it was WAY more fun when it was Sasha who introduced it to her than the other way around.
It wasn't like Sasha had ever hated Fantasy stories on principle… She just didn't have a love of the genre in and out of itself like Marcy did.
Both then and now, she had plenty of stories she liked and loved that were fantasy stories… The thing though, was that in the old days, she had never really talked about them with Marcy. At all.
She hadn't cared to do so.
To her, Marcy had seemed happy enough with their arrangement of Sasha and Anne tagging along with every single bit of fantasy stuff Marcy wanted to do, so why shake the boat? Marcy always went along with what she wanted to do, so shouldn't she, a good friend, return that by going along with Marcy's interests, playing the unenthusiastic dungeon master for a party of two, watching her movies, and listening to her go on and on about stuff she read and watched?
Even if it did not bring her any joy to do so, that was just part of being a friend.
With a bit more perspective and wisdom, it was so easy to see how both of them had been worse off by that line of thinking.
Marcy had felt like Sasha only humored her and her interest, and Sasha had just gotten so bored by Marcy's interests that she'd never thought that maybe they could have compromised and found some common ground that would have made them both happier.
"Yeah, well if you want more animated stuff, don't get your hopes up. Only The Stormlight Archives have gotten an Anime so far. And it's not even halfway done yet."
"Aw, man… I was hoping we could go through all of it together, and then I could go read the books."
"If you want, I could give you the Audiobooks. They're pretty good, though the guy who narrates the male characters is WAY better than his partner. The woman has no range when she does male voices. It can get really silly when you compare the same characters. Like Dalinar will have this deep, powerful masculine voice in one chapter… And then the next he has this attempt at a suave, calm, and collected tone in the next."
"Oh, ummm…"
Marcy scratched the back of her head nervously.
"Thanks but… I kinda meant I didn't wanna be spoiled by the text before I see the anime. If I read it all, then… Well, I can't really share a blind watch trough with Anne."
Sasha blinked. Then slowly nodded.
"Huh… Yeah, okay... You know… I haven't really gotten to do that with Anne yet. Not since high school anyway... Just go into a series together blind, and watch everything together."
It seemed like such a simple thing, that she simply had assumed she and Anne had done it at some point. But no, they hadn't. Not since high school.
Mostly their shared series lately had one of them introducing the other, then them binging it. That wasn't bad, but… Well, there was something special about watching something together with someone where neither knew how it would go.
"Oh… Well, you guys have only been dating for a couple of months. Give it time."
Right. A couple of months. That reminder immediately put a damper on her mood.
After a bit too long of silence in the room, she finally asked something she had mulled over in the back of her head for about a week now. Ever since her and Anne's talk.
"...Hey, Mar-Mar? There's something I've been meaning to ask you..."
The black-haired girl turned to look at her, still wearing her usual, energetic smile.
"Yeah Sash?"
"Back in middle school… Before Amphibia… Did you think Anne… Had feelings for me?"
Marcy froze.
"Um… Kinda? Why do you ask?"
Kinda. So yes then.
"Well, because… Because she told me she did. A week ago."
Marcy blinked, then, rather than remain in that energetic pose, she instead turned, now sitting on the sofa cross-legged, and turned towards Sasha with a more… Worried? Concerned? Well, it was a much more melancholic look that the one she had just sported.
"Oh... Well… I thought so. I mean, I didn't KNOW if she did like you like that, but… I kinda assumed."
She then continued with: "I mean, it's not like she was completely blatant about it. Like… She wasn't you." like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"So… You did know how I felt about her then."
"...Sash, you signed up for the cheerleaders the day after Anne joined the basketball team, and the first time after practice, you sat down across from her while posing in uniform, and after discussing you guys training for a bit, you said…"
Marcy paused for a bit while she furrowed her brow, then continued.
"Actually I don't remember exactly what you said, but… Like it was sooo obvious that you were trying to pick her up with a line about jocks and cheerleaders being a really good romantic match."
"God… I remember that… And she just stared at me in shock. Like… I really thought I'd nailed it… Then she turned to the guys' basketball team, and then back to me, and just said "Um… If you say so Sash…" God that was humiliating…"
Marcy did not laugh, which Sasha felt very grateful for.
"Well… I did say that I wasn't sure… Like there were so many moments where it was so painfully obvious that you were into her, and she never responded to those… But then, on the other hand, there were these times where she'd just... Look at you while you weren't looking, and then there were times when we were alone and she'd just talk about you like… Well like a schoolgirl in love. Which… I guess that's what she was."
So… She really had seen it then. The way Sasha had not.
"So, I guess she was just really, really dense then…"
The memories of their first meeting in Amphibia came to mind. She'd been even more forward with that carriage, than that time with the cheerleader pickup line. And Anne hadn't picked up at it at all.
"Seems that way. To be honest Sash… Back when I moved away, I kinda assumed you two would hook up like… A year after I left, at most… Maybe two."
"Well… That's not a bad guess… If I had just had the guts to ask her back then, that's probably when I'd done it… But… Well…"
She waved her hand to the side.
"I just didn't think she was into me, you know? Like… Like you said, there were SO many times where I thought I made it perfectly clear what I felt about her, and she just… Never seemed to get it. Or wanted to respond one way or another…"
She remembered the feeling so, so vividly.
"Like… I eventually began to think she just… Wasn't into me you know. Or… That she wasn't into girls in general. That's one of the reasons I was just…"
She paused.
"Yes?"
She sighed.
"Well, to be honest, I was really afraid to just ask her. Just… Go over there, and put an end to it, one way or another. Like I should have done from the start…"
Marcy put her hand on her shoulder.
"Hey, don't feel bad. It worked out for you guys, in the end, not all romances do you know..."
Sasha expected from the way Marcy spoke that final bit, that she was going to follow up on that, but she instead just gave her that supporting smile, with those eyes Sasha still couldn't read entirely.
"Well… I guess you're right… I just… Well, I feel like I could have avoided so much heartache if I hadn't just assumed, and gone over and asked her back then. And after we graduated High School? I had this stupid idea that reconnecting with her would be this incredibly hard thing. Like… An immovable boulder."
"Then you tried to move it and it was like… A small stone instead?"
Sasha smiled.
"Personal experience?"
Marcy kept her hands supportingly on Sasha's shoulder, and her smile didn't fade, but her eyes went downwards.
"Yeah… Well… I've told you about Sigrid, right?"
"You… Might have mentioned her once or twice. Or twenty-four."
"Yeah… Well, I met her back then after we moved, back when my parents made sure I didn't have any contact with you guys."
Right. That period.
Sasha, Anne, and Marcy had originally been planning on making sure they kept in touch after middle school, even after Marcy moved.
They lived in the age of cellphones and video chats after all.
Marcy's parents had made damn sure that wasn't gonna happen though.
They had confiscated her phone, taken hard control over her pc, put hard limitations on what sorts of social media she was allowed to use, and frankly had gone to enough measures that Sasha was pretty sure they would easily have gotten into a real hot mess with child services if anyone had learned what they were doing.
All of it in the name of KILLING Marcy's relationship with Sasha and Anne, who they blamed 100% for Marcy running away.
She supposed that was a much, much easier thing to do than to accept your little girl had run away from home of her own choice and was responsible for setting in motion a chain of events that had ultimately led to a quarter of Los Angeles in rubble from an alien invasion.
Admittingly, even taking the extreme end result of her running away out of the equation… Sasha probably had been the perfect scapegoat to lay all of it on. The bossy, mean girl who had always gotten their precious Marcy into trouble, who they had never really liked to begin with.
It was not hard to imagine that despite Marcy's words, they truly believed that Anne and Sasha had been the real driving force behind what had happened, and Marcy had just been following her lead.
They had thus gone about removing what they saw as the toxic influence of Anne and Sasha from their Baby's life with EXTREME prejudice.
Whatever their reasoning, and motivations, it had had the same result. Their contact with Marcy between their 14th to their 18th years had been… Limited. Not completely cut off(Marcy had made other friends from who she could borrow PCs from at school) but sharply limited.
"The first few months I just… Well, I tried to just fit in, to varying degrees of success. Then she came into my life, and just… Well, I was really, really lonely, and she came in and just swept me off my feet like it was nothing."
Marcy's expression turned from that look Sasha wasn't able to quite define, into how Sasha had always imagined Marcy would look like if she was in love. Absolutely adorable.
"She made me feel like… I was everything."
God, she knew that feeling. That wonderful warmth.
"It was absolutely amazing… Well… For about 8 months."
Her face turned into a grimace.
"You remember the throne room in Newtopia? And how… Anne screamed at you? It was like that."
Ouch.
"That bad huh?"
"Yeah… Okay, so there wasn't a coup or anything like that, and nobody got physically hurt, and… Well… I hurt her Sash. BADLY."
Sasha blinked, the admission that it was Marcy who screwed up taking her completely aback.
"And after all of it… Well, I thought it was over. That I'd completely blown it. We spent two months where we both were on the verge of crying when we saw each other. It was absolutely miserable, like… Oh my gosh, it was awful, I was alone, no one to talk to, and like… I'd stand by the entrance to school each morning telling myself that THIS time I'd call out to her and apologize… And then I'd see her, and I'd just… Not do it."
It was… Weird hearing sweet and lovable Marcy talk about her screwing up like this, of her fucking up her own relationship, but… Well, she really shouldn't be such a surprise. Sasha knew better than most that Marcy was not better than herself in that regard. She was fully capable of hurting those who loved her.
Neither of them were perfect.
She also understood what Marcy was trying to say though. Extremely well.
"Like your voice just… Stopped existing as you tried to speak up, and your legs turned to lead every time you tried to move and go talk to her?"
"Yeah… Like that. I tried every single day to talk to her, and I felt like… Well like that. I also felt like… Well like going over and talking to her was an impassable obstacle. Like this boulder that could not be budged. And when I finally did it? Well, I fully expected… I thought she would slap me across the face."
The smile returned.
"Instead, she hugged me, and we both just cried together in the snow. It wasn't entirely smooth sailing from there on, I mean, her parents now absolutely hated my guts, and that continued for a long time, but the big thing? The "boulder" I thought was so impossible? It turned out it was just a stone I could easily push rolling down the hill."
Their talk was at this point interrupted by the arrival of Anne Boonchuy, and all that her arrival entailed.
It took a bit of time to get settled, but as the three of them sat down to watch the penultimate episode of The Stormlight Archives Season 2, Sasha pondered on her and Marcy's talk.
It was a nice talk, and it did help Sasha understand Marcy more, and yes, she got what Marcy had been trying to say about the importance of not letting fear rule your actions… But the overall point, that she could have talked to Anne at any point, and swept Anne off her feet as Sigrid had with Marcy, still remained.
She still felt like… Well like she wasted so much of her life romantically speaking. She was ecstatic about where she was now… But she also KNEW that she could have avoided so much… The heartbreaks, the one-sided pining, watching Anne hook up with two guys who weren't her…
It could all have been avoided if she'd just gone over and talked to Anne back then.
I
As the three of them sat down to watch the big climax of the second season of what was quickly becoming Marcy's favorite anime of the last 4 years, Marcy couldn't help but have her eyes drawn over to glance at Anne and Sasha now and again.
The way Sasha had put her chin resting on Anne's shoulder, the way Anne sat comfortably in Sasha's lap in a way that spoke of not only familiarity but a total trust in the other, the way Sasha's arms had closed firmly but gently, around Anne's waist.
It wasn't like she was jealous. Her and Sigrid could be just as lovey-dovey(Though neither of them were near as big cuddle bugs as Sasha), but… Having just talked to Sasha about it, the sight brought out some melancholy in her.
Marcy understood Sasha. A lot. She understood what it was like to face a point in your relationship where you were absolutely stuck. Like you wanted to move forward. To do something. To make the hurt go away and not have to go home and cry in your room.
But it seemed so impossible, that you just didn't think you could do it.
She knew that… And she knew the feeling of relief of learning that said boulder just… Disappearing. Rolling away down the hill.
Yeah, she knew that feeling very well. The breakup and reconciliation with Sigrid had been the worst time, but she'd had several others over the years.
That part was something that she and Sasha shared, though the circumstances were different.
But there was also something they did not share.
Sigrid had not been the first time Marcy Wu had been in love. Not even the second.
And unlike Sasha with Anne, Marcy had not been wondering if the person she liked back had liked her or not.
She had known.
She had known from the moment she saw Sasha in that cheerleader outfit, trying to lay the moves on Anne, that Sasha had eyes for someone else.
And if she had not just figured it out staring at Sasha and Anne talking that day, feeling her mouth suddenly dry up, she certainly had figured it out as the months went by and Sasha kept trying to get Anne to get it.
Marcy had known, down to her soul, that Sasha did not look at her the way she looked at Anne. That she never would.
Sometimes the boulder was just a rock. A thing that once you gave it a push, it just tumbled downhill under the weight of its own momentum.
But sometimes, it was not. Sometimes it was just what it appeared to be. A mountain that you could not move or budge… And you would just have to learn to live with that fact.
That would have been bad enough… But there had also been another, big romantic problem Marcy had had to face in middle school.
Namely that Sasha wasn't the only person she'd been in love with. Nor had there been a separation of time between her and Anne.
She'd loved both of them, just as much as the other one, at the same time.
That… Would have complicated things immensely, even IF she hadn't had the complication that one of the girls she loved was in love with the other one.
And then there was Anne… Marcy had known that Sasha would not return her feelings. That she only had eyes for Anne. But as for Anne herself? She had not known. There were times when it had seemed like Anne returned all her affection… But then she would see the way Anne would look at Sasha…
The way she'd blush when Sasha looked cool or suave, the way she'd instantly cheer up the moment Sasha touched her, how the two of them would just… Click.
The way she did not do with Marcy.
She hadn't known that Anne had been in love with Sasha. But she had thought so. She'd suspected it, assumed it to be the case. But she hadn't known.
Not until today.
Marcy was not bitter. She wasn't sad, or angry that her best friends had hooked up.
She was happy for them.
Glad that it finally worked out for the two women she loved so much, who'd been pining for each other for years and years, and that they had finally managed to find joy and happiness together.
But… There was a melancholic feeling from finally getting the affirmation.
That Anne HAD always been in love with Sasha. To know it hadn't just been her imagination, her mind seeing things that weren't there.
She now knew.
Sasha and Anne… Even back then… Neither Sasha nor Anne had ever wanted what she did… And that hurt.
