Chapter Text
‘I like you.’
What did that mean, exactly?
Marcy thought about those words more than she’d ever done before.
Like, love. Was there a difference?
She stared at the panel she was currently drawing. Should she use love instead? She was mildly aware that love should be stronger than like. But… by how much? She told her parents that she loved them. She told her best friends that she loved them. But for some reason, telling them that she liked them was… impossible.
Different kinds of love. Love for friends, family, a romantic partner, a sexual partner.
She put the stylus down, resting her head on the back of her gamer chair. It wasn’t very good for drawing, but she’d won it in a steamer’s giveaway and she couldn’t afford anything better. Not if she wanted to keep visiting LA to meet with her friends, anyways.
Friends. She’d only recently reconnected with them… meaningfully. They’d all had to go through some… heavy stuff over the years. Anne with an existential crisis. Marcy still had nightmares and panic attacks related to the Core. And Sasha had been too scared of fucking up again to get too involved.
Still, things were better now.
Marcy wanted to believe that, anyways.
She stared at her phone. Sasha had sent a few stickers as a reaction to Anne’s picture of one of the toads she kept in the aquarium. It was a cute pic. Marcy heart-reacted to it.
Hearts. Love. Did Marcy love that frog? Of course not, what a pedantic and stupid question. But she did love the fact that Anne had sent it. That she was engaging with it, and with Anne’s passion.
Neither of the girls currently read Marcy’s webcomic. Sasha said she’d liked it, but it had hurt a lot to try reading it when she thought Marcy was ignoring them. Anne hadn’t had the time to do anything other than glance at it.
Part of her wanted them to read it. A bigger part wished they didn’t. Because then they’d see her deepest thoughts turned fantasy. A fun adventure that hid some of her darkest trauma. A story about self-discovery inspired by what they all had gone through.
What if they saw the main character being in love with her two best friends and figured it was Marcy? The parallels were so obvious they made Marcy want to go back in time and slap her younger self for not thinking of the consequences of her actions.
And now, finally, the confession scene.
Like, love. What should she use?
Right now, if she sent ‘I love you’ through the chat, the girls would probably reply with the same.
But what if she sent ‘I like you’?
She shook her head. It was ten thirty. Anne would probably be asleep anyways, and Sasha may be, or she could be drinking and watching TV like she liked to do on empty nights.
Marcy usually lived in the night. But since reconnecting with the girls, she’d made a bit of an effort to change her schedule—she went to sleep at around four AM instead of around seven or eight like before. It gave her more time to talk with them.
She put the phone down. Speaking of the time, it was pretty late. Maybe she should grab something to eat.
Standing, she stretched for a moment before walking out of her room.
Maybe one day she’d stop being such a coward and confess. But until then… She was craving a burger.