Chapter Text
The doors of the lift closed, and it started crawling upwards.
Marie blankly stared at the distorted suggestions of her and Callie’s reflections in the brushed steel doors, and idly adjusted her hair. The “mirror” wasn’t really helping, and she had no idea if it was perfect yet or not. Should it be perfect? What was this kid expecting? Did she want to see them looking and talking just like they did on TV, or did they want to see them being normal and down-to-Earth? They were all made up in their usual dresses, so she supposed it was the former.
“It’s gonna be fine. The less you think about what to do, the better,” Callie reassured her quietly. As always, it seemed as though she could read her cousin’s fear like a book.
“I’m sorry, but I…I still don’t get it,” Marie muttered under her breath, throwing her hands up. “A-am I supposed to, like, be all mournful, or something?”. She continued tensely, “I don’t know this person, what if it doesn’t come naturally? I don’t wanna look like a heartless asshole, and I definitely don’t wanna fake emotions.”
“Of course not, because she’s not dying. You’ve just got to be proud of her, Marie.” Callie replied calmly, “Tell her she’s being incredibly brave, tell her she’s gonna kick this thing’s ass , and tell her you’re super-duper proud of her.” she elaborated, as though it were easy. “ That’s not fake, is it?”.
Marie sniffled nervously. “Of course it isn’t, I am proud,” she agreed. She almost felt prepared, until another anxiety came over her. “Just…” she wondered how to say this without it sounding bad. “...whatever you do, please don’t cry at anything, ok?”.
Probably not like that.
“Why not?” Callie asked, furrowing her brow, which affirmed to Marie that it did, in fact, sound bad.
“Because we both know what’s gonna happen.” she immediately snapped under her breath. As always, her stress was making her get antsy now, but Callie didn’t seem to rise to it, still listening neutrally. Marie’s cousin knew her well, she knew how worried she was about getting things right - and she knew how badly she coped with it sometimes . “You know I don’t cry at anything, and you know I’m not a heartless asshole. But that’s not what other people see,” she explained, “When this all gets shoved in the PR-machine, they’re all gonna see you crying and me, like, not-that. They’re gonna see that and think I’m a heartless asshole!” she hissed.
“You’re not a heartless asshole, stop calling yourself that,” Callie attempted to console her.
“I never said I was! I…” for a moment Marie lost her momentum, clutching at her dress roughly where she felt her heart beating. “…I know I’m not. But that’s not what other people see.” Marie reiterated firmly, teetering on the edge of anger.
“Who cares what they think? This is about helping a poor kid, not about your image.” Callie reminded her, with no ill will attached.
“I know it’s not!” Marie snapped, raising her voice, and clearly taking it personally anyway. “Cod, not you as well…” she muttered under her breath. She was pricked by a twinge of self-loathing. She wanted to insist it was all just about getting this right for the kid, and about giving her what she wanted to see, but what if she really was just a huge narcissist? This kid is gonna die, and all I can think about is my reputation, she thought to herself, and almost winced at how it felt.
But did she not have a right to be concerned? When she had dug her public image into such a deep pit of snarkiness, caked in 15 layers of irony? Maybe she just wanted to be seen for who she was by someone other than Callie for once, and maybe this was her chance, so sue her.
…But maybe they were right. Maybe she was an awful person, and maybe that was just the way people liked her. Maybe she never cried at anything because she was a sociopath. But would sociopaths care this much about the fact that they’re awful people? She didn’t know. All she really knew was that there was probably a reason Callie always wore her heart so proudly on her sleeve, and she didn’t.
Callie’s heart was something pure and beautiful. Something to always be proud of. To be celebrated. Hers was probably something cold and uncaring. Something to be ashamed of. To be hidden.
The ping of the lift sent a jolt through her body, and pulled her out of her thoughts. The door slid open, leading them out into the hallway where the children’s ward resided.
Seemingly undeterred, Callie took Marie’s hand and squeezed it, a small gesture of understanding to her cousin’s outburst moments prior. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. And…it’s gonna be fine. Just cheer up, because that’s what she wants to see, and it’d do you some good as well,” she whispered, before letting it go and stepping out into the hallway.
Marie took a deep breath, held her hand up to her face and tried to figuratively “swipe” away her pained expression, and exhaled. She followed Callie to the patient’s room, rushing to catch up, and then slowing down right behind her, with her hands raised cautiously as though she were tiptoeing.
The two girls then arrived outside the door, where the girl was blissfully unaware of their arrival on the other side. Callie turned back around and looked Marie in the eye.
“Ready?” She muttered, not to be heard from the other side of the door.
“…sure…” Marie mumbled unconvincingly.
“C’mon, give us a smile, just a little more love!” Callie whispered excitedly, grabbing Marie’s cheeks and pulling her face into an exaggerated grin, making her laugh ever so slightly.
It started fading as soon as Callie took her hands off of it, but Marie didn’t let it disappear entirely, settling for a bashful half-smile, which definitely counted for something, considering how much she had been dreading this.
Callie nodded, and put her hands on Marie’s shoulders. It seemed to be acceptable to her, but few things weren’t. “Much better, isn’t it? A little’s enough!”. Callie’s forced but endearing reference to one of Marie’s favourite songs made her chuckle again, and her smile inched a little wider. “Now, give us a catchphrase!” Callie eagerly pressed onward.
“Stay freeeeeesshhh… ” Marie obliged her nervously, as high pitched and as joyously as she could muster without raising her volume, and holding it until she ran out of air, and it started to peter out.
“I’ll take it! Good luck!”
Marie was about to apologise for being stupid enough to lash out at one of her only advocates back in the elevator, but then she realised Callie was already gone, and the door was halfway through swinging shut again.
Shit, guess we’re going now, she thought.
“Hold on to your tentacles…”
“...It's Inkopolis News time!” Marie scrambled into the room just in time to finish the line, striking her pose. This wasn’t something Callie had discussed doing with her beforehand, so she just let her take the lead with the unexpected improv Inkopolis-news-shtick, and did her best to bounce off of it. The girl in the bed screamed ecstatically when she saw who was there, and started laughing, so apparently it was a hit.
“Today we’ve got an exclusive interview with a very special guest!” Callie continued gleefully, sliding up to the hospital bed. “Pleeeaassseee welcomee…” she added, seemingly to make Marie’s job even easier.
Marie stopped dead in her tracks. This did not help. At all. Was she supposed to know this girl’s name in advance? She stood still as a statue, eyes darting around nervously, as if there’d be an answer somewhere. Everyone looked at her expectantly. It was then that she noticed the cameraman huddled in the corner of the room, also looking at her expectantly. Seeing it cast a shadow over her soul, and the room felt colder and more cynical. It was as though instead of letting down one of her dearest fans, she had forgotten her lines in a cereal commercial. The seconds scraped by, and Marie wished she could disappear alongside them. It wasn’t her fault some dipshit in management hadn’t given her the memo on the girl’s name, but that’s not what other people saw.
They saw that Marie was a heartless asshole who couldn’t even be bothered to commit to memory the name of her latest PR stunt.
“...Angela Pasquale!” Callie suddenly chimed in, as though she had meant to say it herself the whole time. Everybody clapped for her, as though nothing had happened and the twat in green didn’t exist.
Marie thought she could feel Callie glaring at her though, and with her back turned to the camera, mouthed “They didn’t tell me!” at her. Callie nodded understandingly, and Marie wondered if she had even been glaring in the first place, or if she had overanalyzed neutral eye contact.
The girls shook hands with Angela’s parents and exchanged pleasantries (if they could even be called that when it was Marie’s turn), before sitting down at her bedside.
It was then that Marie noticed the plushie in her likeness tucked into the bed, next to the girl. There wasn’t a Callie one, so clearly this girl had had to choose one or the other, and had chosen… correctly…? Part of her felt the pressure of being the childhood hero even worse after making such a terrible first impression, but then she saw that the girl was still smiling, and tried to interpret it as herself getting a bit more leeway to screw up. She wondered why she was this girl’s favourite, she knew the kind of fans she had attracted with her shtick, and this girl, thankfully, didn’t seem like the type.
She also didn’t seem to be doing well, at all. Marie’s understanding of her situation going into this was conflicted; she’d had people, including Callie, telling her the girl was “a real fighter”, “incredibly strong”, and “making impressive progress” - but she’d also looked the girl’s illness up online, and what she’d found basically said that, at her stage, she wasn’t going to make it another year.
A quick search had told Marie that about 6000 people died from this stage of the illness every year, and 57 people had made a full recovery from it in all of history. This was end of life care, and the parents likely knew that, even if it definitely wouldn’t be coming up today. The girl was pretty, yet paler and thinner than anybody else Marie had ever met (Harmony didn’t count, as the standards for what was healthy were different with sea anemones). What was most noticeable, however, was her tentacles - they were almost completely greyed, and gangrenous, with an uneven and porous texture to them. There were flushes of red irregularly scattered around the grey, but Marie had no idea if that was their original colour yet surviving, or internal bleeding under the translucent surface, if such a thing was even survivable. Armed with a half-remembered chart of the stages Marie saw on Google images the night before, it seemed to her that the tentacles were all but dead, and it was now just a question of how long her humanoid form could survive without them.
“It’s so nice to meet you!” Callie continued, snapping Marie out of her cynicism and into the real world once again. She took Angela’s hand in both of hers, and enthusiastically shook it. Angela smiled brightly and giggled gleefully, even if it was clear that the “shaking” part of the handshake was rather one sided. The hand fell back down to the bed almost as soon as Callie let go of it.
“Nice to meet you too,” said Marie. “Angela,” she added, both to make a point to the girl of actually knowing her name, and to clarify that she was adding to Callie’s greeting, not responding to it. Similarly, she cupped the girl's hand in her own hands, but in that moment, she decided against shaking it. Somehow, it felt more right to just let it rest there, with a reassuring squeeze. She gently ran her right thumb across the girl’s hand, over and over.
Angela looked over at her parents and squealed again. “OH MY COD!!! THANK YOUUU!!” she screamed with uncontrollable excitement. The parents smiled and nodded. Angela then turned to face Marie “I-IS IT REALLY YOU???” she asked, not lowering her volume at all, despite Marie being right there.
She smiled and nodded. “Sure is. Don’t believe me?”, she chuckled. She momentarily took her hands off the girl, to remove the white glove from her left hand, revealing a scar on the back of it. “Check it out,” she said, returning the hand to the girl. “That’s the 100% authentic scar from Callie whacking me with a bug net 11 years ago.”. It was certainly one way of proving herself to be the real Marie, but she wondered if what she had just done actually made any sense - the specific broadcast where she had shown that off probably didn’t even exist anymore.
Angela squealed with excitement again, and eagerly ran her thumb over the scar, as though she were St Thomas witnessing the second coming of Christ. “Oh my cod!” was all she could think to say again. “It really is you!!”.
Marie smiled. The girl got the reference, not bad at all. “I sincerely hope you didn’t actually doubt that,” she replied, chuckling. The girl laughed too and shook her head. At that point, however, Marie realised she wasn’t sure what to say next.
Were they gonna talk about the girl? The only things she knew about Angela right now was that Marie was her favourite, and that she had a terminal illness, and neither of them seemed appropriate for her to mention. They couldn’t just talk about themselves either, right?
“So what’s your favourite song then?” Callie interjected, saving Marie once again. It wasn’t a bad idea, actually, Marie thought.
The girl paused for a second, seeming to place a lot of importance on getting this right. “...I love Colour Me!” she chirped up eventually.
Callie seemed surprised by this. “You mean, like, the Ink me Up demo, from the deluxe edition?”. Angela nodded.
Marie laughed, impressed at the girl’s willingness to dig deeper than the big singles. “The song was, like, 40% done in that demo, if I’d known that I wouldn’t have bothered the other 60%!”, she joked.
Angela laughed too. “The final version is good too!” she reassured Marie, “I just…I really like how raw it all sounds, it’s really unique coming from you guys. Plus it has the guitar solo, I really liked that, why did it get removed?”.
Hearing that was weirdly vindicating for Marie, who also had her own occasional grievances with the pursuit of poppy perfect-pitch. “I assure you, that wasn’t me,” she answered, laughing, “In both senses of it. The solo was, like, that was my friend Noiji - from the Chirpy Chips, you know him?”
The girl nodded.
“Yeah, he made that…and then it was Shy-Ho-Shy who insisted on taking that out to be more ‘radio-friendly’.” She explained, air-quoting where appropriate. She smiled, as Angela was clearly excited to be getting the inside scoop on all her favourite songs.
“What, that’s messed up!” Angela laughed, clearly sharing in Marie’s frustration rather than blaming her for it. Marie noticed a sudden glint in her eye, however, as she seemed to remember something she was dying to know, now that she had an audience with the girls behind the magic. “Wait, can I ask a kinda random question?”.
“Sure, go ahead,” said Marie, smiling. She was starting to get the hang of this now, and feeling less weird about it, and more like she was just catching up with an old friend of hers.
“So, like, my other favourite song is, uh, 701 nanometres…”
Oooh, wow, another deep cut, Marie thought to herself, sensing a true fan.
“…it’s not as danceable, obviously, but it’s one that’s really, really special to me, and, like, a while ago I think I might’ve figured out what the title means, and I was always kinda curious if I was right or not…” she continued.
“Oooh, you’ll have to ask Callie about that one,” said Marie, looking up at Callie, “lyrics and stuff is moreso your domain, isn’t it?”. Callie nodded.
Angela seemed surprised. “Oh, I thought you wrote that one, Marie!” She said, “It always kinda sounded like something you might write, and, y’know, obviously you sing the most lines on it.”
“You're not far off, actually!” Callie interjected. “I’ll admit, I was kinda thinking of Marie when I wrote that one.” She then added.
Was Marie hearing that right? She perked up suddenly - it surprised her, but she realised it probably shouldn’t have. Of all the songs her cousin had ever written for them to perform together, that one had always felt special to her. It was one she found herself mumbling the words of to herself whenever she felt uneasy, as if it was a mantra she felt she needed to live by. She wanted to say something about it, but opted to let the two girls keep talking, as she’d never actually gotten her head around the title herself, and wanted to see where this was going.
“Awww, that’s so sweet of you!” Angela exclaimed, beaming. “But anyway, my theory was, like, is it something to do with the visible light spectrum?” she asked. “...Colour being used as a symbol of, like, who somebody is as a person is a bit of a recurring theme in all your stuff, and the visible light spectrum ends at 700 nanometres, so…”, she explained.
Callie’s eyes immediately lit up, ecstatic to see someone actually understand the weirdest little nuance she’d ever written, perhaps for the first time. “Yes! That’s exactly it!” she exclaimed, with the same energy she’d put into hosting a game show worth millions just a week prior. “I went with it because I loved that idea of, like, a colour that was so incomprehensibly beautiful, that people couldn’t actually see it…”
Typical Callie, and…this was a song about her? Marie almost wanted to blush, it was somehow one of the sweetest things she’d heard said about herself in her entire life, even if it wasn’t said directly. She often felt like she didn’t quite understand herself, but it was a nice sentiment that sat right with her in a way few things did.
Angela got overexcited all over again. “Oh my cod! Seriously!? I’ve been wondering about that for ages!” She gasped in disbelief. She then turned to Marie and smiled. “I’ve always really liked that idea though, it suits you,”.
And just like that, the record was broken again already. Marie was unsure of what to say for a few moments, as she continued stroking the girl’s hand with her thumbs. “Awww…thank you…” was the simple sentiment she nervously settled for.
“No, thank you,” the girl deflected back, “...I really didn’t think anything would come of it, but the reason I really wanted to meet you two was because…because you’ve been a really big inspiration to me.” She admitted, with a humble and honest smile. “Especially you, Marie,” she added, “You’re, like, my role model.”.
Marie gave up keeping score on sweet things at this point. Hearing such praise was almost sickly, however. “Why me?” was all she could think to ask. She tried to frame it as a question about her relevance to the experience of being terminally ill, but deep down she knew it was really a question of how she was even halfway worthy of such a title - could Angela not see, like, the perfect physical embodiment of everything good and everything kind in the world sitting right across from her?
“I…” Angela seemed to find it hard to describe. “...I don’t know how to describe this without it sounding rude.” She admitted, laughing.
Marie furrowed her brow, unsure of why one’s reasoning for choice of role model would be something to take offence at.
“...Like, I remember seeing you two on the TV for the first time, before I was diagnosed,” she began. “And I was immediately a fan, and I immediately decided that I wanted to be a pop star too when I grew up, it looked like so much fun!” she reminisced gleefully.
Marie imagined that as the first chapter of a famous autobiography, and found herself longing for a world where that was the case. She was surprised to see the girl’s face turn more sorrowful.
“...But the more I thought about it, the more it really felt impossible…” she continued, looking down. “I thought you needed to be perfect to make it in the business, and I knew that I wasn’t…”.
Marie saw that Callie’s smile had slipped away too. Both girls listened with full attention.
“...I was shy at school, I didn’t have any real friends. I looked awful in all my selfies. Some kids would even bully me, and call me a weirdo…” she reflected on her life in perfect tense, as though it were already over, wise beyond her years.
Marie hated that she knew the feeling. What little she knew of this girl was too sweet, she didn’t deserve to grow up with it too, let alone have it be the only side of life she ever lived to see. And she was pretty, even after the illness had taken its toll (She couldn’t help admitting the tentacles even looked kinda cool, honestly). She didn’t like hearing people disparage themselves like that, even though she totally did the exact same sometimes.
“...But I begged my mum for the deluxe edition of your self-titled album on my birthday, and that’s when I heard 701 nanometres for the first time. Back when it still wasn’t on Splatify, remember?”.
Callie and Marie nodded. They hated to admit it, but the label’s timed exclusivity scheme on that second disc had been pretty damn effective in driving CD sales.
“...And I’ll never forget hearing that song for the first time.” said Angela. She looked up at Marie again “Just…hearing your voice, the voice of this super-pristine pop star I admired…singing so earnestly, about what felt like the story of my life.”. She laughed nervously, “Please please please don’t take this the wrong way but, like…that was when I realised you weren’t actually 'perfect', and that I didn’t need to be either…”.
Marie almost tried to laugh off the girl’s frankness, but she couldn’t. Somehow, hearing that still made her feel fuzzy inside. It was strangely euphoric to feel like she was a part of something good for once. Last time she had been “a part of” something, it was having something she said to Callie on the News show get turned into a super-popular meme format for mocking people’s haircuts.
“...And it really changed my, like, perspective, I guess. I still saw you being loved by everybody and making your dreams come true, but now I also saw your nervous fidgeting on the In Concert in Paris blu-ray. I saw that interview where you were embarrassed to admit that you still liked Hello Squiddy.” She recalled, with an unusual talent for storytelling, that made Marie wonder if she really could’ve made it in the entertainment world if she was healthy. “...And this is gonna sound really bad, but I also noticed how crooked your teeth were for the first time,”
On any other day, Marie would’ve been offended to have the ugly truth about her teeth confirmed by someone else, but on this day she just laughed heartily. “What does that have to do with anything!?”.
Angela seemed happy to know no offence was taken, and laughed too. “It’s because, like, mine are as well. It used to really get to me, I thought I was never gonna be beautiful because of it,” she recalled, “but then I realised that yours had been too this whole time and, I don’t know, it really stuck with me…like, I realised that nobody cared, and neither did I. You’re still one of the prettiest girls in Inkadia, and I could be too.”.
Hearing that reminded Marie of herself as a kid. Being born with grey hair that only coloured at the tips was technically a genetic disorder, and she had known that all too well. But she remembered seeing beautiful women with equally grey hair on TV for the first time, and feeling so much better about herself. And now with herself on the TV too, she felt like it was on the verge of becoming a proper fad (though the idea of being the one to start that frightened her, because greying manually was an irreversible procedure).
But she wondered if she maybe ought to smile more on TV, hearing Angela talk about it made something that was once a point of self-consciousness feel more like something to be proud of.
And it was only then that she actually mentally processed the fact that she had genuinely just been called the “prettiest girl in Inkadia”. Somehow, that bit just didn’t feel as important to her as the rest of it. It wasn’t what she had been waiting so long to hear.
“But uh, yeah…I guess what I’m trying to say is, like, you showed me that I didn’t need to be perfect to achieve my dreams. That, like, my anxiety didn’t have to stop me from being a performer if I truly wanted to be up on a stage more than anything else . And that I didn’t need, like, flawless teeth or whatever, to look and feel beautiful…” she explained passionately.
Marie’s lip trembled, and she squeezed the girl’s hand even harder. “That’s…” she tried to think of something profound to say. “...that’s beautiful, Angela. I’m so glad to hear it,”. It was somehow all she could think to say, she didn’t care that it sounded generic. Only two other people in that room existed to her, and those two both knew that she meant it with all her heart.
“Thanks… Marie,” said Angela, seemingly still a little shaken by the fact that her hero was sitting right next to her, holding her hand, and being so moved by her story. “I…I know this is supposed to be about me, but while you’re here, I just wanted to say that I’m really, really proud of you. I know it’s not easy to do what you do, especially when it’s scary sometimes, but you keep giving it your all anyway…and I really hope you know how inspiring it’s been...”.
“...I didn’t, but, thank you…” Marie mumbled, almost embarrassed. She wasn’t used to being this vulnerable, and she wasn’t used to feeling any of this. Maybe the girl was right, though, she had never thought of it that way herself. It occurred to her now that she had spent so much of her time as a popstar trying and failing to keep up with Callie, that she had never really turned around to look at how far she had really come in doing so.
“No, Thank you ,” Angela sniffled, “really, you have no idea. I’d always wanted to join the Drama club…but it was your music that gave me the courage to actually do it…”. It would’ve been the happy ending of any other story, but Marie could see the increasing pain on the girl’s face, and it betrayed that. “…I…words cannot describe how thankful I am that I did that…” Angela said, but then tried to anyway. “I made so many amazing friends…they were all here just last week, actually.”. She looked over Marie’s shoulder and nodded slightly, indicating to something.
Marie turned around and saw a table on the far side of the room, piled sky-high with colourful cards, gathered around a weighted-down “get well soon!” Helium balloon.
“ …Mind if I have a look?”. Angela nodded. She gently let go of her hand, and walked over to the table, with Callie following her. Both girls carefully removed a card from the cornucopia of love at random, and flipped it open:
Dear Juliet/Angela
(Figured I would address this card to both, since you basically became her on the day of the performance. It was honestly a little scary!) (in a good way!)
We were absolutely gutted to hear the news, but we know you’re gonna be ok! I mean seriously, you wouldn’t even look at any of us on your first day, and you were lead role a few months later. We’ve established by now that you’re not normal!
And it really can’t come soon enough. We miss you now, and without knowing it, we had missed you before you even joined. Don’t tell Emily I said this, but her baking just isn’t as good as yours.
From Darren!
PS: In case you were wondering, I was the one who asked Mr Seehorn to cast Gilmour as Paris. Literally as soon as he knew you were Juliet he started trying way too hard to land Romeo, so I saw an opportunity to do some trolling :p
Marie smiled as she finished reading the card, and quietly laughed to herself. She looked back up across the room at the girl on the receiving end of all this love, and understood it completely. She felt such a strange yet fulfilling sense of pride to have been part of it in some way. To have been the trigger cause.
Marie had always been iffy about the parasocial relationships, which was at least part of the reason she had dreaded coming here, and yet now that she had spoken to Angela it felt strangely right. She felt like she had been walking beside Angela all along without realising, like she would find a card in her name somewhere on the table if she looked hard enough.
Marie carefully put the card back where she had found it, but felt a chill down her spine as she did so. It clicked down on the table like she was adding a candle to a vigil. The girl had talked so much about her big dreams, so much about the music, so much about… normal things… that Marie had almost forgotten why they were even in the same room in the first place:
Because none of it was going to happen, and Angela was dying.
At the height of her admiration for the girl, that fact was returning like a tidal wave, leaving her with a lump in her throat. The girl seemed so unwilling to let her illness define her that, for a moment there, Marie had stopped defining her by it too. She had let herself feel truly attached to something so transient.
She stepped back to get a look at the table, and her eyes felt weak as she saw it for what it was. The end of a truly beautiful and treasured era. One that ended too soon, and one that would go out in denial.
And then Callie finished reading the card that she had taken out. “Awwww, this is amazing, Angela!” She called out across the room, putting it back. “All these people…they’re so thankful to be friends with you!”
“I should be thanking them,” Angela replied, without really projecting her voice at all. “They were all so welcoming, in a way I never thought people could be…”.
Marie dreaded where the story was likely headed.
“…I finally felt like I belonged somewhere…it was amazing…” the girl looked down, “I know it didn’t last long, I know I should’ve done it so much sooner, but I’m just glad I got to do it at all. Before I-“
The word got caught in her throat, it was as though the sentence was physically painful to finish. Her lip trembled. Marie braced herself.
“B-Before I-!”
Angela burst into tears. She couldn’t do it.
Marie nervously looked around the room, unsure of what to do, and briefly trapped herself in eye contact with her parents. What was that face they were making? Was that a ‘what did you do to her?’ glare? She quickly looked back at Angela.
What was she supposed to say?
Callie stood still with a pained expression.
“I just want to go back…” Angela sobbed quietly, “I just want to go back…”, she repeated.
Marie saw a conflicted look on Callie’s face. Even she seemed unsure of what to say. Marie realised then that, the whole time, somewhere deep down Callie probably hadn’t believed a word she had said about Angela recovering. Nobody had.
But Marie just couldn’t bear to watch her surrendering to despair, and watch her realise now what her parents had known for months.
With a sense of purpose, yet an apparent fear of confronting it, she shuffled back over to the plastic chair by the bedside, and scooched it a little closer. She held her arms out wide. With what little strength she had for anything other than screaming, Angela lifted herself up, sat on the side of the bed, and collapsed back down into Marie’s embrace. Marie held on tight to her. She slowly stroked the girl’s back, as a gesture of reassurance while she cautiously deliberated over what it was that she needed to say.
“You will go back…” Marie whispered finally. Going into this, she had made herself a strict rule against lying about prognosis, but this didn’t count. It didn’t count, because she wanted it to be true, more than anything else she had ever wanted. She would’ve gladly woken up the next day to the sight of her entire entertainment empire crumbling all around her, if it meant Angela got better, and that Angela took her place. None of it mattered.
“...I really hope you know how brave you’ve been…” Marie continued, hardly thinking about what she was saying, and just letting it flow. “...both in the Drama club, and in persevering through this…”. She swallowed nervously, and stroked Angela’s back. “...you will go back...and me and Callie are going to be so, so proud of you…we already are…”.
The crying was getting louder, but Marie could sense there was something different about it. They weren’t sobs of despair anymore, they were overwhelmed tears. The tears of someone who had just been told what they wanted to hear for so long, and by the voice they held in the highest regard of all. Someone who was crying into that voice’s shoulder, with no real idea how they got there, and for the first time, learning to believe that they were doing more than biding time.
She looked over Angela’s shoulder at her cousin, who was returning to her own seat. Callie looked truly proud of her, more than ever before, and …had tears in her eyes. Marie wasn’t even mad. All she saw was that she had given Angela the courage to live, and that she had made her own role model proud.
She had done something good. That fleeting moment of release from all of her self-image problems was a feeling she would never forget.
Marie stayed there, unmoving, until the crying stopped. She leaned back finally, and placed her hands on Angela’s shoulders. “Feeling better now?” she asked. Angela nodded weakly.
“And by the way,” Angela looked over her shoulder to see Callie talking. “I just wanted to let you know that, like, I believe in you too. We all do, you’re gonna kick this thing’s BUTT!” She exclaimed joyously, even if the tears were still visible on her cheeks. Angela smiled again. “And you know it’s true if Marie says it,” she added, smiling mischievously, “Trust me, if she thought you weren’t gonna make it she would not have lied about it,”
“Hey! Sue me for always being honest about things!” Marie retorted in mock-offence.
Angela started giggling through the remnants of her tears. Marie had not expected to find themselves slipping so suddenly into their TV personas, but when she heard that sound it felt right.
“Anyway!” Callie said, sensing that Marie was probably ready to start letting her take the lead again, which was certainly true, “If you’re ready Angela, then me and Marie have some very special gifts for you!”
Angela clearly wasn’t up for anymore fangirl screams, but she still smiled and nodded.
Callie nodded back, and stood up “Ok, bear with me just a second then!” she said, before leaving the room to retrieve the bag she’d left at the front desk.
Marie reached into one of the absolutely tiny pockets on her dress, and retrieved her permanent marker, ready for the armageddon of signings that awaited her. It was a white one, because most of the merchandise was predominantly black or navy-blue. She’d searched just about every stationary shop in Inkopolis the day before just to get one, with online delivery not being an option that close to the day, and the supply+demand of white stationary being as low as one might expect.
“By the way,” Angela said suddenly, making Marie perk up and look at her. “I also just wanted to say that, like…”
“Yeah?” enquired Marie.
“...Even if I don’t become a pop star, you’ve inspired me in other ways.” she said, “When I was first diagnosed, and when my tentacles first started turning grey, I was kinda scared by it.” she continued, “...But now, whenever I feel down about it I’ve started looking at pictures of you, and they make me feel pretty again.”.
Marie smiled again upon hearing that. “That’s wonderful, I’m so glad to hear it,” she said. “And yeah, when this is all over you’re gonna come out of it with the coolest-looking hair ever, trust me,” she gave Angela a lopsided grin, the very same one that had inspired Angela prior to her illness. “Not only that, but it’s gonna have an absolutely badass backstory to go with it. Your fans are gonna love it.”.
Angela smiled back, “Yeah, that would be nice, but…even just having the Drama club kids see it would be nice.” she said.
Marie nodded. Seeing how humble Angela was made her heart feel warm.
She heard footsteps coming up the hallway, however, and both of them turned to look at the door. That was Callie, no doubt. Marie already knew what was going to happen now: knowing Callie, she was probably going to burst in and do a terrible Santa impression with the sack of merchandise, Marie was then going to tease her for it, and come in and correct it with pitch-perfect accuracy. Through all of this, Angela was going to laugh.
She smiled. It sounded like a good plan to her.