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Enid Sinclair was not having a good day, and it had bled into the late-night hours, too.
The lights were off, and she was flat on her back, looking up at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep.
Wednesday was across the room, sleeping soundly. Enid could hear her even breathing. Things never seemed to bother the goth, at least not to the degree that it interrupted her scheduled 9.5 hours of sleep per night. Enid, on the other hand, had been trying to fall asleep for at least an hour, but scenes from her day wouldn’t stop filtering through her head like a boring movie.
First, she got a D+ on her Potions quiz for Alchemy II, she apparently, didn’t have what it took to turn Lead into Gold. Then, she’d been scooped for what she thought would be an exclusive on who the new Botany teacher was dating by some Jericho High cheerleader who decided to run a competing Vlog for funsies, the normie bitch. Spoiler alert, it was a townie, the most popular English teacher at JHS no less. And hours later her butt was still hurting where she fell on it in Fencing class. She had thrust when she should have parried—or maybe it was the other way around?! She wasn’t a fencing champion like her roommate, and Bianca, too. She’d laughed it off at the time, but it had been right in front of her roomie-turned-girlfriend (if she squinted, they’d kissed three times, well, two and a half, at least, and it was even on purpose), so that was downright embarrassing. She was born with a chill factor of negative fifteen and this helped accentuate that sad state perfectly.
How long did you have to date someone—well, kiss them, but they were totally headed in the direction of dating—before you quit feeling pressure to be cool around them?
Five hundred years?
Til death?!
Heaven, Hell, or the After Life?!
Never?!
Until you married them?! Wait! Marriage? What?! No, she wasn’t going there…yet.
She was still pondering that underlying question, but not the marriage thing, of course.
The one silver lining that came out of that debacle was a blink-and-you-missed-it glimpse of Wednesday’s dimples before she shut that operation down. It seemed to be a default reaction of hers when she saw someone falling. Wednesday was the walking definition of schadenfreude, but when she saw it was Enid her hidden soft side kicked in, and she went all "knight-ess in tarnished armor" on her as she pulled her up and visually inspected her for injuries, on the sly, of course. However, still Enid knew she wasn't imagining things. She never was when Wednesday was involved. If only her quiz had been over that subject, Wednesday 101! She didn’t want to brag but she was pretty sure she had a 4.0 GPA.
The last, and by far the worst, item on the checklist of her awful day was the bedtime text from her whelper (as Wednesday had started to call her since the word mom was too loving and maternal to describe the older wolf). Enid had even changed her contact list accordingly. It made her laugh every time so that lessened the sting of whatever hateful thing Esther was spewing.
Sometime around the start of the second semester, her whelper started texting her “inspirational bedtime messages” which were criticisms she’d not-so-cleverly disguised as motherly advice.
Whelper : You’ve been back over a month now; Enid, and your grades are getting worse. You need to spend more time studying and less on that little web thing of yours. It’s more important than ever that you study and work hard, you don’t have anything else to fall back on anymore. Maybe if that little gorgon you were dating sees that you’re smart he’ll come back to you. Anyway, get some sleep now, it’ll help with your complexion.
It didn’t take someone with Wednesday’s ginormous IQ to decipher what her whelper was referring to when she said she didn’t have anything else to fall back on. Those three red slashes that had taken permanent residence on her face were mentioned daily, though always in subtle ways. Even three thousand miles away, and three time zones, she could always count on her whelper to take a bad day and make it even worse. Subconsciously, her hand reached up to her face. She could feel the slight indentations. It was as healed as it would ever get. Most days between classes, schoolwork, and time spent with friends she’d forget all about them until her nightly reminder came again.
Enid turned over on her left side as though trying to hide that side of her face, suppressing a sigh as she did so. She could hear one of the dozens of Squishmallows that shared her bed hitting the hardwood floor below, it was collateral damage of her restlessness.
Realizing sleep wasn’t going to come anytime soon, she decided to get up to go to the bathroom. Maybe an empty bladder would help speed this whole falling asleep operation along. The only semi-bright spot in the whole debacle was that it was Friday night, so she could sleep in a couple of extra hours before Wends got bored and started playing a cello serenade.
Enid quietly got out of bed, first bending down to retrieve Mr. Squiggles, her tortoiseshell cat Squishmallow from its resting place. She stealthily made her way towards the attached en suite when she heard Wednesday’s voice.
“I can hear you ruminating from here.” She grumbled hoarsely.
Enid had thought Wednesday was asleep. She jumped in fright, and as she did that, she failed to notice the wooden support pole by the entryway to their dorm. That big behemoth did something important like hold up the entire freaking ceiling, or some vital task like that. She wasn’t an engineer or whatever. But that pole had been there the entire freaking year, and every other time she got up to go to the bathroom late at night she had no trouble avoiding it. But for some reason, in her distraction, she’d not noticed the hulking pole. And it wasn’t like she couldn’t see it, she had werewolf nighttime vision, too!
It was an avoidable, and painful, moment of klutziness. The toes of her right foot connected with the beam, bending at the joints.
She simultaneously felt and heard a crack as her poor toes and the support pole united. With a scream, Enid crumpled to the ground, grabbing her foot. The sharp, explosive pain was so all-consuming she was only vaguely aware of the lights being turned on and then Wednesday was kneeling beside her, talking to her. She may be caught one out of every ten words or so.
At one point the goth must have repositioned herself because the next thing Enid noticed was Wednesday tenderly placing her throbbing foot on her lap for a closer inspection of the injury. She flinched as her roommate’s delicate fingers softly probed her toes. Enid barely made out her saying something about them being red and hot to the touch, whatever the hell that meant. She didn’t care, the pain just needed to stop!
She noticed Thing hovering around the periphery at one point before scampering off. Wednesday must have instructed the appendage to perform some sort of menial task. A few seconds later the door opened and then shut, but Enid paid it no heed as, yet another wave of pain broke over her at the slightest hint of pressure.
Enid groaned and tried to bat Wednesday’s fingers away after she touched a particularly sore spot on her fourth toe, but it didn’t deter the stubborn goth.
Finally, the injury inspection was over.
“So, what’s the verdict, doc?”
“Most likely fractured, but it’s hard to tell without a scan. Do you think you can walk?” Wednesday asked.
Honestly, Enid didn’t know the answer to that, so she just shrugged.
“Well, let us give it a try. I will assist you.” Wednesday’s voice was low and flat, but she thought there was a note of concern, or at least slightly above apathy. She’d take it, whatever it was.
Slowly, and laboriously Wednesday got Enid up off the floor. Tentatively, she placed her injured foot on the ground and instantly regretted it. A stream of profanity left her mouth as she lifted her foot back up off the ground.
“So, I take it the answer would be, no?” Wednesday inquired, raising a perfectly shaped brow.
“That would be a big, FAT, hell no,” Enid moaned out.
"I will escort you to the infirmary.”
“No need,” Enid said between clenched teeth. “I’ll feel better in the morning.” She wasn’t convinced that was true, but her desire to stay away from the infirmary was almost greater than her current pain level. Wednesday was a better nurse than anyone on staff at Nevermore, anyway. Her biggest reason to avoid getting it looked at was the fact that she didn’t want to give her whelper any more fodder to use against her. Most mothers would be concerned that their child was in pain, but not Esther. Oh no, this would only show how Enid couldn’t do anything right including walking to the bathroom late at night.
“You need a radiograph, at the very least, Enid.”
“I know, but it’s so late at night…or too early in the morning, to do anything about it now. Just help me over to my bed.” Her voice was pleading. “And no one calls X-rays radiographs.”
“The Addams do,” Wednesday muttered, or at least that’s what Enid thought she heard.
The distance from the entry area—where her new enemy the beam dwelled—to her bed was approximately 15 feet away but it felt three times that distance as she did a complicated hop-hobble shuffle with Wednesday’s arm draped around her waist for support. However, they did a last-minute maneuver and ended up on the opposite side of the room than she was expecting, extending the excruciatingly long journey even further.
“Your bed?” Enid asked, incredulously.
“Well, I thought maybe if you needed something during the night it might be more expeditious this way.”
“Expi-what, itious?”
“You’re not moving very fast right now, Enid, so if you needed something I would rather have you beside me so I could assist you.”
“So, all I heard out of that is that you care about me and want to cuddle me.”
Wednesday huffed and glared in response as she lowered Enid onto her bed.
A few minutes later they were both settled into bed, and Enid had her foot propped up on a couple of pillows. The light from Wednesday’s table lamp perfectly illuminated the crime scene that was her foot. Her toes were now mottled with red and purple bruising, and it had begun creeping down her foot. It still hurt…a lot, but the pain had settled deeper into her bones. That made it more manageable, somehow.
She noticed the seer sitting up studying her injury intently. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Bet you’re thinking how pretty the bruises are.”
Wednesday lifted her gaze from Enid’s foot to her eyes. She didn’t say anything for a beat, then swallowed audibly, before barely whispering out, “Not on you.” She once again averted her eyes after the confession.
“Oh.” Enid knew she could’ve done better but it was all she was capable of at the moment. She was all out of bandwidth. Fortunately, before she could come up with something weird to make things even more awkward, as was her forte, the door opened, and Thing came in dragging something behind him.
It was an ice pack. He must have got it from the community kitchen down the hall.
Wednesday got up to close the door before intercepting the sentient hand, grabbing the ice pack before setting off to find a black towel to wrap it in. Once it was ready, she gently laid it on top of Enid’s swollen foot.
“Thanks, Thing,” Enid called out. The disembodied hand waved and shuffled off to his cushion on the other side of Wednesday’s desk. “And you, too, Wends.”
The seer nodded and then tried to stifle a yawn.
“You should go back to sleep,” Enid said, but then a yawn of her own leaked out. “And so should I.”
“In a few minutes. I want you to ice your foot first. Can I offer you a pain reliever?”
“Oh, an Addams family potion?”
“Ibuprofen,” Wednesday corrected.
“Oh, how plebian,” Enid joked. “But yes, please,” she quickly added before the offer could be rescinded. She didn’t know how she’d fall asleep otherwise with the incessant throbbing.
Wednesday brusquely nodded and then got out of bed to grab the bottle of pain pills which was stashed in the depths of her desk drawer and then detoured over to Enid’s side of the room to grab her purple (Lupine) Hydro Flask. Enid wasn’t sure but it looked like the goth flinched a little as she picked up the water bottle. She flicked the switch to turn off the overhead lights, which left just her table lamp for illumination. She headed back to her side of the room.
Enid gratefully took the proffered medicine and followed that up with a big sip of cold water. She mumbled a thank you over another yawn.
Wednesday switched the lamp off, plunging them into darkness before getting back into her bed. She gently pulled up her black duvet, so it covered both girls but didn’t pull on Enid’s injury. She could feel the goth shift positions beside her. Due to the size constraints of the bed, and Enid’s need to prop her foot up, the only option was for Wednesday to sleep on her right side, so she was facing toward Enid. She didn’t think she’d ever seen her roomie sleep in any position but on her back with her arms crossed like a corpse.
“Comfy?” Enid asked, her voice came out hoarse.
“Yes. Are you?”
“I don’t think comfy will be in my vocabulary for a while,” Enid admitted, “but yeah, I’m okay, all things considered.”
“Enid, I…I, um, well, I…” Wednesday paused for a beat, before continuing. “I mean, I want to apologize for my part in your collision with the column.”
“You’re not to blame for the fact that I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. Besides, if I was going to blame anyone or anything, it’s the support beam. I’m pretty sure it jumped in my path.”
“Yes, well, remind me to tell you about house sometime,” Wednesday said mysteriously. “However, it is too complicated, and too late at night to get into right now. I will remove your ice pack for you, and then you need to get some recuperative sleep. Wake me up if you need anything.”
“Thanks, Wends,” Enid murmured.
She must have drifted off to sleep shortly after that because the next thing Enid was aware of was waking up to the muted light of early dawn creeping through the half-multi-colored (half-plain) window on the far side of their attic dorm room, and the fullness of her bladder. She remembered that her quest to go to the bathroom was suddenly and violently interrupted by the breaking of her toes. Adding further evidence to the validity of that memory was the pain creeping back into said toes. Getting out of bed, broken foot notwithstanding, was going to be a logistical nightmare due to the proximity of Wednesday sleeping soundly. She was just about to psych herself into scooting down the bed, using just one foot for leverage and purchase, when she felt Wends stirring beside her.
“I told you to wake me from my slumber if you needed anything.”
“What?!” Enid inquired defensively. “I wasn’t even moving.”
“You were about to.”
“You can’t prosecute me for a crime I didn’t yet commit.”
“I can, I am psychic. Remember?!”
“Well, then, you know I have to go to the bathroom.”
"That is why I woke up.”
“Really?”
“No,” Wednesday said, dryly.
She got out of bed and then directed Enid to shuffle carefully to the edge so she could help her hobble toward their en suite bathroom. It was a slow go, but Enid felt much better after finally getting to the bathroom and relieving herself. The next project was getting dressed for the day so they could continue the hop/hobbling down to the infirmary across the courtyard from Ophelia Hall. Putting on a raggedy pair of jeans and her favorite pink and orange sweater took way more time than it should’ve.
Enid’s stomach was growling as she hopped along on her new set of metal crutches (made out of a werewolf-safe silver alloy) trailing Wednesday on their way to the dining hall for breakfast. It had been an hour of wasted time to find out that “Dr. Wednesday’s” original diagnosis was correct. Her third, fourth, and pinky toes each had a prominent fracture line running through them. Her foot was in a short black boot, and she was instructed to not put any weight on it for at least 48 hours. Fortunately, with her accelerated werewolf healing, the nurse said she should be fully healed in less than a week, and she could ditch the boot around that time.
They finally reached their destination, and the seer patiently held the door open and waited for Enid to catch up. It was still early on a Saturday, and only a few tables were occupied.
She glanced around the cavernous room until her gaze alighted on a table by the far window where Yoko and Divina seemed to be deep in conversation. Divinia was sipping on a cup of coffee, and Yoko was finishing her blood bag, most likely type A+, which Enid knew was her favorite vintage.
As Wednesday headed over to the food line, Enid slowly crutched over to her friends’ table, hoping they’d make room for two more people. She could tell the exact moment Yoko noticed her.
“Yo, pup, what the hell did you do to your paw?!” Not known for her discretion, this was loudly shouted across the room.
Enid could tell that Divina chastised her girlfriend for that teasing remark but couldn’t hear what she said to her. She didn’t deign to reply until she was finally seated at the table. It took a couple of seconds to catch her breath. She hadn’t been on crutches since she was 12 years old and had sprained her ankle in gym class at her old normie school.
“Broken toes, that stupid support beam jumped in my path on the way to the bathroom last night,” Enid finally panted out.
“You might want to change that story a little bit, maybe jazz it up some,” Divina suggested. “Perhaps you saved a bus full of children in Jericho.”
“Oh, I know, you saved Elvira from being crushed to death by a falling Gargoyle and broken toes were your souvenir,” Yoko countered.
“I already checked that off my bucket list,” Wednesday said as she set down a tray overflowing with food for both Enid and herself, and maybe the rest of the cafeteria, too. “It wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be.”
“Xavier pushed her out of the way, it was like her first full day at Nevermore,” Enid explained at the blank expressions on her friends’ faces. “Turns out Rowan had pushed it off the ledge with his mind.”
“Okay,” Yoko finally replied. “That explains a lot. Well, I’m glad you didn’t die, Addams.”
“Me, too,” Enid said.
Wednesday made a non-committal humming noise in reply and got busy dividing the plates of eggs, bacon, oatmeal, and pancakes between the two of them.
“Thanks, Weds. This is a feast.”
“You are welcome. I did not know what you were in the mood for, so I thought I would give you some choices.”
“All my favorites are well-represented.”
“Yes, well, you are predictable, Sinclair.”
Enid smirked and then took a big bite of maple syrup-smothered blueberry pancakes. A moan of satisfaction slipped through. Yoko and Divina kept up most of the conversation while the other two ate. Enid interjected a comment here or there, but food was the main priority.
Enid was stuffed when they finally made their way back to their dorm room after breakfast. She was ready for a nap, and it wasn’t even 10 AM. Wednesday carefully guided her onto her bed and then propped her crutches against the desk.
“Come join me, Weds.” Enid slid over a little bit, mindful of her foot and the bulky boot. She patted down the area beside her.
“In a moment. I thought you might require some pain relief first.”
“Yes,” Enid replied, drawing the “s” out much longer than required. “Please.” It felt much better since she wasn’t walking on it, but there was still a residual ache.
Less than ten minutes after swallowing the two orange pills, the remaining soreness had faded into the background, and Wednesday swaddled in a black blanket she’d pulled from her own bed, was curled up on her side next to Enid.
“Oh, your house,” Enid said, seemingly out of the blue. She’d just remembered Wednesday mentioning something about that topic last night before they fell asleep (in the same bed—a dream come true, too bad it took broken bones to achieve it).
“Yes, it is widely circulated knowledge amongst the Addams’ family that house is a sentient being. If you pass its test, you are granted entry, but if you fail…Well, we conveniently have a cemetery on the grounds just for that type of situation.”
“Ew, Wends, I wouldn’t mention that to just anyone. Most of us don’t have a murderous house.”
“You are not just anyone, Enid. I trust you wholeheartedly.”
“Aw, thank you. Ditto! But I’m still not sure exactly what this has to do with that post breaking my toe.” She gestured vaguely towards the entryway.
“It just reminded me of the time house changed a doorway on Pugsley, and he couldn’t walk for a month. It was funny.”
“That doesn’t sound funny to me.” It was probably just the power of suggestion, but a twinge of pain went through Enid’s toes.
“You had to be there.”
“Trust me, as the person on this bed with broken toes, that is not funny!”
“No, you are right, your broken toes are not funny, but I can’t say the same thing for Pugsley’s feet.” Wednesday paused briefly and then reached her arm out from where it had been buried under her blanket and tentatively placed it on Enid’s arm. “House would love you. No harm would come to you, I can guarantee that.”
“Wednesday Addams, is that an invitation into your inner sanctum?”
“Maybe a promise?”
“Of?”
Wednesday just shrugged and bit her lip. Enid reached over and lightly pulled on the braid closest to her face.
“We could make it an even three,” Enid whispered in her ear.
“Three is an odd number.”
“I know that; I’m not looking for a math lesson right now…Or, really, ever,” Enid replied. “I was talking about the number of times we…you know, kissed.”
“So, you need a get-well kiss, is that what you’re saying?” Wednesday clarified.
“Yes, that’s exactly what…” Enid didn’t have a chance to finish her thought as Wednesday unsheathed herself from the blanket cocoon and positioned herself on top, studiously avoiding jostling Enid’s injured leg. She lowered her head and their lips softly touched. Enid opened her mouth wider, deepening the kiss. Neither of them was ready for more, but for now, this was more than she had dared to dream about.
When they finally pulled apart, Enid could see that Wednesday’s full, perfect lips were puffy. She felt a deep satisfaction at that.
“Was that an acceptable get-well kiss?”
“Tolerable,” Enid said, smirking. It was always fun to lob a Wednesday-ism back at her when the moment presented itself. But she couldn’t resist adding, “I’m feeling much better now.”
“Good,” Wednesday said.
“Except I could use a nap.”
“I am not surprised. Healing your bones takes a lot of energy. I’m a little tired myself. Someone woke me up last night.”
“I’m sorry my pain kept you up.”
“I’m not. You never have to suffer alone when I'm around.”
Enid wasn’t sure, but it sounded like Wednesday was talking about more than her toes, but before she could comment on that, her eyes shut, and she fell asleep on the person who made her feel safer than she ever remembered feeling before.
--Fin