confusifying | wicked | book 3/3

Nessa

I look at the doll in my hand, then back up at my sister.
She has an annoying grin on her face, I have this slight urge to hit her.
Elphaba marches over to my old bed excitedly, she jumps onto it and crosses her legs playfully.
I push myself over to the bedside and continue to stare blankly at her.
"Aren't you supposed to be the serious one?" I ask, rolling my eyes, Elphie moves her doll towards mine and makes it shake its head.
"Nope." She answers in a irritating, squeaky voice, "not today!"
I roll my eyes once again.
"Are you not going to talk to me normally?" I huff.
And again, Elphaba makes the doll shake it's head.
I sigh deeply, Elphaba continues to grin.
"You sound sad, perhaps a hug will cheer you up," my sister cries in that same voice, all of a sudden, she makes her doll leap over and embrace the one I'm holding.
Out of shock I drop mine onto the blanket.

"Elphaba I'm done with this!" I bark, Elphie flinches, slowly she sets her doll down.
I take a deep breath and prepare for the monologue that had been brewing up inside of me for the longest time.
"I don't get it, I'm nothing but blunt and horrible to you. Why? Why are you so persistent in talking to me?" I shout.
Elphaba blinks quickly, like that of a baby doll after it's been laid down.
"Because I shut you out before when you needed me and I left you to die." Elphaba sobs "I'm not abandoning you again, your my sister. I don't care how horrible you are to me, I know that you love me."

All of a sudden I'm overwhelmed with emotion.
"No" I cry "I won't accept that, I've always been so awful to you, I don't understand how anyone could say that they love me."
Elphaba takes a shaky step towards me but I push myself backwards as she does so.
"Ness don't be so hard on yourself, no one here has been wonderful all the time."
"But your so much better than me, in every way. Your smarter, you don't hold grudges, you don't seem to get caught up in your thoughts like I do. Why? Why are you so much better than me? You've been through so much more than I have. I just don't understand!"
I catch my breath for a few seconds, gasping for air, Elphaba looks at me she seems mildly stunned.
"Ness..." She mumbles, her voice fading slightly "Nessa your always so hard on yourself."

I push myself away from the bed, Elphie goes to follow me but thinks better of it.
"It's odd." I comment, looking around the room "we lived almost half our lives in this room, and we spent most of it together." I pause after saying that.
"We needed each other." Elphaba splutters, "we still need each other."
I nod my head.
"Father was a cruel man." I say coldly.
"Nessa..."
"It's true, he forced you to need me. It wasn't your choice."
Elphaba can't say that I'm wrong, because I'm not.
Father deprived her of knowing me for the first year or so and then thrust me upon her.
It was her duty to love me.
As it was mine to be the pinnacle of our bloodline.
I was the final Thropp, everyone else felt forced to love me.
Random Munckins whom I'd never even met would stop my father on the street to sing my praises.
School teachers begged my father to allow me to attend their classes.
He never allowed me to, after what happened at my first school I was to be tutored hence forth.

My sister and I were both the first of our kinds, she was the only child born of an unnatural complexion and I have been the only child born with physical life long deformities.
I'm was not, nor am I now, the only wheelchair user in Oz.
But I am the only one born with the need to use one consistently, others developed the need to use one later in life.
But everyone only loved me because they felt sorry for me, love was all they could give me but it always felt backhanded, I grew ashamed of myself because I believed them to be hiding their shame of me.

Elphaba hasn't replied to me.
"It's true." I say coldly "father made your care about me, you didn't have a choice."
Elphaba breaks my stare, instead she fixates her eyes upon my bed.
"That has nothing to do with now." She says sternly "nothing has changed Ness."
"Yes it does!" I cry, getting flustered "you wouldn't be so worried about me all the time if father hadn't forced you to look after me for all those years."
Elphaba gets up off of the bed and walks towards me.
"Nessa so what? Aren't you glad that we're so close?" She asks gently.
I stop in my tracks.
"Of course I am." I whisper, a tear rolls down my face leaving behind a long, wet line like a river of sorrow.
"I just wish that I hadn't been such a burden to you. I want us to be close because we chose to be, not because father made you care."
Elphaba takes a step closer to me, she holds my hands with hers.
"Nessa if I didn't love you then I wouldn't have came back to save you. Your my sister, your the best part of my life."
I smile and nod but she's a lair.
She came back to save me because she felt guilt from my death.
And the best part of her life is her husband it would never be me.
I'm not the best part of anything.

There's a creaking of floorboards from the hallway.
Elphaba tilts her head to look and I turn myself around.
Boc stands in the doorway, he smiles nervously.
"Is everything okay?"