The Timeline

11.

January 7th, 2014:

Claire had two problems: Fannie and how to get Fannie to finally leave her alone once and for all.

Being in Australia, up until literally a day and a half ago had been of terrific help, because Claire was surrounded by her family and she was also studying as she watched over her nieces and nephew. She only checked her phone once in the morning and once in the evening, and due to the extreme timezones between Australia and the other places all over the world where she knew her friends were, she would respond to them when they couldn't answer her for a long time - aka, when she would've checked the phone again, either in the morning of the evening.

Ignoring Fannie had been easy, then. She would simply not open her texts - although the fact that she had that little orange dot over the WhatsApp icon in her phone, signaling unopened texts made Claire's eye twitch. But Fannie hadn't stopped texting her, and the pile of unopened texts only grew bigger and Claire's anxiety looking at it increased.

And yet! she could swear that she had been perfectly clear with Fannie, on her birthday night, when she had told her that she wanted her to leave.

But when had Fannie ever listened to what Claire wanted, really? She just pretended to do so, but deep down she only twisted things until everything was like she wanted. Angry at her out of her mind for the whole duration of her trip to Australia, when she wasn't with her family, when she wasn't studying and when she wasn't too busy guarding her nephews, Claire would think about all the negative qualities of Fannie's, and all the negative things she had done. It was easy to overlook the good moments with her, because Claire was blinded by her anger.

She had promised herself that as soon as she would've landed back from Australia, Claire would've taken matters into her own hands, called Fannie - or answered one of her calls, she didn't know in which order it would've happened - and tell her to 'fuck off' once and for all. And hope for the best that it would've worked.

Something told her that it wouldn't have worked, somehow.

It was laughable, almost, just how much her opinion of Fannie had changed in the span of a year. Exactly a year ago, Claire had been thirsting over Fannie, stalking her on her social media accounts, praying for Fannie to text her and spark a conversation; now, instead, the sole sight of Fannie's social medias enraged her more, and Claire prayed for Fannie to leave her alone on WhatsApp. How much life could change in the course of a year.

Claire's biggest fear had come to reality, with Fannie: the idealized version of Fannie she had created inside of her head hadn't stood the comparison with the real Fannie. And Claire had found that she didn't like the real Fannie; not as much as she liked the Fannie she had created inside of her head. That one had never existed. Fannie had never acted like Claire had wanted her to act, not even when they were at their happiest; Claire had simply been to smitten to truly see it.

That, and the fact she didn't want to break things off so quickly, because she had fought so hard to have her first real relationship with Fannie. Her first real girlfriend. It would've been too embarrassing to end things as soon as Fannie had started acting weird. Wasn't love supposed to be you standing with the other person through good things and bad things alike? Wasn't it love, when you resisted, even when you wanted to leave? Claire had thought so. And so she had stayed. And held on, because she had discovered that when Fannie didn't see her for a prolonged period of time, she was better. They were better.

But after the birthday night, the things she had said to her... the things she had implied about her, about Harry, about Gemma, whom she had never met prior to that night.

Just thinking about it gave Claire a migraine. And a sensation in the back of her pupils, like someone was pressing hot needles to her corneas.

Claire could've tried to block her, but something told her that Fannie wouldn't have accepted a single block. Fannie needed to leave her alone forever. And she needed to understand. How she would've made her understand, Claire did not know, precisely, but she would've found a way.