Me Against Her (Cate Blanchett x OC)

Adrift

"YOU. RAGING. PSYCHOPATH." I said when I was face-to-face with the person that I'd thought was my best friend all my life. The person that I'd lived with for over a decade. The one who promised to always be on my side. 

"Okay, let's take a deep breath." Abby was calm and collected as ever. She was sitting at her desk and painting her nails, and she didn't budge at all, "I see our friend Harge has leaked my little secret." 

"No, I will not take a deep breath." I screamed at the top of my lungs, as I lunged forward and threw everything on her desk - her laptop, her glass, her makeup, her books, and her phone - on the floor in one big clang. 

Abby sat still with a slightly perturbed expression, lifting her feet up to her chest to dodge the shards of broken glass. "Typical of you, I see. Always following your heart and not using your head." 

"AT LEAST I HAVE A HEART TO FOLLOW! YOU ARE A HEARTLESS, CRUEL, BITCH. HOW DO YOU LIVE WITH YOURSELF?" 

"You'll thank me one day, when you come to your senses. That woman was a bad influence on you from the beginning. Someone had to save you from her. Look at you now, living the life you've always dreamed of." She smiled at me in a way that made me want to pick up the pile of stuff that was on her floor and throw it at her. 

"You're unbelievable. Are you even hearing yourself?" 

"You know I adore you, Edie. I've adored you since we were kids. But god, you were never capable of making sound decisions for yourself. If I hadn't done this, you would've left me and lived under her spell, and I lived in fear of that danger becoming the reality. You need me, Edie." 

I thought back to Abby's whole speech about gaslighting before, and it all made sense now. Cate may have been emotionally distant, but she was never the one who really gaslighted me. 

"I know that you have money to throw around now, and you think that gives you all the power over me. But it doesn't." I said adamantly, "I'm my own person and my wishes should be respected, Abby. I'm NOT your project." 

"Let's see how much respect you'll get when the two million dollars go away." 

"Don't you fucking dare." 

"I'm just kidding, E. Andrew already cashed the check. But you catch my drift." 

"Fuck you, Abby. and don't call me E."

"There's a cost to choosing the wrong life path, E. That's the truth. I'm sorry you had to learn this the hard way." 

"I didn't choose the wrong life path. I just trusted the wrong person." I stood up and started to pack up my stuff, "And frankly, I think you're just jealous because I actually love what I do." 

"Um, excuse me," she stood up and was all of a sudden standing close to me, "where do you think you're going?" 

"I don't know," I told the truth, "anywhere but here. Goodbye, Abby." 

"I took pity on your fledgling little theater when it was gonna go under water, you ingrate!" she suddenly flew off the handle, "I can propose that the board fire you at any time, you know. I wonder how they'll feel about promoting someone who slept her way up." 

"BE MY GUEST!" I screamed back, "I'll tell them that you invested in the theater in the first place because you HAVE A BIG FAT LESBIAN CRUSH ON ME." 

Then I slammed the door and never looked back. 

-----

As the night breeze sobered me up a bit, I realized that I was completely alone in the world, and the fact hit me like a truck. Then I thought about how if I actually got hit by a truck then and there, I wouldn't even know who to put as my emergency contact. 

So I found myself in the most unlikely of scenarios: I ended up getting plastered with Harge at a bar. 

"Sorry I yelled at you earlier," I said, my droopy eyelids getting the better of me. 

"That's ok," he said, "I did need 3 shots of vodka to get over it. I'm sorry about Abby though - I assure you I thought I was delivering birthday cards." My instincts were confirmed - he was actually probably the nicest man I'd ever met. 

"I don't know which is harder. Losing your best friend or the one you love within the same week." 

"What are you gonna do next? Where are you gonna live?"

"My pay raise allows me to afford a one-bedroom anywhere in town. But I have no idea where to go, Harge." I said with all the melancholy in the world, "I've dreamed about this day for such a long time, and this was not how I imagined it would go..." 

"How do you wish that it would've gone?" 

"Well..." I was a bit at a loss for words, and the alcohol was making my tongue all jumbled up, "uh, first of all, Cate would break the news to me, and then...then we'd all go to her house, and she'd talk about what a fine employee I was over, over the years, and she'd give me a big shiny medal for - for earning the big prize, and I'd wake up...in her bed the next morning, there'd be none of the...the backstabbing and betrayal and..." I teared up for the umpteenth time today. 

"You wanna know what I think?" Harge said, retaining the last shred of his own sobriety. 

"What?"

"I just heard a whole lot about Cate, and not a lot about the job itself, Edith." 

"Yea...cuz, cuz, she was never supposed to leave, but then I thought you were blackmailing me, and she was my boss, so - " 

"Edith, you're so in love, and not with your career. Do you realize this?" 

"...mhmm...." by then I was close to falling asleep, my suitcase at my feet, my face a pathetic mixture of tears and snot.