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The library had a section on heartbreak, tucked between herbalism and etiquette, which Elphaba found appropriate. Practical, unglamorous, filed next to other things people needed to survive.
Three Steps to Mend a Wounded Heart. She'd read it twice through by lamplight, taking notes like she would for an exam. Step one: distance. Step two: time. Step three, something about journaling, which she skipped. She closed the book with the distinct feeling of having found the answer to a problem and none of the will to enact it.
Galinda was at the vanity again, humming something tuneless, when Elphaba set the book down on her desk.
"Galinda, might I bother you for a few?"
"Hmm?"
"I need advice on falling out of love with someone."
Galinda's hairbrush stopped mid-stroke. "I beg your pardon?"
"Falling out of love. With someone." Elphaba sat on the edge of her own bed, folding her hands. "I've established that the feeling is unlikely to ever be returned, and continuing to carry it seems detrimental. Painful, also, but mostly inefficient."
"Elphaba, why are you asking me?" Galinda turned fully around now, brush forgotten in her lap.
"Because you would know. You've been in love at least four times this year alone."
"Love seems like an exaggeration in hindsight." Galinda waved a hand, dismissive. "Mere infatuations that could have led to more, if they'd proved worthy. But, alas." Her eyes had gone sharp in a way Elphaba associated with unflattering dress fittings. "Who is he."
"That's not relevant to the question."
"It is entirely relevant to the question. It is possibly the only relevant part of the question."
"The question is about process, not person."
Galinda stared at her for a long moment, something working behind her eyes, somewhere between hurt and bewildered and trying very hard not to show either. "Fine," she said, slower now. "Fine. Is there anything in particular you want to know?"
"I've read some books on the matter. Quite interesting." Elphaba glanced at her notes. "They recommended distance, primarily. Reduced exposure to the person. Time, which they do not quantify, unhelpfully. And occupying oneself with new pursuits. A hobby."
"A hobby." Galinda repeated blandly.
"That was my reaction as well."
"Well, it isn't wrong, I suppose." Galinda set the brush down and came to sit across from her, knees angled toward Elphaba's, an old habit between them, though tonight it felt different, charged in a way Elphaba couldn't name. "Distance does help. So does time, infuriatingly, no matter how much you want it to move faster. And yes, fine, something to occupy your hands and your head so you're not constantly circling back to thinking about him."
"There's no him."
"Her, then. Or whoever." Galinda's voice had gone tight at the edges, and she was watching Elphaba now with the particular focus she usually reserved for difficult sums. "Elphie, I need you to tell me. Is it someone in our year? Is it someone I know?"
"It doesn't matter who it is. It only matters that it's hopeless, which I've accepted, which is why I'm asking about method and not consolation."
"It matters to me." Galinda's hands had found Elphaba's, holding them loosely, like she was afraid a tighter grip might spook her into silence. "Especially when you say it's hopeless and look like you're about to cry."
Elphaba looked down at their joined hands, at Galinda's pale fingers laced through her green ones, and felt the small unbearable ache of it, the thing she'd come here specifically to get rid of.
"It isn't important," she said again, quieter this time. "I only need to know how long the time part usually takes."
Galinda's thumb moved once over her knuckles, absent, like she hadn't noticed she was doing it. "Longer than anyone would like," she said, and something in her voice had gone soft and worried all at once. "Always longer than you'd think."
"Oh." Elphaba absorbed this the way she absorbed most unwelcome facts, quietly, filing it away. "That's quite unfortunate."
"It is." Galinda's grip on her hands tightened, like she could argue her out of the conclusion by force. "But Elphie, maybe it isn't as bad as you think. I could help. Somehow. There are ways to do these things delicately, you don't have to just give up on them. It isn't good, you being so defeated by it."
"I tried to make sense of it on my own, but no." Elphaba kept her voice level, reciting rather than confessing. "It's painful, the way the books describe it. But you said time and distance might work, so. That's something."
"Oh, Elphie." Galinda's face had crumpled with something raw and unguarded. "I'm so sorry that you feel this way."
"It isn't your fault, my sweet."
"Still."
"Thank you for the advice." Elphaba pulled her hands back gently, already standing, already retreating into the brisk, contained version of herself. "I may have to speak with Miss Coddle soon."
Galinda blinked up at her. "Miss Coddle?"
"Mm hmm." Elphaba waved it off, reaching for her books, not meeting her eye. "Never mind that, Glin. I'll fix it, don't worry." A small, unconvincing smile. "I'll fall out of love soon enough, and everything will be as it should."
Galinda watched her go, brow furrowed, turning her words over and getting nowhere with it, and feeling, for reasons she couldn't articulate yet, considerably worse than before the conversation had started.
A few mornings later, Nessa was in the dining hall when Galinda found her, a book open in her lap.
"Has your sister said anything to you? About what's troubling her?"
"Not directly." Nessa closed the book, marking her place with one finger. "She's been odd since yesterday. Quieter, even for her. I asked if something happened and she said only that she'd gone to you for advice, and that she had a plan now, and that I shouldn't worry." A small, helpless shrug. "She did say she was meeting Miss Coddle this morning. That's the last thing I know."
Galinda's stomach had already started to sink before Nessa finished the sentence.
She found Elphaba back in their room past noon, sitting at her desk with a stack of parchment squared neatly in front of her, the picture of someone who had resolved something and felt lighter for it.
"Elphie." Galinda hovered by the door, not quite committing to entering. "How did it go? With Miss Coddle."
"Oh, fine." Elphaba didn't look up, sorting her papers with brisk satisfaction. "She's reviewing the available dormitories on campus now. Said she'd let me know as soon as there's a vacancy I can transfer into."
The words took a moment to land, and when they did, they landed badly.
"Transfer." Galinda's voice had gone flat and careful. "You're moving out."
"It seemed the most direct application of your advice." Elphaba finally glanced up, and whatever she saw on Galinda's face made her pause. "Distance, you said. I can hardly distance myself from someone I share a room with. It seemed the obvious next step."
"You're moving out of our room."
"Temporarily. Until the feeling resolves itself, and then I imagine I could move back, if you'd have me, though I hadn't thought that far ahead, I was mostly focused on the immediate logistics-"
Galinda's hands had curled into fists at her sides, fury and hurt tangled together in her voice. "You were just going to leave. When were you even going to tell me? I don't understand why-"
The sentence simply died in her mouth, because her mind had caught up to something her mouth hadn't yet, and she stood there for a second with her lips parted and nothing coming out, working backward through everything Elphaba had said since yesterday. Distance. Hopeless. I'll fall out of love soon enough. The room she shared with no one but Galinda. The transfer she'd arranged without telling her first.
"It's me," Galinda said, very quietly, all the anger draining out of her voice and leaving something far more fragile in its place. "Oh, Oz. It's me. And you were going to move out rather than ever say it."
Elphaba went pale. "That isn't-" She stopped, visibly searching for a denial and not finding one fast enough to be convincing. "That was not information I intended to disclose."
"You were going to live in a different building, Elphaba."
"It seemed kinder than the alternative."
"Kinder to whom?" Galinda's voice cracked again, but differently now, something raw and astonished. "Because it certainly wasn't kind to me, finding out you'd rather vanish than tell me you loved me."
Elphaba stood, shoving her things into her bag, then stopped. The motion just drained out of her. She breathed in, once, twice, and let her hands fall to her sides, empty.
"Perhaps I wanted to save myself the agony of knowing you didn't love me back, Galinda."
The words came out quieter than anything she'd said yet, stripped of the stoic facade she'd been hiding behind all morning. She wasn't looking at Galinda anymore. She was looking at the window like it might offer her somewhere else to be.
Galinda crossed the room before she'd decided to move, until she was close enough that Elphaba had no choice but to turn.
"You absolute, thick-" But there was no anger left in it, just a kind of wondering disbelief. "You decided it on your own, without asking me, and then you built an entire plan.”
"It seemed the safer assumption."
"Safer for whom?" Galinda took her hands, the same way she had that night, except this time she didn't let them go loose. She held on. "Elphie. Why would you assume that?"
"Because it's the more probable outcome." Elphaba's voice had gone thin, careful, like she was holding something together by sheer force of will. "You are beautiful, and adored, and everyone in this school would happily fall in love with you if given the chance. I am green, and difficult, and prone to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. The numbers do not favor me."
"The numbers." Galinda let out something that was almost a laugh, except it came out broken in the middle. "You chose to move out because you didn't like the answer you gave yourself."
"I didn't want to hear you say no." It came out almost too quiet to catch, the truest thing she'd said all morning. "I thought I could manage it better if I never had to hear you say it."
Elphaba's mouth twisted, something bitter pulling at the edge of it. "I know what that makes me- I am a coward. You don't have to say it."
Galinda's eyes had gone glassy, and she shook her head slowly, like she was trying to clear it.
"Elphaba. My darling, brilliant, hopeless idiot." Her grip tightened on Elphaba's hands. "The answer was never going to be no."
For a breath, nothing happened at all.
Elphaba simply stood there, very still, like the words hadn't reached her yet, like there was some distance left for them to travel before they could possibly be true. The room narrowed to the warmth of Galinda's hands around hers, the small, steady sound of her breathing, the impossible, unbearable sincerity in her face.
Something cracked open beneath the words, a wave Elphaba had no defense built against. Her breath caught, and the tears came all at once, silently at first, and then a sob she couldn't have stopped if she'd tried.
"Galinda, please—" Her voice came out wrecked, barely hers. "Don't say that if you're not sure. Because I can't—"
Elphaba pulled back, or tried to, but Galinda's grip only tightened, refusing to let her hands go. The fear had come on so fast it left her breathless, worse somehow than the dread of rejection, because hope had a way of demanding more of a person than certainty ever did.
"I can't survive hoping and being wrong about it. I've already built a plan, Galinda. I have a transfer arranged, I have steps, I have a book, and if you say this and you don't mean it, or you mean it now and not later, I don't think I have a step for that. There's nothing in the book for that."
"Elphie." Galinda's voice was steady even as her eyes weren't. "Look at me. Please."
It took her a moment, but Elphaba did.
Galinda let go of one hand just long enough to brush her thumb beneath Elphaba's eye, wiping the tears away, gentle enough that it undid her more than the touch itself.
"I am in love with you too," Galinda said, slow and clear. "And I have never been more sure of anything in my life, and that includes that the moment I was completely certain the color pink would suit me, which it does, magnificently, so that is saying quite a lot."
A small, helpless huff of air escaped Elphaba, not quite a laugh.
"I don't know when this happened," Galinda went on, softer now, "or which part of you did it, whether it was the studying together or the insufferable way you correct my words or months of watching you be the most singular person I've ever met, but it happened, and it is not going away, and it is certainly not going away by you living in a different building with worse light and a roommate who snores."
"You don't know that she snores."
"I am choosing to believe it, for the sake of the argument." Galinda brought their joined hands up between them, pressing them to her own chest. "Elphaba. I am asking you, plainly, to cancel the transfer."
Elphaba looked down at their hands, then up at Galinda's face, searching for a flaw that would explain why it couldn't possibly be true. She didn't find one.
"I would need to write to Miss Coddle," she said finally, and her voice had gone thick. "Rather urgently."
"You may write to her this afternoon." Galinda's smile broke through, wet and brilliant. "Right after you kiss me."
There was no hesitation left in her this time. Elphaba closed the gap and kissed Galinda like someone starving finally allowed to eat, desperate, graceless, every month of denial unraveling at once.
Galinda's moan caught somewhere in her throat, swallowed whole by the force of it, and rather than retreat she pushed back just as fiercely, fisting a hand in the front of Elphaba's dress to keep her exactly where she was. Her mouth tasted like relief and certainty and something wilder than either, every bit of love she'd been too startled to name out loud now pouring into the space between them instead.
Elphaba's hands found her waist, then her back, pulling her closer still, as if proximity alone could make up for the months she'd spent convincing herself this would never be allowed. Somewhere beneath the urgency was something more fragile, something close to disbelief, and it bled into the kiss in small, helpless tremors she couldn't quite hide.
When they finally broke apart, both of them breathless, Galinda kept her forehead pressed to Elphaba's, eyes still closed.
"Well," she said, voice unsteady, ruined in a way that made Elphaba's pulse stutter. "I do believe you owe me many kisses after the stress you've put me through."
"Oh?" Elphaba, with sudden uncharacteristic bravery, pressed soft kisses against her cheek.
"Mmhmm." Galinda whimpered as Elphaba's lips found the sensitive spot behind her ear. "Oz, I'm beginning to wonder what type of books you've been reading, Miss Elphaba."
Elphaba merely chuckled before easing back, wanting one more moment to lose herself in those hooded brown eyes.
"I'd rather show you, Miss Galinda," she whispered against her lips.
She felt Galinda's smile turn wicked, eyes burning into hers for one suspended moment, and then their lips met again. And again. And again.
Light came in low and gold through the curtains. Elphaba sat propped against the headboard with parchment balanced on her knees, hair loose and wild around her shoulders, ink pot waiting patiently on the bedside table. Galinda was draped across the rest of the bed, technically on her own side, though she had migrated so thoroughly over the course of the morning that the distinction barely held meaning anymore.
Dear Miss Coddle,
I am writing to inform you that I no longer require a transfer of dormitory assignment. The circumstances that prompted my initial request have been
Galinda's finger traced a slow line along Elphaba's collarbone.
"Have been what, my Elphie?"
"Resolved." Elphaba did not look up from the page, though the tip of her pen had gone still. "The circumstances have been resolved."
"That's terribly vague." Galinda shifted closer, propping her chin on Elphaba's shoulder to read over it, her hair spilling across the parchment like she'd done it on purpose. "Resolved how? Be specific. Miss Coddle will want details."
"Miss Coddle will want exactly none of the details you're imagining."
"I'm not imagining anything." Galinda pressed a kiss beneath her jaw, unhurried. "I'm simply curious how you intend to phrase it."
"I intend to phrase it as little as possible and move on with my morning." Elphaba dipped the pen again, resolute, and managed three more words before Galinda's hand found the inside of her wrist and traced slow circles there that had nothing at all to do with handwriting.
"Galinda."
"Mm?"
"I cannot write a coherent letter while you're doing that."
"I'm lying here. Quietly." Galinda's voice was the picture of innocence, entirely undermined by the small, satisfied smile against Elphaba's shoulder. "Supporting you in your correspondence."
"You are draped over my writing arm."
"As any sensible lover should, dearest."
"Sensible lovers do not generally nibble on a person's ear while they're trying to retract a housing request."
"You don't like it?"
"That's beside the point."
Galinda laughed, the sound vibrating warm against Elphaba's skin, then retreated an inch, magnanimous, propping herself up on one elbow to watch instead of touch. Elphaba quickly discovered this was somehow worse. Now she had Galinda's full, unblinking attention and nothing to distract from the fact that her own pen hand had gone the slightest bit unsteady.
The circumstances that prompted my initial request have been resolved, and I would be grateful if you would disregard our previous conversation entirely. I apologize for any inconvenience this reversal may have caused your office.
"There." Elphaba exhaled. "Done."
"Let me see." Galinda plucked the parchment from her lap before she could protest. A slow grin spread across her face. "Miss Coddle is simply going to have to live without the full story, it seems."
"She will survive the disappointment."
"Will she, though." Galinda set the letter aside, out of immediate reach, and settled back against Elphaba's side with the deliberate satisfaction of someone who'd gotten exactly what she wanted.
"Perhaps, my love," Elphaba said, capping the ink at last and finally, finally letting herself sink back into the pillows, into the warm tangle of sheets and Galinda's hair and the unbothered gold of the early morning light, "we ought to discuss other, more pleasurable activities. Because I have no intention of leaving this bed for several more hours."
Galinda's smile turned positively devilish as she curled in closer.
"Now that," she murmured, "is the kind of plan I can support."