Unravel Me | Arrow [ COMPLETED ]

chapter twenty nine

"Lying to myself I can make it on my own

Making it alone is lonely"

LIZ LONGLEY - 'Rescue My Heart'

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Things didn't get better.

Cali's remaining time in hospital was short and unremarkable; Tommy never returned to visit her and he didn't respond to her text telling him she was being discharged. In fact, the only updates Cali got about her brother came from Laurel, and they were scarce enough that Cali still worried.

Oliver, at least, was still responding to her texts, but their conversations were short and bitter. She'd broken the ever-fragile thing between them with a word and a power she never wanted.

And really, everybody should be freaking out a lot more than they were about the fact that she had weird superpowers! What part of that was normal? How was everyone so at ease about the fact her father had literally turned her into some genetically mutated freak and then proceeded to drug her and manipulate her and-

No, it was too insane to think about, even in the solitude and privacy of her own home.

Well, she said solitude, but she wasn't exactly alone.

Felicity was a surprisingly quiet house guest.

House guest, not roommate, because although she rarely went back to her own apartment, and the spare room had a closet full of her clothes, and she'd claimed Fridays as home-cooked nacho night, and she left small reminders of herself strewn about the apartment, the two of them weren't actually living together.

Cali didn't miss the loneliness, and Felicity stayed impressively silent and out-of-the-way on her bad days. It was almost like living alone, except....well, she wasn't.

They fought, of course, but it had only ever really spiralled once, when Cali had slipped back into a self-destructive type of anger as a result of her thinning relationship with Tommy.

"Why are you here?" She'd shouted, channelling every ounce of temper she'd inherited from Malcolm. "I'm not some project for you, some charity case you can use to justify being part of this fucked up mess!"

Felicity had said, very calmly, "I'm here because you're one of the only friends I have, and I think you need someone in your corner right now." Which was ironic, really, because then she'd walked back to her own apartment and Cali hadn't seen her for two weeks.

She'd come back with several bottles of alcohol and they'd both gotten exceedingly drunk for the next three consecutive nights. Cali had put in for long service leave at work, almost four months worth, and Brenden had all but told her that they didn't need her to come back.

He hadn't meant it like that, but Cali had been left tasting salt on her tongue for the next few days anyway.

Janet stopped by often enough that Cali could comfortably say they were working their way back to what they'd been, before Cali had frozen her out. Sometimes, when Janet thought she wasn't looking, the waitress would send her a lost look that was so full of love and sadness that Cali had to excuse herself from the room so she wouldn't cry.

She missed Janet, missed their relationship, more than she could ever say.

Felicity rarely mentioned it, only ever giving her an evaluating look over the top of her laptop screen late at night. "You know," she said casually, tapping at the keyboard lightly. "I always thought it was you and Oliver destined to be the star-crossed lovers, but you and Janet are too adorable."