dissonance — poppy & whit.

w h i t.

Whitney knows it was foolish.

She knows, and yet still, she hoped. She had let it get to her, the wondering, the hoping, had thought that she finally made a true friend, had met someone that she could share her true self with. She had thought that she found someone who would love her for who she wanted to be, not scorn her for not being the kind of girl that her mother had tried so desperately to turn her into. A callous thing, a girl made of doll parts with a bite like a wolf; this is who her mother had tried to turn her into.

But Whitney had always favored kindness.

She had always favored softness.

Even all of her sharp edges were dull, like lace-handled blades. She only fought for love, and even then sometimes she still chose to run. Like tonight, for example, she had gotten into her head that she was loved, that maybe she was even cherished, but instead, everything that she had told her friend in confidence, every one of her fears about inadequacy and not belonging and worrying about how much she did not want this power had been told to the whole group.

"I knew I'd find you here," Poppy says from behind her, and Whitney lets her eyes fall closed, has to press her lips together and inhale deeply. "Look, I'm not going to apologize. I came here for a reason. To win. And I won't apologize for that either." She goes on from somewhere over Whitney's shoulder, and she can't bring herself to turn around and look the redhead in the eyes. And she knows that maybe that's not fair, but it's not even out of anger, but rather out of shame. How is she supposed to look at Poppy when she knows that everything she says is the truth? What is she supposed to say other than the fact that the truth still fucking hurts? Poppy goes on anyway though, and Whitney does not stop her. "I don't have what you have. My whole house could fit in the dining room. And I only have what I have now because I did whatever it took to get it." She laughs, but the sound is without mercy, without warmth, and finally, Whitney puts her paintbrush down on the little table beside her easel and thinks about spinning on her stool to look at her friend.

Her eyes will not be kind.

She will not smile.

Still, she cannot help but understand, cannot help but feel for the beautiful girl standing in front of her, laying bare her insecurities and her fears, even if she doesn't even realize the extent to which she is doing so. Poppy lays bare her want for power, her need for it, and thereby exposes to Whitney her carotid, her Achilles heel, her weakest point.

Take away the ladder, and Poppy would crumble.

She is just about to turn all the way around, but then Poppy lays her hand on Whitney's shoulder and it is almost comforting, almost a kind enough action for Whitney to miss her words. "But it wasn't personal," she says, and Whitney can feel the anger and shame start to boil in her chest, that passion she is so well known for turning into something rotten and unfamiliar. "I hope you can believe that," Poppy finishes, and finally Whitney spins around to look at her dead on, making no effort to conceal the confusion and anger in her bones.

"Not personal?" she huffs out with a sardonic laugh, voice so unfamiliar to her ears. She takes from Poppy now every lesson that she has ever learned, the ones that she should have applied before the dinner tonight, the ones she should have employed to realize that it was her own name that Poppy would give to Malcolm. "God, Pop, you really almost had me there," she says, tilting her head, eyes sharp but not without mercy. "Not fucking personal," she says again with a shake of her head and a humorless laugh. "Of course it was fucking personal. It was probably the most personal name anyone gave all night."

She stands up, and now they are at almost equal heights. Whitney takes another step forward.

"I never would have asked you to apologize, but I thought you'd at least do me the courtesy of naming anyone fucking else in this internship." She swallows thickly, can feel anxiety and nerves thrumming in her blood and in her bones as she steps forward. "I've done nothing but support you since we got here, even when you didn't want my support, but then you go and do that? Maybe I don't deserve to win, but we both know that I make everyone work harder." Then it hits her, and she has to take a step back. "Or is that it?" she goes on. "Is that why you gave my name? Because you're not the only person here I want to be around?"