"What are you doing here?"
The mirror didn't answer, and the reflection's owner decided to drop the conversation and walk away. It was a strange middle ground she'd found, using second person on a whim in her downbeat state, though the sight she'd just caught of herself had understandably spurred her on. Had she been in higher spirits she could have appreciated the humour of the situation. In her condition all she wanted to do instead was looking away, and stop staring at the one who'd ruined everything. And her thoughts went back to the day before.
Trixie had looked back to the pictures on the cupboards. Then back to Rainbow. "I..." she'd said, then she'd looked down at herself. "I think I need to go." She'd stood up, and grabbed her guitar. "I've got... I..." Lies had refused to come to her mind, neither had she had the will to force them to. She'd looked at Rainbow for support, unsure of how to even get it out of her when she was the source of her turmoil. Truth had forced its way out of her, harsher than she'd have ever wished it to, built up in pressure through the maelstrom of her feelings and the failing of her tongue. "I don't think we're going to work."
Rainbow had stood up too, reaching out with her hand, a look of sudden hurt crossing her face. Seeing that, Trixie had discovered she could be hurt, and yet wish no harm on the one responsible, and it was a kind of pain she never wanted to feel again, a pain without an outlet to make something else of it. "Listen, I-"
And despite that, she'd leaned into it. "No." She'd gone along with it. Because it was easy. Because there was comfort in being her usual self. "You're going too fast." Because maybe if she hurt Rainbow the normal way the other wouldn't have to feel what she was feeling. She'd swatted away Rainbow's hand, and she doubted she'd ever forget doing so if it was going to keep showing up in her nightmares as it had.
Rainbow's face had changed. Her hurt had deepened, then a brief flash of something like rage, then a cold frown. She'd sat back on the couch, the impact far lighter than before, her arms crossed. "Alright then." Her voice had cracked, more so than usual, enough to mask the sound of Trixie's heart doing the same. "Feel free to go."
Trixie had stood there, as the room had spun around her, with Rainbow as the only solid anchor point to her vision. Long enough to notice the quivering of her lips, and the way her eyes were starting to glitter differently in the light. Long enough for her own tears to start blurring her vision. But she hadn't known what else to say, so she'd said nothing. She'd slowly moved to the front door, then out of it, then faster as she'd run away from the house and left Rainbow behind.
She told herself it was for the best. She told herself it would have hurt more the later it would have happened, and it would have happened at some point. She told herself metaphors about cutting branches and removing portions of songs that weren't working. She told herself lies about what she'd felt before. She realised at least part of the reason she had never done all too well in school had to be that she was a terrible listener, because nothing of what she was telling herself seemed to work or stick.
She was back in her room. Back sitting on a bed that had taken on to feeling like it was supposed to bend differently under her. Like there was supposed to be something else pressing on it. Her eyes went to the last discarded sheet of music she'd tried her hand at composing on. It was meant to be a good way to get out her feelings. It didn't need to be something she ever played more than to herself. Good therapy, bad poetry, all that, she'd heard it in response to a documentary about a documentary about a famous band's infamous album that had ended the peak of their career. She hadn't added any snare drum parts to her songs yet, and she doubted she'd ever go insane enough for that, but she'd still dropped the composition midway through. Around the point she'd looked at it and played it in her head, and realised it wasn't her composition.
It wasn't even one of the songs she liked. She hadn't bothered with trashing it, the bin was overflowing with crumpled paper anyway. Some failed attempts at music, mostly tissues. She told herself that was the reason why that particular paper sat on the floor almost untouched. Besides, it wasn't like she could read it properly anymore with how wet it had gotten.
Lying on the bed. The pillow didn't feel soft enough. It didn't feel warm enough. It didn't rise and fall. She rolled to her back, dug her hands into her hair, shut her eyes to not have to look at the ceiling. She'd done that already, for what had felt like an hour and had possibly been one. It really was a nice ceiling.
Long, deep breaths. She needed to calm down. She needed to think, to be intelligent for once in her life. It was a lot easier to self deprecate when feeling horrible, she'd discovered. She needed to do something. She hated not being able to do anything about her situation. She'd always hated the thought of it. She'd gone her whole life doing whatever she could to fight back against the idea of things being stuck a certain way she could not change, even if it meant spending years chasing the slimmest of odds.
Trixie sat up, staring at her guitar. She was not about to let Rainbow, of all people, get the better of her.