"What is wrong with you?" Henchfemme says wearily.
"Girl, are you a court-mandated psychiatrist," Copykitten's girlfriend Acrimony drawls over a travel mug of chai — "because I'm not answering that unless it's legally compulsory."
"Seriously, she shut you in a meat locker, she took a kitchen knife to your leather jacket—"
"More mad she ruined the knife, to be honest — that was a set, professional chef's knives—"
"—She tried to back an SUV over you—"
"Okay, listen," Acrimony says, "and don't fucking get on my case about how this sounds, I know, okay? But really that was my fault—"
"I've been Kit's friend for, shit, too many years to think about," Henchfemme says. "Understand I say this from a place of love for her, okay? And for you. Jesus, you make each other worse."
Acrimony rubs the back of her neck, sips her chai, looks all around everything except Henchfemme.
"Everybody else I've ever been with," she says eventually, low and unhappy, "has — I'm angry, yeah? It's wired into my powers. If someone dug into my, my fucking endocrine system, I bet you'd find I just — I don't have the same palette of moods as other people. Fifty shades of goddamn rage, baby. And people treat it like I'm an alcoholic or something, I can just — you know. Not. If I wanna be a good addict. And she doesn't do that."
"I say this as her friend," Henchfemme says softly. "That's not acceptance, it's because she just has fun pushing your buttons."
Acrimony shrugs. "Best it gets," she says sadly.
"Okay," Henchfemme says. "Okay, I wasn't gonna break out the big guns, sad sack, but. She doesn't even actually want Frostlock as her celebrity hall pass, you know? She thinks he's, quote, actually severely mid."
"No but she's got the whole copycat thing," Acrimony says. "She shut me in a fridge—"
"She just knows that the idea of him gets to you," Henchfemme says resolutely.
"No but." Acrimony flounders. "No but why would she lie about. Uh. Fuck, no but — fuck. No, but! Who's her actual celebrity, then?"
Henchfemme takes a deep breath through her nose. "Spitefire," she says heavily.
Acrimony nearly drops her cup. "Spitefire?" she says. "Spitefire's not a celebrity. She's my cousin. They went on a bar crawl together on Uncle Tommy's birthday and split a hotel room because Kit was too drunk to get home and oh my god I'm a fucking idiot."
"You're not an idiot," Henchfemme says.
"Yeah." Acrimony fumbles with the travel cup, as if unsure what to do with her hands. "Yeah, I am."
"You're not an idiot." Henchfemme sighs. "But you can do better. You deserve better."
"I'm just," Acrimony says, turning a raw and aching face to her. "I'm just gonna go. Okay? I'm just gonna go now."
"Acrimony—"
"Don't," Acrimony says. "Don't talk any more, please. I can't — I'm just gonna go."
Henchfemme looks like she wants to say half a dozen things. "Stay safe. Make good choices," she settles on, and Acrimony laughs, hollow and deeply pained.
"I'm not mad at you," Copykitten says over the phone, airily, in lieu of saying hello when Henchfemme resignedly picks up the seventh spoofed number. "We're really good friends and I'm not mad at you. I know you think you were doing the right thing." There's a long pause. "I just think it's interesting, that's all."
"Do you," Henchfemme says.
"That you'd do this," Copykitten says nonchalantly, so very nonchalantly. Henchfemme can practically see her posing casually, painting her nails or something while she's on the phone, visibly Not Mad. "You know. When she's never going to fuck you."
"Would you believe," Henchfemme says wearily, "that has nothing to do with it at all?"
"Well good," Copykitten says. "Because she's never noticed you. She's never taken a second look at you. She's needed people to point you out so she could take a first look at you. That's all. It's interesting. I find that interesting, don't you? And of course I believe you, we're friends! And I'd also like you to sell me a bridge!"
Henchfemme purses her lips.
"You wanna know why I did it?" she says.
"It was the fucking leather jacket, wasn't it, you liked looking at her in that," Copykitten says.
"Nah. It was the way you laughed about her crying to her mom," Henchfemme says, very calmly. "Didn't sound like a random jab or a joke. I think you know for a fact that's what she did, every fucking time."
Copykitten takes an audible breath, and doesn't immediately say anything.
"Yeah, she's not gonna fuck me," Henchfemme says, and rolls the words out of her mouth like ponderously lethal boulders chasing a silver-screen pulp archaeologist before she hangs up: "welcome to the club."
