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By: Marc Orkins

Read Time: 4-5 minutes

While Melissa reached aside for the bottle of ointment, Alma had claimed her lap for her pillow and stretched across the sofa, hissing, “Hot, hot, hot.” Her toes couldn’t even brush the end if she were to try. 

Such a tiny thing. 

A doll, almost, with “playing doctor” (Alma’s strangeness) their usual activity. Why am I hesitating? Melissa realized. Why am I thinking this, when it’s no different from the hundreds of other times? 

Alma’s brow twitched, her face stone-hewn otherwise—an insistence on playing the “cool” simultaneously, despite her facade’s obviousness. 

Melissa wondered, What is stopping me? 

“Uh, my hurts are down here.” Alma gestured from the neck down. Except it was her pinky, dressed in stainless steel, which caught Melissa’s eye—a marginally easier sight than the rest of her. And more stand-out with her pale, red-mottled body as a backdrop. “Hey, something on your mind?” 

Green eyes blinked, empty, contrary to the oft-parroted sentiment of them being “windows to the soul.” What in God’s name did she see within Melissa’s? 

Alma’s brows knitted—confusion in times past. “Melissa, you in this life still?” 

How absurd. She clamped Alma’s cheeks. “Am I warm?” 

Green eyes gaped. “Mmhm. But clammy. You gotta do this?” 

“Yes.” Last time she questioned the genuineness of Melissa’s life, in the early days of their interactions, Alma doubted her emotions. “You deny my existence to this day? If I were reanimated, or a golem, or deathless like Lady Karla, I would lack warmth.” 

“Melissa—” 

“Don’t doubt me again, please.” 

“Ugh, no, I was just—!” Groaning, eyes shut, then inhaling. 

“Am I exasperating you?” Melissa didn’t mean to. 

Alma enunciated, “Just apply the ointment, please.” 

With a nod, the hardest work began. Melissa coated her hands in the holy balm, massaging it into her hands, all the while Alma remained silent. And as she worked it into her master’s arms, the small girl maintained her reticence, barring the odd hiss or grunt when tending a bruise or gouge. 

Melissa, at the very least, recognized this behavior, and the reason for its occurrence: “Apologies for exasperating you.” 

“What?” Melissa muttered an apology to Alma’s sharp gasp, her arm curling against the tended bruise. “Damn,” she hissed. “But you didn’t. I told you that.” 

“But I believe I did, and you’re lying out of some pointless obligation to spare my feelings again.” 

“Really now?” 

“Yes.” 

“Dammit!” Alma shrilled as Melissa stroked her torn calf. “And what makes you think that?” she asked quickly. 

“This.” Melissa lifted her injured leg. “Something about what had occurred at the Temple dwelled long after departing. You had said you would share with me whilst ‘playing at doctor,’ but now you remain uncharacteristically silent.” 

“I’m sorry, but, ‘uncharacteristically?’” 

Melissa set her leg down. “Therefore, it must have been my comments. I believe I misunderstood a joke.” 

Alma avoided her gaze, her brows knitted. “That was my bad,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking when I made that.” 

Was she concerned for herself, having been found out? “If I had annoyed, I apologize.” 

“It’s not that, Melissa.” 

This lying was pointless. “I believe it is. Therefore, I apologize—” 

“Yeah?” Suddenly their eyes met. “And what’s that mean to you?” 

“I do not understand.” 

“Saying sorry. Do you actually feel bad, for once? Or are you just curious, so you’re saying what you think I wanna hear so I’ll start talking?” 

Melissa’s heart beat. Twice. 

“I… am unsure.” An answer was impossible to formulate at this time. Gone was the pleasant state of being in her master’s company once again, of knowing she enjoyed that of something like Melissa’s. 

Now something between them felt wrong. But what? 

Whether it was the question or the uncertainty or even the complete lack of anger in Alma’s face, her lack of tensing muscles, Melissa didn’t know. Ever. “I do not know, but I am trying my best.” 

“At what? Talk about yourself, for once.” Her softness returned. “Please.” Begging. Something bothered Alma enough to beg of Melissa, the one now inciting this helplessness. 

“Um.” 

“Hey, hey, your hands are shaking.” Alma tried sitting up, reaching for the hands hovering above her stomach, only for her forehead to be pressed and gently forced down. “Mel?” 

She didn’t know what to say. But she wanted to say something. “I do not know,” she said again. “But I do not wish to be the cause of extra stress on your life. That, I believe, has been what’s guided our interactions today.” 

A wry laugh. “Too late,” Alma muttered. 

“I believe I am trying my best to be a friend.” 

“But we’ve been that, for almost a year.” 

Melissa shook her head. “I have not lived up to the standard requirements. You offer me much in the form of shelter and sustenance and purpose. You do not ask for repayment, rendering null the employer-employee relationship. Emotionally, you frequently express enjoyment in being around me.” For some unknown reason, even to Alma herself. “And socially I am privy to the stresses of the Temple and Lady Karla’s expectations.” 

“Okay, okay,” Alma smirked aside, her cheeks red in indication of embarrassment. “So, what, you’re saying you’re trying to pay me back?” 

“That is what escapes me.” The unenjoyable “wrongness” from before took root and anchored to her stomach. “In all fields I seem to take from you, and possess naught but zero notion of how to reciprocate.” 

“So, in other words, ‘yeah.’” 

“But how can one such as I possibly share the same relationship with you as you do Mitch and Austin?” Around her longtime friends, Alma’s laughs always came loud and frequent, her words enthusiastic. For this, unknown to her master, Melissa excuses herself from accompanying Alma to her old neighborhood. When they came here, her participation was self-regulated, for how can something such as she possibly add value to people who understood Alma on a human level? 

“Melissa?” A soft voice yanked her from her thoughts, her sight from the cream wall to Alma’s frowning face. “Did you hear me? I told you, that’s not how this works. Why do you suddenly care about this, anyway?” 

She always had. But God forbid what Alma would think if she realized Melissa kept this to herself, after plunging them into this debate for doing the same thing in turn. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she confessed. Melissa lowered her hands at her side. “Your hurts are healed.” 

“I know.” Alma pressed upon Melissa’s thighs. “Can we stay like this and talk about nonsense?” 

“You’re avoiding what had happened at the Temple.” 

Alma shrugged. “As you said, it doesn’t matter.” 

It made enough sense, finally, to Melissa. Enough not to press the obvious: neither would ever understand one another’s deepest problems. Not to reach the point of transcending their interactions beyond the realm of “nonsense.” 

Which, according to Alma just now, was all they ever had. 

Melissa didn’t think twice about resettling into the familiar.