A murky silence had swallowed Felicia whole after her last word, which left her mouth packed with a regret that she hadn’t intended to lift a lid on. A sea, yes, it wasn’t a silly analogy for the way Felicia was, for much like an ocean, she was volatile and inconsistent, an instant pleased, an instant riled. Now, with the atmosphere turning cruelly pensive all around and not simply in the confines of her stomach, the corners of Felicia’s lips began to take a downward turn in discontent. Her eyes lowered to her hands, which for a blank moment it seemed as if Felicia had forgotten what they were doing, and then she placed the pencil back in her box. The lid of the lipstick was taken off slowly, but Felicia looked up again when Elisabet’s hand touched her shoulder, her eyebrows bunching into an angry frown while the rest of her face softened, as if to ready itself for crying.
When she looked up, it was to Elisabet’s mouth – and business as usual, yet not really, Felicia began to carefully lather her room-mate’s mouth with the sheer, light pink pigment. “Don’t feel sorry for me,” she said, maintaining a quiet tone. Her lips pursed into a deep scowl, but the effect was lost somewhat, as was her determined way of ignoring Elisabet’s uncharacteristic gesture of... sympathy? Comfort? Both? “I hate pity, it's insulting. Though I guess I deserve to be insulted for being one of those people I make fun of. It’s that ridiculous situation where everyone tells you it’s a cliff, and you fucking know it too, but you take a hop off anyway and then complain about being splattered once you hit the bottom. Never feel sorry for idiots who do that. Should’ve known better.” Felicia swallowed tensely, completing the coat over Elisabet’s lower lip. She pulled away and rubbed her lips together, hinting that Elisabet do the same.
A comb replaced the lipstick in her hand as she sniffed slightly and cleared her throat, both airway passages sounding a little congested. Her teeth grinded, irritating the tight muscles in her cheeks as she reached across to pull a thick chunk of Elisabet’s hair forward so she could brush through it with the comb. Thinning out any crinkles and creating a side-part across her scalp, she mumbled with a thoughtful, miserable lag, “It’s not fun anymore. Well, it is, sometimes, but in seriousness it’s not. It’s so much better not to care. And it only gets worse. And I can’t talk about it, because it’s all the same consoling bullshit that works for five minutes but changes nothing. And everyone fucking tells him everything I say even if I tell them not to.” The comb carved through Elisabet’s hair with unintentional roughness that had been absent before. “Long-distance shit has never worked for real people and he told me when he first came here that he was resigning and he didn’t.”
Felicia sniffed again, a little watery, and when she pulled back, it was with little passion with what she was doing. She was going through the motions as she tried to adjust the fall of some of Elisabet’s locks. But still, depending very much on the make-over as a distraction of her unsettling vulnerability, she tapped the side of her cheek with the comb. “Remember, Elisabet, girls with round faces –“ Felicia had to stop, abruptly. Responding to a pain in her abdomen, or so it seemed, her arm cinched herself around the waist and she turned her face away for a beat. Then the side of her arm rose and she seemed to wipe her cheek at an angle that hid her expression from the mirror and the room-mate. Felicia had her public explosions, but with all other things, she preferred to go at them alone. She turned back, impassive and neutral, despite the frazzled stare. “Girls with round faces sometimes look better with a side-parting, so experiment with those. I have a round face, so I like them. It’s not because I’m fat, because I’ve tried to get as thin as I can to make my cheeks sink in, but it’s just the way my bones are. Your cheekbones are wide, like mine. So if you’re wearing your hair out, think about it.”
And just like that, Felicia stood. Her leg stretched out and she gave Elisabet’s chair a soft kick to push it closer to the mirror, so she could inspect the results.