Three is Company

“I can’t believe you did that.”

Ferusha hummed softly to herself, binoculars pressed against her eyes as she watched a lone bird fly high above the rocky cliffs her and Clara were sitting on.

“I heard everything.” Ferusha said simply, taking one hand off her binoculars; “Both here,” she pointed to her ears, “and here,” pointing to her forehead. Her eyes stayed trained on the bird, a black speck in the sky that soared high on the rising heat and swooped down into the luscious valley below them. This one in particular was one of the few forests left intact during the war in Greece. Other nearby forests, not as lucky, had scaring in the earth from the feet of mobile suit convoys and battles that had taken place years ago.

Beside the Newtype, her Zeek mechanic was in a foul mood, and with good reason to be. Clara stayed silent because her mechanic felt no regrets for her actions; Ferusha just knew this, but couldn’t explain it. Or at least, she didn’t regret snagging a local man and dragging him back to her bed at some ungodly hour of the morning.

There was a long silence between the two women before Clara spoke up, caution ringing through her voice. “Have you ever regretted being a Newtype?”

Ferusha put the binoculars down by her neck and sighed. “Sometimes. There’s not much I can do except grit my teeth and live with it.” Flicking a purple curl away from her face, she gave a proper eye-to-eye look at her mechanic.

Clara might have coke bottle glasses and keep her hair tied back in two braids, but once putting that aside, she really was beautiful. There had been initial attraction to her, but Ferusha long abandoned that after several months of friendship. On occasion, it would spring up at unneeded times – like today – and Ferusha regretted every single second of it. Lovers would come and go, but with friends, you never had to break up with them—

“Ferusha,” says Clara in a mocking voice, “You’re giving me the goo goo eyes again.”

“I wasn’t.” Ferusha spat.

“Bullshit. You were.” Clara’s grin was contagious, and it was spread wide across her face and made her cheeks turn rosy pink. Ferusha dragged her eyes away and focused on the ground, her stomach doing somersaults. Of all the times…

“Let’s head back. It’s almost two o’clock and my Zaku should be here by now.” Ferusha words were quick and gave away her embarrassment. She could hear smug words running through Clara’s mind, and those alone made a mix of frustration and anger rampage through her chest and threaten to tear down her composure.

Standing to her full height, she stretched and brushed the dirt off her grey dress pants and white blouse while not casting as much of a glance at her mechanic. Clara sighed, got up, and followed her pilot’s lead. They were only fifteen minutes from the motel, but the walk would feel much longer.

The terrain was rocky with no defined path to follow; Ferusha had taken a large stick discarded on the side of the road and had beaten her own path to the cliff’s edge against Clara’s will. Ferusha led their march back to the road, her curls bobbing from side to side at every step with Clara behind, who avoided touching anything that looked alive. Several times she stumbled and fell into Ferusha, whom every time whisked around on her heels and caught Clara before hitting the ground.

“Look where you’re going next time.” The lavender-haired woman whispered with urgency, but it sounded low and sultry to Clara.

“I’ll see about it.” The older woman replied with a grin, “But what if I was doing it on purpose?”

Ferusha let a wry smile slip onto her lips, “I would know. Trust me.” She gave a slap to Clara’s shoulder and turned around, listening to the high and low chuckles from her mechanic. A wistful sadness worked its way inside her chest as the two continued their trek. It was a painful realization, the kind that would only slowly dawn on someone after the event had passed.

You would never do it on purpose for me, only for the men you fancied.

The road and the motel were in sight, and Ferusha heard Clara cheer from behind her in exasperation. The brown-haired beauty ran on ahead of her, and Ferusha turned her eyes away as the man she had spent the night with opened his arms for her on the other side of the road. It was best, Ferusha thought, she be ignorant to it all than to parts of it.

Friendship was far more meaningful that a lover. She was convinced of that. However, she had never taken the time to fathom a person that mixed the two together and created something horrible for her to deal with every time she ran into the arms of another person. Clara was that person, and Ferusha both hated her and loved her dearly for it.