Chapter Text
“Oh, Doug. It was horrible! I was horrible! She’s been so fucking horrible!” Andy whined when she opened the door to let her best friend in.
“Woh, Jesus, Andy. Let a guy enter, sit down and have a beer first before you rain all your drama on me, okay?” Doug said while holding up his hands in defense.
Andy grumbled under her breath as she led the way into her apartment. She flung open her fridge, snatched up two beer bottles, smacked the door closed making its contents rattle and jangle, tramped towards Doug who was sitting on her couch, and nearly thrust the bottle in his face.
“Happy now?” She muttered, crashing down on the couch next to him, opened up her own bottle, and took a hefty swig from it.
“Very.” Doug took a hearty draught himself, knowing he was going to need it if his friend’s apocalyptic mood was anything to go by. “So, what’s got your La Perlas all twisted? Well, Miranda obviously, but what’s up?”
Andy groaned and rubbed her hand over her face. “She’s trying to kill me, Doug. For real this time! If I thought things were bad before, then I couldn’t have been more wrong in my entire life! I swear! She’s fucking terrorizing me. She’s terrorizing everyone because of me. So now, everyone is terrorizing me, because of her, because of me! But she’s next level, Doug. She’s the fucking undefeatable end-boss. And that’s like the biggest understatement ever! It’s the apocalypse I’m telling you. I’m serious, I’m not going to come out of this alive. It’s fucking hopeless now. She’s going to hate me forever. She’s going to hate me until her last breath, or mine, with the way things are going, she’ll have me buried in her backyard at the end of next week. Because I won’t survive this bloodshed for longer than that. For real, she’s butchering me, slaughtering me, mutilating me. She’s ravaging and mangling me, and she won’t stop until I’m exterminated, obliterated, decimated until I’m fucking annihilated!” She finished her crazed ranting by gulping down nearly half of her bottle.
Doug snorted out a laugh. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic. It can’t be that bad, can it?”
Andy looked him deadly serious in the eye. “I called her an extra stuck-up rudimental bitch.”
Choking on his drink, Doug coughed heavily as he tried to catch his breath.
“Exactly,” Andy muttered as she patted him on his back.
“God, Andy!” He squeaked in a very unmanly manner. “What the hell did you do that for?! Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“Of course not!” Andy retorted. “It just came out! I don’t know what came over me. I was just too frustrated, y’know? I have been so frustrated for so damn long! It just sort of became too much all of a sudden. My temper got the better of me. And you know how I get when I’m tipped over. My stupid mouth takes over and I say stupid stuff before thinking. And God, I’ve said some stupid stuff, Doug. It’s a miracle she hadn’t pushed me out of the car when I did. I seriously can’t believe why she hasn’t fired me yet. Well, no. Now that I think about it. That would’ve definitely been the most merciful action she could’ve taken. She’s going to want to eat me up first until there’s almost nothing left of me, and then she’ll spit me out.”
Shaking his head, he said. “Okay, okay. Let’s backtrack a little so I can follow. What made you say that to her?”
Andy let out a heavy sigh, sat back against the backrest with her shoulders slumped, and took another sip from her bottle. “We were having a discussion of sorts. It basically came down to the fact that she’s still angry with me for abandoning her in Paris. So, she didn’t believe me when I told her that I admire her. And I just became angry, y’know?”
Andy shook her head in agony and frowned. “I mean, for months, day after day, I put up with her cruel crap. How she insulted the life out of me on a daily basis. Made my life a living hell to work for her. Seriously, you should’ve heard some of the things she’d said to me, Doug. You wouldn’t believe how vicious she can be and I just took it, took it all. Accepted it so she could let it out of her system. I'm just her fucking punching bag and not once have I complained about it. When in reality, it hurts me more than anything else has done in my life. I realize now that she's throwing jab after jab, not to my gut, but straight to my heart. She's wounding me from head to toe and I had to live with her hating me for months. And I know now that it's been breaking me, Doug. I tried not to let it get to me. But little by little, she's been breaking me. But now, now that I’ve realized that I’m-, that I’m in love with her. I realize how much it's really been hurting me, especially now. And still, I never said anything about it, never fucking complained once about it. And it just became too much. I guess, y’know, I don’t really know why I couldn’t stop myself, but I guess I just wanted her to feel some of my pain too. For her to feel just a little bit of what she’s been putting me through. For her to understand that it does hurt, y’know ?”
She took another hefty swig from her bottle and let out a heavy breath. “But still, after all the hard work I’ve done up until now, always going that extra damn mile, breaking my back, going above and beyond. After everything I’ve done for her to help her, to make her life easier, to fucking please her, and to gain back her trust. All of that while she was being so fucking cruel to me. The fact that she simply couldn’t believe that I actually admire her means that she hasn’t appreciated any of my efforts and didn’t care about all the hurt I’ve been carrying around at all, and it just snapped something inside of me, Doug. I became so frustrated. I just couldn’t accept that she still thinks so low of me that she couldn’t believe that I think anything big of her. When the truth is that I think the world of her!”
Andy let out in a pained groan as she ran her hand through her hair. “And the fact that she’s still angry with me, after all this damn time. I mean, come on! That’s just absurd, isn’t it? How can she possibly think that I’m still that same ignorant, naïve girl in Paris?”
Andy stood up and started to pace back and forth in front of the couch. “Haven’t I shown her that I admire her? Haven’t I shown her that she can rely on me? Haven’t I shown her that I care? Haven’t I shown her that she can trust me? Haven’t I shown her that I’d fucking do anything and everything for her?! I mean, how blind can she be? What more can I do to make her see? Seriously, haven’t I shown her enough?!”
Andy breathed heavily after the venting she’d just done, fighting hard against the tears she didn’t want to let fall. She still felt too angry to accept any tears of sorrow.
A heavy silence enveloped the pair for several long moments with Andy trying to calm her raging thoughts and hurting feelings while Doug let everything sink in and pondered about all his friend had just said.
He knew he needed to approach this with care. It was obvious that his friend was struggling and who could blame her? He had never seen her like this before. Be so consumed over someone that it was eating away at her. It was very clear to him that Miranda hadn’t only captured Andy’s heart or mind, she had captured her soul as well, and the distance between the two women was wearing heavily on Andy's shoulders. But she’d just had to go and fall in love with Miranda Priestly, out of everyone on this entire planet, she’d just had to choose the most difficult person she’d ever met. It certainly didn’t make any sense to Doug how she could’ve fallen for a person who’s been nothing but cruel and vindictive towards her. But it wasn’t his place to question such things. He just knew he needed to try and do whatever he can to help his friend.
“Andy, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you some things first,” Doug said apprehensively.
Andy looked at him warily but nodded. “Okay?”
He let out a worried sigh. “Do you honestly think that there’s even the slightest possibility that she might ever care for you, y’know, on a deeper level?”
Andy frowned. “What? Why’s that relevant?”
“Because, babe. You want to be with her, right? Isn’t that what all of this is about? You wanting something more from her?”
Andy looked up at the ceiling. “I-, I don’t really know.” She shook her head at herself and looked down at her feet. “No, that’s not true. I do. I do want her. I know how crazy that sounds. I’m probably reaching for the stars here. I know it doesn’t make any sense. But I can’t deny the fact that I’m in love with her. I can’t deny that I want the impossible.”
Doug leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “Do you really think it’s impossible? Do you really think that there’s not even the slightest chance that she might be capable of returning your feelings?”
Andy narrowed her eyes at him and crossed her arms over her chest. “Why are you asking me this, Doug?”
He sighed while he shook his head. “Because if you’re certain that there’s absolutely no chance for the two of you to be together in the way that you want it to. Then, I’m sorry for saying this, Andy, but you’ll have to let her go. You need to walk away from her.”
“What?!” Andy snapped. “Why do I want to do that?”
“C’mon, Andy. Because this isn’t healthy. I’m afraid that this will tear you up. If there’s no chance in hell for the two of you, then you can’t just keep obsessing over her. It will drive you nuts. She’ll break your heart. Can you honestly say that it won’t break you to be so close to her every single day, and feel the way you do when a new Mr. Priestly will eventually show up? Will you be able to handle that? And what about when your tenure will be over? You have a year left, right? You’ll have to move on then. You’ll have no choice but to leave her behind. But by then, whatever you’re feeling now, will be even worse. You’ll have been in love with her for a year. Can you honestly say that it won’t hurt you more to leave her then, instead of leaving her now?”
Andy turned her back on him, her head hanging low as her tears finally got the better of her. She cried in silence, just letting the tears she’s been holding fall down her cheeks, needing a moment to get over the hurt his words had caused her. It was becoming a little too much for her to bear because she knew that he was right. After several minutes, she wiped the tears away, turned around, and moved to sit next to him again.
Andy let out a heavy breath. “I don’t know if she’ll ever see me the way I want her to.” She leaned back and rested the back of her head against the couch, looking up at the ceiling again. “I just-, I need to... I have to have hope, Doug. I have to live on it.”
She let out a humorless wry chuckle. “That’s something I learned from her. To live on hope. Because that’s all I can do, Doug. I have no choice. Because I-, I can’t do that again. I won’t be able to live with myself if I did. I can’t-, I won’t leave her again. Not like that. The guilt would eat me up inside. I can’t hurt her like that again. Because that’s what I did. I had hurt her. Apparently, it still hurts her. I don’t know why it does, but that means she cares, right? In some way or another, she did care about me leaving her. It affected her in some way. I hurt her.”
Andy looked down at her hands on her lap and shook her head. “So, no. That’s something I cannot do. Even if she’ll never love me as I do. The fact that she somehow cares about me at all, how minuscule that feeling may be, will have to be enough for me. I’ll take all that she’s willing to give me. Even if by some miracle, all she wants is to be friends or something like that. That’ll just have to be enough for me. Because I can’t let her go."
Andy let out another pained sigh and closed her eyes. "And if she no longer wants me in her life, then it will be up to her to leave me. In some way, it will be like the universe balancing us out, right?"
She opened her eyes again to look back up at the ceiling. "I left her once and the only way I’ll let something separate us again, is if it will be her choice. And I’m sure, if or when that time comes, it will break me. But I’ll understand it. I’ll understand that she can’t love me. You can’t force someone to love you. So, if Miranda chooses to push me away for good, it will be okay. I’ll just have to carry her with me in my heart forever. I’ll probably never get truly over her. But I’ll be guilt-free. And she’ll live on happily without me. That’s all that matters, really. So, I can’t leave. I don’t want to have to carry that guilt with me for the rest of my life. That’s why I’ll just have to endure this next year, I guess. That’s all I can do, really.”
Doug looked over at his friend, the sadness he felt for her was clear in his eyes. “Damn, Andy. You’re really pulling at my heartstrings here.”
Andy let out a humorless chuckle as she wiped away a lone tear running down her cheek.
Doug nodded sternly as if saying he'd just made up his mind. “Alright then, Andy. You had asked me, several minutes ago, if you haven’t shown her enough, y’know , shown her in several ways that she means something to you? But that she can’t see all that you’ve done for her?”
Andy nodded, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Well, maybe, in Miranda’s case, it’s not only that actions speak louder than words. Maybe she needs the words too. Needs verbal confirmation. You’ve broken her trust, right? And you’re not sure if you were able to win it back yet?”
Andy shook her head. “No, the fact that she hasn’t forgiven me for Paris yet suggests that she still doesn’t trust me. Even if I had been winning it back bit by bit, I’m pretty sure I’ve just ruined it all over again by saying what I had said to her earlier this week.”
Doug rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’m not saying this to spite you, Andy. But I think you’ve been a little too absorbed in your own feelings till now.”
Andy frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
He cleared his throat and took another sip from his bottle. “Well, you have obviously been obsessing over her and trying to figure out why she acts the way she does towards you. But have you really, and I do mean really, tried to put yourself in her shoes? Well, heels in Miranda’s case.”
Andy looked at him confused. “I don’t really get what you’re asking of me. Of course, I’ve been trying to figure out what she’s been thinking but-”
“No.” Doug interrupted her, shaking his head. “That’s exactly it. You’ve been trying to figure out what she’s been thinking . What you really need to understand is what she’s feeling .”
“Okay?” Andy prompted, still feeling very much confused.
Doug sighed. “Miranda’s a difficult woman, right?”
Andy chuckled humorlessly. “That’s definitely an understatement.”
Pressing on, Doug asked. “But why do you think that is?”
Andy thought about it for a moment. “Well, she has an incredibly demanding life because of Runway. It’s not easy to be on top. Especially if you include the press in all that. I mean, if she were a man, no one would even think to give her any of the monikers that they’ve given her. So, it’s because of how the world views her, that she sort of had to take on that business persona. Instead of letting the cruel words of the press tear her down, she used them to her own advantage. She wields all those names they call her as her weapons. They’ve made her stronger. Reinforce her in the business world. She uses them to stay ahead in the game. But I think that she got too carried away with them. Instead of only using them to strengthen her, I think they might’ve overtaken her in a way. She can no longer come out as just herself in public. Because she’s so used to acting, well, being that way.”
“And why do you think she’s been taken over by those ‘weapons’?” Doug prompted further.
Andy raised a questioning eyebrow at him. “Didn’t I just explain that? So, she can stay ahead in the game.”
He nodded once. “And because she’s playing a game, means she has opponents, right? People who are trying to bring her down?”
“Yeah? I guess.” Andy frowned.
Doug nodded once. “So, she uses those weapons to not only strengthen her, but she needs them to protect herself as well, right?”
Andy groaned. “C’mon, Doug. Enough of this twenty questions game. Just tell me what you’re thinking.”
Doug sighed heavily. “Alright. You were on the right track though. Anyway. I think you’re right about the fact that she’s been taken over by all those monikers. But not just to protect herself in the business world. If it wasn’t that way, then she could just simply be herself outside of work without carrying all these weapons around.”
He took a sip from his beer, emptying the bottle. “In case you’ve failed to notice: Miranda’s twice your age. She has two children to think about and has had two divorces. She has a lot more life experience than you. And the fact that she has twice as much life experience as you, plus the fact that she’s led a difficult life because of who she had to become thanks to Runway. Means that she’s been hurt a great deal more than you can probably imagine. It’s due to the position she holds in this world, which means she can’t simply trust people. There are always people around every corner she passes that want something from her, or want to take away from her. The fact that she’s gone through two divorces means she’s been hurt by people, and not only by her ex-husbands. The fact that it didn’t seem like she a choice but to have to become this persona to protect herself, would suggest that she has trusted before, but has been hurt because she has trusted.”
He paused a couple of seconds, giving his friend a moment to let that sink in. When Andy nodded at him, he continued. “And now, she no longer wishes to be hurt or to be taken advantage of. So, she’s put all these walls around her. Because she might think that it’s just easier this way. She pushes everyone away because she’s not willing to trust again, she doesn’t want to be hurt again. And this, my friend, is where you come into the equation.”
Andy nodded, let out a heavy pained sigh, and laid down on the couch with her feet resting on Doug’s lap. “Yeah, I get it now.” She groaned and rested her arm over her eyes. “God, how could I have been so blind? You’re right. Miranda doesn’t trust people. And yet, for some reason, she had decided to trust me, before Paris. And I’ve broken it. But I didn’t realize just how difficult it must’ve been for her to trust someone again. And when she had finally let herself trust someone again, that person had taken it for granted. I had taken it for granted. Probably proved to her once again that she needs her armor firmly in place. That’s why she’s been so hard on me. She had let me in once, and that must’ve been, I don’t know, scary in a way, I guess, for her to do that. But I fucked it up without even realizing how much. Of course, she wasn’t willing to let me back in after that. She probably thinks that since I did it once, I’m capable of doing it again. So, why would she take another chance on me again?”
She dropped her arm, resting her hand on top of her chest, and frowned up at the ceiling. “And here I was, thinking that if I just worked really hard for her, that that would’ve been enough. God, that sounds so fucking dumb all of a sudden. The only thing I’ve literally done is show her that I’m a hard worker, while just simply taking all her insults. I didn’t realize I should’ve listened to the meaning behind all those insults.”
She shook her head at herself, then carried on. “They conveyed her hurt. Hurt that I had caused her, so she was simply throwing it back at me. My God, it suddenly makes so much sense. I hit her first, right where it must’ve hurt her the most, and now she’s simply punching me back, to defend herself. But to her, it must’ve looked like she wasn’t even making a dent in me. Since I wasn’t complaining, always showing up with that stupid grin of mine, always coming back for more punches that didn’t seem to faze me. While I had taken her down with just one uppercut.”
She groaned and took her head in both hands, palms resting on her temples. “And now, I’ve thrown her another uppercut, by calling her a bitch, while she was still hurting because of me, and I’ve probably ended the match with that. Probably blew my only chance at redemption right out the window. God, how could I have been so stupid?! So fucking blind?!”
Within the blink of an eye, Andy sat up and glared at her friend. “Why couldn’t you have told me all of this before?”
Doug’s eyes widened as he held his arms in front of his face as if trying to protect himself. “Hey! Don’t blame me for your stupidity! You caused this mess all on your own, thank you very much. In case you’ve failed to notice, I’m trying to help you out here.”
Andy groaned. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. And I am grateful, Doug. It’s just-, I don’t know what to do. How can I fix this, make this right? She wasn’t even giving me the benefit of the doubt after I abandoned her in Paris. She’ll definitely never take a chance on me now. It’s hopeless. I’m hopeless. Fuck, Doug. I don’t think there’s anything I can do to make her see how sorry I am for all of this.”
Doug shook his head at her again for the umpteenth time that evening. “Andy, I told you before. It is not only your actions that might give you a chance to fix this, you’re going to have to use your words too. And you’re good with them, aren’t you? You are a writer after all. You live and breathe words. You’re great at expressing yourself when you write them down. So, even if she won’t listen to you, you can at least try to write to her. At least you’ll be doing something real about it. Not just work your ass off, but really laying it all out there. So, don’t just do, Andy. You need to say it as well.”
Andy looked at him pleadingly. “But what can I say, Doug? Apologizing, even if I do it a thousand times over, isn’t going to cut it. I’ve done it before and it didn’t work, it certainly won’t work now. And I can’t just come out and tell her that I care for her, that I love her. There’s no way in hell that she’ll believe me. She couldn’t even believe that I admire her, for God’s sake.”
Doug shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, can’t really help you out with that one. That has to be up to you to figure out, babe. As I said, you’re good with words. So, use them, wield them. If you really want to fix this, I’m afraid that’s the only choice you’ve got.”
Andy sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. God, why do you have to so right all the time? It’s not fair, y’know. Seriously, you should be a shrink or something, instead of a boring accountant.”
Doug chuckled. “Nah, this is about as much drama as I can handle.”
“Gee, thanks.” Andy smiled, for the first time since her fight with Miranda. “I mean it, Doug. Thank you. For always being there to rely on, and for always knowing the right thing to say. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“Oh, you’d be a fucking mess without me.” He laughed. “But you’re welcome, babe. Anything for my bestie.”
“Anything?” Andy grinned, a playful gleam in her eyes.
“ Uhm .” Doug looked at her warily. “Yeah?”
“Then go get me a couple more beers from the fridge. I plan on getting smashed tonight while we watch Friends reruns.” Andy laughed.
“Your wish is my command, your highness. Only because it is my wish as well.” He winked and jumped up from the couch, determined to get them both, but especially his best friend, completely and utterly drunk tonight.