Hindsight is 20/20, people say. But is it really, she wonders. Is it possible to see clearly when it’s a girl you’ve known since you were fifteen, when you’ve spent literally half your lives together, when you were so convinced you’d spend the rest together too? At this point, she doesn’t just see Tiffany when she looks at her. She sees the picture of Tiffany she has in her mind, the one untouched by makeup, unmarred by time. Sometimes she almost does a double take at the present, actual Tiffany, like she feels surprised, almost betrayed that she’s different.

How dare you change, rises a thought from a small, petty part of her. How dare you not be exactly as I remember you? Or maybe it’s more like, how dare you leave me behind?

“If you could erase me, would you?”

“What, like laser tattoo removal?” Jessica traces a fingertip down the ink on Tiffany’s skin, and she shivers.

Tiffany hums. “You know that movie we watched together?”

“Which one? We’ve watched a lot of movies together, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Shut up, let me finish talking.” Tiffany shoves her, half a whine in her voice, and it’s so familiar that Jessica smiles before composing her expression. “That movie. With Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. You already watched it but you made me watch it again with you and you still teared up.”

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?”

Tiffany snaps her fingers. “Yes! That one.”

“That’s a great movie.”

“Yes, you told me that like, a hundred times.”

“Are you confusing me with you? I’m not the one who brings things up a hundred times. I’d get too tired by the tenth time.”

“Shut up,” Tiffany says again, her voice a full whine this time, and maybe Jessica shouldn’t be smiling at being told to shut up but this is Tiffany, after all. “Anyway,” she says forcefully.

“Anyway?”

“The movie. Infinite Sunlight of the Thoughtless Mind.”

“It’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Jessica corrects, amused.

“Right, that,” Tiffany says, almost dismissively, but then her expression sobers. “Before, when we…” She trails off almost artfully, like she’s mastered the use of the ellipsis. “Did you ever wish you could erase me?”

“Erase you?”

“You know, like in the movie how they—”

“Yes, I’m aware. I remember that movie very well. Pun not intended.” Jessica’s eyebrows pull together so tightly that she’s left squinting, and she has to blink, her vision blurring and clearing, finding their focal point in Tiffany. “No, I didn’t.”

Tiffany studies her. “Never?”

“Never,” Jessica confirms. “What, did you want to erase me?”

“Sometimes,” Tiffany says candidly. Something like a flinch works its way through Jessica’s body, and she tries to control it before it can show, but it’s like trying to hold the ground together during an earthquake. “I thought it’d be easier that way. Not better. Easier.”

Jessica tries to keep her expression even, collected, hopes that the cracks along the fault lines don’t show. “Like I never existed?”

“Like we never existed. If nothing ever happened, then there’d be nothing to miss, right? Nothing to regret.”

“I don’t know. I think I’d miss us – miss you – even if my brain told me that there was no such thing. There’d be a blank, but it would feel not like an empty spot but like a gap, like there’s something that’s supposed to be there.”

Tiffany nods slowly. “Like you scooped out the filling of a Twinkie but you know it’s not supposed to be just a solid cake.”

Jessica just stares at her. “I think you’re the Twinkie. There are so many snacks out there you could have used as a metaphor but you chose the whitest snack there is.”

“Hey, at least I’m not a .”

“That makes no sense, you’re not even a guy, how can you be a—”

“Shut up,” Tiffany says for the third time, and even flicks Jessica on the forehead like she’s making some kind of point. Jessica rubs the area, scowling, and Tiffany suddenly leans in and bumps her incredibly hard skull right against Jessica.

“Ow,” Jessica says, loudly. “Hey, I already have a fivehead, I don’t need it to be any more prominent, okay?”

“I’m trying to have a Moment with you,” Tiffany says, somehow conveying an uppercase M through her tone.

“It’s not a very good moment.”

“You’re the worst at this,” Tiffany grumbles.

“I’m not the one who said I’d erase me!” Jessica’s voice cracks, her meagre protection measures giving way.

Tiffany leans back, and just as suddenly as she was there she’s gone, the warmth of her shocking in its absence. “I didn’t say that to hurt you.”

“I know.” You still did.

“I wouldn’t do it to hurt you. I mean, if it could be done. It would be…to spare us.”

“It would be to spare you,” Jessica says, “because I wouldn’t get it done. You wouldn’t remember me, but I’d still remember you. What if we ran into each other one day and I say something and you would just think I’m this crazy stranger?”

“Well, I already know you’re crazy, so that impression would only be half off.” Tiffany looks at her, so soft and yet so intense in that Tiffany way of hers, and Jessica has to fight not to look away because she’s never quite been able to handle that expression. “You’re right. It would be selfish, to erase you. It’d be—”

“—an easy way out,” Jessica says, remembering how Tiffany had said, not better, easier. But since when have they taken the easy way out? This thing between them has never been easy; nothing about their lives has ever been easy. And that has never stopped them.

“I’m sorry,” Tiffany murmurs, her head dropping like she’s confessing to a sin. Jessica wordlessly a hand through her hair, cups the nape of her neck like an absolution.

Jessica cracks a smile. “I wouldn’t have insisted that we watch that movie if I knew we were going to get way too in by a fictional procedure that’s not even possible.”

“Even if it were possible, I wouldn’t do it.”

Jessica her head to the side. “No?”

“No,” Tiffany says firmly. “I wouldn’t.”

“Wow, I’m really persuasive.” Jessica gives herself a mental pat on the back. “I should be a lawyer. Or maybe a politician.”

Tiffany laughs. “Run for president. I’d vote for you.”

“Great, I’d get four votes – you, Krystal and my parents. Well actually, Krystal probably wouldn’t even vote for me so that’s three votes.”

“You forgot the millions from our fans.”

Jessica sighs melodramatically. “Tiffany, I don’t want to be the kind of celebrity who abuses my platform and takes advantage of my fans like that.”

The corners of Tiffany’s mouths twitch, like she’s holding back a laugh, and she very admirably maintains a straight face as she says, “You’re right. You’re better than that.”

“I’d be the best presidential candidate who only gets three votes ever.”

“Amen to that,” Tiffany says solemnly, and finally succumbs to laughter that she shares against Jessica’s mouth.

Jessica has to amend that one thing is easy and that’s loving Tiffany. It’s easy the way breathing is easy, the way blinking is easy, a natural, instinctive part of her that she doesn’t have to remind herself to do, that she can’t stop even if she wanted to.

Tiffany looks at her with that expression again, and this time, Jessica meets it with her own. This Moment is not one that anything or anyone can erase.

A/N: Full disclosure: I never watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind so I hope I didn't screw up the premise!