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piratekane · 2 years ago

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one month.

If Ava wanted to count the number of things she knows about Bea, she’d run out of fingers and toes in the time it takes her to blink. She’d need a piece of paper like the one Bea writes their grocery lists on, except… a hundred of them taped together until it goes from their front door, down the three flights of stairs, and out of the building to the sidewalk.

That’s how much she knows about Beatrice.

But she learns something new every day, adds another line to the list, and today’s thing is: Bea has the funniest sneeze.

Ava isn’t sure what she expected. People sneeze all the time. And some of them are loud - like Michael, in her lit seminar - or quiet or nasally. Some of them are dignified and some of them explode, legs and arms akimbo. She just learned that word. She likes the way it feels in her mouth.

Bea sneezes like clinking a spoon against fine china, dainty as a mouse and barely a squeak. The first time Ava hears it, two rooms and one door between them, she thinks there is a mouse in the apartment. And she thinks it’s her fault. She brought home a sandwich the night before and it occurred to her somewhere around two in the morning that she hadn’t put it back in the refrigerator before she went to bed.

She hadn’t actually gotten out of bed to check, but she felt bad about it when she woke up in the morning.

But she hears a slight squeak and thinks mouse and goes running out of her bedroom with the dustpan she took from the kitchen two nights ago high in her hand, ready to strike.

Bea looks up from where she’s pouring hot water into a mug and just as she’s about to ask something, she squeaks.

Ava frowns.

“I’m-” Bea turns away, sneezing three more times into her arm, her whole body spasming.

Ava jumps a little with each one, her arm slowly falling to her side as she realizes that there isn’t a mouse. It’s just Bea sneezing like a family of them have moved into the kitchen and declared themselves its rightful owners.

Bea straightens up, cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry,” she says, managing to get it out this time.

“You’re sick.”

“Merely a-” She squeaks, four this time. From the pocket of her sweater, the one Ava wants to borrow because she’s sure she could curl up in it and disappear for a few days, she pulls a tissue. She blots at her nose. “It’s just a few sneezes.”

Ava frowns. “Are you sure? Are you hot?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, striding forward and pressing the back of her hand to Bea’s forehead.

She can remember the way Sister Frances’ clammy hands felt against her hot forehead, and she tries to be gentler, keeping her touch light.

“No fever.”

The corner of Bea’s mouth crinkle and she reaches up, turns Ava’s hand over until the inside of her wrist is against Bea’s forehead. “This is how you check for a fever.”

Ava holds still, letting the thin skin of her wrist settle against Bea’s flushed skin. It’s hot, almost incendiary. She frowns.

“Okay, yes fever. Why’re you out of bed? How long have you had a fever? When were you going to tell me you were sick?” She asks her questions in rapid fire, both hands curled around Bea’s shoulders now, holding her at arm’s length.

“Ava,” Bea says kindly. Her hands, palms also hot, curl around Ava’s forearms. Ava realizes she’s practically shaking Bea. “I only came to get some tea.”

She squints, a frown on her face. “You weren’t even going to tell me you were sick?”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d-” Bea stops herself, but Ava knows the end of the sentence. She can feel it between them. Her frown deepens and a thin string around her heart tightens a little. Bea clears her throat. “I was just going to slip back into my room.”

“And not even tell me you were sick,” Ava confirms. She sighs, heavy and put upon. “You have to tell me these things, you know.”

“I do?” Bea asks. Ava thinks she hears a hint of amusement. “I didn’t realize.”

“Of course you do! We’re roommates. I take care of you, you take care of me.” She shuffles Bea over towards the refrigerator, away from the counter. She picks up where Bea left off, pouring water into the mug Bea pulled down, and gracelessly dunking a tea bag into it. “You like honey, right?”

Bea is quiet long enough that Ava turns, confused. Finally, she says, “I’m sorry.”

Confusion clears. Ava smiles. “I know we’re new at living together, but these are the things I need to know. Anything you told your last roommate, you can tell me.”

“I didn’t,” Bea says.

Ava dunks the tea bag again, watching the leaves change the color of the water. She stops when some hot water waves up over the lip of the mug. Without thinking, she uses the pad of her finger to wipe it up before it runs down the whole side of it. The mug is boiling. She hisses quietly, hoping Bea doesn’t hear it, and then grabs the honey.

“You don’t need to apologize again.” Ava mixes the honey into the tea, careful this time.

“I mean, I didn’t tell my roommate.” Bea shifts when Ava turns to look back at her. “We weren’t— Our relationship was not like that.”

Ava blows on Bea’s tea and watches the surface of it ripple. “So she didn’t make you tea.”

Bea’s face ripples on its own, amusement in her mouth. “I don’t know that she knew her way around a tea bag.”

“So you had to suffer on your own.” Ava sticks out her tongue. “Boo.”

She sobers slightly. She’s almost about to ask what Bea’s parents were like. Did they tuck her into bed? Did they make her tea with fancy leaves and organic honey collected by their on-property bee keepers? Did they stay home from work and lay in bed with her reading her stories until she fell asleep?

Did she get all the things Ava wished she could have?

And then she remembers: No. Bea didn’t have those things. She didn’t have warm hands tucking her into bed and smoothing hair back off her face while they checked for a fever. She didn’t have cups of steaming tea waiting for her on her bedside table. She didn’t have parents who climbed into bed with her to read her The Velveteen Rabbit or any of the other books Bea admitted she loved to read as a kid.

Her concern washes away in a fit of anger. If she ever meets Bea’s parents, she’ll give them a piece of her mind. She’ll tell them, look at who Bea has become! You had nothing to do with how great she is! She’d probably be escorted away by whatever private security they inevitably have - which Bea will neither confirm nor deny - but it’ll be worth it. It would be worth being carted off to the underbelly of some cavernous house and kept in a cellar with wine bottles, just to take one of Bea’s student-published works on postmodern theology and atheism and shove it in their faces.

It’ll do nothing to get the image of Bea, eyes glassy and whole body tucked into the corner of the couch as it unraveled with her story, out of her mind. She’ll think about it for a long time. How small Bea had been before she started talking about all the things she had done in their absence - the aikido tournaments she dominated, the scholarships she secured - before her eyes sharpened and her voice grew stronger. She did it without them.

Ava hasn’t known Bea as long as she wishes she did, but what she does know is that Beatrice is one of the strongest people she’s ever met. The fact that they even met is fate. Serendipity, she’s told Bea.

“Well,” she says, clearing the thoughts from her mind. “You’ve got me now. And I’ve read up on this, watched a lot of movies. I know exactly what to do.”

Bea looks a little wary.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Ava carefully walks around Bea, heading towards the couch. “Come on. I’ve got things to do.”

Bea sneezes again, three times in rapid succession. Ava smiles to herself. She’s sure if she asked, Bea would say she hates the way she sneezes. It breaks some of the strong and stern facade Bea puts on with people who aren’t her or Mary and Shannon or Lilith or Camila. It puts a crack in the armor.

And it’s adorable.

She sets down the mug and looks pointedly at the couch when Bea hovers behind her. When Bea doesn’t get the hint, Ava points at her, then down at the couch. There’s a moment where Bea looks like she might protest, but Ava lifts an eyebrow and she closes her mouth and sits down.

Ava grins. She grabs the blanket on the back of the couch. “Now, get ready. Because I’m known for my tucking-in skills.”

“You are?”

“Well, no,” she admits. “But consider this my audition to be.”

She doesn’t wait for Bea to do anything, just eases her back against the couch cushion and drapes the blanket over her. She uses quick and careful hands - she knows how Bea is about touching and she’s sure it’s even more important to her when she’s sick and her body isn’t cooperating. The blanket goes tightly around her legs and a little looser around her hips before they tighten at her shoulders again.

Ava steps back, admiring her handiwork with a smile.

Bea looks down, mouth disappearing under the blanket with it so close to her chin. “How do you expect me to move?” she asks slowly.

Ava frowns. She hadn’t considered that. “Uh.” She pulls her lips in and loosens the blanket around Bea’s shoulders. “How about this?”

Bea frees her arms and nods. “This is much better.” She must see the way Ava knows her face drops because she immediately reaches forward and grabs for Ava’s hand, squeezing it. “You did a very good job.”

She brightens at that. “You think so?”

“Very much so.” Bea leans forward a little and picks up her mug, having no such problem with the heat radiating off it. “If my last roommate had tucked me in, they wouldn’t hold a candle to you.”

A ripple of pride goes through her. She shimmies her shoulders a little with the news. But then she sets her sights on her next task. She thinks they have a can of soup here. But would Bea eat it? Or should she get something healthier than canned soup? She could try and make some…

She picks the television. First order of business is putting on something good to watch. She maneuvers the clicker with one hand, the other still in Bea’s, and flips through Bea’s Netflix account until she finds the documentary section. She picks one of the nature ones at random - there’s nothing quite like cuddly animals.

For a second, she panics. What if this is one of them that talks about the life cycle of animals and she has to watch a hyena eat a zebra? She hasn’t recovered from seeing a lion attack a baby rhino. And Bea wouldn’t like that. Not when she doesn’t feel well and she just wants something fun and-

A hand tightens around hers. Bea looks at the seat next to her and tips her head. “Do you want to sit with me?”

She didn’t know she was waiting for the question. She drops down onto the couch so hard that she bounces a little and Bea slides almost imperceptibly closer to her. For a second, she thinks Bea will bring her hand back into her own lap or tuck it under the blanket. But Bea’s hand just shifts, holding loosely onto hers. Ava wiggles down until her head can drop against Bea’s shoulder. She feels her breathe in deeply and lets her own breath mirror it.

She loves this. She loves Bea. She loves this whole thing they’re creating.

She loves waking up in the morning to the cereal box on the counter. She loves mid-afternoon study sessions stretched across their living room. She loves coming home after a long day of classes where her back is killing her and Bea is already waiting with a heat patch and a smile. She’s never had a best friend before, never had someone who seems to know her so well. She didn’t think it was possible; they’ve known each other for only a little while now, but she’s sure there isn’t a person in the world who knows as much about her as Bea does.

If she woke up tomorrow and it was all gone - her freedom, this apartment, her scholarship, the Chinese restaurant where they always throw in an extra crab rangoon - the only thing she’d crawl through hell and back for is Beatrice.

Bea is her best friend in the whole world, and Ava loves her.

An antelope crosses the screen, a lion stalking behind it. Ava groans, turning so that the point of Bea’s warm shoulder is pressed between her eyes. “Tell me if that antelope gets eaten, okay?”

She feels Bea laugh more than she hears it. “Okay, Ava.”

“Then I’ll make you soup,” she says into Bea’s soft cotton shirt. “Or get someone to deliver it.”

“We’re not paying the delivery fee,” Bea says quickly. She’s quiet for a second. “But soup sounds nice.”

Ava grins and squeezes Bea’s hand gently. “You’ll see. I’ll take really good care of you.”

She nearly misses the soft “thank you” but she holds onto it long after Bea has fallen asleep, head tipped back against the couch, skin clammy as she comes down from her fever. Bea never has to thank her for anything; Ava would do anything for her.

She’ll make Bea understand that eventually.

two months.

She’s never seen Bea like this. It’s like some kind of Tasmanian devil was let loose in their apartment - the one from the cartoon, which is the messier but less scary version. There’s paper everywhere, large stacks on the breakfast bar and some of them taped to the walls of the living room. The coffee table is buried under a mountain of books, some with titles in foreign languages. The couch has more books, all open and spread out with small markers on the pages.

Beatrice sits in the middle of it all, on the floor, her head in her hands.

Ava lets her backpack fall silently at her feet. She carefully tucks it against the wall near the shoe rack and toes off her shoes, putting them away without needing to be reminded of where or how. She doesn’t think Bea would appreciate it right now.

“Hey, Bea,” she says cautiously.

Bea’s head snaps up. Some of her hair has slipped free from her bun, hanging down and angling her face. Her eyes look a little wild, like she’s having trouble identifying the source of the sound. She finally blinks and they clear as she takes in Ava.

Ava puts on a smile. “Hey. I’m home.”

“You’re-” Bea looks at her watch - one of the ones with the numbers on it that Ava can’t read. She frowns, deep lines running across her forehead. “It’s already three.”

“Yeah. My bio lab ran a little late.” She grimaces. They’ve been testing water samples this week and Ava is struggling. She almost didn’t go to class this morning, but she can’t saddle JC with all their work. Even if she did keep them afloat during the cell respiration lab.

Things haven’t been weird since their disastrous attempt at a date a week ago. In fact, JC has been really cool. He understood they were going to do better off as friends. She hadn’t said anything, but she knew he could tell her heart wasn’t in it. If he knew why her heart wasn’t in it, maybe he'd feel differently. But probably not. JC is one of the nicest guys she’s ever met. And when she left, a coffee in hand, she hugged him gratefully, promised things wouldn’t be weird, and ran home to the person she actually wanted to be with.

If she lets herself think too hard about it, she’s almost sure JC does know. Maybe it’s because when she got to their next class and slid into the stool next to him, passing him a donut, he asked how Bea was doing. Maybe it’s because he clapped her on the shoulder at the end of class and told her to tell Bea he said hello.

She didn’t do that. But it was nice of him to say so.

“I didn’t realize the time…”

Ava looks around. Their apartment did not look like this when she left at eight for the start of her long day of classes. It was very much normal and not so much A Beautiful Mind a few hours ago. She takes a careful step forward, curling her hands around the back of the couch. She weighs her options.

“So, what’s up, Doc?” She smiles encouragingly when Bea blinks at her. “You’ve got… quite the setup going here.”

Bea looks around, cheeks staining as she takes in the room. She seems to be seeing the whole picture for the first time. “Oh.” She immediately grabs an open book, stuffing a handful of paper into it and snapping it close. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was-”

“No,” Ava says quickly. She rounds the couch, grabbing the book from Bea and opening it again. She carefully puts it back where it was, smoothing out the now-crinkled paper that was pressed between its pages. “You don’t have to do that. Don’t mess things up.”

“I have a system. I can easily return things to where they go.”

Ava doubts that, but she smiles. “Sure. I’m just saying, you don’t have to throw your things out of whack because I’m back. It’s… a lot to have to pick up.” She scans the page she’s holding in her hand. Notes on The Sacred and the Profane. She hands it to Bea. “Big test coming up?”

Bea takes it carefully, smoothing it out and placing back on what seems to be an endless pile of notes. “Paper. My first draft is due tomorrow by the start of my 8am. I thought I had enough sources, but I reread the original prompt and it’s asking for three more than I originally selected.” There’s a strain of mania in her voice. “I couldn’t decide on what text to use, and now I am much further behind than I wanted to be.”

Ava sinks down to her knees next to Bea. She hesitates for a second before she takes her hand and squeezes it tightly. Not because she doesn’t want to touch Bea, because she always wants to be touching Bea. But because Bea seems like a crystalline figure right now and Ava has always been clumsy.

“How long have you been doing this?”

“A few hours, I suppose.” Bea looks around. Her shoulders sag. “I pulled what I could from the library, but I did not have much time to gather all the things I needed.”

“This is not enough?” Ava whistles, low. “I’d hate to see what you think is.” She soothes the words with a thumb over the back of Bea’s hand. “Have you eaten yet today?”

Bea’s eyes linger on their hands long enough that Ava thinks about letting go. She doesn’t want to make Bea uncomfortable. Just as she thinks about pulling her hands back into her own lap, Bea nods. “I had breakfast.”

“Okay, let me be more specific. Have you eaten anything since 6:30 this morning?”

The blush on Bea’s cheeks deepen.

“I’m going to take that as a no.” Ava sits back on her heels and groans a little at the way her back muscles pull. Bea immediately opens her mouth, but Ava shakes her head. “I’m fine. I just need a second and then I’m going to make you something to eat.”

Bea’s concern fades to wariness. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Let me.” She says it much softer than she means to, but it does the trick. Bea nods and Ava grins. Taking a deep breath, she pushes up onto her feet and carefully walks around Bea’s notes and books. “So, how close are you to being done?”

She thinks she hears a groan. “I’ve selected one additional source, but…” She definitely hears a sigh. “I’m not convinced of the last two.”

Ava opens the refrigerator. Bea makes sure there’s always something in it, something they can throw together and make something out of. She spots the carrots and onion and broccoli. They have a chicken breast they were saving for dinner tonight - Ava was going to try her hand at chicken parmesan, under close supervision - but this seems like a pizza night, so she doesn’t mind using it now. Chicken stir-fry for late lunch it is.

“You can tell me about it?”

She pulls out a cutting board and a knife, washing her hands before she starts chopping up the onion. She follows the steps she remembers Bea teaching her: fingers in, even dicing. She only nicked herself the first time and the blood had been enough to get her to understand she needed to slow down with a knife in her hand.

“It’s okay. But thank you.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Ava watches Bea lift her arms above her head and stretch out. She nearly looks away as a sliver of skin escapes from under Bea’s shirt. But she lingers for a second and then the skin is gone, hidden under the hem of her shirt. Ava misses it already.

She blinks a few times. “If you want to later, you can,” she offers. She moves onto the carrots. Bea taught her the importance of mis en place and having everything ready to go. “I mean, it might not make any sense, but I like to hear you talk.” She grins at the flush on Bea’s face, visible even across the apartment.

She’s not lying. She could listen to Bea talk all day. There’s a soothing quality to her voice, a kind of warm ebbing effect it has over her. That, and she heard once that humans can listen to the sound of the people they love talk for hours.

She thinks that being in love with Beatrice means she could listen even longer.

Papers shuffle behind her as she cuts the broccoli. She glances back over her shoulder, knife hovering above the board.

Being in love with Beatrice happened slowly, like adding grains of rice to the rice cooker, one piece at a time until the whole thing was full. One day she was thinking, I love this. I love this life. I love Beatrice, and the next she was wondering what it might be like if she could climb into her bed and kiss her slowly.

It wasn’t just lust, either. She’d gone through that period with other people - fresh in the world, she’d been attracted to nearly everyone she saw. But it was never anything of substance. The appeal didn’t last past wondering what kind of kisser they were or what their hands might feel like against her hips.

With Beatrice, it’s deep. She wants to know what kind of kisser Bea is, what her hands might feel like if they pushed down purposefully against her hips. But she also wants to curl around Bea on the couch and listen to her talk about her day. She wants to go to brunch on the weekends and split a plate of french toast or maybe waffles or maybe both. She wants to know that in a crowded room of people, Bea is going home with her.

She likes the way Bea smiles sleepily over her first cup of tea, the way she brushes Ava’s hair off her face almost absentmindedly, the way she holds open every door, the way she lets Ava press a kiss to her forehead or a kiss to her cheek and doesn’t shy away from her.

Grains of rice, falling into a cup. Each one of them is one more thing to love.

She hears light footsteps behind her and she smiles, knife slicing through the florets.

“How were your classes?”

It would be easy to drop into her own day, to tell Bea about Carina and Professor MacKay, or how JC nearly dropped their sample and they had to start all over again, or how the librarian who usually doesn’t care about her iced coffee was out today and she had to chug the whole thing like a beer in the vestibule before the librarian who does care saw her, or how she nearly tripped over her shoelaces between the Quad and Venable but managed to stay upright and avoid falling on her face in front of a tour of fresh-faced hopeful freshmen-to-be. She could dive into that and make it about her, and it would be easy to shift focus.

Bea might appreciate the distraction, actually. But she knows if she starts now, Bea will be too nice to tell her to stop and she’ll be up until the sun rises trying to nail down the rest of this paper.

So she smiles instead and waves one knife-less hand at Bea. “Sit. Tell me about your paper.”

“Ava.”

Ava ignores her sigh, washing her hands again before she takes the chicken out of its package and pats it dry.

“I thought we were having that for dinner.” Bea sounds a little further away, like she’s taking some of Ava’s advice and sitting down. “I bought pasta.”

She cuts the chicken into thin strips, careful of slicing through her hand. It’s smooth, the benefit of Bea’s care and consideration for their kitchen utensils. She took the time to teach Ava, too. Her dream was to be able to juggle knives, but she figured knowing how to cut with them without cutting herself was the place to start.

And Bea wouldn’t teach her that anyway.

“The benefit of dry pasta is that it doesn’t actually expire.”

“It loses some of its quality,” Bea counters.

Ava grins. “Well, it won’t lose any of its quality in 24 hours. We can have it tomorrow.” She washes her hands again and grabs a pan, twisting it neatly in her hand before she sets it down on the stove top. “We’ll get pizza later.”

When she spares a glance back at Bea as she adds oil to the pan, Bea is shaking her head. “It’s already three in the afternoon. We won’t-”

“Benefit of living off a college campus: places deliver late.” She shakes her head playfully when Bea opens her mouth to argue. “Stop arguing with me. You’ll lose. And you need to save all your strength for arguing the hell out of your point in your paper.”

Bea looks amused. “It’s not an argumentative paper.”

“Everything is if you try hard enough.” She leans back against the counter away from the stove, arms crossed over her chest. “But why don’t you tell me about your paper?”

The mention of it has Bea dropping her head into her hands. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“The beginning, preferably. My understanding of theological knowledge is a little limited to nuns, bad.” She doesn’t get the smile she hoped for.

Bea looks up. “I don’t usually miss something like this.” She sounds miserable and Ava’s heart breaks a little. “I’m usually better at paying attention to the fine details.”

“Is this Vegara’s class?” She has Bea’s professors memorized, knows which ones are total dicks - her words - and which ones are excellent contributors to the degree program - Bea’s words. Vegara is, in one of Ava’s words, an asshole.

Bea nods and straightens up, taking another deep breath. “I don’t know how I missed this,” she repeats.

“You’re human. You’re going to mess up every so often.”

But she can tell it’s bothering Bea. So she searches the refrigerator again and pulls out one of the yuzu seltzer waters that Bea likes, the ones Ava can only find at the grocery store across town - a long, long bus ride. It’s worth it. She knows how much Bea enjoys them. She opens it and puts down in front of Bea with a wide smile.

“Thank you,” Bea says quietly.

She picks up her phone next, going to her Spotify app. She scrolls until she finds the playlist she titled Bea’s Bangers <3 and picks “Honey” by Robyn. She puts it on shuffle and then down in front of Bea in case she wants to execute one of her allotted three song passes.

Bea never uses them unless “Dancing Queen” comes on - a flaw Ava can be convinced to overcome for the right price. She just hasn’t figured out a way to tell Bea it’ll cost her a kiss, at least.

“It’s a shame Vegara is a massive bitch,” Ava continues. The oil starts to sizzle and she picks up the tongs (the ones with little cat paws instead of the usual metal heads that she bought precisely to annoy Lilith) to begin laying chicken slices in the pan. “She’s hot.”

Bea coughs delicately. “No, she isn’t.”

Ava snaps the tongs at Bea. “She is. But she’s also mean. And not, like, hot and mean. Just hot. And mean. Two full sentences.”

Bea blinks at her for a moment before a fond smile stretches across her mouth. She shakes her head gently and leans forward, resting her chin in her hand. Ava grins, satisfied with the way that Bea looks a little lighter, with the way she seems to unwind a little with a small laugh.

Ava drinks it in. Loose and unraveling, Beatrice is beautiful. Hair falling across her cheeks, the wild in her eyes steadying into something soft and present. Lips curled up in a smile. Ava falls a little more in love with each passing second.

“You’re ridiculous,” Bea mumbles.

“You love me.”

She tries to keep the hope out of her voice, tries to quell the question. She must, because Bea is still smiling, still gazing at her with that same look on her face Ava prays she gets to see every day for the rest of her life. Bea sips her seltzer water, and Ava pushes around chicken in a pan, and they stand with a breakfast bar between them and just this one secret that Ava can never tell.

“I find you to be an agreeable roommate,” Bea finally says, lips turned up around the truth.

Ava points the tongs at her, ignoring the droplet of oil that splashes on the floor. Bea doesn’t ignore it, eyes following it and flicking back up to Ava.

“I’m way better than an ‘agreeable roommate’,” she argues as she grabs a paper towel and cleans up the spot. “What’s her name was an ‘agreeable’ roommate. I’m God-tier.”

“Her name is Gina,” Bea says lightly.

“Gina bo beana,” Ava dismisses. “Would she make you chicken stir fry and tell you your professor sucks ass?”

Bea’s face softens. “No, she wouldn’t.” She smiles, a little lopsided. “But you knew that.”

“Of course I knew that.” Ava turns the chicken over, eyes darting to Bea between pieces. “But I like to hear you say it.”

She likes knowing she’s doing a better job taking care of Bea. She likes knowing that she’s the one who puts Bea first - something everyone in her life should have been doing since day one, Ava thinks. She likes knowing her love can make her into the kind of person who values someone else over her own self.

“How much longer do you think I’ll have to say it for?” Bea sounds curious, but entertained.

Ava shrugs. “What are you doing for the rest of your life?”

Bea stares at her for a second longer before she shrugs, so uncharacteristically of her. “I don’t believe I know the answer to that.”

Ava pulls her own seltzer water out of the refrigerator and cracks open the can, listening to the carbonation fizzle. “Well, I guess I’m stuck here until you figure it out.”

“I suppose I’ll have to live with that.” Bea finally looks away, eyes straying over Ava’s shoulder to the stove top. “I’m not sure you’d leave even if I begged you to.”

No, she almost exhales. I’m staying with you forever. Where you go, I go. That’s what she told Bea once, not so long ago. My people will be your people. I’ll die buried next to you.

It’s too dramatic to say out loud. Even worse because she’s never actually told Bea about these feelings. She’s too fast sometimes, moving too quickly. She doesn’t slow down when she needs to. But this is more than wishing she could speed up time to get a free coffee for her birthday. This is more than wanting an exam to be over.

She wants to slow down and fall in love with Bea unhurriedly. Lazily, even.

She blinks. “No, I don’t think I would. What did Mary call me? An ankle weight?” She grins. “It’s nicer than what Lilith calls me, at least.”

Bea meets her eyes again. “Lilith says it from a place of love.”

Ava adds the vegetables. “Oh, I know. Imagine what she would say if she hated me?” she asks gleefully. “Now, let me tell you about the time I saw Vegara eat it on the stairs near the science building. Did I tell you I think she’s hooking up with Professor Sakeen, from the business department?”

Bea laughs. “No, Ava. That’s not true.”

“But imagine what we could do if we made people think they were?” Ava laughs when Bea shakes her head and opens her mouth to argue.

Ava doesn’t hear a word she says, but she memorizes the way her eyes light up and the press of her lips when she scolds Ava and the sharp, precision-like movements of her hands as she illustrates a point. She thinks, I love you, I love you, I’m in love with you.

Grains of rice, in an endless cup.

three months.

She’s going to kill them.

“I’m going to kill them.”

Ava thinks for another second, but nothing is going to change her mind. She stomps her foot a little, barely a thud against the carpet, and she crosses her arms over her chest, eyes narrowed and teeth bared.

Bea sighs. “Ava.”

She’s sitting on the couch, stick-straight with her hands curled primly over her knees. To anyone else, she looks like Bea - just a little more upright, a little more held together.

But to Ava - who knows every micro-expression on her face, who has memorized the way her eyes cut to one side before she’s about to give up a half-truth, who has studied the curl of Bea’s hands around coffee mugs and television remotes and her own hand - she knows better. Because she can see how thin Bea’s lips are, how the skin around her knuckles is as white as the bed sheets Ava knows are under the thick navy blue comforter of Bea’s bed.

“No.” Ava starts pacing again, picking up where she left off a moment ago. She might just wear a hole in the carpet, her steps feel like fire. “Don’t Ava me right now.” She grinds her teeth together, flexes her fingers and closes them into fists, scowling at an invisible monster ahead of her.

“Who do they think they are?” she asks, the same question she’s asked five times in the last five minutes. “They call, what did you say? Once a calendar year? To ‘catch up’ and just-” She huffs and jabs a finger at no one. “First, I’m going to count up the number of times they said lifestyle choice and multiply that by the number of fingers I have.” She starts counting on those same fingers.

“After I do that, I’m going to add that to each time your mother sniffed like she was catching a cold from the mere thought of having to ask you if you’re seeing anyone.” She turns sharply on the carpet, socked foot sliding a little. “And once I come up with that number, I’m going to use it as a guide for the number of times I need to punch your father in his stupid mustache - he has one, right? - for even suggesting you’ve had enough time to ‘come to your senses’ about this.” Her voice goes high, vocal chords tightening. “This? This is your life! This is who you are!”

She growls in the hollow of her throat, feeling her face grow hot. “And I’d make it so they never called back. I’d curse them so their sleeves always got wet when they did the dishes. Or that they stubbed their toe every time they walked into a room. You’re their daughter. Not some inconvenient stranger they have to ‘make time’ for. Though,” she scoffs, “they’d probably be more considerate of some stranger who doesn’t know what they look like without their stupid, fake smiles on.”

The high likelihood that they would do that, value someone else over Bea and the sheer injustice of it all, boils her blood and makes her explode. “And another thing!” She rounds on Bea, mouth open in a snarl— then stops mid-rant when she finally sees her.

Bea looks… The line of her spine is threatening to buckle. Her wrists are starting to shake. Ava can see the slight wobble of her bottom lip and the way she’s holding back what Ava knows would be a tidal wave of tears.

Ava’s heart cleaves in her chest at the sight of Bea, two pieces rocketing down into her stomach.

She isn’t helping.

As furious as she is right now, it isn’t making things better for Bea; it might even be making it worse. Her anger doesn’t matter right now, not more than what Bea is feeling, and what Ava needs is to ease the sorrow rolling off Bea in waves.

So she swallows back her fury, quickly forming it into a knot, and crosses the room. Every muscle spasms as she sinks to her knees in front of Bea, wrapping light fingers around her wrists. She can feel her pulse, trembling wildly, under hot fingertips.

“Bea,” she says quietly.

Bea inhales, the sound shaky and loud between their bodies. “I’m fine.”

Ava strokes her thumb over the small bundle of nerves clustered at the base of Bea’s wrist. It echoes back at her. “You don’t have to be.”

“I am.” It’s steadier this time but Ava can still hear the way it trembles. “It doesn’t- It doesn’t ma-”

“It matters.” She knows she’s bordering on too firm, knows she’s being a little too strong. She tightens her grip on Bea’s wrist and holds it steady. “It matters so fucking much, Bea. And I- I’m going to kill them.”

Bea’s smile is watery. “You don’t need to say that.”

“Say it? I mean it.” Ava rocks back on her heels, her whole body tight and locked up. She’d stay cramped forever if it meant she didn’t have to let go of Bea right now. “I don’t think I’ve ever meant anything so much in my whole life.”

“You said that about the man who left the black beans out of your taco last week,” Bea reminds her gently, just a hint of a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth.

Ava pauses. “Well. Okay. Yes. I meant that when I said it. But that was before your shitty, scu-”

“Ava,” Bea says quietly.

She snaps her mouth shut for a moment before she opens it again. “This is more than black beans, Beatrice. This is you. And yeah, I’d kill your parents if you asked me to. No questions, no hesitation. I’d go full John-Wick-loses-his-dog on their asses. You know what? You don’t even have to ask me. I’d do it.”

I’d do anything for you.

Bea carefully turns her wrists until their palms are pressed lifeline to lifeline. Her voice is whisper-quiet when she breathes out, “You don’t mean that.”

Ava inhales sharply. It sounds like a firecracker and Bea flinches away from it. She tightens her grip on Bea’s hand, her hand aching from the pressure. She wants to reach inside Bea and pull out this voice in the back of her mind that’s whispering these things to her. She wants to choke it out right in front of Bea, show her that it has no business speaking, lying to her like that. She wants to twist it until it breaks in her hands, wants to hold up the broken parts and say, Look, Bea. This isn’t the only thing I’d break for you.

“I do mean it,” she says instead.

She needs Bea to understand. She does mean it. She would do it. She wouldn’t hesitate to cut a bitch, a phrase she learned from listening to Mary swindle money away from a guy at the bar who bet he could beat her in a game of pool. Bea’s parents aren’t drunk college boys with too much of their daddy’s money, but they carry the same sense of entitlement that she just knows drips off Bea’s parents.

She inhales, slower this time. “Listen.”

Bea looks up after a moment. Her eyes shimmer slightly. Anger swells in Ava’s stomach and nearly bowls her over. But she swallows past it.

“Do you remember what I said when I first met you?”

Bea’s mouth wrinkles in a frown. “What?”

“When I first met you. What did I say?” She nods encouragingly. Bea stares at her for a moment before she shakes her head. “Okay, you were supposed to say, You said, How’s your chemis-tea? Because, you remember, you were studying your chem notes and I spilled that cup of tea all over your notebook?”

Bea nods slowly.

“And then I would be like, ‘no, Bea, not that. What did I say next?’ And you wouldn’t remember what I did say and I could tell you, I said, You seem like someone I could spend some qualit-tea time with.”

“You didn’t say that,” Bea says slowly.

Ava sighs, exaggerating it. “No. But imagine if I had snuck in two puns for the price of one?”

Bea’s chest hitches, air caught in her throat.

Ava sobers slightly. “What I did tell you was that I knew you were important. I could tell by the way everyone around you seemed to be so interested in what you were doing.”

Bea frowns. “No one was watching me.”

“I was.”

Ava ducks her head to meet Bea’s eyes. “I’ve been watching you for months now, and I haven’t stopped wondering how you could be so…” She exhales slowly. “Amazing.”

If Bea’s eyes were shimmering before, they’re shining now. Tears threaten to spill over and Ava feels each one of them welling in her own chest. She grips Bea’s hands a little tighter, hoping she can absorb them before they fall.

“You’re amazing, Beatrice. And it has nothing to do with them. It’s in spite of them.” She waits until Bea meets her eyes. “You’re good. You’re smart, selfless. Kind. All the things they could never be. They’re shitty people with shitty opinions about who they think you’re supposed to be without knowing who you really are.” She runs a finger over the peaks and valleys of Bea’s knuckles. “And you shouldn’t give them this power. They don’t get to show up when they want to and leave you feeling like this.”

She watches the way Bea takes her words and twists them in mid-air, turning them back on themselves. She shakes her head quickly. “No, you’re not weak for thinking that.”

Bea blinks at her.

Ava smiles crookedly. “Don’t pretend like I don’t know what’s going on in there, Beatrice.” She lets go of one of Bea’s hands, tapping her temple gently. Bea sways under her touch. “I know exactly what you’re thinking. Like right now, you’re thinking, God, Ava, won’t you shut up?” She smiles a little, hoping Bea will too.

The problem is that she does know what’s going on in there. She knows the guilt and the shame and the way they swirl to make up the form of a woman Ava has never met, but would punch in the mouth if she ever got the chance. She sees Bea’s hesitation, knows that Bea wants to believe her. She does. But the number of years her parents have been talking circles around Bea is more than the number of months she’s known Ava. And it’s hard to compete with that.

But Ava does know Bea better.

That’s the thing about loving someone so completely. She knows Bea better than she knows herself. The dime store novels she greedily consumed under the covers at the orphanage and the rom-coms she watched on a small TV in the corner of her dorm room with Chanel - none of them ever talked about how deeply she would know someone else when she was in love with them.

She can tell by a look, by an exhale, by the slight upturn of Bea’s lip, what she’s thinking. Or what she’s feeling. Or what she’s wishing for.

And more than anything, Bea is wishing for someone to love her in spite of what her parents have told her she can never have.

It’s me, she wants to tell Bea. It’s me who loves you. It’s me who wants to make you as happy as you deserve to be. It’s me, it’s me, it’s me.

That’s the thing about loving someone so completely.

She knows Bea loves her back.

She knows that for all of the ways she can’t hide what she feels, Bea can’t either. She’s not reading into things, she’s not imagining them.

For every time Ava is thinking I could kiss her, she knows Bea is thinking I would let her.

Ava lies in bed most nights and wonders what it might be like if she gathered the courage to slip into Bea’s room and slide into her sheets just to hold her while she slept. She wonders what Bea would do. Send her away? Let her under that thick duvet Ava is sure is made up of a cloud? Be stuck somewhere between wanting her closer and pushing her back?

She wonders, but she won’t act on it. Because Bea isn’t ready. Bea is on the edge of something bigger than Ava and she’s not going to push. She’ll just be waiting at the bottom with a safety net for when Bea is ready to jump.

Her literary professor would call this tragic - two people destined to be together who will never be. But her literary professor doesn’t know her; he doesn’t know Beatrice.

He doesn’t know that they’re going to be together - just not right now.

Not now while Bea takes the time to allow herself to feel what she wants. Not now while Bea is trying to balance who she wants to be versus the person she’s been made to feel like she has to.

Ava knows about expectations. Even if the ones Sister Frances had were for her to fail so spectacularly God laughed at her, there are days when Ava feels like they’re a lifeline she can hold on to. She knows what it’s like to have poison in her ears, echoing in her mind like a snake hissing. When she’s thinking about her life, she’s always measuring it against what Sister Frances told her she would never be.

Bea’s parents had higher expectations, unreasonable aspirations for a girl that didn’t exist, but she can tell which nights Bea is beating herself up for not meeting them.

Ava is in love with Beatrice and she’s never been patient with anything, but she can be patient for this.

Because love is patient. And kind, it is not proud. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Beatrice is all of those, does all of those.

How can something like that be wrong?

Bea’s hand tenses in hers and Ava blinks.

“You’re my best friend,” Ava promises. “And I know you, so believe me when I say this. You matter. You deserve to be loved, unconditionally. You deserve to be treated like you’re the most important person in the world, because you are, to me. You’re always going to be the most important person in my life.”

Bea doesn’t meet her eyes. “You can’t say that.”

“Watch me.” She lifts her chin into the air, daring Bea to argue. She knows that she won’t. “I don’t care who you are or who you love. You could tell me you’re running away with that lady at the Registar’s office— who always seems to, honest to god, snarl at me when I ask how her day is going —and I’d throw you a party. If you told me you really did love her.”

She swears she sees a flicker of a smile on Bea’s face. It gives her courage.

“I’m proud of the person you are,” she says quietly. Bea looks down. “There isn’t anything you can do that’ll make me change my mind.”

I’m in love with you. There isn’t anything you can do that’ll change how I feel.

Bea swallows, her jaw clicking with the tension. She turns her hand over in Ava’s, blunt fingernails scratching against her palm. Ava holds her breath, feeling the pressure build in her chest. Just as her lungs start to burn, Bea clears her throat gently.

“That woman’s name is Marjorie.”

Ava lets her smile stretch slowly. “Marjorie, huh?”

Some of the tension breaks. Ava watches it wash over Bea as she takes her first deep breath in minutes. “She has a nameplate, right in front of her desk.”

“I don’t know.” Ava’s entire back has locked into one piece and she’s going to spend the rest of the night dismantling it, but it’s worth it to see the way the stress is leaking out of Bea, flowing off her in waves. “I think you’ve secretly made a plan to run away together.”

“Yes. I was planning on leaving this weekend, actually.”

She lets her fingers dust over Bea’s collarbone as she drops her hand back into Bea’s lap. “I fit in a carry-on suitcase.”

Bea rolls her eyes. “I remember.”

“You dared me that I couldn’t do it.”

“And you ached for days afterwards,” Bea reminds her.

Ava beams. “You were a very good nurse.”

Bea’s cheeks pinken slightly. “You were a terrible patient.”

Ava groans now, sliding back a little until she can use the edge of the couch to push up onto her feet. She inhales sharply. “I’m the best you’re gonna get.”

Bea’s hands go to her forearms, helping her stand upright. “Yes, I believe that’s true,” she murmurs.

Ava stretches her arms above her head, listens to a vertebrate pop a little. “I want sushi.”

“I thought you wanted Mexican?”

She shrugs. “Maybe we can get Mexican and sushi.” She watches the look of disgust wash over Bea’s face, but she still smiles. “You know what would be great, though? Like, really great?”

“Ice cream?”

Ava pauses. “Well, that, too. But no.” She slips her phone out of her pocket, opening up her messages and pulling up their group chat as she ignores the last message from Bea - Parents. “We have a movie night. Wouldn’t you love to bore all of us with the finer details of the historical aspects of Braveheart?”

Bea’s eyes flicker with fear. “I don’t want to-”

“No, no.” Ava quickly grabs onto Bea’s arm, squeezing gently. “They don’t need to know. Not if you don’t want them to. But wouldn’t it be funny to ask Lilith when she started taking makeup tips from Mel Gibson?” That gets a small smile. “Or we can watch the Twilight movies. Lilith went out with that guy who looked just like Jacob a few times last month. We can ask her when she knew she was into werewolves.”

Bea’s eyes lighten. “You just want to pester Lilith.”

“I’m a simple girl with simple needs.” She grins. “We can get stuff for ice cream and just… hang out. You deserve to be around people who love you.”

Bea covers Ava’s hand with her own. Ava can read the look in her eyes, the silent I am. Out loud, she smiles. “Thank you.”

Ava bows clumsily. “Anything for you, Your Highness.” She quickly thumbs out a message. “Now, if you don’t want to watch Twilight - which I’m super serious about, by the way - then you better pick something out before Camila gets here and tries to convince us to finally watch Disturbia.” She shudders. “No thank you. Though, that soundtrack is banging.”

Bea sighs, exasperated and adoring, and squeezes Ava’s hand one time before she drifts away. All the tension is gone - her spine as straight as ever, her eyes bright and sure, her hands steady. She’s back to being Bea. Ava gives herself a mental high-five and then focuses on dinner. Sushi does sound really good.

“Ava?”

“Hmm?” She looks up from her phone, scrolling the pretty pieces of fish.

Bea smiles shyly. “You’re my best friend too.”

I love you.

She smiles just as softly.

I know it.

Bea nods, just once, and goes back to tidying away her things, making space for all the food Ava is going to order, justifying it by saying the apartment is going to be packed. Ava smiles, feeling a soft part in her chest squeeze just once, just a small reminder that it’s there.

Love is patient and she can wait. For Bea.

(more forever roommates)

#forever roommates #warrior nun #avatrice #ava silva #sister beatrice #me: it'll be nice and short #also me: 🤡🤡🤡#everyone say thank you kay thank you kay #professional pusher and patron saint of typos #she is the real MVP here #i really tried to make this a normal length i promise y'all #i am posting this in the bathroom at a family event because i am avoiding a drunk uncle - we hate those - and honestly #this is more important than who has to clean up the kitchen #k byeee

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