Bea was lying on the couch in H1, her fingers clutching her tea cup so hard she feared she'd break it any second now, her mind a thousand miles away and her heart still caught up in a warzone.
It was times like these that she really hated being Top Dog – everyone from her inner circle and maybe even outside it could tell she was out of it since returning from Westfall's office this morning, hell, maybe even earlier. Truth be told, she had acted like a jackass to pretty much everyone who dared to approach her, which wasn't out of the ordinary. The reasons why were, though.
This time around, everything felt different.
She barely ate at breakfast, mostly just moved the cutlery around the plate absentmindedly, fearing she'd throw up if she even tried. She was still acting like a jittery mess in spite of her best efforts not to let it show. There wasn't a single thing that didn't make her snap, from Boomer's usual antics to the sun creeping through the blinds a little too brightly for her liking to her hair looking like absolute shit.
She didn't want to ask herself why she suddenly cared about her hair so much more today than on any other day.
And, if that wasn't odd enough, after her conversation with Westfall, her gloomy mood and preoccupied visage seemed to get worse, yet somehow slightly better too, at the same time.
Nothing made any fucking sense anymore but, at the same time, everything did. An unexpected turn of events.
She was starting to piece something together and though she was still nervous as hell, at least she wasn't on the verge of a panic attack like yesterday, in the back of the kitchen, when Allie…
She shut her eyes before giving her mind a chance to conjure that image again. And a dozen others on top that she might've dreamed of last night.
Maxine had been the first to pick up on it. She even stopped Boomer from making a "who peed in your cereal this morning" type joke. She knew Bea better than most people, tried to get her to talk, even invited her to join their midday workout to get whatever she had going on out of her system through pure, brute, physical force, if not standard human conversation or connection.
Neither approach worked and Maxine gave up for now, letting Bea to her own devices, which was the messy predicament she currently found herself in.
Bea resorted to closing herself off to everyone for the entire day and, if that wasn't enough, she was also starting to close in on herself, despite knowing everything in Bridget Westfall's psycho babble books would probably advise otherwise.
Everyone was out in the yard, the prison was thankfully deserted and dangerously quiet. Oddly enough, the calm before the storm proved to be soothing, it almost provided comfort. It was deadly silent - everything her mind and heart weren't.
I've known a lot of women who identified as straight and who fell in love with a woman and panicked.
Fucking Westfall.
Fell in love?
There was no possible way in any foreseeable universe that she was actually in love with Allie Novak. Aside from Debbie and the platonic friendships she's formed in prison, she was pretty sure she was all out of love for anyone, especially herself.
She couldn't be.
She's never even known romantic love, at least what she had with Harry couldn't be labeled as that, not even by the most twisted shrink – it was pure marital abuse, emotional and physical. Plain and simple. And there were more days she's spent lying awake at night feeling broken and worthless throughout her entire existence than capable of offering love.
She can't love Allie. She doesn't know how to.
Does she even want to?
Bea shut her eyes tightly once again, feeling a throbbing headache coming and a painful knot get stuck in her throat. She tried to stop, but she couldn't do anything to derail the steady stream of thoughts following that same pattern, leading her back to Allie.
Allie, who was also a woman.
They were just two broken women, facing hell day by day, both lonely and tortured, dealing with their own demons, living in an even bigger prison than Wentworth could ever dream of being. It was precisely what she told Westfall it was - a gate gay thing, two people looking for something in each other when life had barely given them anything.
That was all there was to it. Right?
And the fact that when she drowned in an endless sea of blue at breakfast today for a split second, all the air got promptly knocked out of her lungs on the spot meant nothing.
And the fact that the last piece of her recently awakened heart broke and shattered on the floor when the blonde briefly smiled at her and her own eyes unconsciously traced the contour of her lips for a fleeting, fugitive, guilty moment meant absolutely nothing.
Her impulse to avoid Allie's look and get out of that room as soon as possible, fearful to gaze back and see those pleading, glistening blue eyes laced with hurt and something else as they stuck to her frame like a magnet was also completely coincidental.
And to those women, I always said - forget the terminology, just be in the moment and see how you feel. Cause if you've fallen for someone then…fuck the labels.
Why did she care so much about labels, all of a sudden? She had told Allie that she wasn't gay. It was the truth – or at least, her previous truth. She had never looked at women that way.
She tried to silence the nagging, yet painfully insightful voice in her head screaming – you've only looked at Allie that way.
Franky was her best friend, Westfall was pretty great, despite pushing all of her buttons during their session today, Allie was..well, Allie. She had nothing against gay women, she's even raised her daughter the same way – accepting, open.
But maybe she was so focused on labels because, throughout her entire life and in all instances of it, everyone had tried to put her into a neat box, tied with a fancy ribbon on top that didn't allow her to break free from imposed characterisations, thrust upon her with no warning. Each time, she was forced to play the part to perfection.
She never had a say in it and the scars on her thigh were the only indicators of how much that was really breaking her, indicators that only Allie had seen, yet again.
She had seen the worst and the best and she never walked away. Not even once.
At the same time, everyone else had tried to label everything that she did or didn't do. To most people, she wasn't even Bea.
She was Bea Smith – convicted murderer and prison escapee.
Bea Smith – abused wife and widow of Harry Smith.
Bea Smith – mother of Debbie Smith.
Bea Smith – Top Dog at Wentworth.
By now, she not only tried to shut that voice in her head telling her that Allie always saw her as just Bea, she was close to begging it to stop.
Surely Allie must've only seen an idealistic version of her that was falsely inspiring and powerful, so powerful that the sheer force of her example was enough to keep the blonde off drugs for good, so important that she'd risk her freedom alongside the Red Right Hand to honor what she did, even if it was in a twisted, backwards way. There was no way she was any of those things outside of the bubbly blonde's lively, colorful imagination.
She would never admit out loud that Allie seeing so much more in her than she ever did shortcircuted her numb heart for reasons she was tired of fighting.
So it's the fear of the Top Dog's wrath that keeps you clean?
Hell no, it's her strength.
Allie always thought she was strong when everyone else had labeled her as weak – for not leaving Harry, for not getting the job done before she got sent into this hellhole, for not giving Debbie a better life.
No one ever saw her or her story as inspiring in quite the same way Allie did. No one ever used that label to describe her.
Allie might have treated her like royalty at first, sure, but once the fangirl crush wore off, she saw her as just Bea – no expectations, no pressure, nothing.
I don't care what you are.
The weight of those words was suddenly too hard to bear for the conflicted redhead. Allie didn't care, so why did she? Why was she still stuck on labeling things? She sipped the last drops of her cold tea and placed the cup on the table, a little louder than she intended.
How could anyone put a label on a human heart?
The sudden noise brought her back to her current situation, as the surroundings became clear again. When they did, her eyes traveled across the room like they knew a path she didn't, reaching a single spot in the hallway.
I'm Allie Novak.
Suddenly, the unbearable weight in her chest urged her to move. She had to get away. She had to go anywhere she couldn't see or think about or, God forbid, run into Allie. Not until she had this figured out, she deserved at least this much from her.
She wasn't ready, despite knowing that avoiding the blonde wasn't the wisest or most considerate course of action. This time she simply gave in to the flight-or-fight impulse.
She had fought tooth and nail her entire life. It was time to bolt.
That was the impulse that drove her to an empty laundry room, while everyone else was still outside. She had never been more thankful for that hour of physical exercise – she could finally enjoy the quiet, away from prying eyes, away from the drama and sheer darkness of this place.
Away from Allie.
Fuck.
She couldn't help but curse herself for not handling the situation any better, as she ran an angry hand through her wild curls, before sitting down on the floor, her back resting against one of the washing machines, carrying and barely supporting the entire weight of the world for God only knows how long again.
She had been picking at the skin around her fingers and biting her bottom lip harshly for the past five minutes without even processing the action consciously, not until she eventually felt the familiar, metallic taste of blood in her mouth.
Coming here should've brought her some semblance of peace.
It didn't.
Because everything still reminded her of Allie, from the teal of her clothes to the immensity of the sky.
„Fucking Kaz and her fucking big mouth."
It was then that the sound of a voice she could identify out of a million, alongside the less pleasant sound of clothes and boxes being thrown around carelessly and aimlessly filled her ears. She hadn't realized how much of a trance she was really into until she was pulled out of it, violently and pleasantly at the same time.
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, as her mouth suddenly dried out and that same familiar lump formed in her throat.
It was now or never.