Chapter 26: Shake it out
She's kind of beautiful like this, enveloped in smoke and agitated.
"You're the only place that feels safe to me, Betty, and I've never felt safe before."
"Don't suppose you would have," she says, "considering."
"And I don't think I can tell anyone what happened, but you already know, and you don't hate me for it. You were there, and you don't hate me for it."
"So, because you can't tell anyone else, you may as well shack up with me then?" Betty asks, and the anger you've seen so many times directed against other people is finally aimed at you. You're taken aback, because she never speaks to you this way. You meant to confess to her tonight, one way or another, and this vitriol in her voice is starting to worry you.
"No, I didn't mean…" You start, but she cuts you off.
"Just because you can't keep up with your own lies you think you can do that to me because I already know the truth?"
"That's not what I meant!" You say, louder than you ought to, this time of day, and Betty glowers at you a little through the smoke. You get up and open a window, despite the chilly night air. The air in here is too close and smells like her and you need to breathe something other than her so you can think before you speak. "You said you were in love with me," you say quietly. "Why are you being like this? You know that's not what I meant."
"Who's to say you're the unobtainable person I love?" She says defiantly.
"Who else could you have been talking about? What, Aikens, Marco, Gladys?" You ask, and at Gladys' name Betty's eyes flicker to yours, then dart away to stare at a blank wall. "Oh." You feel like you've shrunk to a few inches tall. You thought you were both finally on the same page, earlier that night, that you were finally talking about this unspoken thing but it seems she was just… toying with you.
"I just want to make you happy," you say finally, hesitating before putting a hand on her shoulder.
"You should want to make yourself happy," she says, and shakes your hand off of her. You can tell it's cost her a lot to say that.
"I don't know how, anymore," you say, quieter than before.
"Well, until you can make yourself happy, there's no point trying to make someone else happy. See what I mean?" Betty says, reaching over and stubbing out her cigarette. "And unlike some people, I need my beauty sleep, so if you can see yourself out, that'd be just grand." She doesn't look at you, and when you turn to shut the door behind you, she still won't meet your eyes.
When you slip back into your bed, Gladys rolls into you, puts her arm over your stomach and it takes a while to relax, to get used to her hand curled around your ribs, shake off a seething jealousy at the thought that this is how Betty spends some of her nights.
Author's note: Sorry about the delay. Got a pinched nerve earlier in the week. Laptop started tying backwards like demon virus. Sorry about the sombre tone of this chapter too.
Title from Florence and the Machine's song "Shake it out"
"And it's hard to dance with the devil on your back, so shake him off."