I took all this love I found (and I hope that it's enough)

by bouj525

Bea Smith escapes the house she's trapped in and finds herself staying at a shelter for victims of domestic violence. When she can't sleep, she wanders outside in the middle of the night and sits on a bench. When Allie Novak joins her, Bea thinks that the dark of the night has never been so bright.

15. You just try your best not to get hurt

Title's song comes from "Older" by Sasha Sloan. Had a bit of a hard time picking a song for that chapter because so many things happen! I stole a scene from the show again and I adapted it, so hopefully you'll like it.

The next chapter is going to take a while before I let it out in the wild so bear with me.

---

Chapter 15: You just try your best not to get hurt

Debbie doesn't say a word when she opens her eyes.

The lights burn her retinas and blurred shapes lean down over her. Her world is spinning and her mind is confused, and she feels like she's been asleep for a million years, long enough for her to wake up to the absence of civilization itself.

She doesn't say anything when the lines come into focus, when the sounds quieten down a little, and when the colors stop twirling with one another. She becomes vaguely aware that she's lying on a bed, and that she isn't being thrown around like a puppet by the currents of a violent tornado.

She remains silent when her conscience becomes clearer and when she starts wondering where she is. She wonders why there's this aggressive beeping in her ears and why she has a tube in her throat. She notices she's surrounded by machines and white walls, and she's afraid for a moment that this is a terrible version of the afterlife.

She stares blankly as the face of her mother appears before her eyes, features spoiled by a mix of fear, relief and something else she can't decipher. Her mother. She's here, by her side, with a smile that looks forced and genuine at the same time, and with her energy charging the air with so many emotions at the same time that Debbie can barely feel them all.

Love? Anger? Disappointment? Bliss? Maybe even a trace of despair. But why?

She doesn't reply when her mother says her name with urgency in her voice, when her hand is being squeezed so hard that it hurts, or when her thoughts start running through her head faster than she can process them.

She couldn't reply even if she wanted to. The tube prevents her to do so.

That is, until an unknown man reaches for it with what seems like a pair of ginormous hands and pulls it out her throat. She chokes for a moment, thinks she's going to die again within her own swollen skin and dripping saliva, but she takes a breath a second later, and the ache when her chest rises reminds her that she is very much alive.

She closes her eyes again and the next moment, her mother is holding her like she's made of glass, throwing questions at her without waiting for answers. She opens her eyes and her mother is still holding her, fingers delicately running through her dirty hair.

"Talk to me?"

She keeps her lips glued together. She's trying to think of the right words to say, of the right things to ask because she knows that she won't be able to speak for long.

Her memory is broken, with puzzle pieces scattered inside her brain all over the place. What was she doing before she came here? How did she come here? Why is her mom so dramatic? She vaguely remembers falling asleep next to her boyfriend, but that's all.

Her boyfriend. What were they doing? Where is he? Why is her head so painful?

She's so fucking exhausted and everything is made of pain.

Could drugs take it all away? Is it too early to wish for that?

---

She still hasn't said anything a few days later, when everything abruptly rushes back to her mind and fires deathly shots all over her heart.

An empty room in a cabin after the party is over and the others have gone to sleep. A door that is quickly locked behind them as they kiss and laugh, and dance around the room in oblivion. A bottle of beer that falls on the floor as they shove each other on the bed, slightly drunk, too young and too old, and too lost to care about the consequences of this fateful night because, in this moment, they are immortal.

Her voice, slurring words that she only lets out when she can't control her inhibitions. Tales of a damaged childhood and of a future that keeps slipping away from her every time she thinks she's reached it. Legends of perfect families, opposites of the one she grew up in. False ideas of what it would have been to have grown in one of them. Guilt and shame that she can't appreciate what her parents did for her despite the toxic rain pouring on them for years and decades.

Brayden's voice whispering that it will be alright, that they will both reach greater heights together and float in the air, wild and free. His hand reaching for hers, pulling it toward him to extend her arm. His eyes, kind and reassuring, like there is nothing to fear, like she can trust him with her life. His fingers brushing her skin as he ties a tourniquet around her arm and tightens it. His movements, sure and confident, like he's done it many times before.

His smirk, charming and playful, making her believe that this is just a game and that she needs to live to the fullest before she gets dragged back to her homeland. His light push to make her fall back on the bed when she tries to sit up, and the spark of doubt that is born in her chest, only to disappear when he presses his lips on her forehead, hovering over her a few seconds too many.

The needle, sharp and shining, and already full of a liquid that she knows can make all her dreams come true. The way it pierces her skin and the way it stings, not just her arm, but also her soul. The way Brayden waits to see blood in the syringe before he pushes the plunger.

The rush. The dizziness. The euphoria. The heaviness. The explosions. The tranquility. The absence of pain.

The moment she was awake and the moment she was falling in darkness.

The moment everything stopped.

She blinks many times, trying to make sense of it all, trying to decode all those memories.

She doesn't say anything when her mother asks her what's wrong.

She just swallows difficulty like it's too hard to face the truth, like maybe her mind is so far gone from a bad trip that it's creating lies and parallel universes in its madness.

She lets her mother hold her, care for her, reunite with her. She wonders if her mother still loves her, if the unconditional maternal love is as real as they say. She thinks that it must be, for her mother is right there by her side. Her mother hasn't left ever since she opened her eyes again and found herself in limbo between her past and future life.

"Talk to me?" Bea asks, like she does every day.

Her mother is really here, in the States.

Her mother crossed the ocean for her, found a way to reach her.

Debbie wonders if this is too early.

Or too late.

---

She doesn't speak until she has to, days later, when the doctor demands answers or he'll have her admitted to the psych ward. She refused to be stuck there and drugged with pills that aren't the right ones.

She doesn't look at her mother when she answers with yes and no and maybe.

She doesn't want to see the heartbreak she knows she'll find in her mother's eyes. She doesn't want to see the love. The love that her mother keeps giving her despite everything that is happening in their lives. The love that is fundamentally unbreakable, but that is still cracked and damaged in some parts.

She may not want to see the love, but she feels it when her mother gently brushes her hair away from her face and places soft kisses on her forehead. It doesn't feel like Brayden's kisses. It feels different, lighter, gentler, and her mom doesn't hover above her like a threatening shadow, she just holds her carefully.

Every kiss chases the darkness and fights the demons, and she's left breathless, hugging back her mother with a desperate need to be a young child again, to be back to that age where nothing mattered and where pain could be fixed with a smile and a kiss and a piece of cake.

She expects her mother to move away when the doctor leaves the room, to shoot questions at her again, to yell at her that it's about damn time that she speaks. But none of this happens. Her mom just stays right where she is, squeezing her tightly like she's afraid Debbie might be gone if she lets go.

Debbie doesn't let go either.

Maybe, it wasn't too late after all.

---

Her father is calling.

Debbie sees it in her mother's eyes when the phone vibrates.

Her mother usually rushes to her phone, nearly dropping it while she tries to answer it. It happens a lot, and she always puts on a bashful smile while she struggles to say a single word to Allie. She tries to act like she isn't a complete embarrassment for herself, and Debbie has grown to ignore the childish conversations she has to witness every day.

She's relieved, at least, to have woken up and found that Allie is still around, whatever that means for the future days. Judging by the conversations her mother is having, Allie will be sharing their apartment. She thinks she can forgive this intrusion because Allie puts a smile in her mother's face every single time they talk.

But this time, when the phone rings, there's no joy in her mother's eyes and no enthusiasm in her posture, and just a cold, glacial dead stare as Bea analyzes the number displayed on her screen. Only one person in the world can be responsible for that change of demeanor, and Debbie knows it's her father, and she wonders if her mother will answer, like she always does.

Bea doesn't. She throws a dirty look at the phone and just ignores it as it rings and rings, and finally stops.

Then it beeps, signaling Bea that she has received a new text message, and curiosity gets the best of her. She leans forward, reading the words on her screen and frowns.

Debbie stares silently at all the ways Bea acts differently.

She doesn't know anything, except that something's changed.

Something or everything.

"Your father wants to accuse me of breaking and entering into our own garage," Bea declares. "He's even more of a lunatic than I thought."

---

Debbie may not speak, but she listens and she learns more than she has in months.

And Bea talks a lot, way more than before. Debbie is told everything, from the most irrelevant detail about Allie, to the most important information regarding whatever Bea is going through at the moment. The filter that once existed between them is gone.

Debbie likes this. She likes that there's no more room for secrets and half-whispered promises.

Her mother leaves the room to speak on the phone, to someone Debbie can't identify.

When she comes back, Debbie knows to be ready to listen.

"I'm pushing for a divorce," Bea declares. "If he won't sign, I'll get it by force. I have a solid reason to ask for a divorce, no judge in their right mind would ever refuse it."

Debbie holds her mother's eyes with her own, refusing to look away.

"Your father thinks I went to the garage and did something to his car," Bea continues. "Which is stupid because I was here with you. And even if I did, it's still our house, legally, so I am within my rights to go there and do anything I want. But he doesn't have any proof that anyone was there. My lawyer says there's no way I'll be charged with this."

Debbie swallows difficultly, thinking of another person beside her mother who could have been reckless enough to break into their house. She doesn't say anything.

"I would file for custody if I could, but you're an adult now. You know what that means," Bea says soberly. "The choice is yours. I can't force you. I can't restrain you. I can't physically stop you, but you know damn well which choice is better."

Debbie knows. She knows more than she ever has because she can see.

See that her father isn't by her side and that he's still refusing to give Bea her freedom.

See that Brayden is nowhere to be found.

See that her mother is the only one here, the only one who refuses to leave no matter how hard she pushes her away.

Debbie smiles sadly. The words she wants to scream are unable to find their way out of her throat.

---

"We're leaving soon," Bea announces when she comes back to the room after a quick meeting with the doctor. "You're getting discharged in a few days. You're not staying here."

Debbie nods, letting the words make their way into her brain. She feels better, more awake and alive than she has felt in a while, even though there's a lingering emptiness in her chest where her heart should be.

Brayden never came.

He didn't come visit her, didn't send a message, didn't even send a friend. And her friends, they were Brayden's friends first, and they never showed up. Could it be just a cruel coincidence? Have they replaced her already? Have they forgotten her? Was she really just an ephemeral shadow in their group? She's always known that she would never have the same importance as Brayden, but she'd never thought they'd be so quick at pretending that she never existed.

"Talk to me?" Her mother asks, hopeful and hopeless at the same time.

Debbie wants to.

She wants to say something, to proclaim her truth, loud and clear for the world to hear, but she's scared. She's scared that she won't sound confident, that she won't sound strong, that she won't ever have that voice that was so uniquely hers. She's scared that the words won't come out right, that she won't say what she means, and that she'll somehow push her mother away for good.

She's shaking her head and trembling like a leaf when her mother's hand lands on her arm.

"Do you hate me?" she whispers with a raspy voice, eyes widening as she realizes what she's just said.

Do you hate me?

These are the last words she expected to say because they are a reflection of her deepest fear. She'd thought she'd say hi or hello or mom, literally anything but this loaded question that could be the end of her. She'd just stayed silent for so long, trying to figure out exactly how to have a conversation with her mother, and now she feels like this has all gone to waste.

She really does wonder if her mother hates her, and the possibility that the answer might be yes breaks her. They have had their differences, they fought, they hurt, but they're still connected.

"Oh, my sweet little girl," Bea sighs loudly, unable to believe that her daughter is finally speaking.

Finally speaking to ask her this tragic, horrible question.

"I will never hate you," she answers, tears dancing on the edge of her eyes, "I love you to the moon and back, remember? Always."

Bea had almost forgotten the sound of Debbie's voice, and to have it back, to cherish it again, it makes her feel nothing but pride for this young woman lying in front of her. She never wants to go through this again, never wants to spend so much time without having a conversation with her daughter. It hurts too much.

A thought crosses her mind.

Has she failed so hard that her daughter sincerely believes that they are connected by hatred rather than love now?

And if that's how it is, how does she fix it? How does she make Debbie believe that she loves her, that she has never stopped loving her?

"Is that why you're here and – " Debbie stops, grips the sheets in her fists with the small amount of strength she can gather.

And Brayden isn't?

"I'm here because there's nowhere else I'd rather be," Bea replies heartfeltly, her hand cupping Debbie's cheek affectively.

"You don't hate me? Even if I listened to… Even if dad…" Debbie's voice slows and becomes one with the air around them.

Bea imagines the worst immediately. How could she not, after what just happened?

"Dad told me that it would be fine," Debbie admits, feeling smaller than she's ever been. "He said that Brayden – "

She shakes her head weakly when she pronounces the name of a man, a boy, she knows she won't see again. She can feel her heart cracking again, shattering slowly under the weight of something she'll come to identify as her first heartbreak.

"He said Brayden would keep me safe if he really loved me."

It's the truth. She did talk to her father about it, about the pills, and the alcohol, and the distant possibility that she'd shoot heroin in her veins. She did ask him what he thought of it all, and he did say that she was young and experimenting, and that it was all part of life. She did ask him if it was safe, and he did say yes, he did encourage her while he was himself holding his fifth bottle of beer in his hands.

But these words are all excuses.

She wanted it, the heroin. She made that choice willingly, under the destructive influence of addiction.

It wasn't her father's choice. Her father could have said the same thing that her mother did, could have told her to stop hanging out with Brayden, and Debbie knows pertinently that she wouldn't have listened to him.

Her father was a mere pawn in the entirety of her plan to self-destruct. Just like her mother.

It was addiction, the main player, the one lover and the one nemesis all at once.

"Dad never came here, right?" she asks.

"No. I told him not to. He threatened me to death."

Debbie looks down, ashamed, understanding and gutted to learn that he hasn't changed at all, even today.

Her last shred of hope gently detaches from her mind and flies away.

"I'm angry," Bea smiles sadly, volcanoes exploding under the calm surface of her skin. "I'm beyond furious, and I don't understand why you would ask your father, and I don't understand why you trusted drugs, and I don't understand why you would do this to yourself."

She pauses, struggling to keep her tone even, to stay in control of her emotions when all she wants is to shake her daughter, to force the answers out of her weakened body.

"And I'm angry with myself because I didn't stop you," Bea adds. "And I don't understand why I didn't run head first here right after you were gone again. I don't understand why I didn't race to the airport and stop the plane with my bare hands. I don't understand how I let this happen."

She's not naïve. She knows that the hospital treated the physical symptoms of the overdose. She knows her daughter has a disease, one that won't just disappear once they leave the hospital. She knows there's a long road to go towards sobriety.

"But I'm not going to let it happen twice," she declares like a promise. "And if I have to fight with you everyday, I will. And if I have to go to court and punch a judge to get a divorce, and land in prison, I will. And if I have to find every last drug on this planet and destroy them myself, I will."

She swears on her own life that she will do it. She will keep her daughter safe, no matter what it costs.

"Do you believe me now?" Bea nearly begs. "Do you believe me when I say that you need to stop seeing your father, and this Brayden too. You need to."

She sees more openness in Debbie's eyes than ever before, but there's still an everlasting trace of hesitation in Debbie's body language.

She can't believe that her daughter is still struggling to see the truth.

"I love dad," Debbie answers simply with a fragile voice. "And I'm – I'm in love with Brayden."

Debbie frowns, tasting the words and the way they feel inside her mouth.

Poisonous. Disgusting. True.

She wishes they weren't true. She wishes they were lies and that she hated them both instead. It'd be so much easier to let them go, to turn her back forever.

"I know you did, I know you do," Bea exhales loudly. "I know how it is to fall for the wrong person, Debbie. I did it. I fell for him, and I gave him too many chances, and I believed him, and you? You have a chance not to make the same mistakes I made. Don't give another chance to someone who doesn't deserve it. This man, Brayden, he got you to take drugs. Heroin. Do you not see how wrong this is? Do you not see that this isn't something you do to the person you love? This isn't something you do, to anyone!"

Debbie nods and listens, like she's done these past few days.

She's become a talented listener.

The question isn't whether she'll listen or not, it's about what she'll do with the words she is given.

"Your father loves you too," Bea admits even though she wants to throw up. "He never touched you, never hurt you directly, you're right. And you're smart. You're incredibly smart, but you forgot something."

Debbie hears the words before her mother pronounces them, and she knows she will never go to her father again.

"He never hurt you, but he never protected you either. And he still doesn't! And maybe when you were young, you truly loved him, but today, as you are?" Bea shakes her head in a dejected motion. "Tell me, do you love him today?"

No.

Debbie, the small child with eyes full of innocence and the future shining bright before her, loves her father, admires him like any child would.

But Debbie, the adult with the scarred eyes and the troubled past, doesn't.

She loved him then, and she hates him now, and she took way too long figuring out which of her feelings belonged to the present, and which were part of the past. And Debbie knows that she cannot keep switching from one to another. She wishes she could, but she must choose. She must choose to stop putting her mother's life on the line every time she meets with her father.

"What will it take for you to understand?" Bea asks softly, "There may not be a next time, Deb. This may be your only chance."

The unspoken words remain still between them for a while.

Next time, Bea might be crying over a lifeless body rather than her daughter.

"I'm sorry," Debbie lets out with a lone sob.

And she really is. For everything. For everything she cannot say, and everything she cannot do.

She really means it and it frees her from a weigh that she had been wearing for years.

Bea kisses her head gently.

She thinks that this time, it's really different.

"I want you with me, Deb. I'm not leaving you anymore."

---

The words come in the middle of the night, when Bea is packing her last bag and she thinks Debbie is navigating in deep sleep.

"Mom?"

Bea glances at her daughter, savoring the way there is life swirling in her eyes.

"Yes, love?"

Debbie licks her dry lips and smiles tentatively.

"I want to be with you too."

---

"Mom?!" she shrieks, unable to believe that her own mother would treat her this way.

Her mother just looks away, words trapped in another dimension.

"Dad?" she asks as the weight of the situation starts to dawn on her.

"Get out. We tried. We really did," her father's emotionless voice resonates in the empty street.

And she wants to scream that no, they didn't try. They didn't change. They didn't do anything. They're just like before and she regrets ever coming back here because she should have known from the very first time that they would never accept her. She should have known better instead of letting them break her again because now, she doesn't think she'll ever recover.

"But I- I love you," she stammers, somehow believing that this is going to fix everything. "I want you."

Her father looks disgusted and her mother is still staring away.

"That's a shame. No one will ever want you," her father says, closing the door to her face, sealing her fate.

She waits a minute, thinking that the door will open again and that they will beg for her forgiveness and realize that they can't just throw their daughter out in the streets like that.

She waits an hour for the curtains to open, for her mother's face to appear behind the window, ashamed and guilty.

She waits until it's late and she knows it's definitive this time, unlike the first time when they kicked her out for being a lesbian.

This time, they're not going to change their mind.

Allie cries this time.

It's the last time she'll ever cry for them.

---

"No one will ever want you."

Allie pauses and glances at the girl she just sat next to. There's no reaction from her whatsoever. If anything, she looks even more bored than the previous minute. As if she could read Allie's thoughts about her, she yawns and closes her eyes, and Allie rolls her eyes to the sky.

There'd been zero progression ever since the girl had asked if she was gay. Nothing, not even a casual 'hello' or 'goodbye' at the beginning or the end of their conversations. There'd been no questions asked, no answers requested, no signs of interest coming from the teenager. It had surprised Allie at first, because she'd thought that she was finally reaching under the girl's solid carapace, and then she'd remembered her own life, and everything had made sense again.

Questions were valuable in the streets. They had to be short, clear, and meaningful because you rarely got a second chance if you messed up. Information was priceless, and powerful, tracing the boundaries between life and death, and not everyone was privileged enough to afford asking many questions. You had to give something of fair value in exchange for a fair answer. Not everyone was part of the same inner circle.

Allie is no fool. The teenager might appear young, but perhaps she'd been out there for years, plenty of time for her to remember the unwritten rules of this wasted kingdom.

"That's what my dad said to me the last time I saw him. Mom just watched, so it's like she said the same thing. They didn't say 'take care of you' or 'I love you' or 'come back if life is hard', you know? They just said that no one would ever want me and then they slammed the door to my face."

Today, she's decided, is the day she'll spill her heart to that teenager. Not because she wants the girl to open up to her, but because her guts are telling her that this is a necessary step to take.

It doesn't matter much to her. She's done it many times, with many strangers, and at some point, the story had stopped sounding so personal to her. It'd started to be like a tale, something that had happened to someone else, in another land far from here.

Eventually, she'd convinced herself that it had all been a dream, that this betrayal had been a product of her imagination.

It'd stopped hurting, and it'd changed to something distant, something she couldn't emotionally connect with anymore. It'd become something as mundane as asking someone for the time. But today, she has a feeling it will be different because she has never met someone so young to tell her story to.

Never met a version of herself to talk to until now.

"It all started when I was around your age and I committed a crime," Allie remembers. "I fell in love with a girl."

Some crime it had been.

The crime that would define her for the rest of her life.

She'd fallen in love with a girl who'd made her laugh until she'd cry, who'd made the sky bluer and who'd refused to believe in impossibilities. A girl who'd made the stars appear in the middle of the day. A girl whose words had been stories of their own and whose laughs had carried symphonies from the galaxies far away. A girl who had held the world in her eyes and who had carried love on her shoulders, her heart wide and open for everyone to admire.

Allie had had no chance. She'd fallen for her, hard and fast, and she'd do it all again, if she hadn't met a woman whose presence redefined what it meant to be alive.

"I told them and I didn't think it would be such a terrible thing," Allie narrates. "I'd heard them talk about how they wanted me to find a good guy to marry, but I never paid more attention before. So when I came out, I didn't expect the shitstorm that followed."

She looks at the girl again and she's surprised to see her looking back for the first time. It must be a good sign, she decides.

"They gave me twenty-four hours to change my mind, and then they told me I couldn't live here unless I went to some camp that would fix me. Fix me? Can you believe it?" Allie scoffs. Even today, it all sounds beyond ridiculous.

A stupid camp wouldn't fix her because she wasn't broken.

Her heart had simply started to beat harder at the sight of this girl. Her thoughts had become a little messier when she'd thought about love and what it implied. Her mouth had gone a little dry when she'd imagined the next steps of their relationship. Her stress levels had increased when she'd been stuck in the middle of an argument with the one she'd been so scared to lose at that time.

It had all been normal. So normal, that it had been, in fact, boringly normal. It had been the kind of normal that everyone experienced when they fell in love for the first time, and her parents had ruled it as unnatural and unacceptable and unforgivable.

"I didn't want to and they told me to get out. I asked why and they said that I wasn't their daughter. That they hadn't raised me to be that way. That they couldn't believe I'd betray them like that, because of course, I was the one who betrayed them."

She shakes her head when she remembers.

They'd yelled at her so loud that she'd been surprised the neighbors hadn't called the police. To this day, she's sure that, had she killed someone, her parents would have looked at her with more kindness in their eyes.

"I stayed with her, my girlfriend, you know? For a couple of days. But her parents couldn't afford to keep me so I left. I didn't want to be a burden."

She'd left school too. It had been too painfully obvious that she didn't belong in this pristine world anymore.

"I found myself walking down the streets with a backpack, which was stolen from me a couple days later."

It had been the end of the world for her.

Today, she'd shrug it off. She knows better.

"They welcomed me back a little while later. They searched for me. I think mom felt guilty and she convinced dad to take me in again. It was all a way for them to feel better about themselves. It was never about me," Allie explains. "It was about them. But by the time they took me back, I'd been in the streets for a while so I had my own life. I had a way to make money, I had people I knew I could go see if I needed something. I bet you're wondering what all of that was? My big plan to be rich and have a healthy life?"

She waits in case the girl wants to say something, and when she's met with silence, she continues.

"It started with a cup of coffee. I drank the coffee, and then I used to cup every day to get money from people," she confesses. "A bit like you're doing with that hat of yours, except I didn't have a hat."

She thinks she sees the girl's eyes become a shade darker, like the weight of her situation is once again pressing down on her.

"Then I moved on to another way to make money. I started working as a prostitute. It wasn't the best option, but you know how it is here, you don't have a lot of options, especially without school," Allie states the obvious. "So I did that for a while, and I kept doing it when I got back home, because my parents were still… so cold and so distant, that I needed to be outside the house as much as I could. My parents found out."

Allie laughs like her life is a joke, and maybe it is.

Surely, it must be.

"Of course, they kicked me out again! I mean, they're parents. I don't have kids, and I like to think I'd love them no matter what if I did, but it'd still be a shock to learn that… Anyway, they don't want to think about their daughter having sex, let alone selling herself every night," she says pensively. She throws a glance in the girl's direction and she finds her stare returned still. "But what pissed me off more was that… they didn't ask me to stop. They didn't give me a chance to stop."

She frowns, vague emotions of resentment and anger tingling in her chest.

"They once asked me to stop being a lesbian, which is something I could never do. But they never asked me to stop being a prostitute, which is something I could have changed," Allie says, realizing it as she speaks. "Did they not realize how wrong that was?"

She could have changed that.

She could have never gone back to the streets. She could have found a job that didn't require her to get naked with horny people. She could have settled somewhere nice and pretended like she hadn't just spent the last few months in the streets, playing with the limits of her body and soul. She could have even forgiven her parents for kicking her out the very first time.

But they hadn't asked her to stop selling herself. They'd asked her to stop being who she was.

And she can't get over that, even today.

She sighs, not wanting to let her emotions get the best of her when she's talking with the teenager.

"So I kept going. I lived in an alley for a while before I met someone who gave me a roof. Then I went back to the alley because some things are just not meant to happen."

She pauses and waits, vague images of Marie and all her slaves dancing in her mind. She glances at the girl again and wonders if she's said too much.

Her story is hard to hear, and she knows it.

The girl doesn't seem to react at first, but then, slowly, she opens her mouth like she's about to speak, before she shuts her lips together. She looks like she wants to stay here forever, and at the same time, it seems like she's getting ready to race to the end of the world, and Allie knows that feeling too well to let her struggle alone.

"You tell me if you want me to stop. I'll stop," she declares gently.

But the girl doesn't stop her, and Allie tentatively continues.

"I got out of that alley, eventually. I just did actually," she says, offering a glimpse of hope to the stranger. "I met someone. I was lucky. Not everyone is. But for some twisted reason, I had what it took to survive for so long in the streets. I don't know if it's a quality or a flaw, or just a cruel trick the universe played, but I got out. Ask me how."

She smirks in the girl's direction, half joking, half daring her to ask.

"I knew you'd ask," Allie singsongs despite the absence of an answer. "I don't usually give away my secrets so easily, but because it's you, I'll make an exception. The reason I survived was simple. It wasn't because I found someone to love or because I found drugs, or because – "

The mention of drugs makes the girl frowns in curiosity, and Allie doesn't miss it.

"I took drugs. It wasn't my best decision and I definitely advise you not to get involved with that shit, but I did. It made me blind. It made me a total bitch. It made me someone I wasn't. If someone offers you drugs, run away. It's never good. You think you'll feel better, but you'll feel worse."

The girl keeps her poker face in place and Allie scans her eyes and body, looking for signs that her advice is not coming too late. The girl shakes her head once, so subtly that Allie momentarily believes she's imagined it, but she knows she hasn't.

The girl is sober and Allie wants to cry from joy.

"So… The secret to surviving in these streets is to know what you're worth," Allie grins in secrecy. "I knew I was right when I was kicked out. I knew my parents were wrong. I knew I deserved better. And I kept that thought with me. Whenever something terrible happened, I reminded myself that it was not what I deserved. It wasn't because I was a bad person, or because I was doomed to have a terrible life. It was just because life can be shit sometimes, to anyone."

Allie grabs the hat in a quick movement. She drops the coins in her hand and tosses them to the girl. She fiddles with the hat for a while, even putting it on her head, not thinking about how unclean it is.

She wants the girl to see that she's like her. She isn't afraid of the hat and what it symbolizes. She isn't afraid to sit on the hard concrete for hours and do nothing but talk to herself. She isn't afraid to be seen with her, to interact with her in front of the whole wide world.

She's her equal. She isn't better.

The girl nods, attentive and slowly coming out of her frozen state.

"I love girls," she whispers suddenly, breaking the silence and confirming Allie's intuitions.

The teenager doesn't add anything, simply looks down again, like her confession is too hard to face, too heavy to bear, too wrong for her to accept, and Allie looks at her like she'd look at her reflection in a mirror.

"When did you tell them?" she asks softly, not expecting an answer in return.

The girl shrugs, already back in her shell.

"You're right," Allie replies. "It doesn't matter when. What matters is what they did. I'm guessing they didn't hang the rainbow flag at their windows. Which is a shame, let's face it. Every house needs a rainbow flag."

The girl laughs coldly and the wall between the two of them falls a little more.

"You know what I told them when they told me to get out the second time? I told them that I loved them."

Allie dives into her memories and finds the one she wishes she could forget, but she knows she never will.

"I told them 'I love you' because I thought that it would be alright, that they'd remember that they love me too and that they wouldn't ask me to leave. They would remember that I'm their daughter and that they can't just decide they don't love me anymore, just like I can't decide I don't love them anymore. I loved them deeply, I looked up to them."

She takes a deep breath.

They were her own superheroes, capable to save the world from the apocalypse. And their superpower was simple. It was to love her unconditionally.

"But it didn't work. And for a long time, I believed that love was conditional."

She doesn't add anything, just say it as it is, and everything rushes back to Allie.

The disbelief she'd felt when her parents had looked at her with disgust and fear in their eyes.

The incredulity that had washed over her when she'd seen the door slam on her face, again.

The arrogance boiling in her veins when she'd thought that they would beg her to come back soon.

The heartbreak she'd gone through when she'd been in the streets for twenty-four hours.

The anger. The blazing inferno of anger that had been within her for years before she'd learn how to tame it.

"I was angry. I was so angry and at the same time, I was convinced that they would change their mind. I stayed around the house for a few days. I'd go to them, try to talk to them, say hello every morning. I was a child. I hadn't known anything else but life with my parents, and school, and routine, and I was thrown to the wolves all suddenly. And they'd taken me back once, surely, they'd do it again, right? I had this hope."

It feels like it happened just yesterday and the hurt is suddenly just as sharp as the years before.

"They never spoke to me again. They moved eventually and I… I mourned them. I tried to track them down, but I think they didn't want to be found."

Searching for people who didn't want to be found. Allie remembers that. Fucking hopeless.

"So I may not be you," she declares, forcing the girl to look at her with the directness of her gaze, "but I can imagine what you're going through. And I know the situation enough to know that you may think you don't need help, but you do."

The girl scoffs loudly, like what Allie is suggesting is insane, but Allie laughs joyfully.

"Everyone needs help, you know? If I had never gotten help, I would be a few streets down there," she points a direction and waits for the girl to look up, "at a busy corner, with other girls, some as young as you are. And at night, you'd find me in a cheap motel room, probably not even aware that I'm naked."

The teenager makes a face.

"I'm not going to be like you."

Allie snorts. She remembers the day she said those exact same words to a street worker.

"You don't choose what you become when you're in the streets."

She points in the direction of what appears to be a small coffee shop a few meters away.

"What do you see?"

The teenager shrugs, interest gone.

"I'll tell you what I see. A place where I could have worked if I'd had nicer clothes and cleaner appearance. A place like all the others I went to when I was young, trying to find a job. A place that would have slammed the door to my face just because of how I looked like."

She had tried. She hadn't gone directly to the worst parts of the streets.

She'd just ended up there after too many failures.

"Today, I'm clean, and I have an actual résumé to give out, and wherever I go, people still look at me like I'm a creature of some sort. My experience… it's not much. It's nothing. You don't just write "prostitute" on that paper. I don't write anything at all, you know, I don't invent another life full of dumb lies."

Allie rolls her eyes.

"So people wonder what the hell I've been doing with my life and they don't want me. And you know where you end up when nothing works? You know what you do when you need money? You do things you swear you'd never do."

There's no reaction, but she thinks she sees the light retreats a little farther from the girl's eyes.

"I'm not telling you this for fun or to scare you. I'm hoping that you'll hear me and that you won't make the same mistakes. You can get help. Times have changed. Being gay isn't… it's not something people are afraid of anymore. There are places for kids like you. You know, places with a roof and food and showers and beds!"

"My parents were still scared apparently," the girl spits out with a resentful voice.

"It's got nothing with you."

"I wish I was different."

There's so much hate directed toward herself, so much pain too.

So much cynicism towards life.

"I used to think the same way, but it didn't last long. Remember the rule of survival? I knew who I was, what I wanted, who I loved," Allie replies patiently. "And the world can be a terrible place where everyone tries to tell you that who you are isn't valid, isn't right. You can't let them win."

The girl groans like she doesn't quite believe Allie, like she's told herself the same words a thousand times in her head, but they hadn't fixed anything. They hadn't given her a roof over her head or food in her stomach, or joy in her heart.

"I know it doesn't feel that way right now. You're probably wishing you could fall in love with a boy and make it all okay, aren't you?" Allie boldly asks, not waiting for any response before she keeps going. "You're going to waste your time. You're going to spend energy hating yourself, when this is the time, this is the one moment where you should love yourself more intensely than ever before."

She'd loved herself and then hated herself, and then hated herself some more when her mind had been clouded with drugs and kisses and sex.

"I hated myself. I had sex with men, women and people who identified differently, and it didn't change anything. My sexuality didn't change, and all those years, hating myself? It didn't lead to anything good."

She had fallen through the cracks of the sidewalks, slipped underground and learned to live in the dark.

"It was wasted time and energy that I could have used to get out of there and build a better life."

She had said goodbye to the sun, deciding to live under the light of the moon instead.

"I spent years wishing that my parents would somehow find me and accept me, and love me. It didn't happen and I was crushed."

"What about now?" the girl asks with a small voice.

Allie smiles.

A question.

And a good one too.

"Now? Now I have a place to call home and a girlfriend who's coming back tomorrow, and I know that love, real love, is unconditional. It's hard to find that real love, because you have to open your soul to someone else. You have to be vulnerable. You have to be you. But it's worth it."

She points at the empty streets in front of them.

She hasn't spoken to her parents in years. She doesn't even know if they're alive.

"So wherever they are, whatever they're doing, I don't care. I love who I am now. I'm not changing for anyone."

The girl looks at her like her words are made of hope.

"I don't think I can do this," she sighs resignedly.

"I still don't think I can do sometimes, and yet, here I am," Allie immediately replies.

They spend the next hour in silence until Allie looks at the time and must leave.

She opens her mouth, wanting to offer another few words of guidance to the teenager, but nothing comes up.

The girl is looking down again. She doesn't react when Allie gets up.

She does react when Allie stares down at her for a minute.

"Thanks."

A whispered word that conveys so much gratitude that Allie wants to record it and save it forever.

"I'll be back tomorrow."

The girl sends her a wry smile.

"Go be with your girl," she replies with a hint of amusement.

She's locked in a fortress of solitude that can never be escaped, stubbornly refusing Allie's offer.

Allie gazes at her silently, analyzing the cues she receives.

The girl's eyes are empty, lost in a place that isn't accessible to Allie.

---

Allie stops somewhere on her way back.

A place where kids go to sleep when they have nowhere else to go.

It's the first time she walks in one of these places and she's surprised to see how many teenagers there are. She'd expected it to be empty, feared from the residents of the streets, but it's the opposite. There are so many people that the worker who welcomes her automatically warns her that they're already full for the night. She wonders where the others are going to sleep tonight.

She glances around, unsure of what to do, who to speak to. Everyone is busy doing something. Most of the teenagers are eating, enjoying the warm meal that is offered to them. The rest of them is talking, planning, sleeping in different corners. There's a room that looks like a living room, where a few younger kids are playing with racing cars and board games, and Allie's heart aches when she notices that some of them are younger than the age she was when she got kicked out.

"Hey," she stops a worker that is carrying a bag of clothes. "What's this?"

"Donations," he answers. "It's not much, but we do with what we have."

Allie nods with interest in her eyes.

"Anyone can come in here?"

"Sure, as long as they agree to a small set of rules. We don't make promises on whether we can keep them for the night, but we welcome as many people as we can during the day."

"And do you go outside, look for the teenagers? Because I know one and - "

"I'll stop you right there," the man says with an apologetic voice. "Most of the kids, they find our place by themselves and we watch them come and go. A lot of them just decide to stay in the streets, with their group, so our street workers make sure that they're not missing out on any of the essential things. But we can't force them to come with us."

"But she's always at the same place, I can tell you exactly where she is," Allie protests. "I don't think she knows about this place."

"Where is she?"

Allie tells him, hoping that this will be enough.

"I'll see what I can do," he frowns, "but this is out of our perimeter. Our streets workers have specific streets to follow."

"What about all the others?" Allie asks like he's out of his mind.

"There are other shelters, other workers. We just hope that someone finds them. We can't walk all over the city, even if we wanted to."

Allie thinks this is dumb, because she'd walk all over the city just to talk to every person and direct them to a safe place.

"Just make sure you don't forget, okay?" she insists until the employee nods and moves on to answer a young man's question.

She walks around a few more minutes, collecting information about what this place does to help. She nearly falls to the ground when she learns that there are only two street workers employed right now. She thinks it's not nearly enough, but she doesn't voice her concerns, well aware that this place is at full capacity regardless.

She walks out of the shelter with a bittersweet taste in the back of her throat.

A loud sound catches her attention.

There's a plane in the sky that reminds her that she can't do everything at once.

For today, it will have to be enough.

---

The flight back to Australia is a blur, a premonition that was announced a long time ago but one that Debbie had stopped believing would happen.

It lasts a second. It lasts a lifetime. Everything and nothing happen at the same time.

Debbie doesn't say a word. She's trapped in the cage of her own mind and the process of grief that she inevitably faces. She goes through all the phases within seconds, and when she thinks she's done, she is forced to go through them again by a force stronger than she is.

She walks on the road of denial, fights on the warzone of anger, gambles with the cards of bargaining, lingers on the island of despair before she's deported to the bridge of acceptance, which breaks and makes her fall right back into a raging river of conflicted emotions.

She goes through her memories, anger spinning with sadness and an aching comfort when she recalls the way her father could switch from being a monster to being a role model within seconds. Lies and lies, and everything she thought she knew is being torn apart before her eyes. She wishes she could turn off all sources of light so she never has to see again.

She fights.

She fights to keep the good times and the father she knows she loves, but as she stares out of the window, she sees the scripts of her most treasured memories fly away. Maybe she's always known it, and all she needed was a spark, the tiniest spark to start a forest fire.

She'd spent her entire life kicking the sparks out of her existence, forcing her body and soul to believe that she could have a family that wasn't fucked up by the violence, compromising her bond with her mother and risking her entire life.

But the sparks always come back. They were always meant to win in the end.

She remembers every time her father offered something to her. He told her he'd pay for her rent, for her studies, even for her flight tickets. And he'd done it. The money in her bank account is all his. But even that gesture is more than the kind action she thought it was. He used to say that it made him better than her mother.

It's stupid, the way she can only come back home because of him.

It's the last time she'll ever accept something from him.

She wishes she'd wake up earlier.

She sighs and thinks of America.

She leaves behind dreams that were actually nightmares, and choices that were already made for her. She leaves behind a boyfriend who never loved her and a future that never would have been hers. She leaves behind all the conversations she thought meant she would never be alone again.

She leaves behind an idea of love, and she carries with her the reality of it all.

She glances at her mother and wonders if they'll ever be okay again.

---

Allie double-checks everything again, running through the apartment like a headless chicken.

Is the couch perfectly aligned with the lines on the floor? Are the windows as clean as they can be, so clean that a bird could crash into it, thinking that there's no invisible wall in the first place? Is the furniture spotless, bright under the light of the sun peaking inside the apartment? Is the kitchen free of crumbs and dirty dishes? Is the bedroom free of scattered clothes on the floor? Is every item folded and neatly arranged in the drawers? Is everything in perfect order?

Allie doesn't care much about how tidy everything is. She's lived in the streets, she knows what filth is, and she knows that it won't stop her from falling asleep if she's exhausted. But for some unknown reason, the thought of welcoming Bea in a dirty apartment makes her want to disappear to the center of the Earth.

She sits on the couch, counting down the minutes until Bea might open the door and come back home, come back to her. She sits and wonders what she will do when she sees Bea again.

Will she run to her? Will she cry? Will she fall to her knees and worship the presence of the one woman she can't stop thinking of? Will she speak, will she remain silent, will she scream that she's made a trillion mistakes while Bea was gone or will she carry this secret to her grave?

She's nervous, and not just because Bea is coming back. She's anxiously imagining all the possible scenarios in her head and it's driving her insane. A single misplaced word could ruin this moment for them.

She needs to tell Bea now. Not tomorrow, not a week later, not a month later. Today. Tomorrow will be too late, and it will ruin today's memories.

She looks at the clock once, twice, and soon enough, her eyes are glued to the device.

She waits.

She'll spend her whole life waiting if she needs to.

And then, an eternity later, the door creaks open, and Allie rushes to the entrance, heart travelling up and down inside her body.

They don't run toward each other when they meet again. It's nothing like in those fairy tales they were brainwashed with when they were kids. There's no slow motion run and breathtaking kiss, or passionate make out session. There's no trembling proclamation of love or sudden proposal, or tears that flood the wooden floor.

There's nothing like this because when Allie runs at the speed of light at the clicking sounds of the lock, the person she sees first isn't Bea.

It's Debbie, looking paler and sicker than she does in the pictures that are decorating the apartment. The light in her eyes is switching on and off every few seconds, and Allie feels like she's coming face to face with someone whose life is hanging by a thread. It's been a while, but if she looks closely, if she locks eyes with Debbie's, she can see the ghostly scars of drugs within them.

Allie stops right in front of Bea's daughter, unsure of how to greet her. Debbie looks nothing like the girl Allie met before, nothing like the fierce young woman who was fighting just to see her father.

No.

Debbie looks resigned, haunted by demons, and Allie has no idea how to chase them. It was one thing to see her through a blurry camera, it's another reality to face her, to be physically with her.

"Allie," Debbie says with a raspy voice, nodding in a formal way in Allie's direction.

"Debbie," Allie replies, trying to make her voice strong, but failing miserably.

Debbie looks at her like she's trying to dig inside her mind and Allie feels like she's under investigation.

"Mom's paying the taxi. She knows about the garage," Debbie whispers as she passes by Allie. "Dad told her."

Allie remains speechless and the butterflies in her stomach stop flying momentarily, dissolving into the acid surrounding them.

"Don't disturb me with your… whatever it is you'll do now that you're together again," Debbie sighs.

She looks around the apartment, taking in the sight of her new home. She doesn't have any visible reaction before she heads to the small door to the right of the living room, the one Bea told her would lead to her bedroom.

She closes the door and Allie is left standing in the entrance, listening to the distant footsteps getting closer by the second.

She gets increasingly nervous, imagining exactly how their meeting is going to happen. Whatever version plays in her head doesn't do justice to the way her breath gets stuck in her throat when she sees her again.

Bea walks in, eyes tired from the jet lag and the exhaustion that comes with travelling from one continent to another. She's carefully pulling her suitcase inside and finally looks up, eyes instantly locking into Allie's. She blinks several times in a comical way, and her mouth hangs open in disbelief, as if she'd forgotten that there'd be someone to welcome her here.

But she hadn't forgotten about Allie. She had only neglected how impactful the vision of Allie standing in front of her would be. Her heart skyrockets to the farthest galaxy, her lips curve up to split her face in half with the brightest smile, her hands get sweaty and uncomfortably hot, and her chest is full with a type of adrenaline that she doesn't experience when Allie is gone.

She takes a step closer, legs shaking and threatening to give in under her weight as she melts at the simple sight of those ocean eyes. If they were in a movie, she thinks, they'd already be a tangled mess of limbs climbing to each other, but they're in reality, and she's paralyzed.

Gosh. She doesn't know what to say. She doesn't know what to do. Does she lean in for a kiss? Does she say hello and pretend like she isn't being torn apart by the force of Allie's gravity? Does she run in her arms and knock her down with the strength of her embrace? Does she just stand there like a deer in headlight, waiting for Allie to make a move?

Something kicks the air out of her lungs and her arms automatically circle the delicate curves of Allie's body as the blonde's head nests itself in the crook of Bea's neck. Bea buries her head in Allie's hair and breathes in deeply, tightening her hold to the other woman. She thinks she could cry from the way it feels to have Allie presses so intimately against her.

So this is home.

They thought they knew what it felt to embrace each other, but they were wrong. It's more magical than they remember it to be, it's more miraculous than they thought it'd be. It smells like home, and it tastes like safety, and when Bea starts to pull apart, only to be restrained slightly by Allie's desire to remain close to her, it feels like forever.

They forget that the Earth is still moving around them, that Time won't stop, even for lovers.

They don't forget that there is still space between them. They cling to each other and tighten their hold on one another because it's never enough. They'll never be close enough, they'll never feel each other enough, and the space between them will always exist no matter how hard they try.

But they try anyway, because it's been too long, and they want to erase every trace that they've been apart in the first place.

They stand still, holding each other like they're the source of life itself, until Allie moves back and brushes her nose against Bea's. It lasts a heartbeat and then she pulls Bea close to her again, pressing their lips together.

She falls apart from the way Bea's lips part and melt with her own.

She comes undone from the way Bea's tongue dances with hers in a soft motion.

She implodes from the way Bea's hand gently presses the back of her neck, refusing to let her move away.

She breathes fresh air when Bea eventually moves back, biting her lower lip in a way that strikes Allie with a primal hunger.

"I missed you," Bea murmurs, just millimeters away from Allie.

"I missed you more," Allie replies with a smirk.

"Impossible."

"I did anyway."

Bea rolls her eyes.

"I'm magic," Allie winks mockingly. "How was the flight?"

"Exhausting. Is Debbie …?"

"She's in her room."

Bea nods quietly, many thoughts fighting for dominance in her head.

"Come with me," Allie says.

She takes Bea's hand and guides her to the master bedroom.

The suitcase is long forgotten when they fall on the bed, Allie pulling Bea along. The mattress bounces under their weight and Allie smiles because finally, she doesn't have to face an empty side anymore. They lie together on the bed, facing each other silently until Bea breaks the silence shyly.

"What are we doing?"

Allie shrugs, suddenly shy and unsure.

"I just want to be with you for a while. Just…" she shifts closer and pulls Bea in a gentle hug. "hold you."

She just wants everything to stop for a moment.

She just wants to be with Bea, only Bea.

It's been too long since she's held Bea like that and she wants to fall asleep even though it's the middle of the day. She presses her forehead to Bea's and the world disappears, and she forgets that she is the owner of a secret that can't remain hidden.

She reacquaints with the way it feels to have her heartbeat synchronizes with Bea's, and the way it feels to have her senses overwhelmed by Bea's presence. She refuses to blink when she sees Bea staring back at her with so much affection in her eyes that she doesn't know what to do with it.

"You're beautiful," she mouths silently.

They stay this way for a long time, so long that Bea falls asleep, guided by the warmth of Allie's arms.

It isn't like watching her sleep via videocall, Allie thinks. It's better. It's more intimate It's a moment she'll treasure for the rest of her life. No one else can see this moment. No one can share this. No one can imagine what it feels like, or records this.

It's theirs.

Bea doesn't move while she sleeps, but when she jerks awake, no doubt from a nightmare, Allie is right there to soothe her worries away.

"I'm here," Allie shivers when Bea looks at her with brown frightened eyes. "I'm here."

It takes a minute for Bea to calm down, and when she does, she looks at Allie and says:

"I dreamed you weren't there."

"What a terrible dream," Allie chuckles, pressing a kiss to Bea's forehead.

"And I saw Harry. He was… I'm not sure what he was doing."

"He's never going to be near you again," Allie swears.

"I'm trying to make him go away for good," Bea says. "Trying."

Allie doesn't want to ruin this moment, the fragility of their newfound proximity, but she feels thorns closing in around her conscience when she is reminded of her secret. Roses bloom, more prominent than before, when Bea squeezes her hand.

"It's okay, I'm home now," Bea whispers.

"Yeah. It's about damn time," Allie grins mischievously. "I thought I'd lose you to the Americans."

"Never," Bea shakes her head. "I was just waiting for my little girl to come back with me."

"How is she?"

"She didn't talk much, but she's here, it's all that matters," Bea sighs. "I'll deal with the school and the papers and everything tomorrow. Right now, she needs to rest. She needs time."

"Is she transferring back here?"

Bea nods silently. There's no way she'll let her daughter stay there.

"She doesn't look so bad. I've seen people in worst shapes after an overdose."

"I'm scared that the real wounds are in her mind," Bea replies with a monotone voice. "Places we can't see." She looks with Allie with such intensity in her eyes that it seems like she's trying to read her mind. "Places I can't reach."

Allie hums knowingly. There's only so much they can do for Debbie. The rest will be up to her, but maybe she can find a way to have a conversation with her. If Debbie will let her.

"And you? How are you?" Bea asks, changing the subject. "How much do we owe Franky for keeping you alive?"

Allie gasps and pretended to be highly offended.

"I didn't abuse her hospitality! I know how to keep myself alive!"

"Liar. There's no way you'd look that good without Franky's meals on a daily basis."

Allie laughs and shifts closer to Bea, if that is even possible.

"I still got it?" she asks playfully.

Bea grins and shakes her head, but in her eyes burn a spark of desire that she cannot hide.

"Yeah, I do," Allie smirks, pressing a soft kiss on the corner of Bea's mouth. "You can't deny it. You want me. Say it!"

Her confidence is bursting in the room in a parodic way and Bea doesn't answer, just keep smiling like she's an innocent angel.

"Come on, Bea, say it, you want a piece of that," Allie insists playfully, pointing at herself.

Bea's smile widens and purses her lips, keeping the words inside her head.

"Well, I sure want you," Allie wiggles her eyebrows and looks at Bea with lust in her eyes. "I'm not too shy to say it." She smirks and nearly undresses Bea with her eyes, making the other woman rolls on the bed t grab a pillow to hide her face in.

Allie barks a loud laugh at the gesture and she rolls too until she's near Bea again.

"I'm not shy!" Bea protests from behind the pillow.

"You are," Allie chuckles.

"No."

"Then say it, you want me."

Bea looks at the ceiling and pretends like she didn't hear a thing, and Allie laughs even harder.

"I signed up for a life with you and it's going to be absolutely glorious," she teases. "Tomorrow or ten years later, or when we're both freaking stardust, I don't care, I'll get you to say it."

Bea throws a challenging look at Allie, like she still doesn't quite believe that Allie will care for her in so many years, but she doesn't reply. They stay silent for a moment, both smiling until their cheeks start hurting from the motion.

"A life with me, uh?" Bea asks, nudging Allie's side.

"A life with you," Allie nods confidently.

"And what if I want to get rid of you?' Bea deadpans.

"You would never," Allie smirks, "you wouldn't dare."

She throws her best puppy eyes at Bea.

"You're right," Bea answers warmly, not even wanting to think about a world where she wouldn't be with Allie. "And I can't believe that you're still here. After all this time."

"Of course, I am," Allie beams and presses a quick kiss on Bea's lips. "I don't want to be anywhere else. I don't want to be away from you, ever again."

The next hour flies by as they talk about nothing and everything.

Allie tells Bea that she's still meeting with the teenager girl from the streets and that she's starting to go somewhere with her. She doesn't betray the girl's trust, doesn't tell Bea about her story, but her eyes shine when she talks about it and Bea believes that Allie has found her calling.

Bea tells Allie about the last conversations she'd had with her lawyer and how the procedures to get a divorce are going to take a long time. She tells her that she's not stopping until she gets what she wants, and it brings tears to Allie's eyes because Bea will get her freedom.

Allie tells Bea that she made sure to keep in touch with Doreen, reassuring the redhead that the job is still available if she wants it. The conversation takes a darker turn when Allie announces that Erica can't delay the rent for much longer, and that Bea would need to start as working as soon as possible, tomorrow ideally.

Bea panics at the idea of leaving her daughter here alone until she fixes the mess with the university.

Allie tells her that she can stay home in the meantime to look over Debbie.

Their conversation flows relentlessly and every time they think they have a problem, they fix it.

Bea questions Allie on her quest for a job and the blonde looks away, ashamed when she confesses that so far, no one wants to hire her. Allie tries to laugh about it, saying that they're missing out on the greatest employee ever, but Bea sees through her act and reads the hurt and the rejection between the line of Allie's jokes.

It'll be fine, Bea says. And if things get worse, Allie can apply for welfare until something better happens.

It'll be fine, Allie replies. She won't give up until she lands a job, even if it doesn't pay much.

It'll be fine, they both believe, thinking that being an adult sometimes sucks and that it shouldn't be so expensive to stay alive.

It'll be fine, they both know, as long as they're together and that they don't stop trying.

Allie gets lost in Bea's presence like it's the very first time. She's hypnotized by the way Bea smiles at her and reacts to every word she says.

"How stupidly cliché is it if I tell you that you make me feel invincible?" Allie grins.

"Not as much as if I tell you that I feel the same," Bea smiles.

She gets up and comes back with a piece of paper and a pencil. She sits on the bed while Allie watches her patiently. She draws a sketch of Allie's eyes and when she's done, Allie gasps at the realism of the piece, from the shadows surrounding every line, to the emotions she reads on the paper.

Allie stares at her own eyes, at the way they are filled with love, and wonders if Bea can see it just as clearly as she can.

If Bea can see it, does it bother her? Does it scare her? Is she waiting for Allie to say the words that goes with it?

And what else can Bea see in her eyes? Can she see the lies too? Can she see the way her soul is taken hostage by all that is unsaid and all that she wishes she could erase?

And when the fuck are they going to be able to love each other freely and without this dark cloud following them around like the world's neediest cloud?! It's an endless cycle and if they ever want to have a real, honest chance, Allie needs to come clean, needs to spill everything once and for all.

Fuck. She wants to run away.

She's more scared than when she spent her first night in the streets. She's more terrified than when she spent her first night in the arms of a stranger in exchange for money. She's more paralyzed than the first time she tried ice.

She didn't have anything back then.

She has everything to lose now.

"What's wrong?" Bea asks, feeling the atmosphere change. "You don't like it?"

"I – I love it, that's not the point," Allie hesitates.

Bea creates a masterpiece for them every day, and Allie feels like she keeps destroying it.

"Tell me," Bea frowns.

Allie hesitates. She's walking on thin ice and if it breaks, she'll drown in glacial water, and she fears that she might make the ground break under Bea's feet too.

"Allie?" Bea brushes her golden hair gently. "You can tell me. Whatever it is, we'll fix it."

Allie wants to laugh because, sure, they can fix it. They can get over it and she can be forgiven, but what about trust? What about the trust that exist between them, will it ever be repaired? And without trust, how can there be love?

Why is love so fragile and so strong at the same time? Why is it so impossibly hard?

"You won't like it," she warns. "I don't know what you're expecting, but it won't be that."

Bea looks at her with understanding eyes and Allie tries to memorize that sight, to print it in her brain because it might all be gone in the next minute.

"I care about you, Allie," Bea softly says. "You know it. You know it won't change, remember? You knew it even before I could admit it myself."

Allie nods. She remembers it clearly. It was just a game back then, and there were no serious feelings, and everything had seemed so much easier. There was no risk of having her heart broken back then. Her posture stiffens and the bed no longer feels conformable, and the room is closing in on her, trapping her until she blurts out the truth and clears her conscience.

"I care about you," Bea repeats, like it's enough to make everything easier.

It makes everything harder.

And Allie aches and aches and the words she would rather keep in come out and shake the earth,

She tells her everything. From the very first second she decided she would do something, to the precise planning of the perfect crime, to the harsh, impulsive execution of it all. She neglects nothing, even adds as many details as she can so she doesn't accidently hide something else from Bea.

She talks about the fateful night like it was yesterday, her memories just as strong as ever, and her guilt just as powerful as it was then.

She talks and talks, trying to make it sound like her intentions were good, and the more words she pronounces, the farther Bea shifts from her, and the somber her eyes become. Gone is the understanding look.

"And I ran away. I never went back. I ran as fast as I could. And I wish I could take it all back," Allie pleads.

And when she's done, she sees Bea's eyes turn as red as her crimson hair.

"I can't fucking believe you did that!" Bea rages, trying to keep her voice low so she doesn't alert her daughter. She gets up and stands in front of the bed, gesticulating widely. "Did you even think when you did this?!"

"Bea, you have to understand – "

"There's nothing to understand!" she hisses. "You put your life in danger. You almost got yourself thrown in jail. And it's a miracle you didn't go down for this! What the fuck were you thinking?! What if he'd seen you? What if he'd caught you? Where do you think you'd be right now?!"

Bea runs her hand in her hair, shooting a dozen questions in Allie's direction while she walks around the room. She puts more distance between her and Allie, and whether it is a conscious move or not, Allie will never know, but it still hurts.

Bea is panicking. She can't look at Allie without imagining her behind bars, or worst, falling under Harry's revengeful blows. She can't look at Allie without seeing bruises and hearing ambulance sirens, and she wants to make it all stop but she can't.

Because she cares. And it blinds her. It blinds her rationality and her logic, and all she can see now is…

Allie, imprisoned.

Allie, hurt.

Allie, dead.

Allie, gone forever from her life.

"I didn't do it…" Allie replies lowly, trying to fix the mess she created.

"I don't care," Bea growls. "You almost did. You planned this!"

She's angry and she's relieved, and she wants to cry at the thought that they almost lost everything, but didn't. She hears Allie's speech over and over in her brain and she decrypts every syllable, trying to see if a single detail could mean the end for them, but she doesn't notice anything.

She can't believe she didn't see it coming.

Allie had been distant, different, and Bea had blamed the distance, the time difference, the normal difficulties that they had encountered in this relationship. She never suspected that there had been something much bigger behind this change of behavior.

"Bea…" Allie is losing control and being swept away from Bea by invisible currents.

"Stop. Let me think. Let me think about how I almost lost my girlfriend because she did something so careless. You know he wanted to file a complaint against me? But he didn't have proof for it. It didn't stand. So in this mess, you did something good. You didn't leave a trace that lead to you."

Allie tries to join her, but Bea keeps walking away, keeps standing on the opposite side of the room.

It's a disaster.

"I'm so – "

"Stop. Don't you dare say you're sorry," Bea growls. "The only reason you say you're sorry right now is because you're still alive. If he'd caught you, you wouldn't be able to say a single word."

Allie watches as Bea stops in front of the window and stares outside. She thinks she sees her shaking, and she wants nothing more than to run to her and make her stop trembling, but she knows that it's better to give her space.

She clenches her fists and stares silently at Bea's silhouette.

She'd never had someone be worried for her.

She'd always been independent, maybe too independent for her own good.

She'd always acted based on what she thought was right, always made her own decision without having to consider anyone else's. And it had been easy. There'd been no one to judge her at the end of the day, no one to scold her, to tell her to be more careful, no one to tell her that they'd been scared for her. There'd been no one to catch her if she fell, and she'd learned to bounce back up on her own. There'd been no one to make her feel guilty about her own behavior or to make her second guess obvious choices.

But not anymore.

Now, there's Bea.

She has to consider that she might hurt Bea in the process, that her actions aren't free of consequences anymore.

It's harder than she'd expected.

"What would have I done if you had landed yourself in jail?" Bea asks absently, not turning around to look at Allie. "What if you were dead, Allie? What if you…"

There's a growing distance in the room, and Allie sees it stretching more and more, putting more emptiness between them. Bea is no longer just a few meters away from her, she's kilometers away, and Allie can't keep up, can't spring to her, can't fly to her, can't see her in the horizon anymore.

She reaches for Bea, opens her mouth to tell her that she's made a mistake and that it shouldn't destroy them.

She parts her lips to tell her that she's sorry, that she's learned from this terrible idea, and that she won't play with her life anymore because she wants to spend it with Bea, not behind bars.

She's going to tell her that she's dreaming of a world in which they can love each other, and that nothing else matters.

"I love you," she says instead, impulsively fast and burning hot, her heart pounding and her breath shaking.

She wishes things were different. She wishes they were underneath the stars, having a cosmical date that they'd pretend is fake until they wouldn't able to deny the blaring truth. She wishes they were flying under the bright sun, sailing across the waves of the ocean and flirting with the idea of a happy ending.

She wishes they were drunk in love, buried under layers of laughs and smiles and kisses.

She wishes they weren't battered by life and by love, that they hadn't gone through all this shit. She wishes that they hadn't had their trust betrayed so many times so they wouldn't be so scared, so petrified of each other, of words that are purer than anything else.

She didn't want those words to come out when they are fighting and sending bombs at each other.

She didn't want those words to sound so desperate, like the way they did when she told them to her parents or the way they did when she shouted them hastily at her lover.

She throws them at Bea like it's the very last thing she wants to do right now, but also the only thing she is capable of doing.

She won't survive if they aren't enough this time.

She won't survive if Bea walks away from those words like her parents did, decades ago, or like Marie did, years ago. She won't survive if Bea rejects her, rejects the only real thing that Allie has felt ever since they met on a fateful lonely night.

Bea crosses the room in a few steps and stops right in front of her, so close that Allie can hear their heartbeats drum together and create the loudest concert.

Everything Bea cannot say, she asks with her eyes and the intensity of her stare.

Everything she cannot say, she asks with the slightest touch of her hand with Allie's.

She's begging Allie to put an end to her misery.

"I love you," Allie replies delicately, like she's rehearsed this moment since the day she was born, despite feeling like she might crash and reach the center of the Earth if Bea doesn't stop her before.

There's an ache in Bea's chest and she doesn't know how she can stand still when those words exist between them, when those words are ravaging everything she's ever known.

Bea Smith, worthless, slut, ugly, weak and so replaceable, is loved.

Bea Smith, worth everything in the world and more, magnificent and fragile, incredibly strong and so irreplaceable, is loved.

Harry used to say that she was impossible to love.

Allie makes it sounds like there's nothing easier to do.

Bea thinks she's going to cry, to flood the world with tears that she isn't sure come from joy or despair, or the fact that Allie said those words with the most horrible timing.

She doesn't answer. She doesn't think she'll ever be able to answer because Allie took the words she wanted to say and made them inaccessible to her.

That's a shame, Bea thinks. Allie took these words, and now Bea can never say them back, can never make them meaningful again because her voice is always going to pale in comparison to Allie's. She wants to run away at the thought that she won't ever be able to give Allie the love she deserves, unaware that the blonde thinks the same.

Allie waits, hopes, and Bea expects her to take back those words any second now.

But Allie just keep staring at her like she's never been more serious in her life.

An eternity flies by, during which Allie loves and loves and never stop falling in love with Bea.

A lifetime of love is shared between the two women in the lifespan of a second.

"You don't have to answer," Allie whispers, her voice shaking and vulnerable, like she's walking on glass and she's afraid she'll cut her soul open. "Just…"

She licks her lips nervously, glancing down, intimidated by the force of her own words.

"Just don't go."

Bea nods once.

"I won't go," she promises.

She stops focusing on the vision of Allie behind bars, of Allie's coffin being lowered to the ground.

She focuses on Allie, as she is, alive and standing in front of her with tearful eyes.

She focuses on Allie, who loves her.

---

I love you.

It stops the hurricane and pauses the war.

It rewinds the tape and records the present over the past.

It comes unexpected and it surprises them both.

It moves them. It changes them.

It's a catalyst for what is yet to come.

It hurts and it heals, and it lasts long after the words are gone.

---

They go at Franky's place to eat dinner.

They are welcomed by the heavenly smell of an extravagant dish and two overly excited women, Franky and Boomer.

Debbie comes along, forced by an insistent mother, and she plasters a smile on her face for the evening. No matter how many questions or comments Franky throws at her, she still feels like she doesn't quite belong in this place. This is her mother's new universe, and she has no idea how to stop feeling like a five years old again.

Bea never stops saying thank you until Franky threatens her to kick her out if she says those words one more time. She switches to say I'll pay you back every fifteen minutes, and Franky nearly loses it, grabbing a ravioli and throwing it at Bea's face. Bea frantically blocks the pasta by moving her hands around like a mad woman, and it flies around to land on the top of Allie's head, whose blue eyes are widened in shock.

Boomer nearly dies laughing, slamming her hands on the table so hard that it shakes dangerously. She stops the imminent war by placing a ravioli on top of her own head, soon followed by Franky's and Bea's as they all start cracking up. She even manages to land one on the top of a very confused Debbie.

Debbie manages to laugh for a second, transported by the way the women around her are thriving in the moment.

Bea never looks away from Allie for more than a minute, afraid that the blonde might vanish again, out of her reach, too far for her heart to follow.

Allie never looks away from Bea for more than a minute, terrified that this is all a dream and that Bea is going to disappear, only to reappear on the other side of an ocean.

Franky stares at them, noticing the differences in the similarities.

They aren't looking at each other like they did before.

Something's changed.

---

She wakes up in the middle of the night, when the moon is the only source of light to carry her heavy heart home. She quietly slips out of bed to drink a glass of water and quickly makes her way to Debbie's room. Not a sound, except for the lightest snore she's ever heard. Allie smiles, her chest aching for Bea's daughter and the challenges she has yet to face.

She walks back to the master bedroom quietly, making sure that she's as discreet as possible. She tiptoes inside the room and her heart melts at the sight of Bea, curled up in a ball. Bea's mouth is slightly open and she doesn't move when Allie brushes a strand of hair away from her face.

Allie swoons over the simplest sight of Bea.

She admires the peaceful way Bea sleeps, free from the constant worrying and the choking dilemmas she must confront everyday. She is in awe at the way Bea's chest rises according to the breaths she takes and the rhythm of her heart. She adores the way Bea's lips are slightly parted, and the way her eyelids sometimes flutter in a subtle motion.

Allies doesn't think she'll ever get used to this, to this raw beauty in front of her.

She's in love with the absence of sadness from Bea's face. She's in love with the painted innocence on Bea's face. She's in love with the smallest wrinkles on Bea's face, proof that the woman has also known many moments of joy. She wishes it would last, but she knows that this isn't the way life works.

So she takes a thousand pictures with her mind and she frames every single one of them in her memory.

Allie slips under the cover, shivering until the warmth has spread all over her body. She stays immobile for a second, hoping the movement won't wake Bea up. It doesn't, and she shuffles closer to Bea. She doesn't hesitate when she places a secure arm around Bea's shoulder.

She falls asleep watching Bea and matching her heartbeat to the one of the woman she loves.

And when she sleeps, she falls into a dream she won't remember the next morning.

---

Allie's jogging through the labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys.

She's almost running, but not quite, because running would attract the attention of people she'd rather stay invisible from. She tries her best to focus on the road ahead of her and not the screams or the calls coming from various directions around her. She walks through cigarette smoke and she steps on used needles, and she places her hands in the pocket of her teal hoodie, protecting them from the impatient pulls of the various dealers.

For the first time in too long, she has no interest in any of these substances.

She slows down when she arrives at her alley, the one she made her home for too long. It's empty now. No more dirty blankets or thin makeshift pillows. She stares at it for a moment, until the emptiness doesn't bother her anymore. Then she smiles, and she nods the way she would if she were saying farewell to an old friend, and she moves on.

She walks past the prostitutes and the waiting cars full of potential clients. Once upon a time, she might have stopped, might have offered her services in exchange for a couple of bills, but not today. Today, she walks a little faster, making sure not to meet anyone's eyes. She carefully keeps the hood on her head and ignores the familiar voices chanting her name, welcoming her back to this life that isn't really worth living.

She finds the place she'd been looking for. A tall building with people selling gear at the entrance and broken windows on the lower levels. She enters without any problem and heads for the stairs. The higher levels are classier, newer, like they're the ones being renovated and taken care of every once in a while. They're shiny and attractive, the perfect lures for the innocent.

It's Marie Winter's empire after all, she wouldn't let her personal rooms fall apart.

Allie heads to a specific room. Her room. The room where she had a queen-sized bed just for herself, until Marie had started joining her. The room where she first shot heroin in her veins and where she first overdosed a few weeks later. The room where she fell in love with a fake reality and a doomed future.

A magical castle that became a prison as soon as she'd started working for Marie and having to earn her stay.

She opens the door slowly, as silently as possible, and she glances inside. Her heartbeat pauses when she sees a figure sleeping on the bed. The bed is gorgeous, with fluffy pillows and giant covers, and the person on top of it does not look like she belongs there, with her bruised arms and her hollow eyes and her filthy clothes.

"I don't need your help," the young blonde speaks with a tone carefully crafted over the years spent in this place. "Leave."

Allie remembers vividly saying those words, shouting them even, to every person that would ever try to help her, to every person that would ever cross that door.

She remembers feeling like she had nowhere else to go, and therefore, like she was forced to remain there, watching Marie attract more and more victims in her spiderweb.

She remembers that she didn't mean any of these words. She was just protecting herself from false hope, the deathliest weapon of them all.

Allie doesn't say anything, just walks until she reaches the side of the bed. She wants to lie down on it, just for a second, before she tears the covers apart and breaks everything around her.

She doesn't even touch the bed.

She looks right into the young blonde's blue eyes and waits just long enough to see a crack in the solid armor.

She takes her younger self's hand and receives no resistance when she guides her to the exit.

They stumble out of this horror house like they would escape a prison.

Even in a dream state, Allie feels the way her younger self is shaking, from fear and excitement, and apprehension. She feels her hand being held tightly, to the point that it starts to hurt, but she won't ask her double to release her grip. She knows how meaningful this moment is.

She's out. She's gone. She's never coming back.

Outside, the sun is bright, the sky is shining and the air has never smelled better.

She wakes up, a smile lingering on her lips, and she doesn't know why.

Bea shifts closer to her in her sleep.

Maybe that's why.

---

Thank you for reading!