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You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you don’t even have a name for.
— Richard Siken, ‘You are Jeff’
//
‘i broke my vows.’
mother superion is quiet, looks down at her desk and then clears her throat. your hands are trembling and it’s so much loss at once: your faith; your love.
‘i — i didn’t mean for it to happen, but —‘
mother superion raises her hand, and your voice is rough from the tears you’d cried the night before, camila holding you steadfastly, kindly not saying a word. the sunlight glints through the large window of mother superion’s office and it aches, how any of the world could still go on now.
‘you always have a home here,’ she says, firmly; she’s never coddled you, and you’re grateful for it now. ‘if you want to renounce your vows, that’s — beatrice, it’s not wrong.’
you swallow back tears. ‘i — i kissed ava.’
it hangs in the air the way incense does, lifting to the rafters, quiet shame that you so deeply don’t want to feel. it’s an admission — of guilt, of grief, of sin, of something you want more than god.
but: ‘okay,’ mother superion says. she sits calmly, now, like she had known, like she had been waiting; maybe she had.
‘i’m gay,’ you say, the first time you’ve ever said it aloud in your entire life. hell might come crashing down but you had kissed ava and you don’t think you can ever repent; you would do it again and again, sacred.
mother superion nods. ‘like i said, you always have a home here.’
something inside of you breaks with it: you start to cry, your head in your hands, harder than you’ve ever cried in your life. you would be mortified but your whole body aches with it and when mother superion’s arms come around you gently, tightly, it doesn’t solve anything, but it does help you breathe. you calm down eventually; she doesn’t say anything, just backs away and sits back down at her desk.
‘i love you,’ she says.
‘i just stopped crying.’
it gets her to laugh, just once. ‘you have value, beatrice. to me, to the order, to the world — for exactly who you are. you are valued, and important, and loved beyond belief.’
it’s almost too good to be true, and maybe it is.
‘and, practically speaking, you’re a brilliant teacher. it may be unorthodox, but — you can have a place here, for work and faith; however you want it, it’s yours.’
‘i — um, thank you.’
it’s all you can really offer, but she seems to understand and moves on. ’do you want to formally renounce your vows? you’ll have to stop wearing the habit and such, but we don’t need to change your quarters.’
‘i think, well, to be candid — i think, in my heart, i renounced them a while ago.’ you don’t know how to say you stopped praying to god and started praying to the nape of ava’s neck in the middle of the night, lavender bar soap and laundry detergent, her skin smooth above the scar of the halo, before she would laugh and turn around and shove your hip until you rolled over with a groan, for show, and then hold you tight.
but maybe she understands this too: ‘ava is very easy to love.’ you might see a smile. ‘despite her constant and exuberant attempts to ruin our lives.’
you do laugh, this time. ‘perhaps because of them.’
mother superion’s smile is fond. 'perhaps.’ she gets up and hugs you, a finality, every ounce of forgiveness you never thought you would have. ‘you can bring your habit here, leave them on my desk. you have clothes from your time in switzerland?’
‘yes.’ you don’t say that you couldn’t bear to part with them, another broken vow. ‘enough for now, certainly.’
she nods. ‘well, thank you, sister beatrice, for your service.’
you squeeze her hand and make your way quietly down the hall to your quarters, take a moment to wipe a few stray tears. you carefully take your habit off, glance down at your bare skin. when you were a child, your skin was dark from the sun, from when you would go to the park with your friends and play football, read silly chapter books you’d trade back and forth, about lions and mysteries and girl-childs and all the ways to save the world. you wonder if you would still have those same freckles pop up along your arms if you sat in the sun long enough now; you wonder about the feel of grass along your bare feet. you find a pair of pants that ava had rolled her eyes at — it’s summer, bea! like, i know you’re a nun, but you don’t have to be this boring — but they reminded you of your hakama and you took some comfort in them. you button your shirt all the way, make sure the sleeves sit properly at your wrists. you take your wimple off, your hair getting longer than it has been in some time, still streaked with the blonde highlights ava had insisted you get, far too enthusiastic for you to actually resist, despite your show of protest.
mother superion isn’t in her office when you place the meticulously neat stack of habits on her desk, a ritual you didn’t realize you needed, and then walk outside to look over the horizon. it glints in the day, bright and green, like the barrel of a gun or the white scars littering your knuckles: you love someone more than god. beyond belief, mother superion had said, and you hold it in your chest, then close your eyes and breathe it out, and out.
/
[before —
you don’t think there’s any way for your life to be more than this: you kneel and take your vows, give up your inheritance and your longing. you kneel and pray; they cut your hair and you fight the urge to tuck it behind your ears clumsily. you try not to close your eyes, try not to cry — and you don’t. you kneel with your back straight, with your chin held high, think of the cut of the muscles in your arms and how many times you hadn’t told the truth in confession.
there’s no way for you to gain forgiveness, not without sacrifice. there’s no path to heaven other than this, other than creating a world where you serve instead of sin, where people think you’re worthy of grace. in another life you told your parents that you can love who you love, and you went to university and kissed girls at parties whose names you never even knew; you smoked cigarettes and drank wine and ran, as per tradition, across the empty quad with your friends, naked and laughing, into a warm pond. your hair was long and you graduated and became a doctor, or a professor, or a linguist. you traveled the world. you fell in love. in another life you didn’t apologize for any of it.
but — you don’t cry that night, or the next morning. you’re terrified and out of place but you’ve made up your mind. you tuck your short, shaggy hair neatly into your wimple and try with all your might not to care: you are here to point to holiness on this earth, and you are a tool; you gave up your life so long ago.
you’d split your knuckles open two days before, a staff from your sparring partner that you failed to block correctly; they still bleed red now, stitching over slow. they hurt. it doesn’t matter.
you are not greedy. you have given up all the want in your body. it still feels like a bomb.]
/
in lahore you go to a sufi shrine, in the old city. you wrap a scarf loosely around your head and it feels different, like freedom and soft, in a way your wimple never did. you get there at the right time to hear, even from the women’s side, a qawwali that makes you cry; you don’t know urdu or punjabi but you know devotion, and love, and loss. you know it now like the back of your hand.
ava had loved music; you don’t think there’s music where she is now. you think she would love it here, blisteringly hot and loud and all kinds of holy. you settle, later, on the lawn of the house you rented, listen to the chatter from the street and the neighbors. it’s not different, you think — you remember ava, long for her, and there’s no shame; you touch the grass with your hands and the air smells like smoke and flowers.
/
you sit on the decision for a while; you’re in berlin and you’ve made a few friends, even, at a local bar where you go with a book sometimes. they’d asked what you do for work, and you’d said you were on sabbatical from a tiny university in spain, that your partner got caught up in a project but she would hopefully be joining you soon. it’s absurd and you bite your fist in the bathroom, the first time, to keep from crying, but mostly you talk about art and films and, much to what you know would be ava’s delight, football. you all buy each other rounds, never keeping track: there is a kind of generosity here that you’re just beginning to understand.
one of your friends, robbey, is a tattoo artist, designs that you were taught were sinful, or irresponsible, at the very least, covering their skin. the art is beautiful, and robbey is beautiful, with their green eyes and gravely voice and careful, steady hands, the star of david around their neck. the first night you meet you talk to them for hours about queerness and religion and faith.
‘do you have any tattoos?’ they ask you one night, their english a little stilted, when it’s just the two of you left and the sun has long since set; some nights, you can’t bear to sleep alone until the sunrise.
you shake your head, answer in german: ‘my last job was very strict about that sort of thing.’
‘ah.’ they roll their eyes. ‘well, if you ever are interested, buy me a round, and then i’ll do one for you, free of charge.’
you’re quiet for a second; ava hadn’t given you any parameters, really, on what it meant to live, not directly in the middle of a battle that cost her so much — but she’d probably fucking love it and jump at the chance: forever, or something of the sort.
‘you know,’ you say, your heart racing a little but in a way that feels good, feels like the opposite of loss and regret, ’i’ll take you up on that, i think.’
robbey grins.
you meet them later that week, on a thursday evening like all the others, your heart beating a little faster in your chest. it’s like kissing ava, or the first time you’d ever used a bow staff: there’s no going back.
robbey gives you a hug and their studio is gorgeous: big windows and plants everywhere, quiet and calm.
‘so, i have a bunch of designs, if you want to look through them. but if you have an idea or a plan, obviously i’m happy to do that. unless you have, like, a whole sleeve planned or something, in which case a few hours and a round of drinks might not cover it.’
you laugh, shake your head. ‘i think i’ll start small. for now at least.’
‘understandable.’
you get the paper, neatly folded, from your pocket and unfold it, then hand it to them. ‘i want this,’ you say, and the want you’d tried to tamp down for so long springs up again.
they read it, then look to you gently. it’s unspoken that they understand, now.
‘i, um — i want to remember.’
it’s distinctly sad, and it sits, but then they nod. ‘well, let’s do it, then. do you have a place you’re thinking of? a size?’
you don’t want to think about it: the way ava had been dying, how she had been so brave. the worst thing: she must have been so scared, and you couldn’t go with her. you point to your right wrist, the place where the top of your hand meets your arm — where she’d last touched you; something in place of where a watch face would sit, time skittering away in ticks of grief.
robbey nods and gets to setting everything up, puts on some soft music, and you appreciate them and their presence more than you have most: kindred spirits, with you, happy to be quiet and sincere.
they have you sit down when they’re ready, shave the fine baby hairs on your arm so your skin is smooth, place the stencil carefully, peel back the paper. ‘good?’
it aches into your marrow to see it there, a promise and a desperate hope. ‘yes, that’s great.’
robbey nods. ‘are you ready?’
you haven’t been ready for any of your life, it feels like: not ready to be punished for your love, not ready to give up your whole life to god, not ready to lose someone who made a home with you with such joy you had no chance. but this, this — ‘i’m ready.’
the gun is quieter than you expected, and it doesn’t hurt as much either. you watch, a little fascinated, as robbey presses into your skin and it rips neatly, leaving behind a perfect black letter, right there for you to see.
‘your partner isn’t caught up at work, is she?’
you don’t have to answer, you know by now well enough. ‘no,’ you say, stay still as robbey works carefully. ‘she’s sick. i can’t see her, right now, because of the treatment she needs.’ it’s the closest you can get to explaining.
robbey finishes the next letter, then wipes your wrist clean of any blood and ink, a lull to let the sorrow settle. ‘want to tell me about her?’
you can’t cry, and you can’t move, and robbey smiles at you tenderly, and you realize, very suddenly, that you love them.
‘her name,’ you say, steady your voice, ‘is ava.’
‘ava. beautiful.’
‘she — she’s loud and messy and runs headfirst into everything, it’s infuriating.’
robbey winks. ‘sounds good for you, honestly.’
‘she’s the best.’ you swallow, allow yourself to think of the curve of her smile and warmth of her hands. ‘she’s so beautiful. delighted by everything. she loves so big.’
‘well, i look forward to meeting her one day.’ it’s a gift, the same way the promise on your skin, neat and almost finished, is a gift too.
you look at your wrist and the needle hurts a little more now as the words near the jut of bone. ‘but she’ll thank you, profusely and probably profanely, for being my friend.’
‘well, i'll accept it, but it's very easy — and wonderful — to be your friend.’ they wipe your wrist again, inspect the marks and go over a few spots with careful focus. ‘i think we’re finished. take a look.’
it’s a different kind of vow: greedy and selfish and gorgeous, you think, the words as permanent as can be in this world, on this body you have. you squeeze robbey’s wrist. ‘thank you.’
‘an honor.’
robbey places a clear bandage over it, instructs you to leave it on for four to five days, even if it looks like it’s bleeding or ink is leaking. ‘it’ll be weird, a little, but it’ll heal the fastest this way. no chance of infection or anything.’
you do buy them a few rounds afterward; you also send them what you’d researched would be the average price of a tattoo on paypal, and then argue about them accepting it, which they eventually do with a sigh as long as you promise to let them cook for you sometime — an easy compromise.
five days later, you peel the second-skin bandage off and it feels nothing like repentance. your skin is raised, just slightly, with the letters: scars, promises.
you decide to leave a few days later, bound for somewhere quiet, somewhere with space, to learn something new. robbey kisses your cheek and hugs you tight.
‘when ava is better,’ they say, and your wrist doesn’t ache any longer at unwavering faith, ‘please come back, let me say hello.’
‘you’ll love each other,’ you say, smile, ‘probably run away with each other and leave me behind.’
robbey rolls their eyes. ‘not a chance.’
you say goodbye on a rainy day, arrive early to the train station. it’s the kind of weather ava loved, surprisingly, something about possibility when people didn’t see any. you track the drops down the windows, holy, and look down at your wrist. in this life, it reads, and you say it again, hope with all your heart: in this life.
/
[before —
‘beatrice,’ your mother says, her perfect hair and her perfect skin and her perfect blazer making you feel inadequate already. ‘what is this?’
she points to your wrist, the top of your arm, where your best friend, marin, had drawn a few little hearts with a highlighter during lunch. you’d laughed and put your hand on her knee and your friends had made kissing noises at the two of you; it had been harmless and you’d gone to your fifth period french and gotten a perfect grade on a quiz before archery practice.
‘it was just stupid,’ you say, knowing condemnation when you hear it at this point. ‘i’ll wash it off.’
your mother frowns. ‘i don’t understand why you keep acting like this.’
acting like what? you want to ask, but you know by now to avoid it as much as you can. you’ve never told your parents about the way you’ve watched marin’s spine shift in the afternoon light when you’d been at your family’s pool in the summer, or the way you don’t think about god nearly as much as the way her eyelashes rest against her cheeks when you fall asleep on the weekends in bed together.
’sorry.’ you’re not sure what you’re apologizing for but you have to; you know you do.
she shakes her head. ‘make sure you’re presentable by dinnertime. and make sure to say the prayers you were told at confession. you haven’t touched your rosary all week.’
‘sure,’ you say, feel your heart sink because you’re not supposed to be this way; you’re not supposed to want, and want, and want.
you wash the hearts off of your skin, put on a long sleeve anyway, pick your way through your food, go to bed hungry.]
/
there’s a holy war to win but for a few days you get to hold ava to you like there’s no end and no beginning, like you yourselves are in charge of creating the seas and the land and the light and the dark and — god saw that it was good.
you open the windows and the french doors, almost religiously, so you can hear the ocean. neither of you are particularly peaceful sleepers, and it helps to wake up and hear a place you know you’ve never been hurt before.
it’s evening, the fourth day, and ava is still overflowing with life, begging you to teach her to surf — which ended in frustrated tears on her end and you fighting so hard not to laugh; her tackling you into the sand and kissing you until you’re both laughing instead — but she’s also subdued in ways you don’t quite understand yet. you don’t feel panicked: in time she’ll be able to tell you what she saw and felt and lived through, the holy and horror of dying a third time, but for now —
‘we haven’t talked about this,’ she says, tracing your tattoo and then looking at you with big, open eyes. there’s no joking there, no laughter: she wants to understand.
‘i missed you,’ you say, ‘more than i could understand. it hurt, so much. and i know it hurt for you too, i know it did. i lost my faith and my purpose and — you were worth it. you are so worth it. i want the world, only with you. so —‘ you shrug, wipe the tears from her cheeks, and she traces the letters, healed into your skin now without anything you could feel — ‘in this life. i want you in this life. i love you in this life. it will never be enough.’
ava lets out a breath through her nose, hard. ‘fuck,’ she says, and you love her more every moment. ‘i love you, baby. i love you so fucking much.’
baby does something to you, makes you flush from your toes to the crown of your head. you tug her to you and kiss the top of her head, her forehead, her nose, her mouth.
‘plus,’ she says, once she’s recovered, and holds up your wrist, ‘it’s really fucking hot. you and a tattoo? wet dream of mine.’
you roll your eyes; inevitable. everything about her, to you, has always been inevitable.
but you welcome when she kisses down your body, when she licks into you, warm and gorgeous, sends you over an edge while you say her name, and god: all the same. you welcome it all when you press your fingers inside her, the way she holds onto your shoulder blades so hard she’ll leave bruises, how she gives herself so fully to you; she’s worn the crown of thorns and been to heaven and hell and in between. in french: the little death, when she comes, shaking and beautiful, in this life nestled, right there, in the holiest place you’ve ever known.
/
[before —
you’re waiting on a mission, as quiet and discreet as possible: you have learned, by this point, how to make yourself small and unremarkable. you know how to walk without sound and how to kill a man in one blow — but you’re sitting outside of a little gelato place in sicily, alone in a nondescript grey habit, watching the targets. your earpiece is easily hidden and you’ll wait for mary’s go-ahead later, once you’ve sent in all of the important information you gather and changed into your tactical gear.
you know how to blend into the background, and you once tried your absolute hardest not to, but it hurts less, you think, to be unnoticed than condemned; to be so excellent no one wants to touch you. your gelato is melting and you’re sweating under the warm sun, and it’s beautiful; you try to be grateful for it all: a life free of sin, a life already saved, love from god, the purest kind. grace.
you’re waiting with your melted gelato, paying attention to snipers setting up in the window across the street, the glint of a rifle easy to spot. there are two girls who spill out from the gelato shop, then, just as you’re going to send off the information to mary on a burner phone. they’re young, maybe a little younger than you, and laughing, gelato sticky on their hands, which are clasped between them, fingers interlaced. they sit at the table next to yours, in their summer dresses in the breeze, speaking italian over each other happily. you try not to watch them, instead look down at your hands, the small scars lining your knuckles: proof of devotion, and protection, and worth.
the girls next to you kiss, still smiling, a little clumsy. their joy is palpable, and you thank god for that too: you don’t believe, at this point, even though everyone has told you for your entire life, that loving someone well could be wrong, or sinful, or enough to earn you a place in hell. you’ve killed people; you’ve knelt and given your life to god and still you have killed people.
the girls get up, straighten each other’s dresses before laughing again and kissing again. they look your way when it’s become obvious that you’ve been looking at them. you’re a nun, and you’ve been told awful, horrible things about — about loving people, but it’s important, maybe one of the most important things to you in your entire life at that moment, that they know you don’t hate them, that you don’t think anything about them is wrong, even if you can’t allow the same of yourself.
‘good afternoon,’ you say in perfect italian, and offer your best, friendliest smile.
they seem a little surprised, but they smile back. ‘have a nice day, sister,’ one of them says, and the other nods, kisses her cheek. you know their hands must be sticky and they must be sweating too, because it’s hot and beautiful. you know how to kill a man with your bare hands in less than ten seconds but you don’t know what it would feel like to place your hand gently at the small of someone’s back — maybe someone who’s shorter than you, who makes you laugh, who laughs as you eat gelato by the ocean.
instead, you close your eyes and take a deep breath before watching them fade off into the dappling of tourists along the street, not thinking of hell at all. you cannot allow yourself to long for that; you are a holy child of god, and it is enough. you don’t have to feel the pain of being punished for who you are, who you fear you’ve always been; you have your vows and your body is consecrate through them and it is heaven, and it has to be enough.
give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of god in christ jesus for you, you remember. the girls kiss each other again, out of focus in the distance, and you don’t know, exactly, what to be thankful for.
/
‘okay,’ ava says, ‘listen.’
you roll your eyes; the house you’d rented back in los angeles is beautiful; you’ll have to train sometime but you just won a war, and you think you deserve a little rest. it’s early, and you’re used to getting up and starting the day, but you have nothing to do, and you’d prefer if your mornings stretched lazily until early afternoon. ‘why must i listen at 8 am, ava?’
she bounces on the bed on her knees. ‘let’s plan a date.’
you put your head under your pillow. ‘can we do this later?’
you feel the bed move for one split second before ava is on top of you, sprawled like a blanket. ‘aren’t you excited! we can just — we can just live!’
‘i will be more excited in an hour, or perhaps three.’
you feel more than hear ava’s laugh. she kisses down your spine. ‘fine, fine, you can sleep in.’
‘hmm?’
‘i guess,’ she says. ‘although, i was thinking maybe we could go get breakfast and have it on the beach.’
‘ava.’
‘i’ll wear my tiniest bikini, swear to god.’
you groan into the mattress. ‘you’re the devil.’
ava extracts herself from bed — a little clumsily, an elbow and a knee making contact with you at various points — all the while laughing. you turn over and she’s unceremoniously topless, grinning.
‘well then.’ you’re blushing heavily, you can feel the heat in your cheeks.
ava flings her sleep shirt toward you and scampers away to the closet. you roll your eyes for posterity, even if she’s not even there to see it, but you drag yourself out of bed and follow her to the closet.
you don’t make it out to the beach for another hour, but she buys you breakfast and does, in fact, take off a wispy linen coverup to reveal a tiny bikini. you trace the bruise from your mouth on her hip and she smiles into the crook of your neck.
/
ava begs to go to a show; she’d wanted to so badly in switzerland, put up posters of bands she loved and festivals she wanted to see. so, like you always do now — a privilege you drink in like water after the war — you get the best tickets you can and surprise her with them a few days later.
you take a hit of the blunt ava brought with her in her pocket, which had made you laugh, and everything is heady and her body against yours is divine. the halo hums a little beneath your fingers when the music gets loud enough, and you sink into it: she’s the most powerful person on earth, and she throws her head back and wraps her arms around your neck and loves you.
everything is booming and gorgeous, and you wipe a few tears as she grins at you.
‘i’m just a little overwhelmed,’ you tell her.
‘sing along,’ she says — it’s hell on earth and the city’s on fire —
you close your eyes and you’re quiet but it doesn’t matter, ava is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, and everyone prays the same thing with you: in hell, in hell, there’s heaven.
/
[before —
you count the number of green beans on your plate carefully, make sure you calculate the number of calories to make up for what you burned during your training earlier in the afternoon. there’s chicken breast, and wild rice with olive oil, and green beans, the same meal you have most weeknights from the school cafeteria, although there are other choices. austerity lets you focus; you all have your hunger, you think, looking at your classmates sitting around you, far away from you. you had stopped trying, after last year’s failed efforts, to be anything other than constantly excellent, in everything you do. your parents had been pleased, and your teachers and instructors always praise you. it makes the girls around you hate you for it, but you know, if given the opportunity, you are kind, and patient.
you are disciplined, and suffering is part of being the best. you have learned to control your breath, to control every muscle in your body, to take down someone twice your size without a single bruise. you can translate four languages from text to speech fluently; you have memorized the entire anatomy of the body; you can name every plant in the greenhouse.
at night, in the luxury of your single dorm, you read about sor juana inez de la cruz — for history class, you convince yourself, but your hands shake. you think about love, about sacrifice, about brilliance and what it means to be a woman and what it means to be sorry for all of it. yo, la peor de todas, you read, a prayer, or a request, or a confession, signed in blood.
you’re hungry every night when you go to bed; you throw away the box of chocolates your brother sends you. you’re hungry every morning you wake up. it’s commitment, you tell yourself, feel relieved at the muscles you can see in your thighs, the way you are in complete control of your body, the way you don’t even glance at your classmate’s jaws in fading evening light.
you are smart and kind and you will die that way, you think: purposeful, with all the penance in the world pressing against your hips.]
/
ava makes reservations at a place you’ve always wanted to go while you’re in new york, apparently quite obviously, and tells you about it, exuberant. it’s impossible to resist: you put on tailored, carefully pressed slacks and a button down, leaving the top few undone, much to ava’s delight. you add a suit jacket — much to ava’s immense delight — and you want to scrap the plans entirely when she walks out of the bedroom to the living room in your suite, in a yellow silk jumpsuit that leaves little the imagination.
‘tie the back?’ she asks, winking, and you short circuit for a few seconds while she laughs. you tie the halter in a bow, even and precise, and she turns and kisses you, wipes her lipstick off with a smirk before grabbing your hand and heading for the door.
ava orders a prix fixe and wine pairing, because, ‘bea, we’re at one of the best restaurants in the world. don’t tell anyone, but i had the literal pope get us a table.’
‘you did not.’
‘uh, i definitely did.’
‘ava.’
‘beatrice,’ she says, demurely smoothes her napkin over your lap, ‘i didn’t save the world and die like a million times to not call in a few favors from his holiness or whatever every now and then.’
‘i suppose,’ you say, look at how beautiful she is and how everything around you is so beautiful: apologizing for nothing, ‘that’s more than fair.’
‘to the victor go the spoils, and all that.’
you laugh, let her lace your fingers together in the middle of the table until your first course comes. ava listens attentively to your server, moans when she tastes something particularly good. there’s a dish you fall in love with, these beautiful clams with coconut and ginger, and she smiles at you, so gently, when your eyes flutter closed at the taste.
‘you know,’ she says, like she’s observing the weather, ‘i think, sometimes still, you’re scared of pleasure. that’s what hurts you the most, after all this time.’
you look down at the clams and you know she’s right.
‘but, hey.’ she waits until you look at her, and, eventually, you do. ‘you know you deserve it all, right? not because you’re a quadruple black belt, or because you know sixteen languages. not because you helped save the world. not even because you love me. you just —' she shrugs; you remember her body laced with blue poison and the way her skull had burst open when she fell; you see her now, her eyes bright and you try to forget all of it except the warmth of the wine and her care in your chest — ‘you deserve it inherently. because you exist. you have worth, and you deserve pleasure.’
you swallow and you squeeze her hand and then you nod, just once, and steal the last clam off her plate.
‘now that’s my girl!’ she says, far too loud for the fancy restaurant, and you love her even more.
you eat so many courses and two desserts, because ava gets distracted by ice cream on the walk back. you’re both so full she flops down on the couch laughing instead of taking her clothes off in the bedroom, tugs you down with her.
‘okay, but that slapped so hard, right? admit it.’
‘it was delicious.’
she beams up at you. ‘you’re delicious.’
you roll your eyes, fight the edge of a laugh. ‘i don’t think i can move right now, i’m afraid.’
‘me either,’ ava groans. ‘but that’s okay!’ she plays with the fingers of your right hand, then drifts down and swipes a thumb over your tattoo, kisses it gently. ‘we’ve got all the time in the world.’
‘that,’ you say, tug her into your side so her hip presses against yours, ‘we do.’
/
[before —
you get home from archery one day to find your belongings packed into two trunks.
your father stands in your room, waiting for you. ‘you’re going to boarding school,’ he says, which you think has a little to do with getting caught kissing marin in the pantry a week ago and more to do with your overall moral failings as a person.
you will your chin not to tremble, school your expression into one of neutral acceptance: this life is not yours; it never has been.
‘you leave tomorrow, to switzerland. we will see you at the holiday, if you choose to come home.’
you don’t; you stay lonely in the empty dorms, look at the window at the snow, dream of something warmer than this.]
/
you’re at the fifth house your realtor, aisha, has shown you that day, exhausted and worn; ava dragging next to you, third coffee of the day in hand.
but — you ache immediately when you go inside, the way the sun filters through the windows, the view of the ocean behind, the whitewashed walls and the ceilings with exposed beams. it’s beautiful, and even ava stands in awe for a moment.
‘damn, aisha, why didn’t you show us this house first?’
aisha laughs. ‘well, it’s technically not on the market yet. but i got approval from the owners to bring you two in.’
‘holy shit,’ ava says, squeezes your hand as you grimace at aisha in apology for ava’s language. ‘bea, this is — we have to put in an offer.’
‘let’s look through the whole thing first.’ it’s prudent, and you don’t want to jump the gun, but you’re willing to pay for it in cash right this moment. ava can’t know that, though; sometimes you still need to be the ultimately responsible one.
‘obviously,’ she says, as if she was going to do that the entire time.
the rest of the house is even more stunning. ava kisses you in the primary bedroom and you nod. ‘let’s do it, then.’
you move in a few weeks later, and ava sets to decorating the walls in every color imaginable, adding rugs and pillows and you had loved the calm white and grey everywhere but you love her more: her joy bleeds out into the yellow throw on the green couch, the blue tile in the bathroom, the rust rug under your big white bed.
‘you know,’ she says, the first night you’re fully moved in and everything feels finished, ‘the first home i remember was with you.’
you’re quiet; you have never known how to tell her how hard you fell in love with her then in switzerland, with the shitty futon and even shittier bed, the stove that only very reluctantly turned on, the spotty water pressure in the shower — how you had felt greedy about your time and space together, just the two of you. ‘this is more than anything i ever let myself want.’
‘baby,’ she says, and you turn toward her without any coaxing, really. she brings her hand to touch your face.
‘last night my lover was like the moon,’ you say, so quiet, as reverent as your lungs will allow, ‘so beautiful.’
she kisses your forehead. ‘arooj.’
‘yes.’
‘you think your parents would blow a gasket if they knew you grew up to be a gay ex-nun with tattoos, who is drawn more and more each day to sufism?’
a laugh bubbles up in your chest, a different kind of reverence. ‘i am with a divine being, though.’
ava grins. ‘i loved our home in switzerland, but i love this one even more. it’s ours.’
‘it is.’
‘plus,’ she says, ‘this bed is way better.’
you fall asleep laughing, the moonlight beautiful through the open curtains in the breeze.
/
the sun is warm and perfect as you wait for ava to finish at the gym. you’d finished your practice at the dojo nearby, walked the short distance happily. you hadn’t changed out of your gi and hakama yet, just put on your birkenstocks and slung your canvas tote bag over your shoulder, partially because you know you’re just going to drop off your things at home and then go to the beach, but — you admit to yourself — it’s mostly because, on many, many occasions, ava has told you, and shown you, how hot she thinks it is, untying your black belt with very little decorum.
ava is, though, taking forever to come out, even though she’d texted you ten minutes ago that she’d finished spin class and was just getting her things from the locker room. you’re still, after all this time, a little nervous sometimes, whenever she’s late or whenever she doesn’t text you back, that something has happened to her, that the holy war you’re sure you won isn’t actually over at all. so you sigh, pick up your tote and go inside the lobby, nod politely at the receptionist.
she takes in your gi and smiles. ‘you here to meet ava?’
‘yes,’ you say, cringe a little at how nervous and formal you suddenly sound, and try to focus on the inevitable warmth that floods your chest when people know you’re together, that you’re two parts of a whole, that you belong. you’re racking your brain for some way to carry on the conversation normally but then ava walks out, grinning, in a sports bra and tight leggings, her hair sticking sweatily just above the nape of her neck, her laugh bright. your chest leaps a little, just like it always does when you see her, but then you notice that she’s laughing with someone you don’t know, someone who feels entitled to touch ava’s elbow for a second and smile at her brightly.
ava, true to form, really, just has eyes for you. ‘baby,’ she says happily, bouncing over to kiss you quickly and tug a little on your black belt before looping an arm around your waist and turning back to her new… friend. who is, you can objectively admit, very hot: lanky muscles and a sharp jaw, a cutoff tank and dark eyes, a flash of a white, perfect smile, black locs twisted neatly in a bun on top of her head.
‘bea,’ ava says, completely oblivious to the angry pull somewhere in your sternum, ‘this is cam, she’s new at the gym!’
you offer your hand to this cam, who steps forward to shake it firmly. ava still clings to your waist but you can’t help it: ‘beatrice,’ you say, ‘pleasure,’ but it sounds like anything but.
ava rolls her eyes. ‘bea is my partner.’
‘oh,’ cam says, ‘i didn’t — of course you have a partner.’
you narrow your eyes, but you’re saved by ava from being a complete and total asshole. ‘well, we were just in spin class and then in the hall, not a ton of conversation time,’ ava says, smiling at you. ‘bea is the absolute best. we just bought a house, actually.’
it’s a little possessive, honestly, which makes the ugly tendrils up your spine calm, just a little.
‘congrats, that’s awesome,’ cam says, and her smile is genuine; you deflate a little, because ava is a light — who wouldn’t want to know her, to be around her, to soak her in — so you understand.
‘yeah,’ ava says, ‘we’ll have to have you over for dinner sometime, or —' she gasps — ‘we need to have a housewarming!’
her excitement is palpable and you’ve never really been able to resist it. ‘i suppose we can arrange that.’
she gives an actual fist pump and then loosens her hold on your waist, laces your fingers together instead. ‘well, we’re headed to lunch, after bea changes out of this gi, even though i love it.’ too much information, but oh well; cam just nods. ‘it was awesome to meet you, cam. i’ll see you soon.’
‘great to meet you both,’ she says with a little wave as you practically drag ava out of the gym. you try to let it go, try to release all of the jealousy you — over nothing, over ava being kind and friendly and so full of life she’s impossible to not fall in love with, at least a little — feel burning all the way through your hands.
ava, to her credit, is always far more aware of things than you anticipate. you round the corner and she stops, stands in front of you with her hands on her hips. ‘what the fuck was that, beatrice?’
you know you’re busted because she uses your whole name, which she only does when she’s mad. ‘what was what?’
she rolls her eyes. ‘why were you so standoffish?’
‘i —‘ you feel yourself deflate and, mortifyingly, tears prick at your eyes. you turn your gaze upward and hope that ava doesn’t notice behind your sunglasses.
‘oh,’ ava says, and you expect her to be angry: it’s what you deserve, you still think sometimes, but then: ‘i love you more than anything in this world and all those beyond.’ she squeezes your hands. ‘you know that, right?’
‘i do,’ you say, and you take your sunglasses off, slip them in the neckline of your gi, and tuck a strand of ava’s hair behind her ear. ‘you’re just —‘ the sun, god, the love of my life — ‘you.’
ava smiles, bright and you feel the halo hum a little, pleased. ‘kinda sexy that you were jealous, honestly.’
you sigh, although it’s without any ire, and she leans forward to press her lips against yours.
‘especially in your little outfit.’
‘ava,’ you say, ‘it’s disrespectful for — ‘
‘ugh,’ she says, takes your hand and spins, tugs you down the street toward your house, ‘you know i’m just being silly.’
she turns to look back at you, and you can’t help it: you jog a little to catch up with her. she winds her hand around your waist and you put yours over her shoulders.
/
‘so, do we get to go to the front because auntie ava is in her chair?’
’nah,’ she says, ‘that would be sweet though.’
salman, in his moana outfit — a gift from both of you that had brought tears to his eyes in thanks, which was, admittedly dramatic, but very cute, and ava had cried too — sits on her lap and pouts.
‘but,’ ava says, smiles up and back at you, which means you can take the handles on her chair and push — mostly because asaad, in his full angel city kit, keeps trying to hold her hand and she can’t wheel herself with just one — ‘we do get to go to the front because your aunt bea is a very important person and got us fancy tickets.’
‘i was coerced,’ you say, mostly for your own benefit since ava rolls her eyes and your nephews have no idea what that even means. ava had decided to give jonah and noor a day to themselves during their visit, and, much to your immediate horror, volunteered to take the boys to disneyland. you and ava have never been and her excitement had been almost as palpable as theirs. her back had been bothering her lately, one of the worst flareups she’d ever had, and she’d cried the night before, worried she wouldn’t be able to go — but you’d gently suggested the chair, and that your friend could make sure you had access to anything you needed, she’d taken a deep breath and nodded, smiled a little tremulously as you’d dried her tears. ‘i know you hate this, so much, and i know it’s so unfair that you hurt this badly, but we will have a good day, okay? you’ll retain your title as favorite aunt.’ she had laughed and the boys had been happy enough to fight over who got to sit on ava’s lap this morning, unfazed and full of love as they always are.
disneyland is a pain in the ass all day but, admittedly, seeing ava and the boys explode with excitement at just about everything they see makes it worth it. you situate the boys in each ride and then quietly help ava on the ones that are gentle enough for her back; otherwise, she stays behind with a wave and films the entire thing, horrifyingly capturing a few shrieks from you on one particular one. you eat a copious amount of candy floss and at one point both ava and salman throw up, but then they give you a thumbs up and you regroup, asaad rolling his eyes in your direction, which makes you laugh.
they convince you to let them stay for the parade after it gets dark, squealing with delight, and salman gets his picture taken with every princess you see. eventually, it’s time to go home, and ava manages to walk the few steps from where you load her chair up the ramp into your car — a mercedes suv you’d had customized to be able to load her chair, in case she needed it, and she had cried when you gave it to her for her birthday — and sits in the passenger seat next to you.
‘that was a magical day,’ she says, looking in the rearview at the boys, who nod sleepily in agreement. they doze off not too soon after, spent from all the excitement, and ava takes your hand at a stoplight. ‘thank you, babe.’
‘my pleasure,’ you say dryly, although you really do mean it. ‘i’m glad you all enjoyed it.’
ava shrugs. ‘well, sure, obviously. but, i just mean — you’ve never wanted to leave. you’ve never tried.’
‘i’m not entirely sure what you mean.’
‘what i was most afraid of,’ she says, ‘you know?’
‘my love,’ you say, ‘i don’t think less of you or have any desire to be anywhere else when you’re struggling with pain and mobility. it doesn’t change anything i think about you; if only, it makes me more in awe of you.’
‘man,’ she says, wiping a tear from her cheek, ‘i got really fucked up as a kid, huh? fuck sister francis.’
‘fuck sister francis,’ you say, mostly to get the grin on her face to grow even bigger, the lights of the city a prism behind: magic.
/
[before —
it’s not the first time it’s happened and it probably won’t be the last; shanon has you bite down on a belt strap while she cleans the deep scrape on your shoulder and then counts down from three before reducing it with a pop.
‘sorry, beatrice,’ she says, although you both know you don’t have any choice.
you almost pass out but then it’s over. you don’t have any time to spare; you have to go on fighting. it takes weeks for the wound to heal, once you get back to cat’s cradle; your shoulder never feels quite as strong as it once had.
you get it mostly there, eventually, after an exhausting number of push-ups and your own shaky hands changing the bandage: you don’t have any choice.]
/
it happens faster than you can process: you misplace your step and keiko, your favorite sparring partner, strikes with precision. normally, you welcome it — he’s your favorite for a reason — but today you fall, and you hear a pop and a snap before you feel pain in your shoulder and collarbone worse than anything you’ve felt in your entire life. you lie on the mat and the edges of your vision go a little black; you’re sure you’re going to throw up.
keiko gets you up and loaded into his car, drives you to the ER carefully and calls ava on the way, promises that it’s probably just broken or dislocated bones, that you’re otherwise fine and healthy and nothing is life-threatening. ava meets you there, eyes red rimmed, wearing a loose pair of your linen pants and a crop top, one of your sweaters a little askew on her shoulders, her favorite cap backwards on her head. even brimming with pain, you have to smile when you see her.
‘hi baby,’ she says, smoothes back your sweaty hair and kisses your forehead. she’s there the entire time, nervous and attentive to every word the doctors say: you get x-rays and an mri and they tell you, after you’ve definitely had way too much morphine to follow it all, that you broke your collarbone, dislocated your shoulder, and tore your rotator cuff.
‘you’re a black belt, right?’ your doctor asks you.
you nod and you catch ava smirking despite herself.
‘have you dislocated your shoulder before? we think your rotator cuff was partially torn before this injury.’
‘i’ve dislocated my shoulder five times.’
the doctor frowns.
‘perks of the trade,’ you say, fail miserably at your joke. ava sniffles but then squeezes your hand.
the doctor explains that you need surgery, that, in the long run, you’ll be in much less pain and have much better range of motion. you’ll have to do physical therapy and it might be slow going, but you’re young and fit and you’ll be able to return to martial arts and everything else you love within the year.
it’s almost a relief, you think, maybe because of all the drugs, to be told that you can stop — that you have to stop. you have surgery the next day, after ava spends the night crammed into the side of your hospital bed, and then you get to go home.
she fluffs up all the pillows and gets you situated on the couch, makes sure you take your pain meds when you’re supposed to.
‘i’m bad at this,’ you say, looking over to where she’s laying out every one of your favorite snacks on the coffee table with a flourish.
‘at what?’
you look down at your shoulder in its sling, wrapped in padding and bandages, sutures inevitable beneath.
ava squirms closer to you and unwraps a mini reese’s, then pops it in your mouth. ‘well, lucky for you,’ she says, ‘i’m really good at taking care of you. and, now, you can’t even stop me.’
‘when have i done that?’
she rolls her eyes. ‘like, all the time? whenever you’re kind of hurt you won’t even take an advil. i thought i was gonna have to physically knock you out last year when you had the flu to get you to stop trying to work and train.’
‘that’s true, i suppose.’
she tucks her arm under her chin on the top of the couch, smiles gently at you and smoothes your hair. ‘i love taking care of you, bea. i really do. i’m sure we’ll get grumpy but — you were hurt; keiko said you didn’t even cry.’
‘well, i knew i would be fine. it was just sparring.’
ava sighs. ‘you know, you don’t have to save the world anymore, right?’
you don’t; sometimes, this life you have still doesn’t feel quite real. ‘can i have another candy?’
ava laughs, unwraps one happily. ‘you can have all the reese’s you’d like.’
it’s a slow few months: ava helps you do everything with humor and grace, even when you’re in pain or bored or ornery — she washes your hair gently, goes on slow walks along the water, orders all of your favorites on uber eats, drives you to every physical therapy appointment. soon enough — although it felt like an eternity at some points — you get to go back to the dojo, run through a few motions with your beloved staff.
ava kisses the neat, fully healed surgical scar when you get home. ‘god, i love you in sports bras,’ she says after you take your gi off.
you wait a moment and then tickle her once, and she shrieks laughter, and you pick her up and deposit her on the couch; she’s still laughing until you lower your body over hers, put a knee between her legs. she kisses you back, and your arm doesn’t hurt at all.
/
[before —
‘disgusting,’ your mother says as you drive past london pride in your black town car on your way to church.
your father turns to you. ‘those people are going to hell because of their sin, and they’re proud of it. can you believe that, beatrice?’
all you see out the window are people smiling and a lot of rainbows, so you shake your head. ‘i can’t believe it,’ you say, and it aches.]
/
‘okay,’ ava says, already a few rainbow jello shots in, wobbling on her feet, ‘i think we should stay for a few more floats and then go to the bar!’
‘i think you should have some water when we get there first, my love.’
she leans into you. ‘you’re so smart, bea,’ she says, genuinely, ‘and so hot.’
‘gross,’ robbey says, and the two of them had, as you’d both looked forward to and feared, gotten on like a house on fire. ava slings an arm around their shoulders too, and they just look to you with a laugh. she has on a tiny bikini top, denim cutoff shorts, and a bi flag around her neck like a cape, her rainbow makeup a little smudged at this point: she’s beautiful, and you love her.
‘beatrice,’ robbey says, ‘you’re literally melting when you look at her.’
‘oh, shut up,’ you say, although you don’t really mean it; you’re sure it’s true. ava had convinced you to let her do a little gold eyeliner and you’d even, to her absolute delight, worn a rainbow t-shirt she’d brought home sometime last year tucked neatly into your favorite linen shorts. ava cheers as some more floats go by, and robbey laughingly catches all the condoms they can, and you just take a moment to look around you: community and care and joy.
you do make her drink water when she gets to the bar, and she and robbey banter back and forth; she meets your other friends from your time in berlin and they’re thrilled. ava charms them all, but, as always, at the end of the night you’re who she goes home with.
‘you know,’ she says, ‘pride is one of the seven deadly sins.’
‘yes,’ you say, a long-forgotten ache sitting in your chest. ‘humility, the converse virtue.’
‘that’s so stupid.’ ava puts her hand above your heart over your t-shirt, like she can take the ache away just with the warmth of her palm. ‘i’m so fucking proud to love you.’ you turn to kiss her forehead, and she rubs her knuckles in a loose little fist against your chest, just once. but, still — it doesn’t ache anymore.
/
[before —
you spend hours on your knees in the convent, your second night there, until they’re bruised blue the next morning. your hands are always shaking and you can shoot a perfect bullseye from 200 yards away while running but you can’t stop thinking about the touch of another girl’s palms. your wrists ache.
you are not your own.]
/
[between —
ava lies on her back at the top of the trail on your favorite hike, just outside of the little town you’re in. she turns to you, squints up in the sun. ‘what if we just stayed here forever?’
you hum; you can’t say how you really feel.
‘would you ever give up your vows, you think?’
‘why would you say that?’
‘whoa, whoa,’ she sits up, hands up, placating your panic. ‘i just, like, can’t even decide what my favorite cereal is, let alone who i would want to, like, pledge being abstinently married and good all the time to.’
‘that’s — that’s not what our vows are.’
she rolls her eyes. ‘yeah, i know that, obviously.’
you sigh. ‘in answer to your question, no.’
she nods, offers you a strawberry and then takes a bite of her own, swishes her bare feet around in the lake. ‘that’s cool. i was just wondering.’
‘maybe,’ you say, admit it like a curse. ava is so brave, all the time, but you are so scared. still: ‘if i met — if i met someone that i —‘ you shake your head, can’t get the words out.
‘that you love more than god,’ ava says, adds a wink for your benefit, because your whole body trembles with the admission, but her voice is serious, tinged with a little hopefulness, a little awe.
‘yes,’ you say, and you already know you do. ‘someone that i love more than god.’]
/
‘okay,’ ava says, the same spot on the same shore of the same lake, all those years ago, and you know what’s coming, you’re pretty sure — ava isn’t exactly discreet — but your hands start to shake when she smiles at you. ‘now, before you say anything, it’s totally fine if you’re not ready for this.’
‘ava.’
‘well, maybe you might not be. it’s been like an eternity —‘
‘— three years —‘
‘— an eternity —‘
— you roll your eyes —
‘but i want you to be sure.’ her voice turns sincere and she looks at you patiently until you nod; the anxiety in your chest blooms into hope, and pride, and love.
‘i am,’ you say.
she’d cut her hair short again, a few months ago, walked into the kitchen and did a little spin after she’d gotten back from the salon, and you’d laughed and kissed her; she has on one of your favorite lightweight running jackets, the late summer bleeding into the mountain chill of fall, and she reaches one hand into the small pocket on the inside. you’ve loved her for millennia, you think, when she smiles at you.
‘well then,’ she says, ‘beatrice, bea, you are my favorite person, literally ever. i love how you make me laugh, and the way i get to wake up to you every morning, how you’re sleepy even though you pretend to be a morning person.’
tears are already filling your eyes but you let out a little huff of laughter.
‘and i love, so much, the way you show up for me and your friends and your family: steadfastly and bravely and with so much care. you saved my life so many times, bea. and we were here once, years ago —‘
‘— i remember,’ you say, laughing again, tears freely streaming down your cheeks now.
ava smiles. ‘i asked you then, if you’d give up your vows, and i asked because i was falling in love with you, and it was breaking my heart.’ she takes a deep breath. ‘but then, you said you might break them, if you met the right person. and i just — kept falling in love with you. and i haven’t stopped. i won’t ever stop. i just want to keep loving you.’ she gets down on one knee and your head starts to spin but you’re so, so happy. ‘so, beatrice, will you give me the greatest blessing i can think of, and be my wife?’
‘yes,’ you get out, kneel down to meet her; she laughs into the kiss, clumsily knocking together, but she’s crying too. ‘yes, yes, yes.’
she pushes you away a little so she can take your hand in hers and slip the ring onto your finger. it’s sturdy and white gold, a thicker band, with one small diamond imbedded in the band. it’s beautiful.
‘i didn’t say if i met the right person,’ you say. ava wrinkles her brow and you smile. ‘i couldn’t even say the words because i’d already broken my vows. i’d already grown to love you. more than — you said if i met someone i love more than god.’
‘fuck, i was difficult, wasn’t i?’
you huff a laugh and roll your eyes and shake your head, take her jaw in your hand. ‘i do, ava, love you more than god.’
the halo glows a little, hums all through her body. ‘there’s an inscription,’ she says and points to the band. you take it off your finger and lift it so you can see; you feel the earth settle, your hands settle, your heart settle, when you read it: and the next.
/
[after —
you build the altar you get married by on the beach. it’s a labor of love, really, and a new test of your skills — and a bunch of very cool power tools you’d convinced ava to let you purchase. you’d measured and cut and sanded the wood; fastened it together sturdily. you build an altar for ava, for the real, genuine miracle of her love. you build her an altar because she had built you a life beyond belief.
one day, when you’re almost done, ava comes out to your work shed to bring you some water. she’d wrinkled her nose at you being sweaty but then had kissed your cheek anyway, squeezed one of your arms in the cutoff t-shirt you had on, touched a few freckles, winked, and then kissed you on the mouth. your hair is long and blonde; you haven’t cut it in a while, and ava tugs a little at the bun you’d fastened loosely, smiling.
‘love you, baby,’ she says, picks up your hand and kisses your knuckles. the sea glints and ava gives a silly little wave as she walks toward the water. the waves go, and you breathe her grace, out, and out.]