Chapter 23 #2
Once they had coffee in their hands, they talked about small, insignificant things. The traffic they’d been stuck in, and the stray cat Debra had started feeding in the communal back garden of her flat, but nothing about kneeling. Nothing about last night.
“Billie, are you okay? Do you need anything?” Debra gazed back at her from the opposite couch. “Do you…want me to leave?”
“No, no. I’m fine.” Billie wasn’t sure she knew what fine meant anymore, but Debra accepted it. She didn’t probe further or pry; she just sat on the couch, sipping her coffee.
An hour passed in the same manner, and then Billie’s apartment door flew open and bounced back off the inside wall.
“Billie!”
The sound of her name—panicked and terrifyingly familiar—sent Billie bolt upright. Her pulse spiked before her mind could catch up.
Ella stood in the doorway, breathless and with her coat half on, her eyes wide with fear. She cast her gaze over Billie, searching her face with a hint of relief. “Oh, thank God! You scared the shit out of me.”
Billie froze. “Ella, w-what are you doing here?”
“Nina called me,” Ella said as she dragged a hand through her hair. “She said you were not okay last night. And then you didn’t show up at work this morning and—” She stopped abruptly, noticing Debra on the couch.
Debra rose to her feet and lifted a hand. “Hi. I’m Debra.”
“O-oh, hi.” Once Ella had recalibrated, she smiled. “Ella. It’s lovely to meet you.”
“Likewise.” Debra stood awkwardly in the middle of the room; Billie felt the shift the moment Ella burst through the door.
Still, she understood that everyone was probably feeling a bit out of sync today.
“I should have called you, Ella. I’m sorry.”
Ella crossed the room and wrapped her arms around Billie. Billie stiffened on instinct, then melted into it, the contact grounding her. “Don’t frighten me like that again. I can’t deal with it.”
“I know,” Billie whispered. “I know, and I’m sorry.”
When Ella pulled back, she glanced at Debra again, this time frowning. “Wait. Y-you’re here…”
“I’m sorry?” Debra lowered her cup to the coffee table and took a step back. “I don’t follow.”
Billie cleared her throat and gave Ella a knowing look. “Not right now, yeah? Debra’s got no idea about the weirdo she invited into her life.”
Ella nodded and shrugged off her coat. “Got it.”
“I think,” Debra said as she angled her head towards the door, “this might be a good time for me to go.”
Billie’s head snapped up. “What?”
Debra met her eyes. Thank God they were calm and reassuring.
Billie couldn’t handle anything other than that right now.
“Not because I want to, but because you two deserve some privacy.” She looked at Ella briefly, then back to Billie.
“You’ve had a lot happen in a very short amount of time.
I don’t think you need an audience for whatever comes next. ”
Billie fought back the lump in her throat.
She knew the moment Debra walked out the door, she wouldn’t see her again.
While Billie understood and expected that to happen, she wanted to be in the same room as Debra Allen for a few more minutes.
Even if only to memorise her face. Even if only to cling onto the scent of her perfume for the coming days when life felt tough, and she didn’t know which path to take. “You don’t have to go.”
“I think you need some space, Billie.” She stepped closer and rested a hand on Billie’s forearm. “You need to focus on yourself. I’ll check in later. Maybe call you if that would be okay?”
Billie nodded. She didn’t trust her voice with anything other than a simple response. “Okay.”
When Debra reached the door, she paused and turned back one last time. “I know things are incredibly difficult for you right now, but please don’t expect me to want anything from you. I just want you to be okay, Billie. However long that takes, just know that you’re not alone.”
And then she was gone, the door closing softly behind her.
Billie stood there, more aware of her breaking heart than ever before. “God, you fucked it completely.”
Ella pressed a hand to her shoulder and guided Billie away from the door. “Come on. Sit down.”
On shaky legs, Billie turned for the couch and somehow stumbled her way towards it. Her apartment felt different now that Debra had left it. If she was being honest with herself, she didn’t like being here without Debra. She felt safe with her. She felt marginally sane with her.
Still, Ella didn’t rush her for answers. She had never been that type of friend.
Billie stared down at her hands, watching the faint tremor still lingering in her fingers. “I fucked it big time, Ella.”
“Fucked what?”
“Any chance with that woman.” Billie looked up and gazed at her apartment door. “She saw it all last night. Everything. I’ve never felt so ashamed of myself as I did this morning.”
“Billie, what exactly did she see?”
Billie swallowed and shook her head. “I regressed. I thought I’d moved past it, it hasn’t happened in years…but last night—” She cut herself off and sighed.
Ella frowned. “Last night…what?”
“I saw her,” Billie continued. “She was on a date. She looked really happy, and I’d already convinced myself that was the right outcome.
That pushing her away the other week had been the responsible thing to do.
” Billie scoffed. Even in her head, it sounded ridiculous now.
“Apparently, my nervous system didn’t get the memo. ”
Ella’s hand closed gently over Billie’s.
“After I’d bumped into her, I went back to the shop because that’s where I feel…
functional. It’s where I know the rules.
” Billie smiled when Ella squeezed her hand.
“Nina was there, and she was worried about me, so I let her stay a while.” The emotions Billie had spent years suppressing threatened to rear their ugly heads again.
“Somewhere between the whiskey and the sense of control, I fucked up.”
Ella clenched her jaw.
“I… It wasn’t sexual,” Billie said quickly, hoping Ella heard the truth in it. “Not in the way people imagine it probably is. With Nina, it’s automatic. We have what we have…and it stays at the office.”
“Right…”
“When Debra walked in and saw me with her, because yes…I was fucking Nina when she walked in, it all turned to shit.” Billie dragged a hand through her hair.
“Though, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure I was fully there before she walked in.
I was in a weird headspace…but once she’d told me what she thought of me and left, something inside of me just collapsed. ”
She risked a glance at Ella, bracing herself for whatever came next.
But nothing did come. Ella just sat there, gazing back at her.
“Once I’d managed to get myself off my office floor, I ended up outside her flat.” Billie closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “And I was on my knees as she opened the door.”
“Oh, Billie…”
“My body just remembered the script I learned a long time ago. If you make a mistake, if you upset someone, you make yourself smaller. You apologise first, you kneel, and you don’t ask for reassurance because that makes it worse.”
“Billie.” Ella’s voice broke as she shifted closer. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“I don’t think there is anything to say. I just appreciate you being here and not judging me.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever judged you in all the years we’ve known one another.” Ella smiled as she angled her head. “So, I’m guessing you’ve told Debra about the past? If she saw you like that…”
“Not yet. Not the details,” Billie said, her stomach roiling at the mere thought of sitting down and telling Debra how fucked up she was. “But I will. She deserves that.”
“How did she react last night?”
“She put me up in her spare room and had breakfast waiting this morning.” The smallest smile curled on Billie’s lips as she recalled the comfort of Debra’s flat this morning. “And now, I never want to imagine that not being a possibility in the future, even though I know it’ll never happen.”
“You seem sure about that.” Ella sat back on the couch and crossed her legs.
“I am, but this isn’t me pushing her away, Ella. This is me accepting that I let it slip through my fingers and I’m entirely to blame.”
Ella searched Billie’s eyes. “Can I say something about her?”
“About Debra?”
Ella nodded. “I only met her for five minutes, but those five minutes told me a lot.”
Billie’s pulse kicked up a little.
“She’s kind, and I don’t mean that performative kindness, or the sort that asks for anything in return. She was worried about you, Billie. Not confused, not offended, but worried.” She tilted her head. “And she didn’t try to fix you. Instead, she made space.”
Billie stared down at her hands and smiled. “That’s just who she is.”
“I can see why that scares you.”
“She doesn’t treat me like I’m fragile or broken. She treats me like I’m human.” Billie’s pulse picked up again with that admission. “I don’t know what to do with that.”
“You let it happen.” Ella reached for her cup. “That’s what you do.”
Billie shook her head. “What if I hurt her?”
“You already did, and she still showed up.”
Ouch. That landed hard.
“You know what else I noticed? Of all the times when you could have run away, last night should have been it. Knowing she saw you like that, first with Nina and then at her place, you could have bolted and locked yourself away. But you didn’t. You let her see you.”
Billie snorted. “By falling apart on her doorstep.”
“By trusting her with the truth. Even if you don’t have the words yet, the fact you’re willing to tell her about the past is huge.
” Ella shifted closer. “I think Debra could be exactly what you need. Not because she’ll save you, you don’t need saving, but because she doesn’t want to own you or control you or shape you into something different for herself. ”
Billie stared at the floor and exhaled a deep breath. “She makes me want things.”
“And that’s the point,” Ella said. “You don’t want to disappear anymore. You want to live.”
Billie rested her head back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling.
She felt alive yet devastated all at once.
“I don’t understand it. I humiliated myself and I scared her.
I regressed in a way I swore I never would again.
” Billie’s voice wavered. “But I feel…open. I feel like I have actual breath in my lungs for the first time in a decade.”
“That’s what happens when you stop surviving and start feeling.”
Billie turned her head slowly and met Ella’s gaze. “I don’t know how to do that safely.”
“That’s not something you have to figure out today. You just have to promise me that you won’t punish yourself for it.”
As her shoulders relaxed and her muscles loosened, Billie accepted that her life was changing. “I think I want something real, and even though that terrifies me more than anything I went through with Janet, I…think I’m willing to risk it if it means I potentially have a future with Debra.”
Ella blinked back tears and sniffled. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this day to come.”