Chapter 34 #2
Then Debra felt it. That subtle shift the moment Billie realised Debra wasn’t entirely in the room with her.
She was surprised it had taken so long. She’d been in her own head worrying about this conversation all day.
Not because she didn’t want the plan to go ahead, but because she wasn’t sure Billie would agree to it in the first place.
“What’s up?” Billie asked with narrowed eyes.
Debra forced a small smile. “Nothing.”
Billie didn’t buy it for a second. She reached across the table and closed her fingers around Debra’s hand, her thumb brushing slowly over her knuckles. “You’ve got something on your mind. Talk to me.”
Debra swallowed, looking down at their hands for a moment.
The way Billie held her without clinging and supported without crowding.
God, she didn’t know how they’d managed to find their way back to one another all those months ago, but she was grateful for whoever had been watching over her. “It’s not…bad.”
Billie’s brows drew together. “Debra.”
Debra exhaled a breath, then she looked up and met Billie’s eyes fully. “Charlotte and Caleb are visiting from uni this weekend.”
“Okay.” Billie nodded slowly, but Debra felt the recalibration. Billie’s mind was working through what it meant. What the implications would be and the boundaries that would be put in place. “That’s good. I bet you’re looking forward to seeing them.”
“I am looking forward to seeing them.”
Billie squeezed Debra’s hand and leaned forward a little. “And I understand what you’re trying to say.”
Debra lifted a brow. “You do?”
“Yes. Of course I do.” Billie smiled as she lifted a shoulder.
“I’ll just spend the weekend at my place.
I’ve got some admin to catch up on. I can do a couple of hours of invoicing, tidy up my emails, and maybe see if Ella is around.
She’s been asking me to do dinner with her since our night out with Maeve. ”
Debra watched her. Studying her. Billie was giving Debra an out without being asked. Without sulking and without making it about her. She was just…moving herself aside, as though she was already preparing for the moment when Debra inevitably told her she didn’t fit.
“Billie…”
Billie gazed back at her. “Yeah?”
“That isn’t what I was trying to say.” Debra held onto her hand a little tighter, a smile threatening despite how emotional she suddenly felt. “What I was trying to say…was that Charlotte and Caleb are home this weekend, and I—” Debra swallowed. “I want you to be there.”
Billie went still. For one terrifying second, Debra thought she’d misjudged it. That maybe she’d pushed too fast, too soon.
Then Billie blinked. Once. Twice. “You want me there?”
Debra laughed under her breath. “Yes. I want you there.”
“With them?” Billie’s free hand curled into a fist on the table. “You want me to meet your kids.”
It wasn’t said as a question. It was just the truth, spoken out loud like something precious.
Debra nodded. “I do.”
“Babe, are you sure?”
“Yes,” Debra said without hesitation. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Billie grinned, rose to her feet, and leaned over the table to kiss Debra. When she drew back, that grin had only widened. “I don’t even have to think about it. Of course I’ll be there.”
“I can’t promise it’ll be plain sailing. Charlotte will likely interrogate you, and the most you’ll get from Caleb is a grunt of some kind.”
“Hey, I don’t care. If you want me in your life…if you want your kids to know who I am, then I’m all in. I’ll take the interrogation.”
Debra laughed. She didn’t know why she’d been so worried about bringing this up with Billie. “You say that now.”
“I’m serious. I’m all in.”
The waiter appeared with their drinks before their food arrived, and for a few minutes, they slipped into something lighter and easier.
Debra teased her about what Charlotte might say, then Billie panicked about whether Caleb would ask her opinion on politics.
In the end, the only thing they’d confirmed was that Billie would wear her best overcoat to make a great first impression.
Debra was mid-laugh when Billie’s fingers brushed her wrist again, and Debra realised, in a strange, sudden wave, that this was what she’d wanted all along. No chaos. Not even fireworks. Just this. This settled joy.
When the laughter eased, and they’d finished lunch, Debra went quiet again.
Billie watched her closely. “What now?”
“Okay. Debra exhaled. “Okay. Um…”
“Debra?”
Debra swallowed. “I have something else to tell you.”
Billie’s posture shifted. She wasn’t stupid. She knew she couldn’t have two pieces of good news in one sitting. “Alright. Go on.”
“You remember the night you came over and told me everything? I mentioned that I knew a few people who worked in architecture…”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Well, I’ve had some information back from one of them.”
Billie nodded slowly. “Okay.”
Debra paused, trying to figure out how best to say it. But the truth was, there was no best or easy way. “Janet has spent time in prison since you left.”
The effect was immediate. Billie’s face drained, then sharpened, then went utterly still. It was almost as though her body couldn’t decide whether to recoil or brace. Like Janet’s name alone was a hand tightening around the back of her neck. “S-she…what?”
“You mentioned she’d met a woman in Liverpool. Well, she assaulted her, too.”
Billie frowned.
“I don’t know all the details,” Debra said quickly. “And it’s not something I asked them to dig into. But it was confirmed. She was charged and convicted.”
Billie’s lips parted as she sank back into her seat. Honestly, she looked like the wind had just been knocked out of her.
“I don’t know how long she spent inside, but…”
Billie stared at her like she couldn’t quite comprehend it. Debra expected fear, panic, maybe even anger. But instead, Billie’s eyes filled with tears so suddenly that it startled Debra. Her throat worked, and then Billie scoffed once. “Oh, my God.”
“Are you okay?”
“She…” Billie swallowed, but her eyes brightened. “She actually—”
“She was held accountable,” Debra finished gently.
Billie’s eyes darted downward, then back up again. And then her face crumpled enough for Debra’s heart to physically hurt. She watched on as Billie pressed a hand over her mouth, trying to contain a sob, tears falling freely down her face.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Debra whispered. “I’m sorry. I should have done this back at home.”
“S-she finally got caught?”
Debra’s own eyes stung as she watched Billie taking it all in.
“I finally feel like I’m not crazy anymore.”
“You were never crazy,” Debra whispered. “You were hurt.”
Billie swallowed, then gave Debra the smallest, most honest smile she’d ever witnessed. “God, I really am all in with you.”
Debra laughed around the lump in her throat. “Yes, I gathered.”
“I hate that someone else went through what I did, but I’m glad she went away for it.” Billie lifted a hand and called for the bill. “I feel like I can finally live my life. I feel…I feel free.”
“And you’ll always feel that way, baby.”
Billie wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and exhaled a deep breath. “Thank you for doing that for me.”
“Always, Billie.”
Billie stood at Debra’s kitchen island with her palms braced against the counter, trying to keep herself upright.
Debra had taken herself off to the bathroom a few minutes ago, but Billie knew what was happening here.
She was giving her space to work through the latest on Janet alone.
Billie appreciated that more than Debra likely knew or understood.
She just…wasn’t sure what to do with herself now. She wasn’t restless, her body felt calm, but her mind…her mind was still sitting at that table earlier, the words repeating on a loop she couldn’t quite trust yet.
Janet…had been to prison.
It hadn’t made sense at first. It sat wrong in her head, like a story that belonged to someone else.
Because Janet wasn’t supposed to face consequences.
Janet was supposed to float through life, leaving wreckage behind her, untouchable and unchallenged, protected by charm and excuses and the simple fact that people didn’t want to look at monsters too closely.
Billie had spent so many years believing that. She’d spent years believing that she deserved punishment. She’d spent years picking through her own memories like splinters of broken glass, asking herself ridiculous questions.
What if I hadn’t said that? What if I hadn’t pushed? What if I’d been quieter? What if I’d just listened better, anticipated her better, known what she wanted before she even asked for it?
Because that’s what she’d been trained to do.
Trained, like an animal that learned which movements reduced the pain.
The kneeling hadn’t been a choice; it hadn’t been something erotic or playful or controlled the way it later became when Billie chose to reclaim it.
It had been survival and bruised bones. It had been desperation, and fear, and a body that had realised stillness was sometimes the only shield it had left.
Billie swallowed and stared down at the faint reflection of herself in the polished surface of the island. She could still picture it now. The way Janet would look at her when she was angry. With that calm cruelty that told Billie she was the problem and she would make it right.
Kneel.
Apologise.
Beg properly.
And Billie had. Not because she’d wanted to, but because she’d been taught that pain could be bargained with. It was only now—in Debra’s kitchen and in Debra’s life, surrounded by a love that didn’t ask anything of her—that Billie could see the truth without flinching away from it.
It had never been her fault. Not the whipping and not the bruises.
Not the drinking and not the violence that didn’t even pretend to be about dominance in the end.
She’d always wondered if she’d brought it on herself.
Whether she’d misunderstood or if it was her own fault because she’d stayed too long.
Whether the moment she’d fallen in love, she’d somehow become unbearable or too needy.
But monsters didn’t need a reason. Monsters just waited and bided their time for permission, and Janet had taken every inch Billie ever offered her, then punished her for offering it at all.
Billie drew in a slow breath, held it for a moment, then let it out. Janet going to prison meant something she’d never dared to imagine. It meant it wasn’t just Billie’s story anymore. It meant the world had seen Janet for what she was, even if it took too long…even if it wasn’t because of Billie.
It meant she didn’t have to carry the question of whether she’d exaggerated any longer, or whether she’d deserved it, or whether she’d somehow been the catalyst.
The guilt wasn’t hers. The shame wasn’t hers. The kneeling wasn’t hers.
It had been done to her.
Billie blinked back tears, refusing to let them fall. Not because she was ashamed, but because she didn’t want to be split open by emotion tonight. Not when she finally felt something else beginning to grow through the cracks.
Relief.
Freedom.
An astonished lightness that made her feel almost weightless.
My life has finally changed.
Billie no longer braced herself. Not for anger or punishment.
Not for the shrill sting of a voice demanding she explain herself.
She no longer tried to anticipate moods, or read the air, or shrink herself into a safer shape.
She was just standing there in Debra’s kitchen…
with the very woman who loved her nearby.
And that, in itself, was one hell of a feat.