Chapter 11
NOW: MAGGIE
Maggie let out a slow breath as she sat on her bed and stared out the window across the room.
She wasn’t really looking; it was dark and she wouldn’t be able to see anything outside anyway.
Her weight on the bed felt grounding and she had to admit it was one of the most comfortable beds she’d ever sat on, let alone slept in.
A lot had happened today and yet she couldn’t really connect to any of it.
The final sale on her home in Boston had gone through and the money had arrived in her account that week.
The good news was that this made the final sale less painful and actually a relief.
She and Damien had agreed that the house money would go to her, considering that had been her responsibility and domain as a stay-at-home parent.
And today, she’d made an offer on a house in Maplewood, with the directive to her agent to make things happen asap.
After the fiasco that was Halloween two weeks ago, Maggie was sure she needed to get the hell out of Diana Blake’s house.
She had fucked up. She knew she had, but there was such a long history of Maggie fucking up between her and Diana that she didn’t think it was even worth saying anything unless it was a solution. Her moving out was a solution.
There had been no further outbursts from Diana since, and they didn’t talk about Halloween, which Maggie at first had been thankful for, but with time, it had almost been worse. Diana was a fighter; she was a woman who would die on every hill.
Unless she no longer cared.
Maggie swallowed thickly at that idea. On Halloween, she had just been full of flowery language from a movie about love after heartbreak and too much wine.
But the tension between her and Diana had been so tense she’d thought it would take the edge off.
She should have known better. People drank to dull whatever they were feeling but for Maggie, all alcohol seemed to do was make everything she was feeling more visceral and vivid. More of a threat.
That night, all the unsaid things that constantly haunted the space between her and Diana had threatened to tumble out of her mouth and she didn’t want to hear it.
She wanted to be lost in the only place that had made her feel free: in Diana’s arms. And it was selfish, she knew, she was so fucking selfish.
But she never would have begged if she didn’t think Diana didn’t want to hear it.
She had always wanted to give Diana as much as she could, even if it wasn’t much.
In that moment, she thought she could get lost in Diana and Diana would have her, and they’d both be happy for a blissful point in time.
What she hadn’t meant to say was, “I need you to make me forget.” The wine hadn’t made her drunk but had made her mind loose, and her thoughts had been on the shit show of choices she’d left behind in Boston.
She wanted to forget them. She knew though that Diana had been thinking she was just using her for a quick fuck.
But that’s not what she had meant. What she should have said was, “I need you to make me remember.”
But she hadn’t, and the pain on Diana’s face had stunned her into silence.
And then Diana had walked away and Maggie hadn’t gone after.
Later that night, she had stopped in front of Diana’s door, ready to open it and crawl into her bed and show her that’s where she would have slept after, but when she had turned the knob it was locked, and that had been all it took for her to lose her nerve and continue to cower.
All this made the approaching Thanksgiving even more stressful and nightmarish – added still was the fact that it was going to be the first one post her and Damien’s divorce.
She wanted it to be nice, or at least as nice as it could be, given the circumstances.
Sighing, Maggie also realized it made a good distraction for what came next.
With the lower cost of living in Maplewood and the downsizing, she would have a good nest egg afterwards to figure out what she was going to do with her life.
But she would eventually have to figure it out.
Damien had once encouraged her to pursue her love of books or jewelry making, promising to support her on any endeavors she wanted to explore, even if she had wanted to go back to school and try teaching again.
Damien. God she missed him. Sure they both had always known they wouldn’t work in the traditional way a married couple should, romantically and sexually.
But she had loved Damien. It was something beyond the love they’d developed over the years.
There was purpose behind it. She loved him because he’d chosen her, because she could be safe with him, because they shared a daughter, because they’d given each other something they weren’t supposed to be able to have.
And now, Damien had taken it away. The realization made the anger that was a constant for her these days ebb and kicked up the resentment that rolled through her in waves.
So, while she wanted to call Damien, she didn’t because she wasn’t ready.
He’d sent her a few texts asking about trying to do a joint Thanksgiving with Maya in Boston, but Maggie hadn’t responded.
They could have had Thanksgiving together, had he stayed, but he hadn’t, and a part of her wanted him to feel what it meant.
It meant complicated holidays and time apart when they should be together as a family.
Tears threatened to fall, so she rapidly blinked and stood, wiping her hands on her jeans to give them something to do.
With Damien’s absence in her life, she had begun to realize how much of her life he was.
He truly was her best friend and perhaps her only confidant.
Well, him and Diana. They were the only people who truly knew everything about her.
She had been a social mom when she’d decided to stay home and raise Maya.
She’d joined the parenting groups and had gotten involved in all the school-related parental associations.
But she had never grown close to the other parents.
She was paranoid, frankly, that they’d all figure her out and then realize what she and Damien were to each other.
She had been so afraid that their family life wasn’t what they deemed to be “real”, even though it was as real as the two of them were going to get.
More could be said for the few openly queer parents.
Their happiness and seeming normality was like an affront to her life choices.
Even though at the time, she didn’t feel like she had one. She never did.
Shaking her spiraling thoughts from her head, she took another deep breath, and decided it was time to brave the house.
Brave the chance of running into Diana. At least now she could tell her she could officially move out and perhaps even find a rental while the house got ready.
Luckily for her the house had been on the market for a bit due to a prior offer falling through and was already empty, which meant she thought she could be completely moved in time for Thanksgiving if she could square things with the offer soon enough.
“There you are,” Maggie jumped at the sound of Diana’s voice. She had just entered the kitchen and Diana was there, leaning against the island. Beside her sat two shot glasses, a bottle of apple whiskey and two bottles of the Blake’s apple cider.
“Uh hey,” Maggie said, taking in the scene, “you scared me.”
“Been waiting for you all evening, was just about to text you.”
“Something wrong or?” Maggie said slowly, and gestured to the whiskey and the cider.
“Yes Maggie, I think we both know there is something very wrong. And you and I are going to get all out in the open because I can’t stand it.”
Maggie said nothing for a beat. She could just tell Diana that she’d found a house and she was moving out, but then, it would be another instance in which she was avoiding everything, and after everything — everything, Diana deserved more.
She had always promised she’d give Diana what she could, and while this might hurt, she knew she could give Diana this.
“Alright,” Maggie said, approaching the counter and unscrewing the top to the whiskey. “How do you wanna do this?”
Diana took in a deep breath, so forceful that Maggie noted her flared nostrils.
“Fuck you for the other night,” she said icily.
“I am so fucking mad at you, I am livid,” she continued.
She then reached out and took the bottle of whiskey from Maggie and poured herself a shot.
She then took the shot and slammed the glass on the counter.
Maggie watched her eyes shut as if in prayer, as if willing the alcohol to immediately enter her bloodstream, calm her visible nerves and loosen her tongue.
Or maybe that’s what Maggie wanted.
And so, Maggie braced for impact. She knew she deserved what was coming to her, but it didn’t mean she was ready for it.
“Yeah I know, you’re mad at me and I deserve it. I know I do, but the other night, I—I didn’t mean, how it came out. I just wanted you.” The truth slipped through her like a knife between the ribs, but she had said it.
Diana nodded slightly, her face reddening from whatever storm was brewing inside of her, and Maggie could feel her face flushing as well.
“Okay, so you wanted me. You wanted me for what? An hour a night? Same old same old?”
Maggie didn’t have anything to say because she didn’t know. She had spent so long denying the part of her that had wanted, that had yearned, that it felt unnatural to address that side of herself now.
Diana shook her head, and then took another shot of whiskey.
“Maggie, Mags, I’ve taken a lot which is to say, nothing, from you.
And here you are, you show up at my house after getting fucking divorced, and you still have nothing to say.
And you know what that feels like to me?
” Her voice broke on the last part of her question and Maggie felt a part of herself break with it.
“You just don’t want me. And I can deal with that.
But then you showed up here. And I am so fucking mad at you!
” Diana said, getting herself worked up again.
Her navy eyes were aflame and anger rolled off her in waves.
She took a deep breath and then said, “And I hate you.”
The words gutted Maggie. She slid over to one of the stools on the other side of the counter and sat down, setting her palms face down on the counter to brace herself. She went to say something but all that escaped her mouth was a sob.
Because the truth was, she hated herself, too.
“Maggie, I hate you, I hate you!” Diana screamed, and Maggie thought she heard a small sob from Diana, but Maggie sat with her eyes fixed on the counter, taking big gulping breaths while she sobbed.
Eventually, she had to place her head in her hands as everything she feared she already knew was being said out loud.
“And I hate the way hating you makes me feel. I hate that hating you makes me hate myself. Because you’re a part of me Mags, I hurt you, I hurt me,” Diana said quietly, Maggie could just make out the words above her own crying.
Slowly, she looked up and found Diana’s face just as wrecked as she felt.
The words burned. They were devastating to Maggie.
But she also knew Diana. Diana never shrank away from her emotions.
She was fiery, everything she felt, she felt completely.
So the words hurt, but they also let Maggie know where Diana was.
She also knew they didn’t mean all hope was lost. Diana still cared if she hated her.
When Diana didn’t care, she let things go, like she had with her divorce from Gavin.
“So I need this to be as low as we go, Mags, because it's killing me here,” Diana pleaded and Maggie threw her head back and closed her eyes. She would give Diana anything.
“Mags? I’ve been here this whole time, where have you been? Have you ever even considered me—us—as an option?”
“Have you?” Maggie said, and once again, her words didn’t come out right, didn’t fully represent what she wanted to ask. How could you still even want me now? That’s what she wanted to ask.
Diana scoffed. “You are unbelievable.” Taking a deep breath she continued, “Mags, I see you okay? All of you? I always have. Terror and manipulation — it’s been your life. I get that. Your mother, those men—”
“Nothing happened,” Maggie started but Diana cut across her.
“But it could have and you’re allowed to be mad that you never felt safe.
That you’ve never felt safe enough to be you, that you’ve been following some path you thought would lead you to safety this whole time.
And I am sorry, for the record I am sorry about Damien, and I want to be here for you.
But then you pull what you did last week and it’s like all those times.
All these years.” Diana stopped there, lips trembling, and she placed a hand over her face.
“I know it's been almost thirty years, Diana I—”
But at that Diana whipped her hand off of her face, eyes once again ablaze.
“Thirty years? I fucked you less than three years ago!” And now Diana was animated again, moving to the other side of the counter and pacing back and forth.
“You honestly think this has anything to do with high school now? Just high school? So all those other times were what? Oh I know! They were you forgetting.”
Diana’s words felt like a slap across the face.
Maggie was trying to breathe, trying to collect her thoughts, she thought she could have braced for this but she couldn’t have.
Not really. “Listen Mags, this is it for me, okay? The end. Figure your shit out, and when you do, have the fucking decency to sit me down and tell me to my face whatever it is. But I can’t keep doing this to us, to you, to me. ”
And with that, Diana grabbed the whiskey bottle and walked out.
Maggie was grateful she’d taken it with her.
She was overwhelmed, but knew she had made the right decision to get out before Thanksgiving. Too much baggage and unknowns plagued her at the moment.
There was one thing she did know though, she had followed a path, the only path that had led her back to safety, to Diana.
And she had just finally set it on fire.