Chapter 23
Eris
There are scars that never ever show themselves
You get when you're left alone too long in hell
― Bad Omens, If I'm There
“Hey, First Lady! I’m heading out for a quick delivery. Want something from the usual bakery?”
Eris glanced up from the laptop: Rocco’s curly head was poking in from the door—the door of her office.
“What’s Denny having?”
“Nothing.” Rocco rolled his eyes. “Says she’s still full from breakfast.”
Eris chuckled inwardly. “A strawberry muffin then.”
“You hate strawberry muffins.”
“That’s not what you asked.”
Rocco opened his mouth, frowned, and closed it again, retreating with the expression of someone whose brain cogs were having a particularly bad time.
Not long after he was gone, there was a knock on the door. Denny slid in right after.
“Hey, could you come out for a sec? I need assistance.”
“What’s up?”
“There’s a gentleman who only speaks Italian.”
Eris cursed. He couldn’t have shown up just a few minutes sooner, could he?
She followed Denny to the main room. A stocky elderly man with a suitcase raised hand in greeting. Eris awkwardly did the same.
“Buongiorno.”
The man lit up. “Buongiorno, signorina. Scusi il disturbo, ma English…” He rolled his flat hand from side to side, which was Italian for ‘so-so’.
“Yeah, okay.” It took a few seconds for Eris to transition between languages. “Io capisco l’Italiano, ma parlo…” She made the same wavy gesture and the gentleman lit up even more. He showed her an address on his phone.
The place wasn’t far. A mental map of the route panned out in Eris’ mind. She tried to summon all the terms she needed for the directions despite being very aware that she was missing a lot of them.
“Di qui vai a sinistra, poi… uh, angolo?” Angolo was ‘corner’, not ‘crossroad’, but it’d have to do.
The man nodded, no sign of perplexity whatsoever. Good enough.
“Angolo vai a destra, poi altro angolo a sinistra ancora. Dopo poco arrivi.”
Eris was pretty sure she was being disrespectful. Strangers were supposed to be addressed formally, but she couldn’t remember how. It had something to do with calling them she, for some reason.
The man was seemingly unbothered. “è lontano?”
“Due o tre minuti, se cammini.”
“Due o tre minuti a piedi. Molto bene.” A piedi. Eris jotted it down as the correct translation of ‘walking somewhere’. The man gave her a big smile. “La ringrazio, signorina, è stata molto gentile.” He offered her his hand. Eris hesitated: there was a twenty in it.
“That’s not—”
“Allora li lascio qui.” He placed the note on the counter, tipped his hat, and rolled his suitcase out.
“Have a good day, signore!” Denny chirped.
“Buona giornata a voi, ragazze!”
The door closed to the chime of the bell. Eris couldn’t remember anything of the conversation that had just occurred, but Denny was looking at her with huge Bambi eyes full of awe.
“You’re amazing.”
“Jesus, pipe down. It was shit.”
“He understood you, didn’t he?”
Eris snatched the twenty pounds and folded it to chuck it into the charity box by the register. “It was still shit.”
Denny followed her movements with a soft smile. “Well, I could only babble ‘signore’, so…”
Eris looped her arms around Denny’s neck. She kissed the tip of her nose, then nudged it with her own. “Your ‘signore’ was the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“You’re so biased.”
“Damn right.”
“I can also say: ?Dónde está el bano?”
“That’s Spanish.”
“I’m sure an Italian would understand.”
Eris laughed. Denny kissed her, slow and sweet.
She had never shown any sign of being grossed out by the ugly scar that marred Eris’ lips.
It had scared away many people and had deterred just as many to get anywhere near her mouth.
Denny had never given it a weird look, she didn’t shudder when she touched it.
She loved it as she loved everything about Eris, even those parts that no one in their right mind would ever love.
Denny’s hands slid up Eris’ sides as she pulled back, lifting a searching gaze on her.
“Alex says Blake spilled enough to give us the grounds for a conciliation proposal. It’s not a guarantee, but—”
“What does that even mean?”
“It’s when you negotiate a dispute privately instead of going to court. Alex’s husband can assist us.”
Eris had been in court twice already, once when she was a minor and then three years later, and she wasn’t looking forward to a third time. On the other hand, a lawyer like Matthieu Auclair was way beyond her possibilities. Any lawyer, at the moment, was beyond her possibilities.
“You keep saying ‘us’, but it’s just me. I can’t afford your billion-pound-an-hour solicitor.”
The warmth in Denny’s look dimmed. Her hands slipped down.
“No, Eris. It’s not ‘just you’,” she muttered shakily as she pushed out of Eris’ arms. “It hasn’t been ‘just you’ for quite a while.”
A shard of ice pierced through Eris. She hadn’t meant that.
“Denny.” She reached out, trying to get Denny to come back. “Denny, c’mon!”
And Denny did turn back, but only to shrug her hand off.
“We’ve already had this conversation.” It would’ve hurt so much less if it had been yelled rather than spoken so calmly, if there hadn’t been that quiet sorrow gleaming in Denny’s eyes. “Why do I have to fight every time I want to do something for you?”
“Because this is a lot more than a simple favour!”
“It’s just a few hundred quid!”
Denny couldn’t understand. She would never be able to understand.
“Just a few hundred quid? Do you even realise how hard it is for people like me to get their hands on a few hundred quid?”
“I didn’t—”
“You own a fucking BUILDING, Denny! With all due respect, you don’t get to lecture me about this!”
Denny winced like she’d been slapped. Eris felt sick of herself.
“Denny.” She reached out again, desperate for forgiveness. “Sunshine… Please, I’m sorry…”
Denny jerked back, a quiver in her jaw. Hurt. Hurt.
Eris’ system failed, overwhelmed by too many emotions all at once.
You’re such a fuck-up.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to dig her nails into her palms and tear them open to tap into the grounding relief of physical pain.
A lady with a stroller came in. Denny rushed to help, holding the door for her with a warm greeting. Bright, sunny as ever.
She listened to the lady’s request with impeccable politeness despite the visible stress the wailing toddler was causing her.
The mother spoke over the screams as though they weren’t even there, ignoring Denny’s difficulty to converse with her.
The noise was muted in Eris’ ears. She didn’t hear it so much as felt it, a rattling itch on her skin.
She watched the scene in complete estrangement, watched Denny struggle to stay cool and collected while picking up the flowers the woman pointed out and wrapping them up with shaking hands. Eris could have sworn it took hours.
When the woman was gone, reality invaded Eris’ perception again—smells, sounds, garish colours.
“Denny,” she called, begging for forgiveness. Always too impulsive, too harsh, too inconsiderate for the next person’s feelings. She never learned.
At long last, Denny glanced up at her, beautiful and brittle like a paper flower. The hurt was still there, but without the rancour Eris had been bracing for.
“I’m sorry. I can see how insensitive it must have sounded,” she said croakily. “You’re right: I’m a spoiled child who has no idea what it’s like to actually—”
“Shut up!” Eris pulled her from behind the counter and tilted her chin up. “I shouldn’t have said that, especially not with that tone. If I hurt you, you don’t swallow it. You say it to my face.”
“You didn’t mean to hurt me.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I meant it or not. Sucking at words isn’t an excuse.” Eris lifted a contrite look on Denny. “Forgive me, please.”
She was rewarded by a small smile.
“Of course I forgive you.”
It was good that they didn’t go down the ‘There’s nothing to forgive’ route. Denny needed to learn when she deserved an apology as much as Eris needed to learn when one was owed.
“See? This is what I meant when I said I envy your carefreeness: you don’t know shit about how hard it is to make ends meet for the average bastard.
” The pad of her thumb traced a light arc under Denny’s lip.
“It’s rough out there, Denny. It’s ugly for the rest of us.
” She erased Denny’s guilty pout with a lenient kiss.
“If you pay for my mistakes, you’ll prove that bitch right. ”
Denny had insisted on playing the recorded conversation from the previous night during breakfast. It hadn’t been the greatest idea, as it had pretty much cancelled Eris’ appetite.
Of all the venom Blake had spat, that was the line that had stood out the most: ‘You’re letting her take advantage of you.
And what’s more pathetic is that you’re smiling about it. ’
There were times when Eris questioned her own good faith.
She wondered if it was possible that she’d convinced herself she was in love just so she could exploit Denny with a clean conscience.
But then she looked at the sweet angel she got to call her girlfriend and the love she felt was so strong and immense that it couldn’t be just self-deception.
You couldn’t forge a colour you’d never seen.
“What about me?” said Denny. “You’d just… leave me behind to worry?”
It was the one scruple Eris had about the whole ordeal: the toll it’d take on Denny if anything happened to her.
“Maybe Blake won’t go through with it.”
That wasn’t likely and they both knew it. If the radio silence was any indication, Blake was already on the warpath. They could expect a retaliation any moment now.
“And if she does?”
There were solicitors who worked pro bono. Eris could find one of those, provided they’d be willing to represent her. There must be a charitable organisation that offered free legal aid for skint citizens.
“I’ll find a way.”
Denny swatted her chest with a miffed little grunt. “You can be so damn unreasonable…”
Eris smiled. “Not the worst thing I’ve been called.”