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“Some tea and biscuits, if you wouldn’t mind?” Agnes asked pleasantly to the Martha, loitering expectantly.
“Yes, of course, ma’am,” the Martha accepted gratefully, eager for escape from the very stilted atmosphere. Becka was sat looking off into the distance, not appearing pensive, but rather listless and vacant.
“Becka,” Agnes uttered, pleading, as soon as the room was solely theirs. “Why have you been refusing to see me?”
Becka’s chin wobbled, her lip trembling. “Why did you kiss me? That day?” she whispered, finally bestowing her with a pained glance.
Her eyes were a rich chocolate-brown, but there was usually a hint of a sparkle there. Agnes searched desperately for it, her gaze flickering between Becka’s, because it used to always be there whenever they exchanged a simple look, like they were metaphorically crossing pinkies across the room even if there was a sea of people between them. But it was completely absent. Her eyes looked—
Wooden. Dull. Dead.
Agnes hadn’t missed the fading scatter of marks along her wrists and her arms, either.
It terrified her, that that’s what Becka had been driven to in order to seek comfort when she’d been in obvious easy reach. It scared her almost as much as the question itself, because the uncertainty of it was horrible and looming and dangerous.
Why had she kissed her that day? What other reason than that she wanted to? That it felt right in the moment, even if after she was sick with confusion and regret and a whole host of feelings she couldn’t explain? That she didn’t have the words… the vocabulary necessary to explain.
But explain is what Becka wanted her to do, and so she would have to try.
“I’m sorry,” Agnes told her sincerely, feeling nauseous with the thought that that kiss was the reason Becka had pulled away from her when she needed her the most. “I don’t know… That is—I suppose I wanted to…”
Becka visibly startled in her seat, her eyes widening, no longer flat and emotionless.
No longer dead. Something was there, lurking within a hidden depth. And Agnes was determined to keep her friend above the murky water.
“You wanted to,” she murmured, not quite a question.
“Is that why…” Agnes was afraid to ask. There was a knot in her throat that made it incredibly difficult to push the words out. “Why you refused to see me…?”
“No,” Becka stated, shaking her head. “No,” she repeated emphatically.
“You kissed me back,” Agnes wondered aloud, still adamantly quiet. After all, how could anyone else understand this but them; especially here, in Gilead? It was a shared understanding between them both, again without the words or vocabulary to explain.
It’s not as though they were traitors, they just, they were best friends, and that meant something when you weren’t allowed to have friends at all—
Becka, stricken, caught her gaze again. But after a moment of silent consideration, her mouth curled into something simple and easy. Something that Agnes was glad, and so very thankful to see. “I did. I suppose I wanted to, too.”
The breath snagged in Agnes’ throat all of a sudden. Those lips, that smile, the sparkle in her glittering brown eyes, wide and imploring and flickering down—
Agnes reached over and brushed her hand, and that gaze shot up (and thankfully, breathing came easier once again, her heart rate calming in an instant from what was a rabbity pulse in her neck). She curled her fingers over Becka’s.
“Then why?” she asked again, all bottomless hurt, a wound in her heart.
“I thought you would regret it. That you would hate me,” she revealed painstakingly, tears in her waterline.
Agnes had regretted it, late at night when she tossed and turned. Had thought that kiss was the reason Becka was holed up in her new bedroom with her new husband, and why she had been refusing to see her, when surely this was the time she would want her nearby, especially after her mom...
“I don’t. And for the record, Becka… I could never hate you,” she emphasised was a squeeze of her hand, and after a ruminating second, Becka tucked her pinkie finger in her own.
It was insane how a simple action like that could send dizzying happiness through her.
“Even after what I did?” A tear slipped from her eye.
Unthinkingly, Agnes shifted on her seat to face her more directly. She reached up her other hand, that had been resting neatly on her knee, to graze it delicately away. She marvelled at how soft her skin was. “You were doing God’s will, Becka. You did what you had to do.”
“But… my mom… I’m the reason she’s gone…” she said brokenly, through a hitching sob.
“Not your fault,” Agnes said sternly, her hand resting against her cheek, swiping the new tears away as they fell in rapid succession. “That wasn’t your fault. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Becka breathed like a prayer, leaning into her touch, her eyelids fluttering shut.
The door creaked open. Agnes snapped her hand back and sat up straight, further away. Their pinkies were still interlocked, but Agnes couldn’t find it within herself to pull away from that too. Becka needed to know she was there for her. That she wasn’t ashamed of their friendship.
Daisy cleared her throat, but there was a knowing suspicion in her gaze that stopped Agnes’ heart cold, but she couldn’t understand why that was. They weren’t doing anything wrong.
So why did you startle away like you have? Agnes’ mind whispered, and she couldn’t formulate an answer.
“I hope we’re not interrupting.”
It seemed Garth and Daisy had been giving them a moment to talk, for which Agnes was grateful.
“No, your Martha will be back soon, so we can all share biscuits over tea.”
Agnes was struggling to distance her mind from her and Becka’s conversation to the reality. This wasn’t her visiting her best friend in her family home. This was Becka’s home. She had a husband. Her husband was Garth. They had to have been spending time together in her absence. And Garth was clearly worried about her.
She searched for something to say to find desperate escapism from her thoughts. “I hope you don’t mind that I took that upon myself to ask…”
Garth immediately shook his head. “No, of course it’s fine.” He glanced discreetly in Daisy’s direction. “But we can leave if you wish to speak alone with Becka for longer—”
Agnes smiled tightly. She knew asking for more than this was completely unbecoming of a guest in their home, even if it was being offered. Daisy and Garth had entered because time had been stretching into what was certainly becoming too long.
“That isn’t necessary. And surely you would like to sit with your wife?”
“Agnes,” Becka said in a whisper, and she felt suddenly like the worst person in the entire world.
This wasn’t Becka’s fault. It wasn’t Garth’s. Agnes had pleaded for this to keep Becka safe, to save her from being a fallen woman with zero future prospects, much like herself.
She was being selfish.
“Sorry,” Agnes said, swallowing. “I don’t know…”
“It’s fine,” Garth replied, but it clearly wasn’t.
There was an awkwardness rising in the air. Agnes knew it was solely her fault, and yet she couldn’t help it. Her hands trembled slightly when she moved to the other settee, avoiding Becka’s imploring gaze. Daisy hesitantly sat beside her, while Garth moved to sit beside Becka. They both appeared tacitly uncomfortable.
Agnes knew that there was something inherently sinful within her by the way she took pleasure in the fact that the distance between the newly wedded couple seemed mountainous.
There was an obvious relief that cascaded over them minutes later, when the Martha returned with a platter of biscuits and pastries and an endless supply of tea.