Chapter Text
1 Timothy 4:15-16- Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
Lilia doesn’t force Agatha out of her classroom when the bell rings. She has a class to teach; freshman choir, a group of noisy pubescent teenagers that fill almost every seat in the room. But she’d squared Agatha with a firm look, something that said ‘hear me when I speak’, and said “You can stay here if you need to.”
The invitation hit her like a promise, like a safety net extended over any possible landing spots. Still, she doesn’t know how to say ‘thank you’, doesn’t know how to take the offer, allow herself to be seen as vulnerable, taking help without even asking for it. She hates that it’s visible, that Lilia knew something was wrong without having to voice it.
Maybe Rio had made her soft, especially lately, dulling the harsh edges into someone less intense, the cutting words she used to protect herself often slipping towards something a little less violent, a playful push in place of a full on stabbing.
It felt strange, but good. The conflict of falling into herself, cutting away the parts of her identity that existed in favor of survival, trying to recognize the things about her that hadn’t been shaped out of external expectations, or the strict rules set out by her mother.
That leap of progress had surged like a pet spider, something tangible she could hold, and nourish, but also still tickled as it walked across her skin, still had her fearful of the scurrying legs and potential bites. In all the growth, there was still caution, but still not enough.
The slap to the face felt just as symbolic too, the rug pulled from beneath her feet just as she started to gain her footing. It served as a reminder that Evanora would always have the upper hand, that in all the glimpses of joy, she’d always be designed to return here where spiders died and daughters listened.
An attempt at an escape crawls out of her plans, her feet tracing the careful pattern of one step in front of the other, guiding her towards her Spanish classroom. She pulls out her phone, looking at herself in the front facing camera, not wanting to give Rio the evidence to start an interrogation. Her cheeks are dry now, the whisper of red in her eyes less noticeable, the sting of red on her cheek faded. She realizes that the slap graced her left cheek and Rio’s desk was on her right, the epiphany offering some relief. But her blue eyes have lost their glow, the growing spark that sang of profacsized returns, sat as a shrinking ache, a pain that stomped out the brightness.
And maybe that was what kept her walking. Rio. Her torch. A crippling need to return to that scorching light.
Agatha takes her seat with a steadying breath, pushes away the shuddering attempt at her impenetrable walls jolting back up, she closes her eyes, forces them back down, a careful truce made with the person she was and the person she wants to be.
Evanora had made a mistake in giving her an inch, in showing her what life could be like without the weight of perfection, the constant lurking eyes of callous fear, the doubtful thunder that stormed like rage in her gut over every move she dared to make. She’d gotten a taste of freedom, a small shuddering lick of something warm and full. Like chocolate cake, a chance at sugar for the first time, richer than she’d allowed herself to imagine.
Rio was her chocolate cake, the start of a new beginning, a place to celebrate, blow out candles, stability in the layers, the chance to indulge herself, show her the world and what it had to offer without the solemn cloud of constantly having to check over her shoulder. It was the wiggle room she needed to kiss Rio for the first time, to find safety in brown eyes and her cocky smile, to dream up the possibility of a life that wasn’t always darkness.
Agatha meditates on it for a moment, tries to elongate the dwindling time she has where her classmates shuffle into their seats, the shifting truth that Rio will be next to her within seconds.
She doesn’t know how to process it, maybe that’s why it feels akin to suffocating, maybe it's not the same warped anxiety, but there’s still something unfamiliar in the way Rio’s energy seems to caress her, hold her up like she is weightless, give her the strength to take on the uncertainty, carries her trauma for her. Maybe it isn’t anxiety at all. Maybe it's excitement. Something she hadn’t felt for a long time. An eager enthusiasm to see the person who has loved her without question for so long, the person dedicated to her growth when Agatha could only focus on staying alive, the person who had protected her fiercely, was gentle with her in the wake of all her mess, was still patient with her, allowed her the time to let the unfamiliarity wash into comfort.
It feels similar to the way her chest aches in fear, but the negative connotation melts away. Thinking of Rio, even at the chance of her anger, even with a tough conversation looming, standing in the reality of her pain and letting Rio see it, Agatha still felt a sense of peace. Rio’s voice ringing in her head like a church bell, a reminder that everything is going to be okay.
Agatha feels her before she sees her, the shuffling beside her, Rio’s book bag hung loose on the back of her chair, her shoes shifting against the tile. She keeps her eyes closed a second longer, let’s the security of it wash over her.
“Hola, hermosa,” falls from Rio’s mouth like a blessing, the Spanish wrapping around her tongue more easily than Agatha’s attempt at an accent. “Para ti.” Rio adds as Agatha opens her eyes to find the taller girl standing beside her desk, her hand outstretched.
A part of Agatha is annoyed at the way Rio had swung easily into speaking Spanish, the calm switch as if she felt obligated to communicate that way in this classroom, a joke that edged closely to an added layer of comfort.
Agatha remembers Mr. Vidal explaining to her that they’d only spoken Spanish in their household until Rio turned 5, wanting to still give her the foundations of their first language before going to school and learning English, even if both parents spoke it well, they still wanted their daughter to follow the tradition, to be able to hold her own amongst her older extended family.
She’s remembers Mrs. Vidal’s loud laughter as she recounted the story of how Rio didn’t answer to her own name on her first day of Kindergarten when her teacher took attendance, how Rio really thought her name was Chispita. She remembers Rio’s face in response to the story, a touch of embarrassment at sharing it with Agatha before she’d seen the way it made her smile, thinking of little Rio clumsy and unaware.
Agatha still rolls her eyes, not wanting Rio to think she’s gone completely soft, always amused by Rio's commitment to the bit. She finally looks down at the offered object, she takes it in her hands inspecting it closer.
It’s a round-flat rock, about two inches in diameter. A soft grain against her fingers. On the face of it sits a painted design, a spiraled maze of lines, a swirling star at the center, the lines skillfully painted in black and gold.
Agatha grazes her fingertips over it, flipping it over in her palm to find ‘RV’ carved in the back, before flipping it back, finding Rio’s eyes again, a silent question, waiting for an explanation,
”It was a little art project,” Rio is sort of perched over Agatha’s desk, palms holding herself up against the surface of it, sinking closer, making a space for just their voices amongst the chatter around them. She shrugs like it isn’t a big deal, letting her voice trade back to English, something more nonchalant. “Finally got a grade back for it, so I could give it to you.”
Agatha looks at it again, searching for the divine power of the symbol, wonders briefly how Rio had effortlessly crafted things with Agatha in mind, like she was never an afterthought, like she was the whole goddamn reason.
“I obviously got an A,” Rio laughs to herself, smug, as she pushes off Agatha’s desk to finally sit at her own. To any onlookers, it seemed like a breezy shift, like the movement wasn’t charged, but Agatha followed the retreat, knew Rio was withdrawing in the swell of her own emotion, suddenly shy to explain it.
“What does it mean?” Agatha asks, quiet, thoughtful, wanting to know the weight of it, especially if it was causing Rio to hesitate.
“It’s Hecate’s wheel.” Rio starts, flipping open her binder to a fresh page of loose leaf, not meeting Agatha’s eyes, “The goddess of magic, and crossroads,” she adds like it wasn’t the driving force, knowing Agatha’s life had always felt like a battle of choice, which path to take; the one that had been violently paved by her mother’s commands or the one she’d have to find for herself.
“It’s a shield,” Rio finally looks up at her, brown eyes soft, a crisp understanding, “It’s a symbol of protection.”
Agatha nods, shifting her glances between the rock and Rio, trying to find the composure to respond, trying to comprehend the tidal wave of care Rio sprung onto her with practiced ease, it didn’t feel like drowning in the current anymore, it felt like learning to float. She wasn’t swimming on her own yet, but it felt like a step in the right direction, keeping her head above water long enough to figure out how to paddle.
“It’s beautiful.”
Rio’s eyes shine brighter then, like Agatha’s acceptance means everything, the delicate reverence she holds the stone with, the careful contemplation of its meaning, the grace with which Agatha is allowing her to love her steadily, it makes the pressure of her heartbeat hard to ignore.
The bell rings, signaling the official start of class cutting off any chance at furthering the exchange. Brother Morales enters the room in a flurry, one of the only male teachers brave enough to deal with the quaking dramatics of girls in their teens. He’s young, probably in his twenties still, a hellstorm of crushes flung at him as one of the only consistent targets for their straight peers.
One time he’d printed the answer sheet to the test on the last page and didn’t realize until 30 minutes later, when some teacher’s pet had to point it out to him, citing ‘academic integrity’ and ‘following God’. His aloof nature is enough to distract her out of the deep swirl of emotions.
She does her best to follow along with the 500th explanation of conjugating ‘ser’ vs ‘estar’ like they haven’t been doing this since freshman year. She looks over at Rio, who on top of being a fucking nerd, had been unknowingly doing this in conversation her entire life before she even knew what verbs were. She doesn’t look bored, but definitely not fully immersed, none of the lesson landing as new information. But there’s definitely a stream of unfolding thoughts behind brown eyes, something more than the usual air of quiet confidence.
Agatha pulls her phone out from under her thigh, the same place she kept it through most of her classes, pressed between her seat and the fabric of her skirt, skillfully hidden from the prying eyes of strict nuns, but ready to be used at a moment's notice.
Sitting pretty far from the front of the classroom, it’s easy to slide it onto her desk, navigate to her text thread with Rio with one hand, crafting the outer perception that ‘vosotros’ was a very interesting part of Brother Morales’ lesson.
‘r u ok???’ Agatha types out, hitting send before she even thinks to question if Rio’s phone is on silent. Maybe she’s projecting, reading into the quiet resolve of the girl next to her, because she hasn’t processed her own thoughts, hasn’t fully recovered from the mayhem in her mother’s office.
For a fleeting moment, Agatha thinks that if Rio had given her that rock an hour earlier, Evanora’s rage wouldn’t have been able to reach her.
Rio turns to her, the dull buzz coming from the pocket of her blazer, not loud enough to get their teacher’s attention but a clear signal to Rio, confirmation that it was Agatha texting her at the sight of her lilac colored phone case at the side of her desk before even unlocking her own phone.
‘Ya, r u?’
Rio keeps her eyes forward, maybe an effort to keep up the illusion, maybe another attempt at hiding the full depths of her feelings. Agatha can’t read all of it right now, something complicated.
‘u can’t freak out’
’but we have to talk after class’
’it’s about Evanora’
It feels strange using her mother’s government name like that, not that she’s in any way deeply connected to the placating connection of calling her ‘mom’ but she and Rio had always played with harsh nicknames using anything from ‘she-devil’ to ‘wicked gnome’. But that felt too trivial right now, condemning the gravity of it to a grating barb, it felt reductive, and maybe facing the whole truth of it was the start to making it end.
‘Can’t u tell me right now?’ Rio answers, impatient. Agatha watches out of the corner of her eye as Rio shifts in her chair, fidgets with her pen. Maybe she should have waited to reveal the truth, maybe it was wrong to dangle the bloodied carrot in front of her face and make her wait for the whole story.
Agatha bites her lip, she turns to Rio, trying to make the girl turn to her without a word. Brown eyes find blue like a magnet, the burning coffee of her irises set into something open yet sad, waiting for bad news, searching for the guillotine that Evanora would inevitably send shooting into Agatha’s neck, wondering what form it took as she sinks into the roaring ocean of Agatha’s eyes.
Blue eyes turn back to her phone, a new attempt at finding the right words to explain. Her fingers hover over the keyboard, but they don’t spring into action, her mind coming up blank on where to start.
Before she can spiral back into the worry of it, or punish herself for not knowing, two new texts comes through. The gray bubbles not a figment of her imagination, but Rio’s words shining back at her.
’Fineeee I’ll wait…’ Agatha can hear the whine in Rio’s words even if not said out loud.
’But were getting ice cream’
—-
The pink spoon in Rio’s mouth is a distraction.
Okay, maybe it’s just Rio’s mouth, but the plastic isn’t helping.
Rio isn’t exactly the neatest eater, especially when it’s just her and Agatha in Rio’s car, parked in an abandoned lot, 2 cups of ice cream, and the radio turned down from Rio’s preferred volume of ‘way too fucking loud’ (according to Agatha of course).
It’s just them and some old R&B song Agatha doesn’t recognize. Agatha thinks to grab Rio’s phone off the center console, change it to something else, anything to put her focus elsewhere.
The bit of chocolate on the corner of Rio’s mouth wins against the fear in her gut, and perhaps that’s its own battle to win, knowing that she didn’t have to think about her mother forever, that she could forget about Evanora in favor of remembering the girl in front of her.
Rio and her eyes that looked like fresh coffee grounds, the softness of her hands like she hadn’t spent half her life with a pencil in between her fingers, the way she could read Agatha like a book (something she loved as much as she absolutely hated), the way her tongue graced the plastic spoon like the mint chocolate chip flavor was something to be savored to the last drop.
Agatha was barely touching her own, a small cup of Butter Pecan, her own spoon busy stirring around the contents, rarely reaching her mouth.
“You’re assaulting your ice cream?” Rio points her spoon at Agatha, her body turned towards the passenger side, one of her shoes off, knee bent, her sock-clad foot pressed into the leather seat. “Does it taste weird?”
Agatha doesn't answer with words, simply holds up her cup to Rio as an offering, giving her the opportunity to taste. Rio takes the bait, dipping her spoon in without hesitation.
With the spoon back in Rio’s mouth, Agatha tries to focus on the question at hand, if Rio approves of her flavor choice, but she gets caught on pink lips, the way her cheeks hollow around the cold bite.
Rio scowls after a moment, spitting the pecan out of her mouth into her own empty cup like it truly offended her.
“Nuts are gross”
”She really is a lesbian, ladies and gentlemen,” Agatha announces dramatically like they’re in front of a live studio audience.
”Who said I’m a lesbian?” Rio asks, still reeling from the taste, but never thrown by Agatha’s attempts at humor.
”Umm, your tongue told me earlier when it was in my mouth,” Agatha squints her eyes, “You remember, right?”
”I don’t think the bisexuals of the world would appreciate that assumption,” Rio adds, playing into the bit, as if it wasn’t just them privy to this conversation. She reaches forward with her spoon again, aiming to take another scoop of Agatha’s ice cream.
But Agatha pulls it out of her reach, confusion clear on her face.
“You just said you didn’t like it.”
“Maybe I’ll like it the second time.” Rio says like it makes perfect sense, obviously convinced by her own logic.
“Fine,” Agatha brings it back within reach, “but let me warn you, it still has nuts.”
Rio goes in for her second taste, finding the same outcome, complete with the pecan hurled out of her mouth, and into the paper cup.
Agatha levels her with a look of ‘I told you so’ but there’s also a clear lack of patience, an attempt at hiding her amusement. Rio just smirks, shrugs.
”Spitting is kind of fun”
Agatha’s hand comes up to her own face, her fingers squeezing the bridge of her nose, shaking her head at her reality.
“I’m dating a fucking child”
”We’re dating?” Rio asks, a teasing smile in her voice, “Wow, Agatha you’re really killing it with these assumptions.”
”Can you focus for two seconds so we can be serious?” Agatha huffs, not really mad at Rio, still trying to piece together how to tell her what just happened, frustrated that her life swung like a pendulum between a demon and the sweetest person she’d ever met.
“I’m just trying to distract you,” Rio’s voice is soft now, her hand holding onto Agatha’s arm, stroking against her skin like an apology.
“I know,” Agatha sighs, resigning herself to that truth, that Rio was only trying to help, “You’re really good at that.”
Agatha’s eyes find Rio’s with a delicate resolve, somewhere her mind doesn’t want to settle, shaken by the safety of it. She can’t stop them from drifting back down to Rio’s lips, yearning for that connection again.
“Focus,” Rio shakes her arm slightly, a chuckle on her lips, knowing exactly what Agatha wants.
Agatha shakes her head at herself, angry at her inability to conceal her desires, thrown at how bad she’s become at hiding herself.
“I’m definitely not kissing you after you ate that mint monstrosity,” She bites out instead, pushing out an attempt at self-preservation, at erasing the fact that Rio had witnessed her vulnerability.
“Who said anything about kissing?”
”Rio,” Agatha warns, the full press of it filling the space inside the car.
“Okay, okay,” Rio starts, shifting herself into being a good listener, she takes Agatha’s hand fully now, squeezes slightly, “tell me.”
Agatha bites her lip, resolving herself to spill it all, tread lightly against the waves of guilt and shame that threaten to burst out.
“Evanora knows about us.” she starts, looking down at their intertwined hands, softly stroking against Rio’s fingers, trying to find the strength in it, unwilling to look her in the eye. “Wanda told her.”
Rio’s body slides forward, a snap like a boomerang, her hand squeezing slightly, Agatha tries not to recoil, tries to sink into the pull instead of fighting against the magnetism.
“How do you know?” Rio’s voice is edged with worry, but there’s control there too, a clear attempt at holding in her own fear to make room for Agatha’s feelings, “Did Wanda say something to you?”
Agatha shakes her head ‘no’, focuses on her breathing, the warmth of Rio’s hand, the spinning pulse of the song vibrating the car.
“Valentina escorted me to the office,” the anger in Agatha’s voice combats the pain, a swirl of conflict on how to feel, “My mother- um..”
Agatha’s anger doesn’t carry her very far, losing the energy of it, wishing she had the strength to find the truth.
”Did she hurt you?” Rio’s voice is a whisper, a safety net of care, no anger to show in brown eyes as she holds Agatha’s face in her hand, strokes her cheek, forces the eye contact, can’t let Agatha hide the full truth anymore.
The question feels absurdly stupid. Because of course, Evanora had hurt her everyday of her life, with words, with hands, with hangers and textbooks and anything within reach that would sting, that would leave a mark. But it also hits a place in her heart that has gone untouched for so long, a stone unturned, a gentle question like Rio would fight against the war in her mind as much as she’d protect her in the outside world, hold her through it. Agatha still didn’t know how to fully accept the genuine care that Rio offered, how it was never transactional, an unlimited supply of patience and adoration. It still felt like she was tainting the purity of Rio with her evil sometimes, like she couldn’t possibly deserve her.
But that was the one choice Rio always made for her. To be there for her, regardless of any attempts at pushing her away, at pretending Agatha didn’t mean the world to her. Rio didn’t look at her like something to fix. Rio was the only one that saw her.
As a person, as someone who deserved way more than the life Evanora had offered like a holy gift, when it was only built with hateful expectations and scraps of survival skills.
Agatha didn’t know how to dig up the version of herself that knew how to exist without the leash, didn’t know if she had the strength to wash away the dirt from her fingernails, how to push away the heavy mounds of earth and face the light without suffocating.
But looking into Rio’s eyes, feeling the steady stream of care, knowing that this person loved her; as a friend, as something more now, a full spectrum of all the moments they’d shared, that Rio was by her side everyday willing to stay her friend if it meant keeping her safe, willing to hide her own feelings forever if Agatha wasn’t ready to face them. Maybe it was the curse of her existence, only being able to feel the fire with her fingertips but never being able to burn.
She wanted to burn with Rio, understand every inch of her mind, worship her for all the harsh words she’d erased, replaced with delicate promises and a solid love that she couldn’t push away.
Agatha nods finally, answering Rio’s question.
”But I’m okay,” She tries to reassure her, the brown eyes in front of her sad and dark, a deep pain that rivals the way she holds Agatha so carefully. She barely recognizes her own voice, the gruff mess of it, the sting of tears back in her eyes, the slow precision of Rio’s fingers brushing them away.
Rio moves forward, pressing a few kisses solidly into Agatha’s forehead, never letting go of her face, hoping to push her own care directly into Agatha’s skin.
She pulls back just enough to look into blue eyes again, finds the space to dissolve the big feelings, give them a moment to wallow in it before setting it free.
The song changes then, a soft beat that gives way to ‘It Wasn’t Me’ by Shaggy suddenly moving through the speakers, perhaps the Spotify Gods trying to ruin the moment, pushing them out of the pain.
Agatha blinks. Rio chuckles at the absurdity of it.
“What the fuck is this playlist?” Agatha asks, half mad, half amused, a scoff around her tears.
Rio breaks the hold, opening her phone, Agatha takes the moment to wipe her own face, looking for a tissue in Rio’s mess of a glove box. She finds a crusty napkin between an old pack of gummy worms and a happy meal toy and deems it clean enough to blow her nose.
”It's called ‘Songs that make my pp hard’,” Rio angles the phone enough for Agatha to see, prove she isn’t joking.
“Shaggy gets your dick hard?” Agatha laughs fully now, her voice still not completely back to normal, but a sense of spark back in her eyes.
“Something about only understanding half of what he’s saying really gets me going,”
”I’ll try to remember that the next time I’m trying to turn you on,” Agatha winks, tries to settle it in her mind as a joke, like thinking of Rio in that context isn’t setting her insides on fire.
“Uhhh, I don’t really think you have to put in much effort,” Rio responds, her own voice sort of hushed, “But the emotional whiplash of wanting to murder your mother one second and thinking about-“ Rio’s eyes widen, her eyebrows shoot up for emphasis, unable to put a word to what they’re actually discussing, “the next is kind of making my head hurt.”
”Poor baby,” Agatha’s hand finds Rio’s cheek, recentering them, the tease of her voice meant to loosen the last of the anguish left in the air.
“So,” Rio sighs, mentally preparing herself for the pushback, “You’re staying at my house tonight.”
”Rio,” Agatha tries at a new warning, a familiar course of pushing away from extended hands of help, the devil on her shoulder already perched and ready to remind of all the reasons she can’t. “You know I can’t”
”Well, you won’t let me actually murder your mother. And I know whatever happened in that office was just an opening act to whatever horror show she has planned.” Rio’s mad again, the blush in her cheeks reading different than when she’s flustered.
“What’s one more bruise? Rio, sure. You can save me from it tonight but you can’t save me from her forever.”
Agatha’s words plunge out like a stab to the throat, Rio stares at her, letting it sink in.
”You’re right,” Rio chokes out, but it isn’t her backing down, brown irises never straying away from blue, Agatha can see the rising tears, the sharp edge of fighting for the person she loves even when Agatha is doing her best to stop her. “I can’t save you.”
Rio says it like the words hurt her, like the truth is painful. The reality that Rio couldn’t pluck her out of her mother’s hold, fly her somewhere safe and warm, keep her heart full long enough to forget the darkness, it made Rio tremble, powerless.
“I’m not God,” RIo starts again, no echo of resignation, “I can’t offer you salvation.”
Agatha holds her gaze despite the grief reflected in Rio’s eyes, she deserves to know all the hurt she’d pressed into her skin, to be punished for the burden she’s inflicted on Rio.
“But you can’t expect me to watch from a distance forever, especially now.” Rio squeezes her wrist, a reminder of passionate kisses, the blooming of romantic feelings out in the open, the chapter they couldn’t erase, “I have a place to keep you safe, let me use it.”
“So what happens after tonight? I just stay with you forever? Your parents are gonna be okay with that?” Agatha speaks up, another attempt at finding a reason to turn down Rio’s offer, unable to meet the vulnerability, mad at herself for creating the tangle of emotions in brown eyes. She pulls her hand out of Rio’s grasp, jarred by the soft touch against hardened words.
“Yes,” an answer Agatha doesn’t expect, yet slips from Rio’s mouth easily, “If we tell them the tru-“
”We’re not telling them.”
“Why are you so hell bent on protecting her?”
Rio’s voice shoots out like a cannon, too sharp, too quick, unable to take back. The car feels too small, like the space between them wasn’t enough to hold onto all the mud they’d been struggling through, like the thickness of the air is coated in more than just the lasting sweetness of ice cream and the lowered volume of the radio.
Agatha doesn’t have an answer. It’s her mother. And fuck, as terrible as life has been, as painful as the wounds are, as deep as the words cut. It’s still her mother. The only constant she’s had for seventeen years. Before Rio, before Lilia. It was her mother and God. And she was already letting God slip away.
And maybe too, it was the fact that it would only prove Evanora right, that Agatha was selfish, only cared about herself, unwilling to find a shred of care for her mother’s reputation.
“I’m sorry,” Rio’s voice surges back in after a moment, a tender earnesty that Agatha doesn’t know how to hold, “I- that was too far.”
”I’ll stay with you,” Agatha rubs at her own face, nothing gentle in the way she stamps away her tears, losing patience with herself for the amount of times she’s cried today.
“Really?” Rio sounds so hopeful, like a child promised a trip to Disney World and Agatha can’t it back now, not after witnessing the hope in her face.
“For tonight.” Agatha clarifies, not wanting to misconstrue the extent of her promise, “And we’ll figure out the rest later.”
”Thank you,” Rio grovels like she has something to truly be thankful for, like Agatha had granted her three wishes with no caveats.
And Agatha kisses her, because words are still a work in progress, because she doesn’t think the words exist to tell Rio how she feels, because she can’t watch Rio crumble for another second. The taste of mint on her tongue plagues her like an afterthought, doing the things she told herself she wouldn’t.
—-
Deuteronomy 28:6- Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
Rio’s in Agatha’s bedroom for the second time in their lives and she can’t stop her mind from retracing the aftermath of the first time- when Evanora had realized someone had been in her room, the stinging cut above her eyebrow, the bruise on her cheekbone, the way Rio had taken care of her like always.
“Toothbrush, socks, deodorant.” Rio is throwing essentials in a duffel bag, checking things off in her head as she adds them.
Agatha’s sitting on her bed, flipping through an old journal she’d kept hidden in middle school, before she’d stopped writing, before she’d met Rio. She’s not being helpful, especially considering they’re on borrowed time, Evanora due home in the next 15 to 30 minutes, Rio’s car parked out front for once for an easy getaway. Rio had made a joke about Bonnie and Clyde. Agatha agreed, “As long as I get to be Clyde.” That grounding snark felt far away now.
“You can definitely use my body wash, but do you want me to grab your face stuff? I know your skin’s kinda sensitive,” Rio muses while looking through Agatha’s closet, deciding what clothes are worth taking, like she was already set on this being more than a one night sleepover, like they didn’t have school tomorrow.
Agatha doesn’t answer, caught on cycling through crinkled pages, not on a particular word or thought, but maybe the changing loops of her handwriting overtime, maybe the way she’d felt so far removed from the pre-teen spilling her guts into unlined pages, shoving the book into the space between her bed and the wall every night to hide from Evanora.
“Hey,” Rio steps in front of her, trying to get her attention, a hand resting on her bare knee, yet to change out of her uniform, “You okay?”
”Did you grab my hairbrush?” Agatha deflects, flipping the journal closed, moving to stand up.
”Agatha,” Rio says her name like she always does, a song on every syllable, “Are you okay?”
”Yeah,” She says as she stands, a clawing truth to the way it clings to the air as they come eye to eye, Agatha’s hands reach for Rio’s hips, bringing them closer, reveling in the way it was starting to feel natural, reaching out, knowing that falling back together was inevitable, “I just realized I don’t want to be in this house anymore.”