I will Never Forgive You Ch. 10

/// General TW: suicidal ideation ///

Pain, like hooks and barbs tearing at her chest. There was something there; It grew and grew over time spent with Beverly- or had it always been there? In the dark space in her heart, festering? Stella could not recall.

It felt bloodied now, as she looked at Beverly's face. She could not breathe. There was something wrong with her body.

Haylee was saying something, but Stella could not understand the words. Beverly stared at her numbly, the wild energy just a few minutes ago was gone. Muted into nothingness.

"I- I did not know you were going to say all that..." Stella's felt herself say. She was floating ten feet above her body, out in the cold.

Beverly shook herself. "Stella did you-" She choked on the question. "Did you do this?"

Stella looked away as she nodded. The woman made a sound Stella had never heard from her before. A small keen, like a wounded animal. It hurt to hear, made Stella's skin prickle with sweat. The painful thing stuck in her chest shifted, tore at the edges of her- she needed to get out of here, but could not move her legs.

A small thought bubbled up from the swamp inside of her. This is what you deserve Beverly! You wanted to be seen? There, you are! See how you like it!

The sheer disgusting shape of the thought made Stella want to scream. She was not the kind of person to hurt others like this! This was Beverly's fault- for weeks she used Stella to play out some kind of psychodrama and now it was suddenly Stella's fault?! She- She-

Why couldn't Beverly have apologised properly before?! Stella would have never- never did what she did if Beverly had just been fucking honest for once!

She risked a look at Beverly. The woman stared back at her, with her mouth hanging open, tears in her eyes, one hand raised as if to reach out to Stella, frozen halfway between them.

"Fuck..." She heard herself say. "I'm sorry. I- I don't know-"

"What the fuck?!" Haylee got in Stella's face, making her flinch. She forgot about her. "What the fuck Stella?"

"I- I- I- I don't know."

"You don't fucking know?!" Haylee nearly screamed, then she continued with a furious whisper. "There's two hundred, fucking, people two rooms away who- fuck!" She paled. "Gloria is out there. Fuck!"

Gloria? So what if Gloria- Oh shit. Beverly admitted to having sex with the woman. Her husband was in attendance. Stella's heart, which was already twisting with guilt, twisted even more. What the fuck did Stella do? And why?

Because she was mad at Adam for... Apologizing to her for bullying her? Mad at Beverly For- For wanting to be with her?

Stella managed to choke out an actual sentence. "I- I think I fucked up."

"I think you are fucked up!" Haylee sneered at her. "Fuck! I don't know-" She turned to Beverly standing there, still staring at Stella with such hurt and fear in her eyes it made Stella want to cry. "Beverly! We need to get you the fuck out of here!"

"Huh?" Beverly winced. "What?"

"The fucking party- you get out of here and I- I don't know- who do we talk to about shut this shit down?"

"Shut it-" Beverly blinked hard, which forced tears from her eyes. They dug deep furrows through her makeup. "No. I- No! I just need to get out there and- and- Smooth this over."

Haylee swallowed and stepped closer to Beverly, her voice softening. "Beverly, you need to get gone. There is no smoothing this over-"

A ringtone cut her off. Beverly numbly reached into her purse and fished out her phone. She paled even further seeing the name on display. Victoria.

"Oh-oh..." Beverly said, very softly. "Victoria... Heard it. She- She heard everything I've said?" She asked, then sat heavily on a nearby bench, her head hung low, between her knees.

"God... Victoria heard..." She mumbled.

The ringtone fell silent, before starting again. The phone display spelled the word FATHER in fat blocky letters. The phone fell out of Beverly's hands and clattered on the floor.

Stella's body felt like it was not her own. She desperately wanted to move, to do something, but knew anything she might do would only make things worse. The black hole where her heart should have been giggled and trembled with triumph, sending shocks of sickening delight through Stella's mind. Pain followed, grinding at her core- there was something- something in her chest- something-

"Stella!" Haylee was in front of her, looking equal parts disgusted and determined. "Wake up! For fucks sake! You're sorry?!"

"Yes," she said as the pit inside her laughed.

"Then fucking wake up and help me!" Haylee said through gritted teeth. "Where do we take her? Out of the house? You've been here before, right?"

Stella shook her head awake. "Her bedroom is- is out of the way. Different wing of the house."

"Tell me where!" Haylee demanded, and Stella did just that. In short order, Haylee had Beverly standing up and mostly responding to instruction. The woman looked around dazed, as if she did not quite see anything.

Haylee grabbed her by the arm and led her out of the changing room, Stella ran ahead to be a lookout. The staff hallways were mostly empty, with a few wide-eyed waiters running around looking anxious. Each one stared at the three of them as they passed.

Stella and Haylee managed to get Beverly out of the western wing of the house without any disaster.

"Alright, I'll take it alone from here." Haylee said, not looking Stella in the eye. "You go and- I don't know, check on Gloria. See how she is..."

Stella did not want to go. She did not want to leave Beverly now. She felt like something terrible might happen if she did.

The thing that lodged in her chest bucked like a wild animal caught in a barbed wire fence. No- she can't leave. She had to fix this somehow- They were in the middle of something when it all went to shit. Beverly was telling her about herself, about the two of them- The animal cut itself to pieces, spraying blood and viscera everywhere as Stella remembered the things Beverly said to her, right before she fucked it all up.

With effort, she put the memories out of her mind and turned to leave.

Despite her fear it felt good to walk away. Step by step, she felt something reasserting itself. She fucked up, but it would be alright. Things like these happened. Before turning the corner she turned around one last time to see Beverly staring at her. Her blue eyes cold and vacant.

All of Stella's insides felt like broken glass as she turned away and hurried towards the ballroom.

The atmosphere inside was decidedly different than the one she left. Sweet opulence and general smugness soured into an acidic stink of a scandal. The music still played, but nobody was dancing, preferring to huddle in smaller groups, heads bowed together in fervent whispers.

A few solitary guests were running around, perhaps looking for Beverly to pounce on, but more were on their phones. Far too many. Stella's stomach dropped as she realised that Beverly would become a minor celebrity very soon.

Beverly's ex husband huddled together with their daughter in a far corner, fighting off a gaggle of men and women with predatory looks in their eyes. Thankfully they were too busy to notice Stella.

Beverly's parents stood together in the center of a group of important looking people, seemingly unconcerned. Her father was laughing, waving a glass of scotch around as he shook his head. The back of his neck was growing redder by the second, to the point where Stella worried that he might keel over any second now. Add that to her list of sins.

She saw Gloria at the opposite end of the ballroom, near the coatroom, trying to push through the crowd. Pale as a ghost, her husband pressed close to her, teeth clenched, whispering something furiously into her ear. Around the couple, more vultures, mostly women leaning in to listen.

At a loss of what to do, Stella went around the crowd and used the staff entrance to reach the coatroom from the other side. One lone member of staff, a young man, was desperately trying to keep up with the pressing crowd.

"Need any help?" She asked, to his immense relief.

Between the two of them they stemmed the tide. Stella had never worked a coatroom before, but each rack had a number matching a ticket. Easy enough. Take a ticket. Give a coat. Don't think about how terribly you fucked up. Repeat.

Her moment of peace was ruined by the sight of Gloria and her husband getting closer and closer with each minute. Robert recognised her.

Fuck.

The line shrank in all too quickly after that, leaving Stella with the couple. The man threw the tokens down at the counter and glared at her. "You! Stella? Was it you? Did you fuck her too-"

"Robert!" Gloria said, looking faint beside him. "Wait- Wait till we get home. Please."

Robert had to close his eyes to control his anger. Then, as if a switch flipped, it disappeared, replaced with a terrible sagging of his shoulders.

"At home. Yeah..." He said before walking away towards the exit, without his coat.

Gloria looked after him with a haunted expression, before turning to Stella. "What- What the hell happened?!"

Stella could not even begin to explain the truth. "Technical difficulties."

"Technical..." Gloria trailed off. "My marriage is over because of..."

Not able to stomach the guilt of looking at the woman any more, Stella fled amongst the coat racks and found the right two. When she handed them to Gloria, she could not look her in the eye.

"How's Beverly?" The woman asked quietly. "She's not answering my calls..."

"Haylee took her to her room... She's- She's not doing well."

"Jesus..." Gloria said. "What a mess... Take care of her, alright?"

Barbed wire and salt filled Stella.

Gloria left without another word, following after her husband. Towards the end of her marriage, Stella suspected. And Stella did that... Well, Gloria cheating on him so brazenly certainly did not help, but Stella pulled the trigger on this disaster. Her. Nobody forced her.

She unwound the cable coiled in Beverly's dress and reconnected it. She flipped the receiver's switch. It felt so right in the moment; she could still remember the coppery taste of the righteous anger that drove her to do it.

Could still feel the darkest part of herself be giddy with excitement. Finally, she did it! She got one over on Beverly!

Who was that woman? The one who threw the switch? It could not have been her. Stella Sorrentino was a good person, the kind of person who gave to charity and put the cart back into the corral after shopping. She treated others with kindness, because she knew how it felt to be given none.

She knew that she was a good person...

Finished with the coatroom, Stella walked away. She wanted desperately to go to Beverly's room, to check up on her, to apologise, but she knew she was not welcome.

But why would she apologise? Beverly got what she wanted! She wanted to be in the open! Stella bit the back of her hand in frustration. Teeth drove deep into her skin, almost enough to pierce skin. The pain helped her focus.

Stella found herself standing outside the beautiful mansion Beverly called a home and looked into the night's sky. Her mind felt alien to her. Who was she? Beverly said something to that tune... How she blamed the 'Other Beverly' for all the bad things she did in the past. How, in the end, it was all her.

A laugh spewed out of her. It hurt coming out, made her bend over as if to vomit. Cold realisation blossomed in her mind, so terrible and impossible it felt like a foreign object tearing through her. And yet it couldn't be anything other than the truth.

Stella did the same thing didn't she? She also blamed it all on some other Beverly. All her life- Everything had been Beverly's fault! Everything Stella did or did not do since high-school was Beverly's fault!

All her life she had defined herself in opposition to the woman... Now, Stella Sorrentino tried, for the first time in a long, long time to look at herself without Beverly there to guide her.

An isolated, cruel, pathetic creature in a pretty package. One not even brave enough to admit that she just hurt somebody terribly because- because she enjoyed the cruelty.

She enjoyed being cruel to Beverly. That's all it was.

Beverly, who- who was just a woman trying her best. Nasty and weird, but also passionate, smart, funny and trying so hard. With a start Stella remembered some of what Beverly said.

She came out to her husband? Her daughter? Her parents?

Something hard pressed against her flank- her car, Stella realised numbly. She leaned onto it for strength.

Beverly was changing. She was becoming better and Stella ruined it.

Bile built up in her throat, threatening to spill. With trembling hands she unlocked her truck and got inside. Her heart, her whole gut tingled with anxiety so bad- worse than what she'd felt in years- that she had to curl up, her forehead hitting the steering wheel.

Beverly Carpenter was just a human being. She knew that! She had realised it so many times before, didn't she?! She remembered all those times vividly- short bursts of self awareness that lead to nothing. Because she never let them.

Because if she had she could not be cruel to Beverly anymore.

Because if Beverly was just a human being, then she could not be a demon haunting Stella, making her do all the things she knew deep down were wrong. And if- And if Stella was the one making these choices...

Then what did it make her?

---

The buzzer sounded like the kind they had on game shows. Wrong answer! It made Stella's teeth itch.

"What?!" A voice from the other side of the heavy doors. "We're closed."

"Haylee... Please, I just want to talk..."

Silence was her answer. What did she expect coming here? Haylee was not answering her calls or texts for a reason. She should not have come here. She turned to leave when the doors opened. Haylee got out and locked the doors behind her. She looked good, although a bit tired. She smelled like wine.

She regarded Stella without a word, her eyes betraying nothing but judgement. Then, after an endless moment, they softened as Haylee blew out a long angry breath.

"Jeeesus, you look pathetic." She laughed bitterly. "Biggest, dumbest looking kicked puppy."

Stella did not know what to say to that.

"Oh, don't look at me like that. What?" Haylee rolled her eyes.

"You were not answering my calls..." Stella said. "I- I don't want to lose you. I know I fucked up- Really, really badly."

Haylee laughed again. "That's an understatement of the year! You fucking psycho!" She threw her hands up. "You're not gonna lose me! I am just pissed at you!"

The steel wire coiled around Stella's gut unwound a little bit. She could deal with Haylee being mad. But she did not know what she would do if the woman walked away from her.

"So... Can I come in?"

"No." Haylee said, looking absolutely unconcerned with the full body wince Stella went through. "Gloria is upstairs... It's best if she did not see you right now."

Stella closed her eyes. Gloria.

"How is she?"

"Well..." Haylee pushed away from the door and paced around Stella. "She is getting divorced, her kids don't want to talk to her and she got fired from her firm."

"What? Fired?"

"Apparently accounting for the rich is all reputation based... And hers is not looking too good right now." Haylee said, then threw Stella a nasty look. "For some reason."

"Jesus, I didn't-" Stella began saying, then realised she had nothing. "Fuck me."

Haylee gave her a quick, nasty grin. "Yeah... That's the general sentiment around these parts as of late."

Stella leaned against the wall and groaned. She tried to build up courage to ask the question she really wanted the answer to, but chickened out. "What is Gloria going to do?"

"Drink heavily and try to get her husband back," Haylee rolled her eyes again.

"Really?"

"Drink heavily and try to get her husband back," Haylee rolled her eyes again.

"Really?"

"Monogamoids will do what they will do," Haylee said, then softened. "She's not thinking clearly right now... And it's best she is not left alone for too long."

Haylee turned around to go back into the bar. Anxiety shot through Stella. "Wait! Do- do you have to go back in?"

Haylee looked at her over her shoulder. "Are you gonna jump off a bridge if I leave you alone for a couple more days?"

Stella was taken aback by the question, but she shook her head. She was not doing well... But she was not that bad. She was not.

"Gloria might," Haylee said, not looking at Stella. "I have to... She doesn't really have anybody else right now..."

"Yeah..."

Haylee wrestled the doors open, then stopped when she was halfway through. She sighed heavily again, and turned to Stella again, looking dead tired.

"I told you to stay away from her."

Stella felt all energy drain from her. "I couldn't..."

"Yeah..." Haylee smirked. "I'll call you in a couple of days. You're fucked in the head, but you're my fucked in the head."

And Stella was left alone, feeling equal parts relieved and anxious.

She never did end up asking about Beverly.

---

It was two minutes to eight on a Sunday night and Stella was pacing around in her apartment.

She had not done much of anything in the week since the party. Besides visiting Haylee and getting her food from the door-dash guy she had no contact with any other human beings. She cancelled her therapy because she could not face Dr. Wozniak right now. She wanted to get herself under control before doing that.

The stupidity of the idea did not escape her.

So, she just festered alone in her apartment. Her office and gym were closed due to the flooding, the insurance company still yanking her around.

She had nothing but time to think about how badly she fucked everything up.

A minute to eight.

Stella stood at the doors, utterly still, straining to hear if there was anybody on the other side. Beverly was punctual. If she was going to show up, then she would be on the other side already, waiting.

Of course Stella knew that there was no chance in hell of Beverly coming over. She knew that.

Eight pm.

Stella's mouth went dry. She stopped breathing for a full minute, staring at the doors. She could not get herself to look through the peephole.

One minute past eight.

She threw the doors open, to find nobody waiting on the other side. Of course Beverly was not here. Stella destroyed her life. They would never- They would never again-

The reality of that hit Stella. She was never going to see Beverly again. She did not have her number, nor any other way of contacting her. She could not even apologise for what she did.

It was over between them.

She closed the doors and walked over to her liquor cabinet. She kept herself from drinking over the last week, out of some foolish restraint. Pathetic, weak people drank their mistakes away, and she was not that.

Except she was exactly that. So why stop herself? She never changed after high school- She just got skinny. Still a pathetic worm.

Stella sat on her couch and poured herself a glass of- what did she grab? It was too dark in the room to see the label, on account of the blinds being down and the lights being off. Oh well, whatever it was it burned going down.

The memory of Beverly in her apartment came to her, unbidden. Them, preparing to go to sleep together. Stella's heart swelled, thinking of it, before it soured.

Beverly said she wanted to live with her.

The pain in Stella's chest never quite stopped after that horrible night a week ago. The thing lodged in there was stuck for good. It rested in the middle of the tar pit- or maybe it was the pit? It felt like a meteor that crashed there long, long ago; maybe it was what made the pit.

Maybe it had always been there.

The glass ran dry.

She wanted to drink more, but that would require getting up and reaching for the bottle she left on a side table, but it felt too far away now. Everything felt too far away.

She just wanted to sit here, in the dark and not think about anything.

In a couple of days either Haylee or her parents would call her, and then she would figure out how to be somebody again. Now she just wanted to be nothing.

So, she was nothing until the doorbell rang.

Cold sweat broke out all over Stella's body as a terrible thought occurred to her. Her office was about a twenty minute drive from her apartment. If somebody was to, say, look for Stella in her office at exactly eight pm, find it empty and then decide to find her in her apartment, it would take them until about eight twenty five to be here.

With cold fingers she pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked the clock.

Eight, twenty six pm.

The doorbell rang again.

Stalla was across the apartment, her hand on the door handle before she even realised that she got up from the couch. Before she could think herself out of doing it, she threw the door open.

Beverly looked like an ice sculpture. She stood on Stella's welcome mat looking up at her primly, her blonde hair tied in a tight bun, her body hidden under a peach trench-coat.

Dimly, Stella realised that she hadn't showered in five days and that she was wearing stained sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt, staring at the woman dumbly.

The eyes that met hers were cold. A smile, one that anybody else would think to be warm, spread on Beverly's face. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"

Stella stepped aside. "C-come in."

Beverly glided inside without a word. She took a long look at the state of Stella's apartment: at the takeout boxes and dishes scattered on every surface, the dirty clothes and random trash on the ground. All the evidence of what Stella truly was.

Stella wanted to make excuses, but there was nothing to say, so she just took Beverly's judgement. The woman stood in the middle of the living room, in the dark, saying nothing. The silence stretched for so long, Stella could not take it anymore.

"Beverly- I'm-"

An angelic voice cut her off. "So, what are we going to do today?"

"What- what do you mean?"

Beverly's head tilted to the side. "It is Sunday."

She wanted to... Keep going? A pathetic part of Stella responded with a spike of arousal, but she squashed it down. Words she wanted to say for the whole week pushed themselves out of Stella. "Beverly, I'm- I'm so sorr-"

Beverly spun around and took three quick steps towards Stella. Startled, she backed up until her back hit a wall. Beverly stopped inches away and stared at her with such intensity that Stella could not help but look away.

"Why aren't you looking at me? Stella?"

"I- I-" She felt her throat tighten. "You know why-"

Beverly's fingers brushed her neck, startling Stella. Despite everything, they were warm and soft. Despite everything Stella's body responded to the touch. She did not fight as Beverly's fingers traced patterns on the muscles of her shoulders, not even when her fingers, just for a moment, wrapped around Stella's throat.

"I want you to look at me, Stella." Beverly said with dead calm. "This won't work if you don't look at me."

In that moment Stella wanted nothing more than to run out of this room, but she did as she was told. In Beverly's eyes, she expected pain, or sadness, or betrayal, but not what she saw there.

Rage. Beverly looked angry enough to kill her on the spot.

"So... Once again, I ask," Beverly said slowly, the rage in her eyes not touching her sweet voice. "What are we going to do today?"

"Beverly- why did you come here?"

Beverly's hands tightened over Stella's throat, but not enough to really hurt.

"Where else am I supposed to go?" The woman answered. "I don't have anything else."

Sadness flicked through Beverly's eyes, before rage came back. "You know- my parents gave me a choice... Either I-" Beverly laughed. "Either I go to- to- to therapy for my 'condition' or I move out of the house... It's their house. I lived there my whole life, Stella... And now- now I-"

She did not finish. Her smile became terribly toothy.

"I can't go back to my church anymore. Everybody there- everybody knows that I am gay. And they don't want me anymore... My friends don't want me anymore." She laughed again, bitterly. "They were awful friends, yes, but they were mine! MINE! And now- now-"

Muscles on the sides of Beverly's mouth tensed, locking her in a feral grin.

"You know- I never had any real female friends. Not really... Gloria- Gloria was- She was becoming my friend. And now? Now she's too scared to talk to me. She- she doesn't want 'distractions' when she's working things out with Robert..."

Beverly's fingers tensed, cutting off Stella's air, but she dared not move a muscle to stop the woman.

"My daughter knows my-" Bevelry's voice broke. "She knows my sexual... Preferences. Everybody I know does! They all- They think it's just... So funny! They think I'm a- some sort of degenerate. A- a- a degenerate, lying, pervert!"

The lack of air forced Stella to break Beverly's grip on her throat. The woman did not fight her, simply let her arms fall to her sides. Stella gasped for breath, feeling sick and small.

"I'm sorry... Beverly I am so sorry!"

Out of all the ways Beverly could respond to her apology, she did not expect her to laugh. It was a short, cold, cruel sound. It ended almost as soon as it began, leaving nothing but silence afterwards. Even the fake smile was gone from Beverly's face.

"I think I understand now... Why you didn't like hearing my apologies." She said, slowly. "It's just... Annoying."

Stella knew it was a bad idea, but somehow she could not stop herself from speaking. The pain rising in her chest was unbearable. "I mean it, Beverly. I- I am so ashamed of what I did to you! I- If I could take it back, I would in a second." She said, the look of growing anger on Beverly's face only served to fuel her anxiety. "I don't know why I did it! Oh fuck, that's a lie. I- I was scared and angry at you because- Because after we slept together-"

"Are you deaf?" Beverly spat. "I said that I did not care!"

"Please, listen to me-"

"I DON'T CARE!" Beverly screamed and pulled at Stella's t-shirt with all her strength. It wasn't much, but Stella let herself be pushed down onto her knees.

"I have an idea!" Beverly huffed, as she stood over Stella. "If you want forgiveness... Why don't you earn it? Isn't that a great idea?"

A pathetic hope blossomed in Stella's heart. "Yes- Anything you say Beverly." She said, swallowing her pride. "What do you want me to do?"

Beverly looked down on her with a disgusted look. Like she'd never seen a creature as pathetic as Stella was. It hurt. "Why don't... You bark for me?"

Stella took in a deep breath, fully intending to do it, but somehow, could not make herself make the sound. Because- Because she was not the one who was supposed to be on her knees! Damn it!

"Oh?" Beverly laughed. "Are you getting defiant? Before we even began?"

"No!" Stella hurried to say. "It's fine- Just- Give me a moment."

"Take all the time you need..." Beverly whispered.

Once again Stella tried, she really tried to do it, but her stupid pride stopped her. That and the memories: Her and Beverly in high-school, Stella surrounded on all sides, on display, made to feel pathetic every day. It should not have mattered anymore, but it did.

She did not want to be that girl anymore- she wasn't that girl anymore!

Beverly's hand rested on her head, and began patting her gently. Her expression lost much of its bite, now looking almost bored, like she did not care one way or another if Stella barked or not.

Like she would leave at any moment.

Stella took a deep breath and barked. Her neck felt hot, her face flushed instantly. She tried to tell herself that it was nothing, just a sound.

"Again."

So, she did it again. And again, and again, until her throat was sore and all the pride was gone. And yet, Beverly's bored expression did not change.

"Enough," Beverly said. "Take off your clothes."

She shrugged her t-shirt off, then her pants and underwear. She knelt before Beverly naked, brimming with a disturbing mix of shame, anxiety and arousal.

She'd never been one for humiliation, or bottoming but... Beverly was the one exception to everything it seemed. A vision came to her, whole and pathetically hopeful- Beverly visiting her apartment once a week, doling out Stella's punishment until- Until it would be alright again. Until they were back to that place they were last week, before Stella ruined it.

So, Stella waited, eagerly, to be told what to do. Forget her pride, she would do anything.

Pain flared in her chest again. Anything? Why? Why would she do that? Why-

"God..." Beverly sighed. "What am I doing?"

Stella's stomach sank as Beverly turned away towards the door. She scrambled to follow her, still on her knees. "Wait! Please!"

Beverly did not turn around, but stopped when Stella tugged at her sleeve. "For what? What are you going to say? You're sorry?"

Something awfully hot and sharp wriggled inside of her. She could almost smell the blood pouring out of the wound.

"I- I don't want to lose you!"

Beverly did not turn around, or say anything. She just stood there, facing the door. Stella felt hot and sick looking at her back. "I- I'll do anything." She said, and found with horror that she meant it. "I'll be your- your fucking servant, I'll eat you out, I don't know- just please don't leave. I-" She choked on her words, feeling tears prickle her eyes. "I want you... You're mine."

Beverly did not respond for a very, very long time. When she did, her voice was different again. Human.

"I'm yours..." Beverly said, her voice cracking. "And you're mine?"

Stella almost fell over from relief. "Yes! I'm- I'm yours! Beverly I- God damn it, what you said just before- before- before I-" Stella decided against bringing up her fuck up. "What you said about how- how you felt for me, how you wanted to live together... I... I- God I-" She could not get herself to say it.

Beverly turned around and looked down on Stella. There was no more anger left in her eyes, just sadness. That sadness made Stella panic more than anything else Beverly said or did before.

"So! Please! Just- do anything you want to me! I don't care! Just- I know I fucked up! Take it out on me! I can take it!" She babbled. "And then- then maybe we could- we could-"

"But... I don't want to hurt you Stella..." Beverly said, very very quietly. "I thought that maybe if I did, then I could forgive you but... I don't want to hurt you."

The sadness in her eyes was getting worse. Stella scrambled to find anything she could say to explain why she did what she did- to make Beverly understand how things would be different now, but nothing seemed good enough.

"But you... You wanted to hurt me... From the beginning." Beverly continued, with finality that made Stella sick. "Well... You succeeded."

Then, she turned around again and hurried towards the door. Stella wanted to run after her- never mind her nudity- and make her understand somehow! She was about to do it, when she heard the sound that took all of her strength away.

Beverly started crying.

She tried to hold it back at first, but the dam broke quickly. She sobbed as she opened Stella's doors. The light from the outside blinded Stella, shrouding Beverly's back in darkness.

"Goodbye Stella," Beverly choked out, and then she was gone.

Leaving Stella alone in the dark.

---

Stella did not leave her apartment at all next week. Her fortress of filth and weakness grew more pathetic by the day, but she could not get herself to do anything about it.

When eight pm on the Sunday came, she sat on her couch and waited, not even daring to hope.

Beverly did not come back.

---

Neither did she come back the next week.

Haylee came and offered to take Stella out for a drink. To talk. Stella declined through closed doors.

---

The following week Stella made plans to be out on Sunday evening, but could not get herself to step out of her apartment. It was too much.

Beverly did not come back.

---

Each time Beverly did not show up, it somehow became more difficult for Stella to leave her house.

Haylee blew up her phone, as well as some other friends, but Stella was good at making excuses.

Her therapist tried calling her a few times but she did not answer.

---

It took Stella until New Years eve, which she spent alone in her apartment getting drunk, to finally accept that Beverly would never come back.

She sat on her balcony when the clock struck midnight, already well on her way to being drunk. Her phone, which she left somewhere in the apartment chimed, probably with well wishes from friends and family.

She did not want to read them.

She wanted to be alone. It was sweet, the wallowing. She found she could spend hours going over all the things she had done wrong in her life. It was better than going outside, having to pretend she was a functioning person.

Here it was just her and the disgusting thing she could see reflected in the dark tiles of her balcony wall. She hadn't worked out in months... Or watched her diet for that matter. Every time her thighs rubbed together she felt like she wanted to scream.

Every reflective surface became an enemy as of late. The apartment felt crowded somehow. Fat losers everywhere. Stella laughed at the thought, until it stopped being funny.

It was just her here, in this apartment. Stella Sorrentino. A good person. A strong woman! A business owner! A kind and compassionate adult. A survivor.

She survived Beverly after all... She survived high-school... She made something out of herself despite all the pain she had to go through.

It was funny how much of her life she defined herself in relation to Beverly. As a kid, she was a victim, due to her. After that she was strong, for having survived her. Then... Then she was powerful, because she owned her.

Now? What even was she, without Beverly there?

A phantom threatened to make herself at home in the apartment. Many times, over the weeks, Stella almost spoke to the Beverly in her mind. The way she did when she was younger, when she used her as motivation to keep going.

But this time around, Stella did not want to curse her... No. She wanted to tell the new Beverly about a show she started watching to pass the time. She wanted to see Beverly drink the terrible booze she bought herself. She wanted to tell her how much she-

Fireworks exploded all across the sky. Everywhere around her happy people celebrated life together with their loved ones. Stella wobbled to her feet and approached the railing of her balcony. Who did she have? All her life she never found anybody she wanted to be with. She had her family, she had some friends, yeah, but... Never love. Somehow, she had never fallen for another woman... Until...

Stella bent over the railing and laughed so hard she nearly puked.

"Stop it- Stop being such a- fucking-" She mumbled. Pain in her chest grew and grew until she could not help but let it spill out.

"Why did it have to be you, Beverly?"

Shame and anger rolled over her, but she endured. Because surely relief would come afterwards, right? But it did not. Admitting how she felt for Beverly changed nothing. She was still pathetic, and Beverly was still gone.

Nothing ever changed. She had never changed. She was still the same weak creature she was back in high school.

More fireworks, really close by. Somebody was firing them from the courtyard in front of the apartment building, seven stories down. Stella looked down, feeling herself sway. She was pretty high up.

She wondered... Would it be high enough to kill her if she-

Stella stumbled away from the railing. She scrambled back into her apartment and closed the balcony doors so hard the glass rattled. Her heart was hammering so hard, she felt like she would throw up.

She waded through the trash and god-knows what until she found her phone. On the display was- her heart melted a little. Haylee tried to call her a couple of times. She pressed the button before she managed to find an excuse not to.

"Heeey biiiitch, are you alive?" The woman's voice slurred slightly, but it calmed Stella down some. Not enough.

"Haylee... Can you- can you come over?" Stella said, ashamed at how small her voice sounded. Pathetic worm. "I- I don't think I should be alone right now..."

A slight pause, then Haylee responded, sounding more sober. "Yeah. Alright. Your apartment? I'll be there in..." Another pause. "Half an hour."

Stella felt relief so great it almost made her cry. "Yeah... I can manage that long."

"Yeah you will, because we'll keep talking all the way," Haylee huffed.

She was there half an hour later, as she promised. They kept talking along the way, about nothing important. Stella wanted to hang up many times, the shame of being this needy and pathetic almost made her do it, but the sound of the fireworks kept her from it.

It was a long way down from there.

---

It took a week to clean out Stella's apartment. Even with Haylee's help, by the end of it she was too exhausted for shame. When they were done she hugged Haylee like she never did before, even back when they were dating.

The woman was stiff at first, but then leaned into the hug as well. They stood in the middle of Stella's freshly reclaimed apartment for a long time, swaying against each other.

"Thank you..." Stella managed to say.

Haylee hummed into her ear. "No problem... Any time."

Stella felt the prick of tears in her eyes and she fought to stop them- she'd never been one to cry in front of Haylee, or any other woman for that matter... But who was she to feel this pride? She let the tears fall.

She cried a lot over the next few weeks. Any time she thought of Beverly, which was often. When she went back to the gym and found out how much ground she'd lost. Therapy was a crying fest wall to wall.

Her therapist sat with her for hours, as they sifted through the damage of that October evening, and everything that came after. Dr. Wozniak looked at her with a look of such compassion that Stella wanted to scream.

Finally, by the end of her fourth session back in therapy she managed to get a hold of herself. She still felt the tears close to the surface, but for once, she could speak without losing it.

"So- There you go! I really did it this time, huh?" Stella laughed.

Dr. Wozniak did not laugh back. "It would appear so..."

"I ruined a woman's life because- because I couldn't handle my shit." Hot shame warmed Stella's chest. "Because I am- I am just terrible. The worst."

"Let's not catastrophise, alright? You are hardly the worst."

Stella wanted to stand, to walk around, but the therapy room was too small for that. "No- No, I've been thinking about it- I haven't changed at all since high school." She laughed. "I just lost weight. I am still- I am still weak."

"Stella-"

"I am getting fat again- And I see her in the mirror- nothing changed!" It took all she had not to cry again. "This weakness- this- pathetic thing inside me. I thought- I thought I was making progress, getting better, making myself into somebody I could- I could respect, but no. No." Stella shook her head. "I am still the same."

Dr Wozniak slid a box of tissues towards Stella, which only made her want to cry harder. She would not cry again. Enough is enough. She sat back and looked away.

Dr Wozniak let the silence go for a while, then spoke quietly. "Stella... Tell me... What would be so bad about being her again?"

The question was so fucking stupid Stella almost left the room there and then. "She- You know why! She's- She was pathetic- she was- she was-"

"Was she?" Dr. Wozniak leaned in, her voice grew softer. "Because to me, the way you've always described her she sounded like a fine young woman."

Stella could not even form words in response. Dr. Wozniak continued.

"You were overweight... And not very confident... Are those really such heinous crimes that you could not forgive even after twenty years?"

Yes. They were. But saying that out loud would make her sound insane, so Stella remained silent.

"Stella... I am going to say something that I have already said many times before during our work together..." Dr. Wozniak said, her hands intertwined in her lap. "But this time I want you to sit with these words for a moment... Is that alright?"

Stella nodded. Her breathing felt odd. She realised that she was scared of what the woman would say.

"What happened to you back in high school was not your fault." Dr. Wozniak said. "There was nothing wrong with you back then, and you did not deserve the cruelty you experienced."

Stella was out of the chair before she knew what was happening. She could not be in this room right now- listening to this bullshit- this- this- She walked to a row of cabinets lining the wall and made herself study the trinkets filling the shelves. Fidget toys, wooden dolls, mugs and various books with vaguely reassuring titles like 'Finding a better you' and more such nonsense.

It took a lot of deliberate breathing before she felt calm enough to think about her therapist's words.

She thought about them on the way home.

As she showered before bed.

For long hours as she laid in bed, trying and failing to fall asleep.

Then, the next day at her gym, newly renovated and ready to open again.

She was alone, hitting a punching bag, as the snow flurried outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. Somewhere between one hit and another she remembered herself twenty years ago, trying to hit a punching bag for the first time.

Usually, the memory would be accompanied by disgust. What a fat worm she used to be, what a pig, weakling. The feelings were still there, but there was something else underneath them. Sadness.

She leaned her head against the leather of the bag. She looked again at the girl in her memories, and tried to see her differently. Like she was somebody else, a child she knew instead of herself. What would Stella tell that kid?

Maybe... Maybe she was fine as she was. Maybe she was just a kid who got hurt by mindless cruelty. Maybe it really wasn't her fault.

Stella stumbled away from the punching bag and wandered around the gym. She stopped in front of a wall of mirrors and took a good look at herself. A layer of fat covered her muscles. Revulsion almost choked her, but she pushed through it. She tried to see that girl in there, in the reflection.

Stella saw her for a moment, in the shape of her nose and eyebrows. In the way her hips curved. She spoke before she lost her nerve.

"It wasn't your fault."

The words echoed in the empty gym. She'd heard them said by many different people, at many different points in her life... But here and now, for the first time in her life, they did not sound like a lie.