There was an ache in her heart that she didn’t have the words for yet whenever Rio Vidal had spent time with Agatha Harkness.
But, at this moment, she has the words now.
She just can’t say them.
There was a low hum of the air conditioner and a slight static that occasionally interrupted the song on the radio.
Agatha sat in front of her, cross-legged and cheeks flushed, a bashful smile on her face.
She had just finished confessing that she had said ‘Yes’ to the ‘cute, little junior from work who finally gained enough courage to ask me out today’ — her name was Wanda.
It was the last thing Rio expected to hear when Agatha had invited her over to her place for some drinks.
She had expected the usual frustrated venting session about work that would follow after Agatha finished half a bottle of wine, or for them to watch an unknown movie that explored the topic of sexual freedom Agatha was usually fond of, or simply browse through their phones in comfortable silence in the presence of each other’s company.
Just not... that.
“Rio?”
The sound of her name pulls her back, and she blinks hard, hoping her face was schooled into something neutral.
“You good?”
Rio hates how easily Agatha reads her. Their many years of friendship have made her transparent in a way she never wanted to be.
“Yeah,” Rio kept her voice steady, a juxtaposition of how she felt. “Just tired.”
“You sure?” Agatha asks, her thumb briefly brushing over Rio’s wrist.
It was a fleeting touch, but it burned.
Her pulse roars in her ears as Rio swallows the lump in her throat.
“Positive.”
Agatha doesn’t seem to notice the way Rio’s fingers have curled into the fabric of her pants as she talked about Wanda, and how cute she was when she had pulled her aside to confess, how they had first met when Agatha was assigned to be her mentor for work, and how Agatha can’t believe office romances were actually something that could happen.
Rio tightens her fist, feeling her nails press into her palm through the fabric, desperate to feel something other than her heart breaking.
“I’m happy for you,” Rio lies, the words taste bitter on her tongue.
Agatha beams, smile lighting up her entire face — that smile Rio knows too well, the one she has seen a thousand times. But tonight, seeing that smile made it feel like there was a blade pressed against her ribs, cutting into her with every beat of her heart.
At work, Rio watches, silent, as Wanda playfully bumps Agatha’s shoulder, their laughter twining together in a way that feels like a knife twisting in Rio’s gut.
Then, Agatha leans in, tucking a loose strand of Wanda’s hair behind her ears, and for a split second, Rio forgets how to breathe.
Agatha smiles at Wanda like she’s the sun, the moon, and everything cosmic in between.
Rio lowers her gaze, blinking rapidly to push back the burn behind her eyes.
This must have been her personally assigned torture for her inaction, a version of hell designed specifically to watching the person you want most in the world slip further and further out of reach with every lingering touch, every stolen glance, and every shared laugh.
That night, Rio lay awake in her bed, eyes unfocused, staring at the ceiling. The ache in her chest was a constant, gnawing thing as she replayed the day like a cruel reel.
Rio realizes with a sharp, brutal clarity, that she can’t do it anymore.
She loved Agatha so much and hated her just as much.
She can’t keep a plastered smile watching Agatha fall deeper into someone else’s orbit while her heart slowly splinters apart, piece by piece.
Rio grabs her phone and texts Agatha, sending the message as soon as she typed it up before she could second-guess herself.
The response comes almost instantly.
Rio left her on read. She turned off her phone and rolls onto her side, pulling the blanket over her head.
If distance is the only way to stop the hurt, then distance is what she’ll choose.
Even if it feels like cutting out her own heart.
Rio stared at the email on her screen, the words blurring together as her heart pounded against her ribs.
The job transfer was approved.
A new city, a fresh start.
Distance.
Exactly what she needed, or at least, that’s what she kept telling herself.
This was the only way.
If she stayed, she would keep being pulled into Agatha’s gravity, and Rio wasn’t sure how much more of that she could take.
She closed her laptop with a shaky exhale, expecting a relief to wash over her.
But there was only a dull, hollow ache.
Two days later, Agatha showed up at Rio’s apartment, uninvited — though, that had never mattered before because they had always treated each other’s place like an extension of their own.
“Hey,” Rio’s hand still held the doorknob as she looked at her sudden guest in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
Agatha didn’t answer right away. She stepped inside without waiting, arms crossed and jaw tight.
“Are you moving?”
Rio’s stomach dropped. “Who told you that?”
“Does it matter?” Agatha’s voice wavered between anger and... hurt. “Were you even going to tell me?”
Rio opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
The silence was louder than any answer she could’ve given.
Agatha laughed in disbelief. “So that’s a ‘no,’ then.”
“It’s not like that,” Rio finally managed to say, voice small and brittle. “It’s... just something I needed to do.”
Agatha’s eyebrows pulled together as she searched her friends face. Rio turned her head away slightly as she took a step back and leaned on the doorway for support.
“You needed to pack up and leave without saying a word?”
Rio’s throat burned.
She didn’t know how to explain that this was about running away from her. From the way her heart broke a little more every time she would see Agatha look at Wanda like she was her whole world.
“I thought it would hurt less if I left without saying anything.” Rio whispered, the words barely holding together.
“And you think this doesn’t hurt a lot?” Agatha asked, incredulous, and voice cracking. “Geez, Rio. We’re best friends. Or at least, I thought we were.”
Rio swallowed the lump in her throat. “We—.”
Agatha shook her head, taking a step back. “If you’re so desperate to get away from me, just go then.”
The words sliced through Rio, clean and sharp.
Rio wanted to tell her it wasn’t like that. That all she wanted was to be around her, but being near her hurt too much and loving her in silence was killing her.
But instead, all that came out was a lame, “I’m sorry.”
Agatha didn’t respond. She just pushed Rio aside and walked out the door.
The echo of her absence was louder than anything Rio had ever heard.
The days blurred together but Rio barely noticed.
Rio kept her head down at work, burying herself in tasks and deadlines, and letting the office noise become something to drown out the incessant pound of her aching heart.
It’s been weeks since Agatha had walked out of her apartment and left Rio alone with her hollow excuse and a silence that has not left her apartment since.
They still worked in the same office, but it was as if Rio had perfected the art of avoidance.
No more were the lunch breaks shared where they held sandwiches in one hand and work documents in the other. No more were the quick coffee runs they would sneak off to during the afternoon lull. No more were the days of sitting next to each other and the playful nudges when a meeting dragged on for too long.
Agatha had vanished from Rio’s orbit.
If Rio had spotted a flash of familiar hair in the hallway, she didn’t stop, didn’t look. If she had heard a laugh meant for someone else, she didn’t listen, didn’t acknowledge.
Rio told herself it was better this way.
Her focus was on the move now. Her apartment was stacked high with labeled cardboard boxes and she needed to send them off soon to her new place in the new city.
But then there was a knock at her door late one night.
Rio blinked at the sound, frozen for a moment with her hands halfway through packing a box of vinyl records.
The knock came again, louder this time, a little more urgent.
When she opened the door, Agatha was there.
And she was drunk.
Her hair was a mess, eyeliner and mascara smudged, and cheeks flushed. She swayed slightly, gripping the door-frame like it was the only thing keeping her upright.
“Rio,” Agatha’s voice slurred with a mix of sadness and something dangerously close to desperation. “You’re really leaving.”
“Agatha... what are you doing here?”
Agatha let out a breathy and humorless laugh. “I don’t know. I just... I was, urp, at dinner with Jen and Alice, and I—,” she hiccuped, shaking her head. “I... I shouldn’t be here.”
But Agatha didn’t move and just stood there.
Messy, drunk, and heartbreakingly beautiful.
“Do... do you want to come in?” Rio asked, her voice cracking at the end.
Agatha met her eyes — her usually vibrant blues were glassy, tired, and full of many emotions Rio couldn’t pinpoint.
“Yeah,” she whispered.
And that’s all it took for Rio to step forward and help Agatha in, gently guiding her to the couch. Agatha sank into it, gaze drifting immediately to the towers of boxes that littered the room.
“You really packed everything,” she murmured.
Rio stayed standing and gave an awkward, “Yeah.”
Agatha blinked slowly, leaning forward and trailed her fingers along the edge of a box near the couch. She traced the scribbled label Rio wrote with permanent marker, sobering up with every letter.
“So this is it.” There was a bitter edge creeping into her voice. “You’re just... gone.”
Rio’s throat tightened. “Agatha—.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“What? No!” Rio immediately dropped to her knees, grabbing a hold of Agatha’s hands, surprised at how they trembled.
“Because I don’t get it, Rio. We were fine. And then suddenly you’re... you’re packing up your life and leaving without even telling me. The reason is me, isn’t it? I must’ve done something to push you away.” Agatha looked like the thought of it physically hurt her.
Rio’s chest ached at the sight of Agatha: raw, open, and breaking in front of her.
“Agatha, no,” Rio said softly. “It’s not like that.”
“Then what, Rio? What is it like?” Agatha’s voice was louder now, desperation obviously bleeding out. “Because from how it seems, it feels like you’re running away. And I don’t understand why you couldn’t just tell me. You’re my—.”
Agatha stopped herself, mouth snapping shut.
You’re my what?
Rio shook her head, heart pounding so loudly that she wondered if Agatha could hear it too. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Agatha. I just needed… some distance.”
“Distance from me?” Agatha dared to ask, voice barely above a whisper.
The apartment was quiet.
But Rio’s heart thundered.
She looked at Agatha — at the furrow in her brow, the way her lips slightly parted, her eyes brimmed with frustrated tears.
It was now or never.
The word came out hoarse. “...Yeah.”
Agatha blinked rapidly as Rio forced herself to confess.
“It hurts too much,” Rio let go of Agatha’s hands. “Being around you, seeing you with somebody else. It feels like I’m being torn apart every single day. It hurt more than I can stand. And I can’t—,” she cranes her neck to meet Agatha’s eyes. “I can’t keep pretending I’m okay. Because I lo— like you, a lot.”
Rio’s confession hung in the air between them, vulnerable and irreversible.
Her heart pricked as she clenched her jaw, already preparing for a polite letdown and the awkwardness that would follow
But Agatha leaned towards her.
“Rio,” she said, low and urgent.
Before Rio could process what was happening, Agatha’s hands were cupping her face, thumb softly brushing a tear on her cheek Rio didn’t realize had fallen.
And then, her lips found Rio’s — soft, warm, and gentle.
For a second, Rio kissed back.
For a second, the world stopped, and the ache, the longing, and weeks of quiet pain melted away in the heat of the kiss.
Then, reality slammed back and Rio pulled away sharply and shaky hands pushed Agatha back. She fell on her butt, looking up at Agatha in horror.
“You,” Rio gasped, voice breaking. “You have a girlfriend! You have Wanda!”
Her heart was a wild drum against her rib-cage.
“We broke up.”
The words came out quick and firm.
“...What?”
“The night we fought, I couldn’t... I couldn’t stop thinking about you and pretend like I was fine with you slipping away.” Agatha ran a hand through her hair and then shrugged. “And, I guess, Wanda sensed something and she broke it off a couple days later.”
Rio looked at her skeptically. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Like how you didn’t tell me you were moving?”
Rio winced.
“You were packing up your life, Rio. You were running away from me. I thought...” Agatha shook her head and sighed. “I thought I didn’t matter to you anymore.”
Rio’s eyes softened. “Of course you matter.”
Agatha moved from the couch and sat next to Rio on the floor, her fingers brushing over Rio’s. The touch was so soft that Rio would’ve thought it was a mistake if it weren’t for the way Agatha’s fingers lingered.
“I kept trying to tell myself you were just my friend. But when you said you were leaving, it felt like I was losing... more than that. It felt like I was losing the person I—.”
Agatha’s breath hitched, but Rio heard the unspoken word as clearly as if it had been screamed.
Their hearts pounded in unison.
Rio breathed.
“Say it.”
Their eyes shyly locked.
“...I like you, too. Rio.” Agatha intertwined their fingers. “A lot.”
There was a painful, beautiful fracture that happened in Rio's heart. The moment she had been waiting, longing, and aching for has come.
Rio was overwhelmed with relief and disbelief.
She reached out, finger skimmed Agatha’s jaw like she was memorizing the curve of it, as Agatha closed her eyes and leaned into her touch.
Rio then boldly leaned in and kissed Agatha.
It was soft, tentative and careful, like Rio was still afraid this wasn’t real, afraid that one wrong move and Agatha might pull away. But Agatha didn’t. She kissed her back, lips moving in a quiet rhythm, slow and tender. Her hands found their way to Rio’s shoulders, holding on to anchor herself, like this moment might slip away if she didn’t.
Rio’s back lay flat on the floor before she even registered that Agatha pushed her down.
The kiss became desperate. Fingers tangled in hair, lips parting, teeth knocking softly, and tongues dancing. Each reciprocated kiss rewriting every unspoken word and reclaiming every wasted time.
Everything around them faded.
The boxes, the move, the heartbreak — none of it existed anymore.
Just Agatha and Rio.
Just this.
When they finally broke apart, their foreheads rested against each other, both breathless. Agatha smiled softly down at her, and Rio reciprocated with one that was a little scared but a little hopeful.
Agatha’s voice was a whisper against Rio’s lips. “Stay. Please. Don’t go.”
Rio’s heart stuttered as she pulled her close and embraced her tightly.
“I’m finally yours. I would be crazy if I do.”