There they go, walking up the street
Agatha, once again, took the lead, though she was walking considerably slower now, her grip on Rio’s hand gentle but firm as they walked a path utterly unfamiliar to the younger girl.
‘Where are we going?’ Rio asked, her mind cloudy and distant, her limbs heavy and weak.
‘Not far.’ Agatha answered, slipping her hand out of Rio’s and snaking it around the girl’s waist, seeming to sense the instability of both her mind and body. ‘Just around this corner.’
Rio wanted to comment on the vagueness of that answer - maybe question further - but her words were lost somewhere in the movement between her mind and her lips. She hated it. In her head she was thanking Agatha profusely, making jokes, distracting her from the painful vulnerability she just showed, yet, not a single syllable made it past her lips, not a single word was uttered.
Insead, Rio’s weakness - the part of herself she was utterly humiliated by - was glaringly obvious in every way, and she was powerless to hide it.
As they rounded the next corner, Rio’s breath caught in her chest.
It was a park, flowers and trees and bushes and weeds surrounding a few wooden benches, clearly suffering from woodworm and damp rot and barely holding themselves together. It was the most beautiful place Rio had ever seen. It was as though someone had stolen her soul and created a home for it - unwelcome weeds and broken resting places surrounded by wildflowers and nature, the coexistence of the broken with the growing, the coexistence of trauma and new life.
It was a soft reminder to her of who she was.
It gave her courage to keep growing.
It gave her courage to grow around Agatha, to allow her life to branch out and curl around the older girl - to not flee now that she had seen Rio’s rotting benches.
‘This place is beautiful, Agatha.’ She said, looking the other girl in the eye for the first time since the bathroom. She thinks Agatha might be the most beautiful girl in the world.
‘You think?’ She asked, guiding Rio gently (with almost suffocating tenderness) to one of the more sturdy looking benches. There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere, Rio thought.
‘Yeah, I do.’
—
When they’d both finished their food, Rio felt significantly better, anxiety settling to a gentle current as she folds the bagel wrapper and slips it into her pocket, freeing her hands to play with her rings.
Belatedly, she realised she’d now eaten bagel for two out of three meals today.
‘How are you feeling?’ Agatha asked gently, resting one of her now-free hands on Rio’s thigh. The touch felt electric.
‘Better,’ she paused, tempted to catch her next words with her tongue and swallow them back down, but something about Agatha was so good and Rio trusted her so overwhelmingly, despite the short time they’ve known each other. ‘Thank you, for not leaving - for helping me. You’re truly a good person, Agatha.’
There’s a beat of silence.
Then another.
Tentatively, Rio looked up from her fidgeting hands to Agatha’s face, fearful that she had said too much, or been too forward.
When she saw bright blue eyes swimming with tears, she was at a complete loss.
An apology was on the tip of her tongue, but Agatha spoke first.
‘You might be the only person to ever think that.’
What?
Her hands moved without her permission, one cradling Agatha’s face, the other slipping beneath her t-shirt to rest against the warm skin of her waist.
‘To think what?’
A tear fell, and Rio caught it easily with her thumb.
‘That I’m a good person.’ She said it mockingly, scoffing and bringing her knees up to her chest, effectively forcing the younger girl away from her, but Rio can see a second tear tracing the contours of her face. She rested her hands on Agatha’s knees.
‘No one’s ever done that for me - stayed when I act like that - most people think I’m being weird, or just ignore me. No one has helped like you did, and then you bring me here and you don’t leave, or treat me like a freak. There’s no world where a bad person does that.’
Agatha didn’t say anything, but she rested her hands atop Rio’s, drawing gentle patterns with her fingertips.
‘Fuck what anyone else thinks,’ she continued, ‘you are, without a doubt, a good person.’
She’s a little lost as to why Agatha reacted quite so much to an earnest compliment, but who was she to judge? We all have our traumas, from life shattering disasters to a few rough days, and Rio didn’t know a single person without at least one trigger. She herself had been caught off guard and had a complete breakdown only last week, so, no, not a single part of her was judging Agatha, but all of her was endlessly curious in that twisted way one was when seized by the hope that they might have found someone who understands.
She wanted desperately for Agatha to lay herself bare, to tell Rio the stories behind each tear falling down her cheeks, partially because it would make her feel less exposed and vulnerable, but mostly because she simply wanted to know.
In the most pathetically devoted way, Rio wanted to know everything there was to know about the girl in front of her.
She was already sure that there wouldn’t be a single thing couldn’t love if given the chance.
She was broken out of her thoughts by Agatha’s touch against her jaw. Her feet were back on the ground and she had moved a lot closer during Rio’s stint lost in her head. She could feel Agatha’s breath against her skin.
‘Kiss me.’
Rio happily obliged.
The kiss was softer than their last and, as much as Rio liked to bite (which was a lot, she liked to bite a lot), she could tell that wasn’t what Agatha needed, so she kept her teeth to herself and held Agatha gently.
The kiss didn’t last long - both aware of how very public the setting was - but it seemed to right whatever was off in Agatha and she looked much more together when she pulled away. Ironic, as Rio was pretty sure she looked significantly less put together, drunk on the other girl’s lips and prepared to beg for a few seconds more.
‘We should get you home, Rio, it’s getting late.’
Agatha was right, as soul crushing as it was, and it turned out Rio didn’t mind leaving so much when she was hand in hand with the girl of her fucking dreams.