Chapter Text
She’s charming.
It’s something Beatrice didn’t expect, being charmed. She has spent the past several years amidst the sternness and gravitas of the Catholic Church, absorbing the complete opposite of charm. Yet it led her here, to the girl in front of her, a grin crawling up her face, charming Beatrice.
“You’re too pretty to be a nun,” she—the patient, the charming patient, Ava Silva, 19, no family, paralyzed from the neck down—tells Beatrice when she walks into the room.
Beatrice doesn't know what to say to that. She doesn’t spend much time looking at herself except to smooth out her hair, to make sure there are no stray pieces of lint on her shirt. She definitely hasn’t thought about the word pretty in relation to herself.
“I’m not,” she tells Ava directly.
“Not pretty or not a nun?” Ava talks fast, like the words are desperate to come out of her. She’s propped up in a mundane bed in a mundane orphanage, mundane blankets up to her chest, but Ava is certainly not mundane; her eyes and mouth moving quickly, an eagerness spilling out of her. “So you’re not wearing a habit, so that would be a point for not being a nun, but also you’re working here, which is a big point for nun, because in the 12 years I’ve been here, it’s all nun, all the time. But you’re also, like, my age, so maybe you’re a pre-nun? Is that a term? Do you have to sign a pre-nun-tual agreement with your future husband, God?”
She pauses for a minute, catches her breath. Beatrice stares. Ava stares back, like she’s waiting for a reaction, for Beatrice to scold her for her cavalier nature or laugh at her awful pun. Beatrice does neither. Instead she simply states. “You are correct. I am not yet a nun.”
Ava smiles. “So you agree, you think you’re really pretty?”
Beatrice, to her horror, thinks she might be blushing. “What? I, um, didn’t—”
“Oh come on, Mean Girls? I feel like even British pre-nuns know that one.”
“I can’t say I’m well versed in pop culture.”
“Can’t relate, pop culture is all I have, Sister.” Ava nods her head toward the TV, the posters on the wall.
“As we’ve established, I’m not yet a Sister.”
Ava tuts a little, still smiling. “Not a girl, not yet a Sister. Tragic.”
“Quite.”
“That one is Britney Spears, in case you were wondering.”
“Yes, very educational, thank you.”
“Hey, any time, Sister. Non-sister. Pre-sister.”
“Beatrice is fine.”
“Beatrice.” Ava says her name very slowly, like she’s testing it out. “So Beatrice, tell me what the fuck you’re doing here instead of the usual bag of bones.”
“Language,” Beatrice says instinctively.
“Wow, you’re gonna be a great nun,” Ava counters, a tease in her eyes.
And Beatrice is charmed, despite herself. It should be the first warning sign, but at the moment, it is a comfort. When she was assigned this patient, she had been told Ava was difficult, a problem child, one of the devil. But Ava seems to be none of those things. She seems to simply be a teenager who wasn’t allowed to be a teenager, desperate to talk to someone who isn’t, as she put it, “a bag of bones.”
“I’m here to complete my charitable work for my discernment,” Beatrice says.
“Oh my God, I’m your charitable work? Beatrice, I’m so flattered, we’ve only just met.”
Beatrice tries very hard not to laugh. It’s been a very long time since she’s had that urge.
“I’m sure the nuns at the facility have told you about taking the Lord’s name in vain.”
“They sure have. Every day it’s like, ‘Jesus, Ava, stop taking the Goddamn Lord’s name in vain, oh my God.’”
This time, Beatrice can’t help it, a small chuckle escapes her before she can clamp it down. Ava’s face lights up at the sound, her grin expanding, cheeks flushing, like Beatrice laughing is the best thing that’s happened to her today.
“You think I’m funny,” Ava says smugly. “Already better than all the other nuns.”
“I’m not a—”
“Nun, yeah I know. I’m caught up. So they assigned you to me, huh? They said ‘ooh let’s give pre-Sister Beatrice the orphan who can’t walk, that’ll test her faith.’”
“That’s not exactly what happened.”
What happened was that Beatrice was assigned to St. Michael’s because she was told it was tough, was told if someone really wanted to see if they were cut out for a life of service to the church, go to this place that hadn’t received extra funding in decades, where the nuns were hardened, where there were no pleasantries, no softness. So Beatrice came here, and she was polite and followed orders and performed every duty beyond asking. She got the kids extra blankets when they asked, made sure they were full after every meal, performed simple kindness as one is supposed to do as a vessel of God.
Until yesterday, when she was taken off general service and told she would be assigned to a specific patient. This specific patient.
Beatrice has always been a good listener. She overheard Sister Frances griping, “this young smug brat has been thinking she can do what we do with a smile on her face. Let’s stick her with Silva.”
There had been laughter then, like Silva was punishment, not a nineteen year old girl who says “fuck” sometimes. Beatrice can’t imagine being in an environment this stifling and still smiling, still joking.
So she looks into Ava’s face, so eager for something, for truth or camaraderie or just more than the crumbs the nuns have given her for the past decade. So Beatrice gives it to her.
“Truthfully, they did not think my faith would be tested because of your condition or family situation.” Shannon, Beatrice’s former roommate at Catholic school, had been funny. Beatrice tries to remember how she did it, how she used her cadence and pauses to tell a joke. She tries to channel Shannon as much as she can when she waits a beat before saying, “they thought my faith would be tested by your personality.”
And Ava laughs. She throws her head back and cackles loudly, like Beatrice is selling out arenas with this stuff. Beatrice just watches her. For someone who cannot move most of her body, her head is the picture of motion, leaned back against the headboard, eyes crinkled at the corners and shining, mouth open and smiling.
Beatrice doesn’t understand why this was seen as punishment for her, as a test of faith. Like she would not believe more in God by seeing the pure joy come out of a soul who has seen more hardship in her young life than most have in all of their decades.
“Beatrice!” Ava exclaims, when she’s done laughing. “You’re my new favorite nun.”
“Not a nun yet.”
“But still my favorite.”
Ava’s smile is sweeter now, the genuine sentiment of her words reflected in her face.
Beatrice doesn’t remember the last time someone looked at her like this. She has been doing work for her discernment for almost two years at this point. Two years to decide if becoming a nun is her future; two years to confirm what she’s already known, that this path is her only way through the world. She’s gotten used to the way she is perceived, as a role rather than a person. It’s comfortable, being seen as a vessel for something higher. All the sins and past of Beatrice unseen in the face of a potential Sister Beatrice. It’s easier that way. Simple.
There is nothing simple about the way Ava Silva looks at her from the bed she’s been confined to for half of her life. Like she is more than a daughter or a student or a disciple, like she is interesting, her own person.
Even when Beatrice leaves St. Michael’s, makes her way up cobblestone streets to the convent she’s been staying in, she can’t get it out of her head, can’t get Ava out of her head. One does not prepare to take vows, and except to be so utterly seen in the process, yet here she is.
And Beatrice, shockingly, finds that she likes it.
The next day, Ava’s not alone. There’s a small boy in the bed opposite her, who Beatrice vaguely recalls from seeing with the 8-10 children last week. He’s flipping channels on the TV per Ava’s directions until they settle on something that involves a lot of people loudly talking about each other’s bodies.
“Is this appropriate for a child?” Beatrice asks, announcing her entrance.
Ava’s eyes shoot to her, her grin spreading.
“Oh my God, pre-Sister Beatrice, they let you back.”
“Why wouldn’t they let me back?”
“You were nice to me, that’s a crime in this place.”
The boy nods seriously beside her, an obedient partner in crime.
“See, Diego agrees,” Ava says. “And he’s always right.”
The boy—Diego—beams. Beatrice wonders if Ava knows that this small child worships her.
“Does he also agree he should be watching”—Beatrice glances up at the screen—“Love Island: Spain? Ava.”
Ava grins. “Gotta start ‘em young these days.”
“On objectifying bodies and not having an IQ above 50?”
“Oh, so you know what Love Island is but not Mean Girls?”
“I’m from the UK, I know what Love Island is against my will.”
Ava laughs, looks toward Diego. “See, I told you she was funny.”
“Yeah.” Diego turns to Beatrice, gets a very mischievous 10-year-old boy look in his eyes. “She kept talking about you last night. Beatrice, Beatrice, Beatrice.”
Beatrice tries not to let that make her feel warm, feel less alone in it. That as she couldn’t get Ava out her head, Ava was here doing the same.
“Diego, shut it!” Ava yells. Her cheeks are flushed, but she’s grinning. “You’re lucky I can’t throw something at you right now.”
“You’d miss anyway.”
“You little shit!”
“Language,” Beatrice says, but neither of them hear. She doesn’t mind very much.
She settles on the chair between their beds and watches the godawful excuse for a television program. One of the contestants is named Beatriz, and Ava keeps laughing whenever she comes on screen.
“That could be you,” she solemnly tells Beatrice, “give up the habit of the habit and go be on reality television. Get millions of adoring fans.”
Beatrice shakes her head. “I can’t imagine a worse fate.”
“Oh really,” Ava says, “how about being hit by a car when you were seven and losing all family and all feeling below your neck?”
“I…” Beatrice stammers, heating under Ava’s stare.
“Don’t pay her any mind,” Diego pipes up. “She does this with everyone.”
Sure enough, Ava’s serious look turns into a devilish grin. “Sorry, it’s too easy. And Diego, stop giving my secrets away to Beatriz.”
“Thank you, Diego,” Beatrice says, and he smiles at her, a little ally.
“So no trip to the Love Island for you?” Ava asks, not skipping a beat. “Too bad, you’re hot enough for it.”
Beatrice stares at her for a second. She feels herself blush, an embarrassing warmth creeping down to the top of her collar.
“I—” she can’t think of anything clever, tongue got up in the spark in Ava’s eye, in another girl calling her hot with no implications that it is wrong. “You’re not supposed to tell nuns they’re hot.”
“Oh, but you’re not a nun,” Ava says.
Touche. Beatrice looks back to the screen, desperate for something to deflect from Ava calling her hot, from how that made her feel something twisted and pleasurable that she thought she had successfully stopped herself from feeling.
“Beatriz is too good for Saul,” she says instead.
Ava laughs in delight. “See, you’re into it.”
Beatrice is absolutely not into the show. But she is into the way Ava and Diego make predictions about who will last longest, who will get paired up with whom. It’s like they have a shared language, a ritual dissecting subpar reality television.
Then the clock hits noon and Diego leaps up.
Ava’s eyes follow him. “You got your orders, soldier?”
“Nothing with sweet potatoes in it, and steal an extra dessert.”
“Outstanding work, captain.”
Diego salutes, then runs out the door.
“Lunch,” Ava says by way of explanation. “Diego likes that little bit we do.”
“Oh sure,” Beatrice says, unable to stop the spread of the smile over her face. “Diego likes that bit.”
Ava laughs. “You got me there, Bea.”
The nickname rolls off her tongue so easily that Beatrice almost misses it. But she doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t. After almost two years of different nuns and priests and teachers over pronouncing every syllable of her name, the ease of the shortening out of Ava’s quick mouth after only knowing her for a day and a half means something. Maybe more than it should.
“He’s a good kid,” Ava says, still watching the doorway where Diego left. “Probably my best friend, which is like, super embarrassing, but you know how it is.”
“It’s not embarrassing,” Beatrice says honestly, “Diego is lovely.”
Ava smiles, a quieter thing than her usual. “He is. And he doesn’t—I don’t know, some of the kids I came in with, they grew up and joined friend groups and went out and did things, right? Because they’re teenagers, of course they’d want to walk and run and sneak out and hook up and leave as fast as they fucking can. And I’m just… here. Still.” Ava breathes out, a little shakily. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s alright,” Beatrice says quickly. It’s the first time she’s seen this kind of defeat in Ava, though she’s sure it’s lingering beneath Ava’s smiles and jokes. “I don’t have many friends, either.”
“Really?” Ava sniffs a little. “I feel like you’d be the most popular nun at the nunnery.”
“Not a nun.”
Ava half laughs in acknowledgement of their little joke and it’s something. It’s enough for Beatrice to keep going.
“I… I had some friends in Catholic school, but I was sent there for… disciplinary reasons, and when gossip broke as to why, I was very much a social pariah.”
Beatrice was expecting a moment of camaraderie from this, of her and Ava both being outcasts, a solemnity of shared pain. Instead Ava’s face brightens, a delighted gasp coming from her lips.
“Oh my god, Bea, what did you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Disciplinary reasons? Did you steal a car? Rob a bank? Kill a man?”
“Lord help me,” Beatrice murmurs under her breath, but not quietly enough.
“Hey, don’t take his name in vaaain,” Ava fake-scolds in a sing-song voice.
“I promise you, that was genuine prayer.”
Ava snorts. “So what did you do?”
Beatrice glances to the door. She does not want to have this conversation. Can’t have this conversation.
“Do you think that Diego will be back soon?” she deflects.
“Probably in like five minutes. So what did you do?”
“I can always go get you lunch if you want it sooner.”
“I can wait. What did you do?”
“Ava.”
“Beatrice. Please. My mission in life is to know what crime you did that got you sent to Catholic school.”
“You just met me.”
“It's a new mission. Top priority. Gotta know.”
And she is so charming with it, mouth quick with each comeback, smiling at Beatrice like she knows she’s being annoying, but also she knows it will work. And there is something else in her gaze, genuine curiosity, like she actually just wants to know more about Beatrice, like if Beatrice told her all of her sins, Ava would be understanding, would care, would listen.
And that’s why Beatrice can’t tell her.
“Lunch delivery, general!”
Beatrice breathes a sigh of relief as Diego stands in the doorway with a tray of, frankly, disgusting food.
“Another successful mission, captain,” Ava says to Diego with a grin, but her eyes flick quickly to Beatrice, quickly whispering, “but still got one more mission to go.”
Beatrice ignores her, focuses instead on getting the tray from Diego and setting herself up next to Ava. It’s some vaguely polenta-like substance, stirred in with some vaguely meat-like blobs.
“Gotta work on your poker face,” Ava says. “I can tell that’s grossing you out.”
“I’m sure it will be perfectly fine,” Beatrice says quickly.
Ava rolls her eyes. “Yeah, perfectly fine. Not like they have you eating gourmet at the convent, I bet.”
“I mean it’s more of simple food. Breads. Cheeses.”
“Ugh, I would kill for some good ol’ bread and cheese. I think they purposefully make it gross here for us.”
From what she’s seen of the staff here, Beatrice doesn’t doubt it. She puts some of the mixture on her spoon.
“On that delightful note,” she says, “open up.”
“Wow, no foreplay, huh?”
“Ava! There is a child here.”
“Bea. He’s watching Love Island.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Just feed me my disgusting lunch already.”
Before her next shift at St. Michael’s, Beatrice stops at a market. She doesn’t really make a habit (there’s a terrible joke in her head from Ava, but she wills it away) of spending money, preparing herself for a life of modesty, but she keeps a few euros on her person at all times. For emergencies. Or for situations like this, for a fresh baguette right out of the oven, for a thick block of manchego cheese.
“It’s a beautiful day outside,” she tells Ava purposefully around 11:45.
“Is it?” Ava asks, turning away from Project Runway. “I guess that sunbeam would imply it, yeah.”
Beatrice turns behind her, looks out the window, just then realizes that Ava can’t even see outside from her bed.
“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go enjoy it.”
“Enjoy what?”
“The day.” Beatrice gets up, grabs the wheelchair in the corner and takes it to Ava’s side.
“Are you pranking me or something?”
“Why would I prank you?”
“No one takes me outside. Just to enjoy the day, are you kidding? What, is there a priest visiting and they’re afraid I’ll talk shit? Are you going to take me out back and shoot me?”
Beatrice rolls her eyes. “It’s simply a nice day to sit in the courtyard. Come on.”
She positions the chair, and hoists Ava up into it. She’s surprisingly light. Not that it should be surprising, it’s not as if Ava has muscle built up in her barely 5 foot frame. Yet something about Ava is larger than life, so much so that it feels wrong how little mass she actually has.
“Jesus, you’re strong,” Ava says once she’s in the chair.
“Lord’s name.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. You work out or something?”
Beatrice grabs her bag and pushes Ava out of her room. “Actually, yes.”
“No fucking way.”
“Language. Is that so unbelievable? Do I strike you as particularly lethargic?”
Ava laughs as Beatrice pushes her down the hall, toward the doors that open into the courtyard. “No, Sister Beatrice, you don’t strike me as particularly lethargic. I just don’t think of nuns as the type to hit the gym.”
“Not a nun yet. And I wouldn’t say I ‘hit the gym,’ but I run in the mornings and lift weights.”
“I just want you to know I’m picturing you with a bunch of bibles in each arm, seeing how many you can lift at a time.”
“Yes, that's exactly what happens.”
Ava laughs again and Beatrice pushes open the doors and then they are out. It’s a gorgeous morning in early July, and though the courtyard of the orphanage isn’t much, it’s still outside, in direct sunlight, still has blades of grass and small flowers poking up between the slabs of cement, desperate to see the sun.
Beatrice wheels Ava to a sunbeam, pulls up a plastic chair to sit next to her. Ava, always one to chatter, is uncharacteristically silent, blinking up at the sun.
“Are you alright?” Beatrice asks. “I can move you if it’s too bright.”
“No,” Ava says. “No, this is perfect. It’s just no one… no takes me out, just to… be.”
Something dark and angry twists in Beatrice’s gut, at everyone in that building, every woman who took vows to carry on God’s holy work, but let this poor girl suffer for twelve years, not even offering her a simple kindness. She tries to ignore it. Instead she reaches into her bag.
“I did perhaps take you out here for slightly more than to just be.”
“Is that so?” Ava turns to her, face bathed in sunlight. She’s smiling. She’s beautiful. It hits Beatrice in the chest just how beautiful she is out here, the sun warming her face, something calm in her eyes, the pink of her lips in such a pure content smile. She’s angelic, almost. Otherworldly. “Bea?”
Beatrice clears her throat. She must have been staring. Staring like how she used to when she was 13 at the pretty girls in ballet class. But now it’s Ava, it’s someone who has been dealt a terrible hand in life, only to have Beatrice stare at her inappropriately. She shifts, focuses on the task at hand.
“Close your eyes,” she tells Ava.
“Oh my god, you are gonna take me out back and shoot me, I knew it!”
“Ava.”
Ava closes her eyes. Beatrice takes a moment, just a moment, to study her a bit further. The roundness of her cheeks, the curve of her eyebrow, the way she’s still smiling slightly, like even though she’s only known Beatrice for a few days, she trusts her. It makes Beatrice warm in her gut, something about being trusted by this person who has no reason to.
Beatrice looks away, not sure what is wrong with her today. She pulls out the bread and cheese from her bag, uses her pocket knife to cut a small bite sized piece of both off.
“Now open your mouth.”
“Beatrice, you dog! I thought you were supposed to be a nun.”
It’s one of Ava’s stupid jokes, but Beatrice still reacts to it, glad Ava’s closed eyes can’t see her blush, can’t see her shift, can’t see her stare at Ava’s mouth when she does open it, at the slight difference in color between the inside and the outside of her lip.
Beatrice swallows, ignores it, and feeds Ava the bread and cheese.
“Oh my God,” Ava says when it hits her tongue, and it’s in such a sinful tone of voice that Beatrice is too distracted to even scold her for it. She watches as Ava reverently chews and swallows, eyes popping open. “Beatrice, you’re an angel.”
“It’s just bread and cheese.”
“Shut the fuck up, that was the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”
“Language.”
“Do you have more?”
“No, I brought this one bite all the way here.”
“Now is not the time for jokes! Feed me, Seymour.”
“What?”
“Little Shop of Horrors! Keep up!”
She’s almost manic, like direct sunlight and one good bite of food has caused her to amplify her Ava-like tendencies. But if she’s amplified, so are Beatrice’s reactions to her, endeared and charmed all over again.
So they sit there in the courtyard for the next hour, Beatrice feeding Ava bites of cheese, and Ava making noises that Beatrice tries not to think about, Beatrice occasionally taking some for herself. It’s odd, she’s had manchego cheese dozens of times, but it’s never tasted quite like this, been quite so perfect.
“Why did you take me out here for the illicit bread?” Ava asks after it’s mostly gone.
“I didn’t want anyone to see,” Beatrice answers truthfully, “I was afraid they might take it away.”
“Yeah, they probably would. Hey, look at you sticking it to authority. Just like when you did that one thing that got you sent to Catholic school.”
Beatrice laughs, shakes her head. “Maybe we should go inside.”
“No, pleaaaase, five more minutes? I promise I won’t ask again about that time you… punched a priest?”
“No. He was a bishop.”
“Really?”
“No!”
Later that week, Beatrice is accosted in the hallway by Sister Frances. For a quick moment, Beatrice is afraid she is somehow going to be berated for the outside food. Then a deeper fear strikes her that she will be assigned away from Ava.
Instead Sister Frances simply says, “tomorrow is Thursday.”
“Yes,” Beatrice says uncertainly.
“On Thursdays, it is some poor soul’s duty to take Silva to the showers.”
Beatrice doesn't think her soul is so poor in this instance. “Happy to do it,” she tells Sister Frances.
And she is. She is because she isn’t stupid. She’s sure Ava is roughly thrown into a chair, cold water is poured upon her, the nuns not caring that Ava does have feeling in her head and neck when they wash her hair. And Ava doesn’t deserve that.
So on Thursday, Beatrice comes to see Ava early, wears her water resistant workout clothes. She stops in a store before St. Michael's, buys a soft towel, a good quality hairbrush, and some of that nice shampoo that’s always in the commercials during whatever reality show Ava and Diego choose to watch.
“You’re early,” Ava remarks when Beatrice walks in. Beatrice tries not to react to Ava knowing when she comes in every day.
“It’s Thursday,” Beatrice says in response.
“Observant in the morning, are we. Beatrice?”
Beatrice smiles. “I’ve been told it’s the day to go to the showers.”
“Oh.” Ava’s almost constant smile she gets when she’s teasing Beatrice falters. “And they’re making you do it.”
“It’s not a punishment,” Beatrice quickly says, “I’m more than happy to—”
“Yeah, whatever.”
It’s dismissive, cold almost, so unlike the Ava that Beatrice has gotten to know over the past week (a week, this person has only been in Beatrice’s life for a week), that it gives Beatrice pause.
“I can get one of the other nuns if you want—”
“It’s not that.”
Ava’s voice breaks at the end and Beatrice feels it in her chest. She kneels down beside the bed so that she’s at eye level with Ava. She can see the hint of tears forming in her eyes, a blotchy flush on her face. Beatrice isn’t sure why, but if she’s learned anything in years of schooling and strictness, it is to be patient.
And it works. Eventually, Ava breathes out a shaky breath and meets Beatrice’s eyes.
“It’s just—the nuns here, they fucking suck, right? They’re mean and old and they tell me to my face that I’m a burden.”
That hot anger is back and Beatrice wants to take Ava and run, wants to exile Sister Frances to the desert, wants to—
“Jesus, Bea, you look like you want to commit murder.”
Beatrice looks down. She used to be so good at keeping emotion from her face.
“I’m sorry, you were in the middle of—”
“Oh my God, please don’t be sorry for having murderous thoughts about the nuns here. It’s an honor.”
Beatrice smiles, mainly because Ava sounds like Ava again. “You were saying,” she softly prompts.
“Right. Anyway. They suck here. So I don’t care if they”—Ava looks away from Beatrice again—“I don’t care if they see me like this. If they see how useless and broken I am, that I can’t even take a shower or brush my teeth, that I have bags attached to my body that I piss and shit into. Hell, I love that the nuns here have to deal with me, if I make their life a little worse. Because at the end of the day, their opinion means shit. But Beatrice, you—” Her voice breaks again, a tear falling from her eye and Beatrice desperately wants to wipe it off, but resists. “You’re my friend. And you look at me like I’m a person, not an obligation, not just the sad fucking orphan who can’t move. And you—you’re going to strip me down and you’re going to take me to the showers and it’s going to be hard and annoying and you’ll realize that it’s not fucking worth it anymore to be my friend—”
“Ava.” Beatrice can’t help herself anymore. She lifts her hand up to Ava’s cheek, thumb brushing over her tears, gently moving Ava’s face so she is looking at Beatrice. It’s soft against the palm of Beatrice’s hand. “I promise that won’t happen. I promise my opinion of you won’t change.”
“But you don’t know that.” It’s whispered, like a dark fear that can only be said quietly, in the darkness of the early morning.
“I do know that. I know that if I take you this morning to the showers, you are going to make a dumb joke about me being a nun but seeing you naked, though I am not a nun. And you are going to laugh when I correct you, and you are going to think of a fun fact to tell Diego when you get back and you are going to explain a season of Survivor to me though I still don’t think that show is particularly ethical and you are going to ask me why I got sent to Catholic school and I will refuse to tell you. You are going to be kind and funny and observant and I will not think less of you, no matter what function your body has. Because you will be you, Ava Silva. And despite what anyone has said, I’ve grown quite fond of you this past week.”
Ava is still crying, tears falling from her eyes and landing on the curve of Beatrice’s thumb. Beatrice has to control her breath to not cry herself. She hadn’t fully thought of the words before saying them, but knows their truth, knows that she wakes up looking forward to seeing Ava, has grown such a large attachment in such a small amount of time. It is something that perhaps should cause alarm, but at the moment it does not. If her affection for Ava can provide Ava some peace in this world that has been so hard for her, Beatrice is glad it exists. Is glad she can kneel beside Ava’s bed and touch her face and tell her she is special.
Ava sniffs. “Shit, Bea,” she finally says.
“Language,” Beatrice murmurs because she knows it will make Ava laugh. It does.
“Shut up, we’re having a moment.”
Beatrice smiles at her, wipes her cheeks dry.
“Perhaps we are.”
“Enough of a moment to tell me why you got sent to Catholic school?”
It’s Beatrice’s turn to laugh, the sheer relief of Ava being Ava enough to loosen her insides, to let her face break free with a grin.
“Let’s get you to the showers.”
“Getting me naked will not distract me from my mission, no matter how hard you try!”
It’s a comment that a few days ago would have made Beatrice stomach drop, but now it just makes her smile.
There is, however, something quite intimate about bathing another person, even if that reason is not so simple as nudity. Beatrice looks at Ava’s body anatomically, practically, only touching when she needs to, making sure to be thorough. She’s sure the occasional sponge bath and trip to the showers from the other nuns have been quick and careless, so Beatrice makes a point to be careful, soap in every crevice, water perfectly warm.
When Beatrice gets to Ava’s hair, Ava eyes the bottle of shampoo.
“That’s not what they stock here.”
“Well, I figured you could use something nice.” Beatrice feels a little warm, not from the water, but from her gesture being acknowledged for what it is.
Ava smiles at her. “Wouldn’t expect a nun to shell out for twenty euro shampoo.”
Beatrice shakes her head, squirts some of the shampoo in her hand.
“I’m not a nun. And I happen to have some disposable funds, so I figured they should go to good use.”
Ava gasps. “Bea, are you rich?”
Beatrice lathers her hands, rolls her eyes. “I am committing to a life of humility and modesty, but… my family does come from a significant amount of money, yes.”
“Oh my god, what a reveal!” Ava practically squeals in delight. “Did you ride horses? Did you have a butler? Did you summer in France?”
Embarrassingly, all of those are true. Beatrice sighs.
“I take that as a yes, Sister Moneybags,” Ava says, “wow, I can’t wait to tell Diego the hot gossip.”
Beatrice sighs again, this one mostly performative, before she rubs the shampoo into Ava’s hair, her fingertips firm on Ava’s scalp, making sure to remove all traces of oil.
A sound falls from Ava’s lips at this, something low and throaty that makes Beatrice’s ears go pink.
“Are you alright?” Beatrice asks, like a fool.
“Uh-huh,” Ava says, higher than usual. “I just, um—am not really used to being touched like that. It’s—it’s nice.”
Beatrice breathes out. She is not going to deny this girl something she does not often get, just because Beatrice herself feels like her skin is too tight for her body after the noises Ava makes. That wouldn’t be fair. Beatrice can simply ignore it.
“Alright,” she says quietly. She proceeds to rub in the shampoo, continues to touch Ava’s scalp, and continues to try to ignore the way Ava’s breath quickens. She rinses it off, moves the hair from Ava’s neck, traces the edge where her hair meets her skin.
“Oh,” Ava says, at the press of Beatrice’s fingertips, and Beatrice feels a world in that “oh,” feels five years spent burying certain thoughts undone by a syllable from this girl's mouth.
“I think we should be all set,” she says quickly, turning off the water.
Ava looks at her. Her eyelashes are wet, there are droplets on her mouth.
“Thanks, Bea,” she says softly and genuinely, and some chasm in Beatrice’s chest stretches and stretches.
“Of course,” she manages.
“Still want to be my friend?” Her grin is cheeky, but Beatrice can see something in her eye, that fear from earlier.
“Of course,” Beatrice repeats, louder, firmer. “You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”
Ava’s smile is a beam of sunlight after a dark winter. Beatrice can only stare.
That night, she prays. It’s a habit (no, not that joke now) that she’s formed over the past five years. To drop to her knees and ask for penance after noticing the beauty in another woman’s smile. It’s been a while since she’s felt the urge for this particular prayer.
Yet when she kneels on the chapel floor, it brings back the memory of this morning, of her on her knees on the hard floor next to Ava’s bed, of years of people treating Ava like she was nothing, of Beatrice desperate to let her know that she is worth more than most every other person Beatrice has met.
Before she knows what’s happening, Beatrice is not praying for her sinful thoughts to leave, she is not praying for the strength to avert her eyes from another woman. She doesn’t pray for herself at all. She prays for Ava, she prays that each day brings more joy than the last, prays that no one else will make her feel lesser than she is, prays that the very smile that Beatrice sinfully stared at will only come out more and more.