Worth the Trouble ✓

22 | hallelujah

THE NEXT DAY, MY SUPERVISOR came to fetch me from Theatre 6.

My first reaction was oh, shit. I thought I'd fucked up somehow, like missing a spot in one of the theatres or overselling tickets for a screening. His voice comes from the back door of the cinema.

"Terrence," he says, and I prepared to deny, deny, deny. "You in here?"

Squinting, I pick out his face and lower my broom. "Yes?"

"Someone's asking for you. At the register. Young girl."

Suki. Why is she here?

"Oh. Right." The broom drops out of my slack hand before I even realise, and I fumble to pick it up again. "Sorry, um, can I take my lunch break right now?"

The supervisor checks his watch. "Yeah. Okay. When you get back, send someone from Front of House on theirs, okay?"

"Got it. Thank you."

So then it's almost like yesterday, some sick universal time reversion. Suki in her big green parka, and me taking her into the staffroom, and everything between us tense and uncomfortable. All the same.

To be honest, I'm pleasantly surprised Suki even cared enough to come back the next day. She sent me a litany of text messages apologising, but I opened each without fully reading it. It had been bad timing, and I wasn't able to really talk.

Terrence: Still working. Will call after my shift.

And I did call her. And she apologised more, and I kept saying it was fine, and she kept saying that it wasn't, and after maybe fifteen cycles of the same infuriating pattern, I snapped. "If it's not fine, would you even do anything about it?"

Turns out, she did.

"What are you doing here?" I cross my arms.

Suki's eyes flick nervously around the staffroom, scanning for people that aren't around. "I'm so sorry for keeping it from you."

"I said, it's fine."

"Stop. We're not going round in this circle again." Suki sighs heavily, rubbing her temple with two fingers.

She strides over to the couch in the corner and lowers herself into it. "Come on. Please. Just sit, and let me say everything I have to say, and then afterwards you can tell me it's all fine—but only if you mean it."

It only takes me a beat of indecision to do it. My heart squeezes in my chest, telling me I love her too much to ever not let her walk all over me.

"Okay. Shoot."

She draws a deep inhale. Her shoulders slump when all the air escapes her again, and I wonder if she has those tension knots again. Focus.

Suki fiddles with the cord in the hoodie of the parka as she speaks. "The house I grew up in, I had to hide things. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents. They are dedicated and consistent and loving, and I know they would always try to support me."

She sends a watery smile my way, one lip tugged up more than the other. "But I figured out when I was like, twelve, that their support sometimes looks a bit overbearing. They don't talk about mental health. They don't talk about sex as anything but a sin."

I knew that.

"When I got bullied in elementary school, I hid it. When I was depressed in middle school, I hid it. I hide all these things because if I'm not going to get the support I want, then why would I bother dumping these problems onto someone?"

I didn't know that.

When Suki reaches for my hand, I give it readily. My index finger traces over the ridge of her knuckles, up, down, up, down. "I want to give you the support you deserve."