to see you smile - avatrice

chapter 1

It’s a fact universally acknowledged that Beatrice is not an animal person. She doesn’t mind them, or anything, but… she thinks owning animals is a weird concept in general, and she doesn’t understand why you’d want the unnecessary hassle and cost. There’s feeding it, walking it, taking it to the vet, cleaning up after it… and then you pour all your love and money into it and it dies and you get a new one. It boggles the mind slightly. Of course, most people who meet her don’t really think she’s a people person, either, which is weird given she’s a social worker. But she is definitely a people person. As evidenced by her collection of strays at the weekly Sunday night dinner.

Camila, of course, is a regular, because she’d never hear the end of it if she wasn’t. And Beatrice remains unconvinced she would have graduated without scurvy if she hadn’t fed Camila vegetables at least once a week. Despite her argument that “vet” is a legitimate medical degree and Beatrice needs to calm her shit.

Her high school best friends, Michael and Yasmin, who were inseparable in the beginning. But… there’s less Michael and more Yasmin since “the accident” (and there’s only ever one accident they talk about like that, a hideous car crash with Yasmin behind the wheel and JC, Michael’s boyfriend, dead). Shannon, who worked in the same bar Beatrice did after high school. And then there was Lilith, who everyone knew was smitten with Camila but hasn't done anything about it.

Mary, who’d fixed Beatrice's car and somehow turned that and a weird one night where they got absolutely wasted and kissed turned into them being the best of friends. The roster changes from time to time, but they’re her strays, her people, and she takes them in and looks after them, and feeds them, and worries about them, and makes sure they know they always have somewhere to go or someone to call in a crisis.

And then… there’s Ava.

She’d come into Beatrice's life about a year ago in a tornado of sharp edges, exasperated sighs, and glares.

Then there's work, the kids she looks after.

Arela. It still hurts Beatrice to think about, the ones she couldn’t save, but Arela hurts most. She got under her skin. She was just ten years old and so small and slight, and so alone in the world. Her junkie mother overdosed and her father didn’t want her, and when Beatrice had removed her from the home, she’d had bruises and cigarette burns on her arms. She’d clenched her fists and tightened her jaw and not punched anything and called it a win.

And then Ava Silva, perfect, pretty, has it all Ava Silva, wanted to place her in a group home for previous offenders. Which, Arela only stole to eat, and it’s institutionalised poverty and penalising her for every single person and system in her life letting her down. It was unprofessional to shout the way Beatrice did, but Ava leveled her gaze and stated the facts and Beatrice hated her for being right, hated her for having money, hated her as if she were the system itself. But Arela went into the group home, and Ava visited her, tried to help her, Beatrice found out later. After Arela died - gangs and crime and drugs, in the end it was a world she didn’t know how to live without. Ava cried at the funeral and Beatrice invited her to Sunday night dinner without meaning to, really, and she was surprised when Ava came.

Beatrice was even more surprised to find in her someone who quickly became the person she wanted to have a drink with at the end of a hard day. Someone that helped her understand Lilith, and could make Michael laugh, and get Mary to open up. Ava became part of her life almost by accident. And, in her defence, she didn’t realise she was in love with her, or falling, until it was too late. She’s not sure what she could have done about it, exactly, but she figures that whatever modicum of self-preservation she has might have tried to prevent it. If she’d known. And of course it’s Camila is the one who tells her… because for all they are different, there is a part of them that will always know the other better than they know themselves.

“Bea, I’ve got some bad news for you,” Camila says, sitting beside her at the bar. It’s a Friday night, and the afterwork crowd is patchy at best, but Beatrice likes it there, and likes that herself and Camila can actually have a drink together and hang out sometimes now, without her feeling like she needs to be the younger woman's parent. It’s good, being her friend. She doesn’t sound particularly remorseful or upset, so Beatrice is pretty sure she’s about to mock her rather than give her actual bad news, so she smiles at her.

“What’s that?” Beatrice asks, taking a sip of her drink, smiling at a pretty girl that’s been trying to subtly check her out for the past half hour. She’s not feeling particularly committed to it, but it’s nice to be appreciated.

“You know how in Tangled, when Rapunzel is looking at the floating lanterns and Flynn is looking at the look on his face he’s all like ‘you’re my new dream’ or whatever?” Camila asks. Beatrice frowns, and takes a beat to look at her, trying to let her brain catch up to what is going on because it’s literally six pm and there is no way Camila should be that drunk right now.

“Uh… Yeah?” she asks.

“That’s how you look at Ava,” Camila informs her, blunt as always. Beatrice stares at her.

“I do not,” she begins, but Camila gives her a look that silences her. Ava’s currently having a conversation that involves a bizarre amount of gesticulation with a guy that she recognises as being one of her work colleagues in another corner of the bar, and her eyes drift over to Ava.

Oh, she thinks. And it dawns on her a weird moment of revelation, like math class and you’re working on something for hours and then the formula magically makes sense and everything slots into place. But there’s no sense of victory like with the math problem. Just an emptying of her stomach.

“Well,” Beatrice says after a moment, because Camila is clearly waiting for her to say something. “That’s a thing.” Camila snorts derisively and finishes her drink, clearly amused with Beatrice.

“For someone who is literally trained in dealing with human emotions, you are really woefully unselfaware,” she informs her. Beatrice rolls her eyes fondly. Already used to the banter they have.

“For someone who was meant to be trained in delivering bad news you’re surprisingly unsympathetic,” Beatrice retorts. She raises her eyebrows.

“You think it’s bad news?” Camila asks, and it’s a genuine question and Beatrice doesn’t know the answer, so she shrugs.

“I don’t know yet. I’ll probably get over it, it'll pass” Beatrice offers, hoping. It’s not that Ava’s not amazing, because she is. Or that she’s not her best friend, because she is. It’s just that she’d rather have her in her life as a friend than lose her because she wants to see if they would work well together. And she’s obviously felt this way for a while now and it’s been fine. So.

“You’re ridiculous,” Camila says, almost cheerfully. “And you’re going to get your heart broken. You should get a dog so you have someone to hug when you’re alone at night and pining for Ava.” It isn’t the first time that Camila has told her she should get a dog - there’s been an ongoing campaign stretching years. But Beatrice is pretty sure it comes more from Camila wanting access to a dog whenever she wants because she and Lilith live in an apartment, and she’s their only friend with a yard. She argued that it would be aesthetically pleasing to see Beatrice with a dog a couple of months ago. She’s not terrible subtle.

“I’m not getting a dog, Cam,” Beatrice replies. “I wouldn’t even know what to do with a dog. Get a backyard and get your own dog.” Camila sighs and clinks her empty glass with her half full.

“I have to go. Lilith’s last surgery should be finishing up, and I told her I’d help her do final rounds,” Camila says. And then she’s gone, and Beatrice is sitting at a bar, alone, trying to decide if she should smile at the pretty girl, or talk to Ava, or go home, and life’s suddenly a lot more awkward than she remembered it being. She blames Camila.

Beatrice goes home.