and a spark goes off. she can taste it faintly: mac and cheese, a hint of blood, a sharp laugh. sours her stomach on instinct.
she had lied. well, was it lying if she believed it? because yelena had been drinking, and she had been working, and she had been staring at her phone. well, one phone in particular. one she couldn’t bring herself to toss after a miscalculated mission.
one that had six missed calls and several reread texts.
one that she couldn’t bring herself to pick up or respond. one that stopped pinging after six months of waiting.
that counted as being alone, right? being unable to lean into the only warmth offered, unable to just pick up on that third ring, being unable to stop staring at a screen… was it still alone when after too much to drink she listened to the voicemails?
the sudden feeling was too big to stuff down. the name was whispered, subconsciously springing from heart to tongue.
yelena turned on her heel and went back out the curtains. somewhere lodged between her extensive knowledge of gun cleaning and peewee soccer goal keeping, was the painful awareness that kate should be home. a painful awareness that kate went to the void.
there were shouts after her, hands reaching out, but all she could offer was a whined: “kate.”
there was a burning in her chest. she imagined it was the same alexie had felt: a shameful helplessness. because she too had not picked up the phone, or picked a lock, or tried. because she too was bloated with grief, unable to be anything except a walking corpse.
but now there was something sturdier righting her just between the ribs, yelena could feel it growing. the steadying weight of purpose. and she knew how disorienting it was to come out of the blip, and how curdling the void could be. she wanted to try this time.
and she knew everything about kate bishop. she knew there would be at least one room. she knew there would be a clawing guilt behind at least one door. she just didn’t expect… she didn’t expect… yelena had miscalculated the toll of a dead father and betrayed mother. she miscalculated the kind of pressure a six-year old can create to become the household’s protector.
she confused kate bishop’s compulsion for perfection as an egotistical bravado.
but yelena was painfully correct about kate bishop being home and in the path of the void. all it took was an open window.
and kate was sitting in the kitchen floor, face still flushed and eyes ringed red. she had more scars than yelena had left her with. lucky was pressed against her side, head pitifully in kate’s lap.
and kate was unfazed by yelena’s sudden appearance. only a slight hitch to her voice when she asked, “did you come to leave again, too?”
there was a shadow to her face that hadn’t been there before.
she looked so small and so pitiful. and yelena’s gut retched, because she had thought that maybe there would be someone else here picking kate off the floor. but it was just kate, and the dog, and yelena.
it was a silly thought because yelena knew everything about kate bishop. kate only came back to this apartment when she missed her mom. it was in the fifth voicemail that kate had left, tucked into the tenth minute mark. such bad timing.
yelena slid down the kitchen cabinets to sit next to kate, letting their shoulders touch. yelena stared ahead, absently reaching her hand over to pet lucky’s head.
finally kate asked: “how did you know to come here?”
“because you used my phone like diary.”
“i didn’t actually think you would listen.”
kate’s smile was small, but it was just like yelena remembered when she had agreed to drinks. sheepish but with a stab of joy.
