Chapter Text
Agatha was going to be sick. She was going to be sick, she was going to—
Suddenly she was in the bathroom at the end of the hall, bent over the toilet and puking up the remnants of a bologna sandwich and potato soup. Cool hands held her hair back and traced soothing circles between her shoulder blades as she emptied her stomach into the porcelain. Agatha knew without looking that it was Rio.
“I got you,” Rio murmured as Agatha straightened up. “Easy.”
“It was my mother,” Agatha gasped, leaning against the side of the tub. “My mother took Ava.”
Rio’s brows furrowed as she stood and wet a washcloth with cool water. She handed it to Agatha, who wiped her mouth and then folded the towel and pressed it against her forehead.
“Are you sure?”
Agatha nodded. “Her necklace was in the cradle. It must have fallen off when she took Ava.”
Alice was standing in the bathroom door, holding the locket in her hands. “Are you sure it’s hers?”
Agatha nodded. “It’s a family heirloom. She always wears it. I’d know it anywhere.”
“Okay, we’re going to need all the information you can give us on your mother.”
Agatha stood and followed Alice to the living room where the sheriff was waiting.
“This was in her bedroom,” Alice told him, holding up the necklace. “Agatha says it belongs to her mother.”
Another deputy appeared with a plastic bag, and they carefully placed the locket inside for evidence.
“My mother wanted to take Ava when she was born,” Agatha said. “She came to the hospital and said she and her husband would take Ava and raise her. But I told her no, that I was keeping my baby. She was angry—” Agatha’s voice broke and Rio ushered her to the sofa. Agatha sat beside Mrs. Davis and Rio sat beside her, sandwiching her between them. “I should’ve realized sooner.”
“It’s okay,” Rio assured her. “You figured it out.”
“We’ll need your mother’s name and information, as well as her husband’s,” the sheriff told her.
Agatha told the sheriff everything she knew. He seemed hopeful that with this information they could track down her mother and Calvin quickly. Once Agatha had told them everything she could remember, most of the officers left the house. Only one remained, a young man who looked to barely be out of high school, just in case there was a phone call or someone showed up.
“We’ll let you know as soon as we find anything,” Alice assured her.
Agatha nodded. “Just find her, Alice.”
After the police left, Agatha ran to the bathroom to throw up again. Rio followed, holding her hair and then refreshing the damp rag and handing it to her. Agatha sat slumped against the side of the tub and looked up at where Rio was sitting atop the closed toilet.
“You should go home, Rio,” she said, her voice raw from the heaving and the crying. “You need to take care of Hela.”
“I already called Maria and Carol and explained what’s going on,” Rio replied. “Carol’s gonna go take the night shift with her. I’m not going anywhere until Ava is back.”
That familiar warmth that only Rio seemed to bring filled Agatha’s chest again, but instead of feeling comforting, it made her want to vomit. She leaned into the cool bathroom tile and sighed.
“They have to find her, Rio,” she said, fighting down the sob that was rising in her throat. If she started crying, she would be useless. She had to keep it together.
“Would your mother really hurt Ava?” Rio asked. “She’s her grandchild, afterall.”
And Agatha had been her daughter, but that never stopped Evanora. Agatha’s chest clenched at the very thought of Evanora hurting Ava the way she hurt Agatha as a child. True, her mother hadn’t left many scars, and all of them had been unintentional— a small sliver of a cut on her jaw from her ring, lines criss-crossed on her back and thighs from a switch and once a belt swung with too much fury. All in the name of discipline. But the pain and fear Evanora had inflicted was still real.
Agatha reminded herself that all that had come later, when she was older. Ava was still small.
“I don’t think so,” Agatha replied. “Not until she’s older. And Calvin won’t—”
Agatha’s voice broke, the sob rising unbidden. Her mother hadn’t met Calvin until Agatha was six. She didn’t really know how early his predilections went.
“Agatha?”
Agatha sniffled. “They have to find her, Rio.”
When Agatha came out of the bathroom, Mrs. Davis tried to get her to rest, but Agatha refused. She couldn’t rest, not while her mother had Ava. Instead she paced, her feet wearing the thread of Mrs. Davis’s living room rug. Every step she took made a muffled clomp against the floor and her entire body shook with pent up energy and anxiety.
Mrs. Davis and Mr. Prim sat in the kitchen, near the phone. Mr. Prim manned the coffee pot, so that the scent of strong brew filled the entire house. Eventually Mrs. Davis began cleaning— she washed the dishes, scrubbed the sink and all of the counters, and began folding and refolding laundry on the kitchen table.
Rio sat in the straight-backed chair closest to the living room door, unmoving as a statue. Her eyes were trained on the door, but occasionally they flicked to Agatha, watching her as she paced once, twice, three times across the floor, before looking back toward the door. Even so, Agatha could see the barely-contained fury and anxiety simmering just beneath the surface. Agatha knew that Rio kept her emotions tightly under wraps, so much so that sometimes it scared her.
When Agatha lived with the Douglases, the family had a dog. A tawny brown thing with a black muzzle that lived outside and loved to play ball with the children. It was sweet and playful and never hurt anyone— until the day that it did. That day four-year-old Pete Douglas was playing with the dog, and for some reason the dog decided that it had had enough. It didn’t raise its hackles, didn’t pin its ears, didn’t growl or make any noise. The only warning they might’ve seen was its muscles growing tighter and tighter, like a rubber band about to snap. Before anyone knew what had happened the dog bit Pete on the face, ripping a chunk of skin from his jaw. The boy was left with a permanent scar and Mr. Douglas shot the dog the next day.
Rio reminded Agatha of that dog. Still. Coiled. Silent. But ready to snap at any moment.
When the police car pulled into the driveway, Rio was the first one up. She opened the door before Alice could knock, wordlessly beckoning her inside.
“Did you find her?” Mrs. Davis asked, coming out of the kitchen. Such a stupid question, Agatha thought. She could read Alice’s expression well enough to know that they hadn’t had any luck.
“No, we haven’t found her,” Alice replied. She looked at Agatha. “You should probably sit down.”
Agatha crossed her arms. “I would rather stand.”
“Agatha, don’t be difficult,” Rio growled.
“Difficult?” Agatha mocked. “My daughter has been kidnapped by my mother, Rio. I think I’m allowed to be a little difficult.”
“That’s not what I—“ Rio shut her mouth, jaw tense. She looked back at Alice. “What is it?”
Alice sighed. “We contacted the Trinity Springs police department and they checked the residence of Calvin Black and Evanora Harkness. They found Mr. Black deceased.”
Agatha’s eyes widened. “Calvin is dead?”
“How?” Rio asked.
“Single gunshot wound to the head,” Alice replied. “According to the police chief, earlier this week they arrested Mr. Black on charges of indecent liberties with minors. Several young girls and their families in his church came forward with accusations, the youngest of whom was just five years old. He was arrested and arraigned and released on bond yesterday.”
“So he killed himself?” Rio asked.
Alice hesitated. “No. The gunshot was to the back of the head, and they couldn’t find the weapon. He was shot while he was eating dinner.”
Agatha felt cold. Her mother had killed Calvin. And then she came here and took Ava.
“Agatha?” Alice said, her voice gentle. “Do you have any idea where your mother might go now?”
“Back home, maybe.” Agatha’s reply was automatic, like her body was speaking for her but her mind wasn’t completely engaged.
“Does she have any friends or relatives she might contact?”
Agatha shook her head. Her mother had cut all ties when she left, and Agatha couldn’t remember the names of any of her friends from back in the day.
“Alright,” Alice sighed. “We’ve issued a BOLO on her car, and law enforcement up and down the East coast are looking for her. We’re trying to keep this out of the news for the moment, in case it might trigger her to do something extreme, but if we haven’t found her by morning we’ll be calling in news stations.”
“Something extreme?” Mrs. Davis said. “Oh, you don’t think she’d hurt little Ava, do you?”
“I have to get out of here.”
Agatha’s feet were moving before anyone could react to her words. She shouldered past Alice and out the door, ignoring the calls of the people inside the house. She needed to move, she needed to get out of that room, she needed to do something, anything. The night air was cold on her face, and Agatha hadn’t picked up her jacket, but she ignored the chill as her feet carried her through Mrs. Davis’s yard, past the dogwood sapling, around the corner and through the backyard. She walked through the darkness, past the garden, through the church cemetery, around to the front of the church. It was only when she stood on the sidewalk in front of the church doors, the small nativity scene glowing just a few feet away, that she came to a stop.
Agatha stared up at the church steeple, the cross glowing faintly against the dark sky. Her mother’s religious fervor, along with her own life experiences, had driven her away from any kind of faith in a higher power. She thought it far more likely that there was no god, and if there was, well, he-she-they were terrible. What kind of being would let a man like Calvin hurt little girls? What kind of god would let her mother take her daughter away from her? Not one that Agatha wanted anything to do with.
And yet…
“Please don’t hurt her,” Agatha whispered into the night, her eyes fixed on the cross high above her. “She’s good. She’s so little and she’s good. I promise I’ll raise her to be good, just…”
“Agatha?”
She wasn’t surprised that Rio had followed her. Rio laid a heavy coat across her shoulders, and Agatha realized it wasn’t her own, but Rio’s, the heavy scent of spice filling her nose.
“I couldn’t stay in that house,” Agatha told her. “I know there’s nothing that I can do, but I just…”
“I understand,” Rio nodded. “So you wanna sit down?”
Agatha didn’t want to sit down. She wanted to find her daughter. She wished that she was a bloodhound, that she could put her nose to the ground and track Ava’s baby-sweet scent. Or a bird, so that she could fly as high as the church steeple and spot her mother’s car from the sky.
She sat huddled beside Rio on the front steps of the church. She could hear the river flowing just beneath them, the steady stream of water roaring softly in the otherwise still night. She could feel Rio’s gaze on her, but Agatha didn’t look at her, didn’t dare. She knew that the moment she did, she would come apart.
“The answer to your question is yes,” Agatha said after a few minutes.
“I didn’t ask a question,” Rio said, tone laced with confusion.
“You didn’t have to ask it,” Agatha murmured.
Rio was quiet then, her body tense. Finally she said, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
Agatha knew that was true. Rio would never pressure her to tell her about Calvin. She had never pressured her to talk about Ralph, about her time living in Walmart, about her childhood. But telling Rio always seemed to make things better, always felt like a weight lifted off her shoulders.
“My mother met Calvin when I was seven,” Agatha began. “He never lived with us, officially. He worked for a local church as a youth minister, so living with a woman he wasn’t married to would’ve been a scandal. But he stayed over a lot.
“I actually liked him, at first,” Agatha continued. “He would buy me treats and dresses. One time he caught my mother taking a belt to my back and he stopped her, actually grabbed her arm mid-swing and stopped her.” Agatha sniffled. “He said it was a shame to damage something so pretty.”
Agatha’s hands clenched around the hem of Rio’s coat. “He started touching me the day I started third grade. He said I was a big girl and old enough to do big girl things. And he told me that if I told my mother, she would be very angry and probably beat me. So I didn’t tell her. But… I’m pretty sure she knew. She started looking at me differently. Whenever Calvin would look at me or try to give me a treat, she would fly into a rage.”
“To protect you?”
Agatha shook her head. “No. She was jealous. Jealous that I pulled his attention away from her.”
“Fucking cunt,” Rio muttered. “How long—?”
“About six months,” Agatha replied. “That next spring they left. Mother and Calvin both promised that they’d come back for me, but they never did. I guess Calvin found more little girls to hurt, wherever they settled.”
Calvin’s death, at least, was one good thing to come of all this. Throughout the years, Agatha had imagined him dying multiple times. Had imagined killing him herself. She had imagined how it would feel, knowing he was no longer out there in the world, that he couldn’t hurt her or any other little girl ever again. Now that it had happened… Agatha felt nothing. She was too busy worrying about Ava to feel any relief that her abuser was gone.
“That bastard,” Rio growled. “Your mother is a terrible person, but at least she put a bullet in his head. Might be the only good thing she ever did, other than give birth to you.”
Agatha looked at Rio sharply. “You think that was a good thing?”
“Her shooting that pedophile? Yeah. Don’t you?”
“Well, yeah, but that’s not what I mean,” Agatha said.
Rio stared at her in confusion. “You mean her giving birth to you? Was that a good thing?”
Agatha nodded.
“Of course that was a good thing,” Rio said, as if it were obvious. “How someone that horrible managed to have you as a daughter is beyond me, Agatha, but I’ll forever be grateful that she did.”
“My mother didn’t think it was a good thing,” Agatha told her. “She didn’t want me when she was pregnant. And then my father left, further proving to her that I was bad. And then when I was three I almost burned the house down—”
“Wait, what?”
“Well, it was a faulty wire, but the faulty wire was in a heater in my bedroom,” Agatha explained.
“That’s— That’s not—” Rio sputtered. “That wasn’t your fault.”
“Sure, but it was in my room.”
“That’s fucked up,” Rio told her.
Agatha shrugged. “That was my mother’s logic, anyway. And then… with what happened with Calvin…”
“Again, not your fault,” Rio insisted. “A grown ass man did terrible things to you, a child. You couldn’t consent, you couldn’t ask for it. He was a fucking pedophile, an evil, evil man. It was his fault, and if your mother knew about it and didn’t do anything to stop it, it was her fault, too.”
Agatha didn’t respond to that. It didn’t matter if Rio was right. Evanora didn’t see it that way, and Evanora had Ava.
“I’m sure she looks at me now and sees that I’ve had Ava out of wedlock and it just proves her point,” Agatha looked down at her lap. “I don’t know… Maybe she’s right.”
“Agatha—”
“I’m not good, Rio,” Agatha said. “You might believe that I am, but I’m not, okay? I may not be as wicked as my mother thinks I am, but I’m not good. I’m broken and messed up and selfish and I’m not…” Agatha’s body shook with a sob and she struggled to take in a deep breath. “Part of me wonders…”
“Wonders what?” Rio asked, wrapping her arms around Agatha’s body, trying to calm her sobbing.
“I wonder if maybe this is what I deserve,” Agatha whispered between sobs. “If this is God punishing me.”
“I didn’t think you believed in a god,” Rio noted.
“I don’t know what I believe tonight,” Agatha said. “But whatever it is, God or just the universe in general.. It feels like I’m being punished. Like maybe I deserve it.”
Rio shook her head. “Agatha, I don’t think God or the universe has anything to do with this. Your mother made the choice to take Ava. It’s just her doing this to you, because she’s evil. She’s the bad one here, not you.”
Agatha couldn’t argue that Evanora was evil. But she still wasn’t sure this wasn’t some cosmic punishment. She had been happy, too happy. The universe couldn’t let that go on.
“You don’t deserve this, Agatha,” Rio continued. “You deserve…”
The sound of a baby’s cry pierced the night air. Agatha was on her feet in a flash, eyes wide in the dark. She looked down at Rio, whose eyes were just as wide, staring into the darkness.
“You don’t think—?” Rio began, just as another cry rang out.
“That’s her,” Agatha said, running in the direction of the cry.
“Agatha, wait, we need to get the police,” Rio called after her.
“You get the police, I’m getting my daughter!” Agatha shouted, running toward the crying infant.
Agatha ran across the bridge and down the backstreet that ran alongside the river. She came to a park where local kids played soccer and people walked their dogs, and a small gravel drive led down to a river access point where fishermen and kayakers would go to reach the riverside. Agatha ran down the path, through the trees, and found a dark sedan with Georgia plates parked there. Another cry pierced the air, and Agatha rushed forward.
Her mother was kneeling by the river, and Agatha could see Ava in her arms. She held Ava over the edge of the water with one hand, muttering to herself while she used the other hand to scoop cold river water up and pour it over the screaming baby’s head.
“I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” Evanora said, her voice husky and raw In the cold air. “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. I baptize you…”
“Mother?”
Evanora froze for a moment. Then she stood on shaky feet and turned towards Agatha. She wasn’t wearing a coat, just a short-sleeved gray dress that was far too cold for the December air. Her bony arms shivered as they wrapped tight around Ava, and Agatha could see the metallic glint of a revolver in the same hand that Evanora was using to hold the baby. Agatha realized, too, that Ava’s clothes were dripping wet, not just from the water Evanora had sprinkled over her head, but like she had been completely dunked in the frigid river.
“You baptized her?” Agatha asked, forcing herself to stay calm.
“Had to wash the evil out of the child,” Evanora explained. “Had to cleanse her, make sure she was ready.”
“Ready?” Agatha parroted.
Evanora nodded. “She will go to heaven now.”
Agatha’s heart pounded in her chest. Ava started crying even louder, and Evanora shook her roughly, shushing her.
“Mother,” Agatha called again, drawing Evanora’s attention back to her. “She’s cold, Mother. She needs a blanket, and to get somewhere warm.”
“She won’t burn,” Evanora continued. “She’s innocent.”
“Yes, Mother, Ava is innocent,” Agatha said. “Please, don’t hurt her. She’s just a baby. She’s innocent. She’s good.”
Evanora’s eyes darted up. “She is good. I won’t let you ruin her.”
Before Agatha could say anything else, a bright light landed on Evanora’s face. She blinked, switching which arm held Ava and waving the gun in the air before using it to block her vision.
“Evanora Harkness, you’re wanted for questioning about the murder of Calvin Black and the kidnapping of Ava Harkness,” Alice said, her voice stiff as she held her flashlight in one hand and her gun in the other. “Put down your weapon and give us the baby.”
Agatha could sense Rio at her side before she saw her. Evanora looked between them, eyes wild, before they landed on Agatha again.
“I won’t let you corrupt my grandchild!” she screamed. “She’s innocent and good and you are nothing but evil!” She raised the gun toward Agatha. “I should’ve killed you the moment you left my body.”
Several things happened so quickly that they might as well have happened at once. Just as Evanora fired the gun, Agatha was pushed hard, landing in the brush a few feet away, her hands scratched and pricked with thorns. The ricochet of the gun caused Evanora to trip backwards and her grip on Ava slipped, so that the baby fell into the edge of the river. Rio dove for Ava, ripping her out of the water just as blood started oozing from the gunshot wound in her shoulder. And Alice tackled Evanora to the ground, wrestling the gun out of her hand and cuffing her all in a matter of seconds.
“Ava?” Agatha shouted, pushing herself off the ground, the thorns digging into her hands. “Rio? Rio!”
Rio staggered out of the water, soaked up to her thighs, arms soaked as well. Ava was in her arms, screaming like mad, dripping and cold, but alive. Agatha hurried to them, pulling Ava into her arms, but Rio’s grip was so tight that she couldn’t let go completely.
“I’ve got her,” Agatha assured her, but Rio still didn’t let go. “Rio… Rio, you’re bleeding!”
Rio’s shoulder was quickly becoming stained with blood. She looked down at herself, eyes widening in surprise. “Oh… Yeah.”
“She shot you,” Agatha said. Now that her panic was subsiding, she was filled with rage. She turned to where Alice had Evanora in cuffs. “You fucking shot her!”
“One less queer abomination in the world,” Evanora spat.
“I’m pretty sure it’s just a flesh wound,” Rio said, poking at her shoulder. She hissed. “Hurts like hell, though.”
“EMS is already on route,” Alice told them, looking at Rio even as she roughly pulled Evanora to her feet. “You should put pressure on that until they get here.”
“You shot my friend! And you kidnapped my daughter!” Agatha shouted, her fury still focused on her mother.
“She’d be better off without you as her mother,” Evanora insisted.
Agatha wanted to scream. She wanted to throw her mother to the ground and kick her. Wanted to throw her into the river handcuffed so she couldn’t swim up for air. She wanted to take the revolver that still lay on the ground mere feet away and shoot her mother herself. But she knew that if she did any of these things, she would never see Ava again.
Instead, she got as close into her mother’s face as she could stand.
“You’re never going to touch her again,” she said. “You’re never going to see your grandchild ever again. You’re going to go to jail, and you’re going to stay there until you die. You’ll die all alone in prison. And Ava— Ava will never know your name. She’ll never know your face. You are nothing to us.”
“Agatha.”
She turned away from her mother, looking back to Rio.
“Come get your daughter.”
A siren’s blare split the air as Agatha took Ava into her arms. She was cold and wet and crying so hard that her face was red and blotchy. But her little body fit against Agatha’s like a piece of clay that had been cleaved in two and then put back together again, and Agatha wrapped Rio’s coat tight around her for warmth.
“It’s okay. Mama’s here. Mama’s got you,” Agatha cooed.
EMTs arrived on scene as Alice dragged Evanora to a police car. One paramedic stitched up Rio’s shoulder while the other helped Agatha strip Ava of her wet clothes and put her in a fresh diaper before wrapping her in a warm blanket. In spite of everything, Ava was given a clean bill of health. Finally the EMT painstakingly removed the thorns from Agatha’s hands and bandaged her up before the ambulance drove all of them up the street back to Mrs. Davis’s house.
The sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon when the officers finally left, having taken everyone’s statements. Mr. Prim and Mrs. Davis had finally gone to bed. Agatha sat on the sofa, still wide awake. Ava was in a soft green onesie, milk drunk from her bottle and nearly asleep on Agatha’s chest.
Rio emerged from her bedroom, a damp cleaning rag in her hand. Agatha was surprised: she thought Rio had slipped out after giving her statement.
“I cleaned up all the fingerprinting dust and changed the linens in Ava’s cradle,” Rio explained.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Agatha said, her voice tired.
“Didn’t want you to have to do it,” Rio said with a shrug, but the motion was followed by a grimace as it pulled at the stitches in her shoulder.
“C’mere and sit down,” Agatha said, gesturing to the space beside her.
Rio shook her head. “I should get home.” She bent over to look at Ava, eyes intently studying the baby’s features before she bent and kissed her forehead. “Goodnight, butter bean.”
Agatha’s heart gave a lurch. “Rio?”
Rio paused as she stood up. “Yeah?”
“I just wanted to say thank you but… it doesn’t seem like enough.”
“You don’t have to thank me, Agatha—“
“Rio, my mother shot you,” Agatha said pointedly. “You’re lucky it just grazed your shoulder.”
Rio put her hands in her pockets and hunched her shoulders modestly. “Yeah, well… I had to get Ava. Anyone would—“
“No, Rio, anyone would not,” Agatha argued. “You saved our lives. Again.”
Rio’s cheeks flushed. “I just… I did what I had to, Agatha. If something happened to you, or to Ava… I don’t know what I’d do.”
“I feel the same way about you,” Agatha told her.
Rio’s eyes widened for a moment, then she shook her head, her short hair falling into her face. “Well, uh… You’re welcome. Goodnight, Agatha.”
“Goodnight, Rio.”
Rio stepped toward the door, but then she paused. She turned back to Agatha, a determined look on her face, then bent suddenly. Rio’s lips puckered, and Agatha thought she was going to give Ava another kiss, but instead her lips brushed against Agatha’s cheek, warm and full and surprisingly soft.
Then she stood, her hair flopping with the motion. She grinned shyly before heading to the door.
“Goodnight, Agatha,” she said softly. “Te veo.”
With that Rio was gone, leaving Agatha alone with her daughter and her thoughts. For several minutes, Agatha just stared at the front door, trying to make sense of the thoughts and feelings flooding her system.
There was a buzzing in her chest, and it had started the moment she felt Rio’s lips on her cheek. In over twenty years of life, Agatha had never felt anything like it before.
There’s like a spark.
Wanda’s words kept playing in Agatha’s mind. The description wasn’t quite right, though. What she felt for Rio wasn’t a spark. It wasn’t a quick blaze that fizzled out just as fast as it began. It was a glowing. A steady warmth that had grown so steadily in Agatha’s heart that she hadn’t even realized it was there until tonight when Rio was shot and now when Rio had kissed her cheek, her lips just inches away from Agatha’s own.
Suddenly I thought wow, I’d really like to kiss her.
Agatha had never thought about kissing a girl before. She’d never really imagined kissing anyone else before, even the men she had dated. But she imagined kissing Rio, imagined how soft her lips would be, how warm. Agatha imagined how her muscles would feel beneath her fingertips, what it would be like to trace Rio’s tattoos up her arms and then to wrap her arms around Rio’s shoulders to pull her close.
Suddenly everything clicked into place.
Agatha liked Rio.
She was attracted to Rio.
Did that make her a lesbian? Maybe. But Agatha had never really felt this way about any other women, so she wasn’t sure. What she was sure about now, the certainty settling into her bones as the sun rose in the sky outside, was that she liked Rio. Maybe even loved her.
Ava stirred against Agatha’s chest, snuggling closer. Agatha stared down at her daughter, fingers twisting gently in the fine curls at the nape of her neck.
She liked Rio. But that didn’t change things. Rio had a wife. She had Hela, and while their relationship wasn’t normal, wasn’t even legal, Agatha knew that Rio wouldn’t betray her vows to the other woman. So whatever Agatha felt, she would either have to put it aside or, if she couldn’t do that, end her friendship with Rio altogether.
Not having Rio in her life wasn’t an option. So Agatha would just have to ignore these feelings. It couldn’t be that hard, she thought. Agatha had gone the first twenty years of her life without any romantic feelings for another person, surely she could push down the attraction she felt for Rio.
How hard could it be?