"So, the dating scene in the real world isn't better than the dating scene on the apps?"
Eloise snorted. "I wouldn't say that.Iwas the one who undressed without an invitation forhim."
Kelsea looked at her wide-eyed and then the blonde and auburn-haired women bent together in laughter.
"You don't talk about dating," Eloise realized, looking at Kelsea with a tilted, scrutinizing air.
"Well, I haven't. Not in a few months, at least," she explained like she was waving away Eloise's epiphany.
"Not that dating is the end-all, be-all," Eloise started and paused before she continued saying, "Women are allowed to not want to date without explanation. That being said, you are aromantic. We spent an hour talking about Wuthering Heights the other night on the back patio while eating honey cake." She held up two hands. "But, I have been wrong before and I will be wrong again."
Kelsea's not-quite smile pulled up her pretty face as she thought and then she let out a breath. "You know I dated a married man. A misogynistic, cheating, abusing asshat," her vehemence pierced the words and pricked Eloise's skin. She smelled dry ice and crisp water, searing pain wrapped in coldness. Eloise watched Kelsea close her eyes and shake her head before she opened them and gave her a grim close-lipped smile. "I hurt someone by having an affair with a married man. And I knew he was married. And not only did I hurt someone innocent, I hurt myself. A lot." She shook her head, her look of remorse sharp. "Not that I'm a victim."
But she didn't realize she was in the company of a friend, in more ways than one.
"No one tells you that that particular sin you carry from something like that is covered in barbed wire, which is on fire," Eloise said gently. "That it digs into your skin leaving behind marks, and if that's not enough, the fire will leave its brand taking away hope of redemption."
"Maybe I deserve it," she said quietly, resigned. "Maybe I earned this barbed wire shame."
Eloise felt her words pelt her skin. She understood them, was intimate with them. "Redemption is messy. I think the only way you earn it is by owning the consequences of your past actions. You make mistakes, sometimes big ones, and then you learn and do better."
"And the people we hurt?"
Oh, the burning pain in this young woman's eyes seared her.
"We bear the responsibility of their pain, silently, and then one day," she let out a deep breath, remembering different pain-filled eyes looking into hers. "One day, if you're brave enough, you forgive yourself for that too."
Kelsea's eyes locked on hers and they shared a moment. Silent thoughts dancing around Eloise's words, letting them sink into grey memories, feeling the communal understanding.
Then Kelsea looked off down the field where the last girl was picked up by her parents, her arm waving goodbye before she said, "I hope one day I believe I'm good enough to want to date again."
Eloise swallowed the words. She could be her sin-eater. After all, she understood living stuck in the ashes of the past you burned down. She held her words, unsure of what to do other than let Kelsea go through this stage of grief. And she would be there to be more kind to Kelsea than she had been to herself when she was alone.
But as they each slung a thick black bag over their shoulders filled with soccer equipment, Kelsea smiled brightly and the smell of the sea when it's just finished crying out a storm hit her; rain-washed sand and salt-softened air. Hope.
"You will feel okay," she said, wanting this young woman's eyes to believe what her smile said. "It will feel like the universe is watching you, every moral pore on display for a while. And then one day, you'll wake up," she shrugged, "and you'll feel more secure, like you're allowed to live and not hold yourself so tightly."
She didn't look like she believed her, but she wanted to. "Okay," she replied, the softest voice of hope mixed with disbelief.
"I need some olives," Eloise announced and waved her hand at a perplexed Kelsea. "It's a perimenopausal thing. Want to go to Hera's?"
"I could go for a gyro," Kelsea agreed with a hearty nod.
"I'll order us a car," her legs were exhausted, and the idea of walking into town made her more tired. "Those girls are freakishly fast. I won't tell anyone, but," she lowered her voice, "you drugging them? Roid parties?"
Kelsea threw back her head and let out a laugh so deep, it cleansed the air around them.
And as they got into the back of the car and talked about a book Kelsea had let her borrow, Eloise thought that the young woman looked, to the naked eye of a sister who empathized, a little lighter, her eyes a little brighter. And now the smell was less post-storm, and more of a fresh, light sky.
As she hugged Kelsea she whispered into her ear, "Don't let shame make you hide. Okay?"
She did walk home after dinner and thought of that sneaky dark thing called shame. Eloise was convinced it was a living thing. Maybe one of the closest things to a demon she had ever encountered. It hung out in the dark and struck when you least expected it, pulling you into its shadowed lair to hold you there, out of the light, as small as possible. That was the thing about shame, and why Eloise thought of it as a creature, because it had goals; to keep you hidden and to keep you small.
Women understood this too well. She paused on her walk and closed her eyes, breathing in the sweet air and then expelling a hope for her friend out into the world. She hoped Kelsea would learn, much earlier than she had, that shame had no place dictating how she lived.
Shame had no hold on her worth.
Eloise felt herself relaxing, the incident with the foreign money a fluke to pull on the strings of her carefully strung fears. She breathed a little easier, and as she settled under the peach tree with a book and a jar of moonlight, she glanced up at the peachy fruit held lovingly in the branches as it took its time to ripen.
