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“Shower.” Helena mumbles as she stands up from the bed and stretches her arms above her head. Her t-shirt rises above the waistband of her boxers, exposing the dent of her v-lines. Dinah almost reaches for it, but settles for a longing stare. Sometimes it’s nice to just lay in bed and watch some trashy talent show.
Helena’s still a little stingy with her words. Why use a full sentence when a single word will do, right? But Dinah’s getting used to it. She knows the assassin has been trained to be careful with what she shares and how.
She knows that there’s a place where all the words she doesn’t say end up, and she knows she has access to it. In fact, it’s right there on the nightstand. A black notebook with crinkled edges - Helena left it there for her the day their silent friends-with-benefits arrangement turned into slow kisses and pizza in bed and post-sex cuddles.
A black notebook she hasn’t had the guts to open yet.
Sometimes, the notebook disappears, only to show up again with its bookmark a little further down the pages. It usually happens at night, when Helena’s insomnia acts up, and scooting closer to Dinah doesn’t do the trick.
Dinah notices every time. She wishes she could always be enough to soothe all those wounds, but she understands. Helena has her own coping mechanisms and it would be selfish to try to replace them. It would make her too reliant on her, and if there’s something Dinah admires is her independence.
“They are all about you” Helena had said.
Those words, etched on paper, solid, real - they were about Dinah. Helena may not say much, but every time she does Dinah has to brace herself. If one of her thoughts makes it all the way past her barriers, if it’s finally pronounced, Dinah can be sure it’s going to feel like a punch.
It’s exhilarating, getting a small glimpse of her inner world - but with that, Dinah's also confronted with of how different they are, and sometimes it scares her.
The sound of running water filters through the bathroom door.
“They are all about you.”
The words echo in her mind. To open those pages, to find out how Helena really sees her... well, that’s terrifying. What if she can’t live up to the image Helena has of her? What if the things she loves about her don’t even exist?
She got close to open it at least a dozen times.
She’s not sure why today is different, but she’s finally holding the notebook in her hand, taking stock of how small it feels, how light. How harmless.
The first time she opened it, she had to force herself not to read it. That was before Helena gave her permission. Now she feels the same pull in the opposite direction, but somehow she decides to go for it.
-
I walked into the room
awake and high-strung
a limp in my step
your name on my tongue.
You were alive, undamaged
and humming a song,
while I had been killing you
all night long.
_
Dinah frowns a little. It’s not as linear as she was expecting. If I is Helena, you must be Dinah. “They are all about you” she reminds herself. They had never fought for an entire night, though. Then she notices the title: “Dream n. 2”
She reads it over.
Helena wakes up from a dream where she’s killed Dinah, and is surprised to find her alive and in a good mood. Helena’s nervous, ready to explode. Yeah, that sounds familiar - Dinah thinks. She’s limping, almost feeling the effects of a long fight in her body. In fact, it doesn’t say she killed Dinah. It says I had been killing you. Over and over. All night long.
Their experience of those first months in each other’s world must have been so different. Sure, Dinah had a huge crush on her, but Helena... Helena had never felt anything like that before, and she was desperately trying not to feel it at all. She was trying to kill it.
Dinah turns the page, a little rattled. This time she reads the title first, which is a little... weird. But hey, let’s see.
-
Miso soup
Today the sun glittered
inside my cup of miso soup.
I thought: “what a sweet deception -
foolish and blinding like a mistake,
comforting like this exquisite ache
my eyes have found in its reflection.”
And much like anything
that’s almost real
it reminded me of her
and all the things
we almost feel.
-
Dinah recognises Helena's unforgiving nature transpiring thought her words. A mistake is foolish and blinding. Pain and comfort are inseparable. Beauty is a deception. Dinah thinks she can almost carbon date the poem. At this point they must have started sleeping together, and Helena must have been so confused.
She sure is an over-thinker, Dinah decides. To wonder about those things just by looking at the reflection of the sun inside a cup... or maybe , she realises, everything at that time would bring her mind to what they had. Almost something. Almost real.
Dinah feels the guilt building up inside her, as she realises how Helena had felt everything since the first moment, while she had used her to let off some steam.
The next poem is in Italian, so she skips it. It does remind her that Helena is fluent in a bunch of languages though. Next up - a doggerel, it says so right there next to the title. Maybe this will be a little more lighthearted. The title itself makes her smile a little, because that’s about the most Helena thing she could think of.
-
The cross and the bow (doggerel)
I carried my revenge
like a cross on my shoulder
- a bow in my hand,
the bolts in their holder.
The club was half-empty,
the crowd a bit cold
when she walked on stage
in cobalt and gold
Thunder and honey
combined in her voice
I hadn’t planned to listen,
but I didn't have a choice
My soul bent and quivered,
as if hit by a crop
- for once I believed those
who claim time can stop -
The performance ended
with a little head toss
and when she took a bow
well, I forgot my cross.
-
The Black Mask. Helena must have been there to look for Szasz. Of course she would have seen her performing on stage, Dinah was a permanent fixture at that club at the time.
Helena hiding in the crowd, observing her as she came on stage. Helena who couldn’t help listening to her. Helena being touched by her performance. Helena noticing everybody else’s indifference. Helena forgetting about her revenge for a moment. All that before they even met.
“What’s happening? Are you ok?”
Helena rushes over and kneels next to the bed. Dinah suddenly realises there are tears streaming silently down her cheeks, and she finally lets out a sob that shakes her chest with unexpected violence. It’s all it takes for her to start bawling her eyes out.
“Dinah, please, what is it?” Helena pleads, confused. She can’t see any immediate threat, so maybe Dinah’s just received bad news? “Did Renee call? Harley? Is it about Cass?”
Dinah can’t quite form words yet, she just covers her mouth to hold a whimper and shakes her head. That’s when Helena sees the notebook open in her hand.
“I’m sorry” Dinah finally lets out “I was such a dick to you.”
Helena tilts her head, and a few droplets fall from her hair. The eye squint, the pursed lips, the gentle mocking in her questioning expression... they’re all things she got from Dinah. To see herself reflected in her is both comforting and unsettling.
“All that time I was being a little bitch about you not talking to me and I don’t know why I thought you didn’t care, like... look at this! You’ve always felt things so deeply, I can’t believe I didn’t see it.”
Helena shrugs, as if it didn’t matter, as if Dinah hadn’t been obnoxious and self-centred, as if it wasn’t black on white how much she hurt her.
“How do you do that? How are you the same person who wrote these things? You seem so unaffected.”
Helena nuzzles gently the hand cupping her face, and places a kiss in Dinah’s palm.
“I guess they beat it out of me.”
She doesn’t mean to sound dramatic, but the look in Dinah’s eyes tells her she said something heavier than she intended.
“That’s why I gave that to you.” she adds, pointing at the small notebook. “When I write, I can bypass... whatever it is that they did to me. A little loophole I discovered when I was fourteen.” There’s a bashful smile curling her lips when she sees the hopeful look in Dinah’s eyes. It seems to say: “Keep talking”. So she does.
“I guess now you know I saw you at the Black Mask” she says, noticing the page open under her fingers. “God, you only got to page five before turning on the waterworks?”
“Hey!” Dinah protests, drying a cheek with the back of her hand.
“You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and your voice was just...”
“Thunder and honey?” Dinah tries to mock her, but it doesn’t come off quite as detached as she'd like.
“Fine, make fun of me” Helena scoffs. There’s a beat, then her demeanour shifts, becomes softer. “I think that’s when I fell in love with you, you know? But I thought I’d never see you again... I couldn’t believe my luck when I walked into your little scuffle with Szasz!”
“Little scuffle? He was about to kill me!”
“Well then, you’re welcome for saving your life.”
“Someone’s getting a little cocky... Maybe I prefer you when you’re quiet and broody.”
There’s a satisfied smirk on Helena’s face, one Dinah has come to know quite well. It always appears when she’s managed to lighten the mood a bit.
“You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“You know how to distract me when I spiral, when I take things too seriously.”
“Is that bad?”
“No, it’s very nice, actually. But I’m not ready to change topic quite yet.”
“What would you like me to tell you?”
“Nothing. I want you to listen.” Dinah adjusts her position, sitting upright against the wall. “I liked you from day one too, just so you know. Like, so much. But you were so cool and distant and I really thought you had a girl in every port, so to speak.”
“Me?” Helena’s eyebrows perk up in surprise.
“You’re so damn hot, how was I supposed to know you’re a giant cornball?”
Helena’s doesn’t reply, but appreciates the compliment with little chest puff, glossing over the cornball thing.
“I was so offended you didn’t like me back. Truly outraged. Like, have you seen me? How dare you.”
“So you were like: Imma get me some of that anyway” Helena tries to do an impression of Dinah’s inflection and gestures, failing miserably.
“Wow, babe. That was so bad.” Dinah chuckles.
“Made you smile.” Helena shrugs.
There it was again, the little smirk.
“You were nothing like I expected” Dinah admits “I thought you were another rich white asshole who though was too good for me. But here we are: you’re on your knees and my hands are full of poems about me.”
“When you put it that way it sounds kinda lame.”
“It’s not. I just feel so bad for the way I behaved.”
Helena takes the notebook from her hands and uses the bookmark to flip the pages, opening the most recent entry.
“You saved my life too, you know?”
-
The invention of time
Revenge had dragged
its teeth on my skin
an endless reminder
of what I had been.
A game of fetch
between memory and mind
kept present and past
and my blood intertwined
days turned into nights,
into another weekend
every hour I prayed
they would come to an end
I’d have called it a day
but she called it a crime
and each night after that
she reinvented time.
-