Chapter 33

Dana paced her dimly lit hotel room, debating how much of heaven and earth she was willing to uproot to get back to California a few hours early. She had no way to reach Valerie directly— a situation of her own making, and one she was, at least in that moment, regretting. A simple text message would have done wonders to set her mind at ease.

Her original plan had included visiting with friends in the area, once the business side of things had wrapped up. She had already canceled those plans, from the plane, before even landing; already knowing that she would be in no state for socializing.

The pitch the day before had gone well. She had never found the time or mental capacity to re-edit the deck, but it had not really needed it; the slides had been ready for days before she left, and the last round of editing was more about easing her own anxiety than because they truly needed further polishing.

With the required business out of the way, her worry and stress level had only been increasing hour by hour. Lucca responded to her texts with monosyllables— but they responded, and it was enough that Dana did not burn an egregious amount of money to charter a private flight back; but she had priced it out.

Sleep eluded her that night, and when her alarm sounded at half past six, she was grateful to leave frustrated wakefulness behind for movement and activity.

The flight home was quiet, dim, and uneventful. She drifted off into a restless sleep, plagued by inarticulate bad dreams that evaporated as soon as she awoke. Fragmented sleep, several cups of intolerable airplane coffee, and a surprisingly good pastry on her way out of the terminal restored her enough that she upgraded her status from “emotional disaster” to merely “a wreck”.

It was early afternoon when she was finally back behind the wheel of her car, making her way north from the airport, through unusually — and blessedly — light east bay traffic. She pulled into her garage, with no memory of having actually driven her car there. Lucca’s Mercedes was still parked in front of the house. She couldn’t tell if the muddled emotions surging through her at the sight were feelings of relief, dread, or some improbable combination of both.

Lucca was leaning casually against the wall in the entryway as soon as Dana opened the front door. She jumped in surprise as she stepped through.

Their demeanor was radically different from the Lucca she had left behind, and she felt something inside relax, the release of an immense tension she had not consciously been aware of.

“Hey,” Dana greeted them.

She felt exhausted, the hours of stress and sleep deprivation catching up with her all at once.

“Hey,” Lucca returned, their tone neutral— a categorical improvement from the cold and distant tone Dana had left behind.

“Can we talk?”

“Yeah. I think we should.”

“I could use about a gallon of coffee…” Dana gestured out the still-open door behind her.

Lucca looked at her for a long moment, and then nodded, apparently having decided something.

“I’ll drive.”

Dana nodded. Lucca was treating her like a human again, and her fears were melting away, leaving behind only exhaustion. She did not need to be back behind the wheel of a car.

“Yeah. Is Valerie…?”

“I told her to take a long shower, to give us a little time. I wanted to talk to you first.”

Dana blinked at this, but nodded reluctantly.

“She’s fine,” Lucca stated.

“Okay. Yeah.”

Dana stepped back out onto the front step, and Lucca followed.

“There’s a café just down—”

“I know,” Lucca interrupted. Their tone was gentle.

“Yeah,” Dana gave a small laugh. “I guess so.”

The two of them had been to that particular café many mornings, in the past, when Lucca stayed over and Dana didn’t have the energy to make coffee at home, or when Lucca wanted something more than just an oat milk latte.

The drive was a quick few minutes, and the two exchanged simple pleasantries about the pitch, and the flights there and back. Lucca grilled Dana for details on the flight— the plane she was on, the runways she landed at. Dana usually tried to pay particular attention to these details, because she knew Lucca enjoyed hearing about them, but she had been too lost in her thoughts, this time.

They found themselves seated across from each other over a small teak café table. Dana sipped an oat milk mocha, and Lucca savored a lavender whole milk latte. Part of the reason the two frequented that coffee shop is that Dana didn’t keep milk around, and Lucca liked to complain about the way oat milk altered the texture of a latte.

Dana picked at her pastry, unsure of how to start.

“Lucca.. I— I’m sorry.”

She had mentally prepared a dramatic and eloquent opening speech, but exhaustion and the reality of sitting across from her friend — or perhaps former friend — scrubbed all thoughts of eloquence from her mind.

Lucca just raised an eyebrow at her in response, silently inviting her to go on.

“The… you know.” She hesitated to say kidnapping, out loud, at a public café. “What I did. I know you can’t forgive—”

Lucca raised a hand gently, interrupting Dana’s apology.

“That… isn’t what this is about. You’re right that I don’t forgive you for it, but Valerie is the one you harmed and she chose to keep you in her life. I have no more right to take that choice away from her than you did.”

Dana blinked at her.

“Then what’s going on?”

Lucca stared down into the small mountain of whipped cream that topped their latte.

“I’m sorry. I… don’t approve of your arrangement with Valerie. But it’s your arrangement with Valerie. It got to me for… reasons.. that I don’t want to talk about. And I fucked up.”

“You’re sor— wait. Fucked up how? Is Valerie okay?”

Lucca stared at Dana for a moment, their eyes calculating. They nodded.

“She’s okay. I was.. I was a little too rough with her. I didn’t understand the situation, and I was too angry to try to understand first.”

Dana knew Lucca well enough to recognize the sincerity in their tone, but she still felt a surge of protective anger.

“What did you do?”

Lucca sighed. Dana had never known them to duck responsibility when they made a mistake, and they didn’t shy away then, either.

“I went into the situation like it was a scene in progress. I didn’t talk to Valerie. I had never really talked to her, you know.”

They paused, thinking over how to continue. Dana opened her mouth to respond, and Lucca again gently gestured her to silence.

“I’m not blaming you for this. I didn’t know that the two of you don’t use safe words, and I wasn’t careful enough to find out. We talked, later. We have an understanding.”

Dana frowned, and sipped her mocha. She tried to distance herself from the anger she felt; not to push it down, but not to let it burn her, either.

“You didn’t answer my question. What did you do?”

“I whipped her; she spent a night scared. She’ll heal in a week or two.”

Dana winced; she had been on the receiving end of Lucca’s whip a time or two.

“How many lashes?”

“Thirty-five. She wasn’t entirely there at the end and I stopped it before she was completely gone.”

Dana paled, eyes widening. She had managed twenty lashes from Lucca’s whip, once, the day after a drunken bet. She had won the bet, at least.

“She’s tough,” Dana whispered, her voice tinged with something like awe.

Lucca shook their head.

“No. No. That’s really what I want to talk to you about.”

Dana looked back at them, tilting her head.

“She’s not okay, Dana. I don’t mean from me, these last few days.”

“She’s fine.. she’s happy.”

Lucca actually laughed at that, too shocked by the absurdity of it to do anything else.

“Dana, no. She’s hurt, and damaged, and terrified. She’s terrified. And you’re not helping her.”

Dana could feel herself withdrawing from the conversation, from Lucca; she was exhausted, and Lucca’s wrath — tempered, now, and all the more cutting for it — left her feeling guilty and ashamed.

“I— I can’t, right now.. Can we do this tomorrow? I’ll listen, I promise, just.. I’m so tired. I was so worried about her. I know you don’t think I care, but I do, I swear.”

Lucca closed their eyes and took several deep, slow breaths in and out.

“Tomorrow.”

Lucca fetched lids for the coffees, and drove them back. It was a quiet few minutes; Dana was mulling over the little that Lucca had said, trying to square it with her mismatched prior beliefs.

In a daze that was half exhaustion and half distraction, Dana crossed from the parked car to her front door, gravel crunching underfoot. Her suitcase was still in the trunk of her own car, but she reasoned that she could deal with it later.

She opened the front door and stepped through, leaving it ajar behind her, for Lucca to follow.

Valerie was standing, naked and with damp hair, just at the end of the short halfway, her hands clasped and twisting awkwardly in front of her.

Dana did not consciously choose to cross the distance to where Valerie nervously stood, but in her next moment of awareness, she was clutching the girl to her chest. Valerie whimpered in pain, but hugged Dana back with equal intensity.

Dana was crying, and she couldn’t understand why.