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This was a risky move—Saturday nights were sacred. With over ten years of boxing matches to catch up on, Yolanda still had months’ worth of hours to watch, working through seven cardboard boxes of tapes from Ted Grant—both DVDs and VHS. So Beth knew she was pushing her luck, arriving unannounced mid-match to disturb her.
While each member of the Society has dedicated living quarters at the brownstone, Yolanda preferred to stay at her small apartment in the Bronx, cozy yet cluttered. A little old. Cream walls, 90s chandeliers. Tapestry, quilts, and heirlooms she managed to track down and take back from her cousins’ extended family sitting in an attic. It came across as years crammed together. Overcrowded for Beth’s tastes, but that was hardly anyone’s fault, fusing knick-knacks and framed possessions from experiences Yolanda was currently making meaning of and the life she left behind. Beth liked staying over when she had the rare night off. The commitment to her clinic and unexpected emergencies left her housebound to the brownstone, not that she put up much of a fight to move out elsewhere. She never went back home. Not to California or South Carolina, the state she grew up in.
It was easy to blame her shift schedule for the lack of effort in sprucing up her own apartment. Where would Beth have the time to collect trims and finishes for her new place between patching everyone up and keeping tabs on everyone’s health? Her minimalist style was cleaner—more practical, especially considering their track record for break-ins. But as Beth admired the old boxing gloves, medals, and journalist awards displayed at Yolanda’s as she stepped in, she wondered if her non-existent interior design pointed to a lack of living.
“I thought we had an agreement,” Yolanda said, jetting back to the couch. “It’s Saturday. I’m self-indulging.” Her satin cheetah robe flared dramatically behind her—a gag gift from Todd she wore unironically often despite its joke.
“Yes, I know.”
“You’re always welcome, of course, but I know you’d rather watch paint dry.”
“Would you look at that?” Beth said, all dry no humor. “You caught me.”
Yolanda tilted her head, zoning in on her tone like a cat.
“You okay? Better be yes. I’ve slated Oscar De La Hoya’s best wins for tonight.”
Two lightweights stepped into the ring on the mounted television screen. Beth only loosely followed who’s who in the boxing world by proxy of Ted and Yolanda—some names rang familiar, particularly the snazzy ones or distinct nicknames. Mostly, Beth tolerated the sport. It was weird. Having acquired several martial arts under her belt—a necessity to push herself came naturally after joining Infinity Inc to quiet her inner imposter syndrome. Luckily, she was a fast learner, and her agility proved to be a necessity at the time to level the playing field as Hourman’s partner.
Despite all this, she couldn’t admit to enoying watching boxing events. MMA nights perched on the side of Yolanda’s loveseat consumed Beth’s focus on all the wrong things. Fixating on how much medical attention athletes required, all ears bloody and swollen cheeks. Who paid for their bills? Did their partners liked to see them come home so battered? So on and so on.
“I wouldn’t be here if I was.” Beth sat beside her, leaving a couch cushion of space between them.
Yolanda frowned.
“I want to talk about That Night.”
“I’d rather not,” Yolanda said brusquely, not taking her eyes off the match.
“We’ve put this off too long. It’ll be better if we truly discuss it. Together. It gives us the power, don’t you think? We’d get to reclaim our lives again. No longer afraid of the name Ecli—”
“No.”
“That’s not fair.” Beth closed her eyes and powered through, standing her ground. “I got the brunt of it. You probably don’t even remember.”
“How would you know?”
“Because,” Beth said, forcing her voice even. Clinical. Detached. “You were seizing on the ground alone—the flesh of your abdomen torn open.”
“Beth. Just don’t.”
“Bleeding, rasping for breath, choking on your own blood, and—”
Yolanda snarled out, “I don’t want to hear it!”
“I was supposed to protect you. I was right there with you. I’d told Eclipso I could save you, yet, like he’d listen to that—I don’t know what I was thinking, but I’d already started CPR and you weren’t taking my breath.”
The tape stopped. Yolanda stood in her sweats and robe, eyes red and furious. “I died in your arms. That comes next, right? You don’t have to tell me. I know I did. I remember slipping away. I went hot. Then cold. And then—”
Yolanda’s pain leeched out of her. Bile rose to Beth’s throat. This was a mistake.
There lived that anger Yolanda barely suppressed. That fury that sustained her. Pushed her right into the alleyways, hunting for any enemy she could get her claws on since that’s the best she could do without going for Waller. Eclipso took more from the Montez's than he ever had taken from Beth. Her life, her career, her victories—the legend she could’ve made at the time as Grant’s protege, back when there was still a glass ceiling to break. Not just that. Eclipso ravaged her cousin Alex. His youth, his soul, his body and death. Foolishly, Beth thought she could pocket a slice of that righteous rage for herself. To ignite some spark in her again. A little fire to outlast the emptiness slowly chipping away at her core.
She raised a feeble hand to get Yolanda to stop, but it only spurred on bitter laughter.
“You think I can’t play this game? I can. The last I heard was you, Beth, your scream cut short. Why should we ever talk about it? I wake up from dreams where I see the insides of your neck. I could tell myself it’s just a dream, but it’s not. Someone came upon us like that. Our parents. Our friends. Infinity Inc. The men we thought we loved—They saw us as lifeless bodies. Two women. They’d probably muttered under their breaths at our funerals that we shouldn’t have ever faced Eclipso in the first place, and you know what that makes me? Fucking mad. Just like you and your man—”
“He’s not my man.”
“—and Jen piss me off about what I can and can’t do to save other people. Our own team is out lost somewhere and none of us know where they are. They could be in worse shape you found me in. What happens then?”
“You scare me when you talk like that.” Beth grasped Yolanda’s shoulder, her goggles filled with tears, rendering them useless. “You’re all I have, Yolanda.”
Yolanda simmered down, withdrawing from whatever far place she went to. “I know,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around Beth. She was glad for the affection, but it wasn’t much comfort. “I know. But I have to let myself care just as much for our new team. Or else it hurts too much. We need to be better.”
Beth sniffed, wiping the salty tears from her face with the sleeve of her shirt. And she got it, then. What Yolanda’s rigorous tape schedule was all about. Guiltily, she thought about Jakeem. All the ways he was neither worse nor better.
“I miss Dr. McNider.”
Yolanda’s face fell. “Oh, babe.”
“And my parents. I miss my brothers. Norda. Lyta. Syl. Even Hank in my head.”
“Next you’re going to say Mister Bones.” Yolanda groaned, craning her neck back against the couch, as though reliving the memory of his rhyming physically pained her.
Beth almost laughed. She shook her head. “Those are real people to miss.”
Yolanda tilted her head to look at her. “I miss Nuklon, sometimes.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I miss the on and off again. The way none of it was serious, but it could’ve been if we ever said so. Life’s not like that anymore.”
“Right,” Beth agreed easily. That didn’t sound like missing Al. She didn’t even use his name, like only the mere idea of him was what enchanted her. Beth always thought their flirtation leaned one-sided heavily, anyway.
“I might owe you an apology.” Yolanda poked her leg. “I didn’t think you and Rick were all that serious, either.”
Beth frowned, fishing for words to use to describe their ill-timed relationship. Coming up short.
Serious? Not at first. Annoying, yes—both Rex and Rick were. Rick’s shameless flirting, harmless. Fun.
But that was before. Before he’d kissed the crown of her head, whispering nonsense promises that she’d be safe and better. His confidence the only voice of solace in a world gone black. Before he’d called her house almost a hundred times and hitchhiked across the country during Crisis on Infinite Earths simply because that’s how much he cared.
She didn’t know what it was about her that had him so hooked—but he was hooked. She had Rick wrapped around her finger—And Beth knew it. It was never meant to be forever—and at some point it became clear, through mood swings and the shakes, failed withdrawals, never-ending arguments, late night last-ditch efforts to salvage what had long gone rotten—Beth knew it shouldn’t, even if it could.
“I get it. He was hot.” Yolanda laughed. “Still is.”
“I’m blind.”
“You can see in the dark,” she replied wryly. Beth fixed her goggles again in time to watch Yolanda work hard to school her expression at Beth’s unimpressed stare. “Fine, bad joke. But I can’t see you like this. Morose. Walking on eggshells whenever Fast & Furious’s nearby.”
Beth let out a long sigh. “I don’t condone the name-calling. Jesse is nice.”
“Oh. I thought we were hating her.” Yolanda flipped her hair over her shoulder with a smug smirk, pretzling her legs on the couch. She turned the television on again, but muted the volume. “We’re not hating her? You need to make up your mind.”
“You’re the one who wants to form connections with the JSA.”
“Yeah, I do, but I’m loyal to you. Even when we disagree on other stuff. And that’s why I feel like I can say this.”
Beth eyed her warily, sensing where this was going, not sure she wanted to hear it.
“You’re miserable over your morals. Preacher’s daughter’s dilemma and all that. I see you. This boy’s a man and he’s grown into a fine one. It’s a bad hand. But he’s married with a baby? C’mon chica. Where else is this going to go? You two were a bad fit. He was really young and impulsive. You spent half of the time mothering him over problems he wasn’t mature enough to own up to.”
“He made me happy.”
“No, he makes you sad.”
Yolanda took her hand and squeezed it. “And we’ve been sad enough, haven’t we?”
~.~
At home, after checking on Jakeem, Beth pulled the covers over her head and let Yolanda’s words repeat over and over, provoking her mind into vexation.
I’m loyal to you.
Beth couldn’t be sure how to measure sadness over a relationship that never got defined. A future she hadn’t yet felt permitted to mourn that felt forbidden to speak aloud. But as she fell asleep, she remembered something important about her past she’d forgotten—Maybe not forgotten, but certainly misjudged.
They used to be a trio. Yolanda, Rick and Beth.
Worse, somehow, than the heartbreak of being left behind. The knowledge it was her fragile fault another friendship might never mend.