I did.
Angry as I was, I didn’t pant, I didn’t move.
It was, perhaps, the moment I’d felt the least human yet.
Tiff, however, wasn’t quite as in control. I could see her clenching her fists, eyes on the ground.
I hadn’t realized how upset she was getting. That defensiveness I’d noted wasn’t because I was winning.
It had been because I was losing her.
“If you’re going to try to turn me against Rose, then I can’t be here,” she said. “I can’t support that or give you an opening you can exploit. I can’t do it emotionally, either. This is hard enough to deal with.”
I nodded slowly, because I didn’t trust myself to speak.
“I’m genuinely sorry,” I finally said.
“I understand,” she said. “You’ve obviously been through a lot.”
Her eye moved to my rib. With my sweatshirt and shirt still off, dropped on the floor to help hide the pile of coin and cards, she could see the hole at my side, as well as the gnarled growth around the opening and pelvic bone.
I ran my hands through hair that was now perpetually dirty. “You too. I’m sorry for getting you into this.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m… damn it. Joel told me to be selfish. He wanted me to be genuinely selfish for maybe for the first time in my life, and I may actually be accurate there, with how short my life has been. And I asked for help from people I cared about, because I couldn’t do it alone. If this goes bad, and something happens to you guys, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“That’s not up to you,” she said
“You’re right, though I don’t want to just make this conversation about attacking Rose. I’m also sorry for saying all that and making you have to defend her.”
She pulled the chair around, and sat opposite me. She fidgeted before she was able to get her hands to sit still long enough to hold them in her lap.
I wasn’t much better, however well I could hide it. I wasn’t any less angry than I’d been, but right this minute, shame took the top place, and shame kept me quiet.
“I don’t know how much you know about me,” Tiff said.
“That you came from a bad family situation, and Alexis helped you out. That I really like your art, and I’m jealous that you’re capable of doing it. That you were horrified at the notion that because we had our first date of sorts at a coffee place, that I might nickname you ‘donut girl’.”
When I met her eyes, she was looking at the branches that sprawled across my chest. She’d relaxed a bit.
“Date?” she asked.
“I don’t know for sure,” I said. “Alexis introduced us. She wanted you, me, and her to have an… event.”
“Oh god,” Tiff said, hands flying up to her face. “I think I know what you’re talking about. She hinted. Stop right there, or I won’t be able to look you in the eyes.”
“You haven’t been looking me in the eyes for a little bit now,” I said.
Her eyes flashed up, peering at me from between her fingers, they met mine, then dropped down to my torso, a fleeting glance.
Even with her hands covering her face, I could see her ears going red.
Oh. She hadn’t been paying attention to the monstrous bits.
I’d meant my comment to be more melancholy, recognizing what I’d become, not teasing.
A part of me wanted to imagine a world where none of this had happened. Where Alexis and Tiff and Ty and me and Joel and Goosh could all be friends. Where I always had the opportunity to just pick up and go ride my bike halfway across Canada if Toronto felt too confining. Work odd jobs to pay for gas.
But then I remembered that if none of this had happened, I wouldn’t exist.
My goal was different, now. To protect these guys, and make that world possible.
Only without the ‘Blake’ part. Without the motorcycle.
I wasn’t sure how to feel as I walked over to grab my sweatshirt. I very carefully transferred the coins to the pocket, then pulled my shirts on. I’d taken them off to investigate the changes of my body. I stuck my hands in my pockets and pressed the coins down to keep them from jingling.
Tiff sighed through her hands, which still covered her face, then drew in a deep breath, straightening her spine, dropping the hands.
Still a little pink.
“What I was saying before,” she said. “My home situation. I’ve been backed into a corner before. My mom made bad decisions and my dad made bad decisions, and I could usually weather the worst of it. But sometimes it was too much. A chain of things or stuff coming together, and I hated the person I was becoming at times like that. I tried to get away from it all, and I wound up in freefall.”
“No connections to keep you from tumbling down,” I commented.
She gave me a curious look. “Yeah. I was windmilling my arms, looking for something to hold on to. I did stupid stuff. Stuff that, if I had different luck or a little more time, might’ve made me into my parents, despite my best efforts. Drinking, drugs, just leaping into relationships with guys that weren’t… good. It was all easy, and if I’d spent another week or month doing it, maybe I would’ve gotten trapped. Then Alexis was the next thing that turned up that I could hold onto. Only she wasn’t so bad for me.”
“Yeah,” I said. “She does that.”
“She’s a genuinely good person,” Tiff said. “Who isn’t always good to herself, and who can still mess up, even if she means the best. She needs help to watch out for that sometimes, and that’s hard.”
“It is hard,” I agreed.
“I think, sometimes, she could look at the worst person ever and see something right here,” Tiff said, tapping her chest, just over her heart. “But maybe I’m biased. She saw some talent and good in me around a time I couldn’t see anything redeeming about myself.”
“I think she made a good call,” I said. “But that’s one of the things to watch out for. Sometimes it’s not worth what it costs you, right?”
I managed to resist the urge to say something about Rose, and the cost there. Tiff didn’t pick up on the hint, which was probably a good thing, because she was still listening, and maybe it would reach past the walls she’d erected.
Her hand was still on her heart.
“I never paid attention to my heart before. But lately, I feel like all it’s ever doing is pounding. Just racing and racing so hard I can’t keep my hands still. Can’t sleep.”
I looked at where her hand touched.
I touched my own heart. I had to will it to beat to feel the eerie fluttery sensation within.
She wasn’t aware. “If there’s one thing in all this that terrifies me, it’s the idea of going into freefall again. Being forced into freefall. Backed into a corner until I have no choice but to do something stupid, and then keep doing stupid things, and I don’t want that.”
Feeling the fluttering in my chest, I had a bit of an idea. It related to Evan on a level, and it related to this.
I shifted position, dropping my hand and moving my shoulder, and a bit of wood popped. Tiff startled a bit at it, as if I’d stirred her from a daze.
“Sorry,” she said. “I barely slept last night, and then Evan woke me first thing, doing his bird thing”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Thank you for sharing. I want you to know that I don’t want that negative stuff for you either. I don’t want you to be miserable, or backed into a corner.”