There’s also a nice gold one, but—as the manager hastens to point out—it’s not real gold. It looks nice if you want to wear it out for dinner occasionally, but—and he says this while glancing at you out of the corner of his eye—if you intend to wear it with any regularity, it will quickly discolour.
In the end, you settle on something much simpler; a thin choker made of interweaving silver bands, complete with a small tag at the front where the choker clips together. It doesn’t cost much—twenty-five dollars, down from one hundred—and he even directs you to a small business that he assures you will handle your engraving both cheaply and professionally.
You’re not sure why he’s being so helpful, but you make sure to give him a smile and a “Thank you!” on your way out.
It’s well after four, approaching five, when you return home from the mall. Madison’s choker, now engraved with a simple ”T.H.”, rests in a small paper bag beside you. The first thing you do when you get home, even before taking your purse out, is place it securely on top of your dresser.
After that, once you’ve dropped your belongings off in your room and stumbled back downstairs, you collapse on the arm of the couch beside Dad and let out a loud groan. The tiredness, which has been creeping at the edges of your consciousness all day, is starting to catch up with you. You’ve been awake for the better part of ten hours now, and only had two cups of coffee.
Dad gives you a concerned look. “Are you feeling okay?” he asks tentatively.
From your position slumped upside-down beside him, you wave him off, turning your head so you can rest it comfortably against the couch. “I’m fiiine,” you assure him, voice muffled by the couch cushions. “It’s fiiiine.”
He chuckles slightly. You hear him rustling, then you abruptly shriek as strong hands sieze you under your arms, sliding down to grab you around the stomach. You squawk as he lifts you, flips you the right way up, and drops you back on the couch, leaving you glaring up at him and kicking the couch petulantly. How did he even stand without you noticing?
“What?” he says mildly, the question obviously rhetorical. “You’ll hurt your back if you stay like that for long.” Despite his concerned words, however, you can feel amusement rolling off him in thick, warm waves. You just scowl up at him, kicking the couch again twice more for emphasis. “Anyway, I told Alan we’re both going to be going over for dinner. Do you want me to call him and tell him you’re not feeling well? You do look a little sick.”
You shake your head, scowling up at him even harder. “I already said I’m fine,” you remind him. “I’m just a little tired.”
He just stares at you, then looks down at your legs and back up. You’re not sure what he’s getting at, but whatever it is, indignation rises in you over it.
“I’ll be fine!” you snap. “Geez, Dad.”
He holds up his hands, looking a little taken aback. “Okay, okay,” he says soothingly. “I won’t call him, then. Make sure you’re ready by six, okay?”
You nod sharply. “Okay.” You give him a little salute to punctuate the message.
He chuckles and pats you on the head as he walks past you out into the kitchen. “I’ll make some coffee,” he calls back. “Are you going to wear that, or are you going to get changed?”
You look down at your clothes. You’re dressed nicely enough that you felt comfortable going on a date with Amy in them, but honestly, your socks feel a little bit gross, being as damp as they are now. Your shoes could probably do with some drying out, too. “I’ll get changed,” you yell back. “Don’t let it get cold!”
He doesn’t let it get cold, mostly by waiting for you to get back out to the kitchen after changing your socks and pants before pouring your coffee out. It’s good. You feel a little more alert, a little less head-blurry, once you take your first mouthful.
The two of you sit around the kitchen bench for a while, sipping coffee in a casual but not uncomfortable silence. Neither of you feels the need to speak until it’s nearly time to go, at quarter to five.
Only once the two of you get up, two cups of coffee later, and gather your keys and other effects, does Dad feel the need to say anything. “Oh, by the way,” he says casually, “I bought those DVD’s today, if you’d like to watch them later.” You’re quickly growing used to Dad starting a sentence with ‘Oh, by the way’. He’s not very good at seguing into other topics.
You smile up at him. “Cool,” you reply. “We can watch them after book club tomorrow?”
He ruffles your hair, giving you a little smile. You hurriedly bat his hands away, pouting sulkily at him as you hurriedly run your hands through it again in an attempt to straighten it. He just widens his smile, though, and leads you out to the car.
The lingering aftereffects of the caffeine are blunting the edge of your tiredness, but you can feel it creeping into your awareness once more, seeping in. It’s—not the kind of tiredness that makes you feel like you want to rest your head against the car window as Dad drives. It’s more the kind of tiredness that makes you feel slower, like you can’t connect the dots between thoughts in your head as easily.
When Dad pulls up in front of Emma’s house and you step out, you find yourself stumbling a little at first. Blinking, you glare down at your feet. Properly chastised, they carry you up and into Emma’s house without further issue. The movement wakes you up a little, at least for a few moments, and you gaze around the house, noting how sharp and sterile it looks.
Alan greets the two of you, popping his head around the corner. “Danny!” he says with a large smile. “And Taylor! It’s good to see the two of you again.” Then he blinks, taking a closer look at you. After a moment of looking at you with a curious look, he turns back to the kitchen. “Would either of you like a cup of coffee?”
You look up at Dad, who is nodding. “Not for me, but I think Taylor would like one,” he says.
You butt his shoulder with your head, giving him a mulish look before you turn to Alan. “I would like one, if it’s not too much trouble.” You try to smile at him, but you’re pretty sure it comes out looking more like a loopy grimace. “Thank you, Alan.”
He nods. “Not a problem. Emma’s out in the living room, if you would like to go and watch a movie with her. I’ll bring it out to you in a couple of minutes.”
There’s a surprising lack of twisting in your gut at that idea. You’re not sure why—maybe you’re just too tired to appreciate the risk? Except that’s silly. Intellectually, you know she won’t do anything to you tonight. Not with Dad in the same house, and not when either Dad or Alan could walk past at any moment and hear anything cruel she says.
That hasn’t stopped you from feeling anxious before, though. So, okay, yeah, it’s probably the tiredness.
You nod at Alan, then make your way out to the Barnes’ living room, where you come to a stop in the doorway.
Emma is sitting on the couch, her back turned to you and her head resting against the back of the couch. Her hair cascades down around her shoulders, resting in messy bundles over the back of the couch and disappearing from your view. She’s sitting very still, and a few moments pass before you hear the slight sound of cloth rustling and paper turning. Despite her still posture, though, she looks… soft, kind of. Unguarded. The TV isn’t turned on, and the only illumination in the room comes from a lamp shining orange light over the room on the small table beside Emma.
She looks peaceful like this. Not threatening at all.
Something, some invisible weight, seems to—not lift of your shoulders, but grow lighter, at least a little.
“Hi.” You keep your voice soft. It doesn’t seem right to break up the peacefulness of the room.
She stiffens slightly, then slowly turns her head. When her gaze lands on you, she relaxes somewhat. Only somewhat, though. Her shoulders are stiffer now, and you can see one arm curled over her stomach now, a defensive posture. “Hi,” she replies, equally softly. “You came. Um. Hi.”
You nod, the movement a little stilted. Not all your anxiety is gone, it appears. “Yeah.” Your laconic answer is all you can summon up.
A stilted silence threatens to grow, until Emma shakes her head. “Oh. Um. Do you want to sit down?” She gestures at the couch beside her, then visibly thinks better of it and shifts her arms to gesture at the couches off to either side of the one she’s sitting on.
“Okay.” You take her initial invitation, moving to sit on the same couch Emma is sitting on, although you do shift yourself up until you’re sitting as far away from her as you can. That’s a comfortable distance, you think.
This time, a silence does lap, although it’s significantly less awkward this time. You take the opportunity to rest your head back and look over at Emma, taking in her appearance.
She’s—you’re not going to say underdressed, but she’s not wearing as much makeup as she does at other times. She never does when she’s at home. Never has. You can understand it, a bit. Her home is her sanctuary, much like yours is to you.
Dressed down like this, she looks much less armoured than she does at school. It feels silly to think of it that way, but it’s true. She looks much more open, more… vulnerable.
The thing that draws your attention immediately is the hints of dark bags under her eyes. She’s concealed it with makeup, but either she hasn’t done a very good job of it, or she applied it early this morning and it’s started to fade away. Her eyes are bloodshot, too. You can’t say she looks terrible—even on her worst days, Emma has never looked terrible—but she looks even more tired than you feel.
She shifts under your scrutiny, lowering her eyes to the couch. She doesn’t say anything, but her hands clench into fists against it. Instinctively, you flinch slightly, causing her to look at you with wide eyes and her hands to unclench.
“I—sorry.” Emma shakes her head, scoffing slightly at herself. “Um. You look tired. Do you want some coffee? I’ll go make you some.” She attempts to rise to her feet, but you’re already shaking your head.
“Your dad is making me some,” you reply. “Thanks, though.”
She settles back, hands coming back up to fiddle with the book on her lap. You look down at it, but only have time to read a couple of words—The Psychology Of—before her hands come up to cover the title. Quickly, before you can read it, she closes the book and hurriedly puts it aside, on the same table as the lamp. “Okay.”
Thankfully, Alan arrives before the two of you can lapse into silence again, bearing two cups of coffee. He puts one on the coffee table in front of you, not worrying about a coaster, and one in front of Emma, who looks up at him and gives him a tired “Thank you”.
“Thanks,” you mutter in turn, reaching over to grab it. It’s warm, and when you take a sip of it, just sweet enough, too. Not that that’s surprising. After Mom had died, you’d spent a fair few nights sleeping over at Emma’s house while Dad tried to cope with everything. It hasn’t been long enough that he would have forgotten something as simple as how you like your coffee.
He gives the two of you an encouraging smile. “Dinner will be ready in about an hour,” he says, his gaze flickering between the two of you. “We’re having roast lamb tonight.” That’s Dad’s favourite. “Emma, your mother and I are only going to be in the kitchen talking to Danny. If you need anything, just come and ask, okay? The same goes for you, Taylor.”
Emma hunches her shoulders, looking deliberately away from both you and her father as she replies. “Okay, Dad. Thanks.”
You look between the two of you, your brow knitted. You reach out with your power briefly, but her emotions are turbulent right now. Anxiety, fear, happiness, contentment, and something—some deep anger, jagged shards of it all aimed directly towards her own core—wrapped tight in a thick mist of tiredness. You hurriedly withdraw your power, grimacing slightly. You’re not nearly awake enough to try and decipher her emotions tonight.
Instead, you just wait until Alan has finished staring between the two of you and left the room, then just sit there, nursing your coffee in your hands for a moment as you try to gather up the courage to say something. Say anything, really.
So you start with the basics. “How have you been?” you ask, silently clutching your cup a little harder.
Emma looks over at you with a dull expression on her face. “Alright,” she murmurs. Anger courses through her for a moment, another wave of the jagged emotion aimed within her, followed swiftly by—shame?—and then something solid, earthy. Determination? Resolution? “Well… kind of. Things are getting better, I think.”
“Hm.” You don’t bother asking what those things are. You’re both well aware of the issues she’s facing and your shared histories. “You look tired.” Modulating your voice carefully, you try to keep your tone soothing and non-judgmental.
She grimaces. “I haven’t been sleeping well.” Placing the coffee on the table beside her, atop her book, she shifts around, drawing her legs up to rest on the couch and wrapping her arms around then. Huddling defensively in on herself, she continues, “You look tired too. Have you been sleeping properly?”
“I worked late last night,” you reply. “Then I had to get up early for a date.”
Abruptly, something dark and poisonous rises up in her, the emotion flashing up so quickly it overwhelms even the jagged shards of her anger. You can’t help but flinch a little, even as she fights it down, burying it beneath iron bands of self-control. You quickly look away, mind reeling and the fog of tiredness receding a little. That—that was the strongest emotion you’ve felt coming from Emma, ever. One of the strongest emotions you’ve felt altogether. You’re pretty sure it was jealousy, or at least it felt like it. It has that same dark, almost toxic taste to it.
