Tabitha carried the bucket into the Macintire house without more than a cursory glance at the other gifts resting inside. Mrs. Macintire hadn’t seen fit to comment on the bucket, and Tabitha didn’t want to go through and examine the presents her parents had chosen until she was in a better state of mind.

I’m not going to appreciate them at all if I look through them right now, Tabitha decided, setting it down beside the stack of other presents next to her bed in the guest room. I’m irritated and angry and just—not in the right frame of mind.

With a heavy sigh befitting the fourteen year old she now was, Tabitha clutched at the Gameboy Color she’d bought herself and flicked it on, curling up on the bedside. She’d made discreet progress with her game file using the hour before bedtime in the past week, having decided she needed an incredibly powerful team of Pokemon to impress her cousins when they got each of their games started. She suspected it was almost a guarantee that the boys would play every chance they got—if she didn’t get a substantial lead on them now, she would never enjoy one at all.

It’s also just frustrating—I have what I remember and I know I can build an okayish team, Tabitha quirked her lip as she reviewed her Pokemon again. But, I’m also so used to having Bulbapedia or just being able to Google a quick EV training guide. I did NOT remember that generation one apparently had no separation between Special Attack and Special Defense; here it’s just one stat, called ‘Special.’ That’s so weird!

The team she was fielding consisted of Tauros, Chansey, Starmie, Jolteon, Lapras, and Alakazam. She felt confident that they were all considered competitive, but also recognized that they probably weren’t the perfect ones to go with for an unbeatable roster. It was galling, but several of the Pokemon she knew could be better picks she simply didn’t care for. Jinx looked like a racial caricature, and Cloyster seemed to invite vulgar jokes—Tabitha had to be mindful she would be playing against teenagers and pre-teen boys. Victreebel and Exeggutor… okay, so she didn’t like the way they looked.

Sometimes it really was that simple.

Pokemon was by no means a difficult game, and it seemed like so far the only speedbumps she had encountered along the way was in deciding what nicknames to give her monsters. Her Tauros was named Haggard, an oblique reference to The Last Unicorn since when she thought of bulls, it was always first on her mind. Tabitha had spent twenty minutes waffling back and forth with indecision over what to call her Chansey—she’d planned on Baymax, but after time spent staring at the little pixel sprite she decided to go with Elaine, instead.

It had to be either Elaine or Selkie, but in the end I think Elaine fits best, Tabitha mused.

“Knock knock?” Mrs. Macintire asked, gently rapping her knuckles against Tabitha’s open door. “Talk to you for a second, kiddo?”

“Of course,” Tabitha sat up and tried to make herself more presentable.

“Do you—” Mrs. Macintire paused, screwing up her face as if phrasing this into words was incredibly difficult. “Do you have a friend named Julia?”

In any other time and place, the question would have hit Tabitha like a freight train and absolutely staggered her, because there was no conceivable way she could imagine this woman could even possibly pick up this name out of Tabitha’s past future life. Thankfully, right now Tabitha felt numbed over, and the parts that would have reacted on reflex simply felt dead and cold.

“I did, yes,” Tabitha answered in a calm voice. Either coincidence, or—or I talk in my sleep, or Alicia and Elena let a bunch of my tale slip. Would they really do that? Was I acting weird or crazy? Could they have thought I needed institutional help, or something? Why would Mrs. Macintire lead into this with a question about JULIE, of all things?

“Can you—” Mrs. Macintire hesitated again. “Do you need to talk about her? Is there anything you felt like you needed to say about her? I, hon I just want you to know that no matter what, I have your back, right? You can tell me anything.”

“She took her own life,” Tabitha said with a numb shrug. “It was, for me it was a long time ago. Suicide is… well because of what happened, that will always be a sensitive topic for me, but I think I’ve come to terms with the loss over the years, and accepted it.”

“She… took her own life,” Mrs. Macintire repeated with a frown, her brows furrowing. “I see. I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Tabitha shrugged again. “It’s okay.”

“I… may I sit?” Mrs. Macintire stepped into the room.

“Please,” Tabitha smoothed out the blanket on the bed next to her to offer the mother a space.

“Okay, so…” Sandra sat down heavily. “Elena heard what you’d said about her, and then somehow she… thought that you might have been using ‘Julia’ as a metaphor to maybe relay your own experiences with… abuse.”

“Oh,” Tabitha managed to say.

Her mind was reeling at all of those implications, and despite her deadened feelings, a whirling wheel of different emotions hit her, one after another. There was a certain stinging sense of betrayal at being told Elena had spoken about things revealed in confidence, and then at realizing the reason for misunderstanding Tabitha instead felt a surge of warmth that her friend had made sure to tell someone.

Elena… I want to slap you, and then I want to hug you, Tabitha thought with a wry smile. You did what I SHOULD have done all those years and years ago with Ashlee. Breached that unspoken social contract of a secret between friends, and taken a serious problem to someone with the authority to DO something about it. Yeah, it’s annoying that Elena was wrong about it, but still she basically did the right thing. I’m pissed at her and I’m proud of her, all at the same time.

“Tabitha?” Mrs. Macintire asked with a look of concern.

“Sorry, that was—that was something to process,” Tabitha gave her a soft smile. “I can see now how she would have thought that. But, no, I. I’m not Julie, I wasn’t speaking in code or anything like that. While my father has many faults—you saw them laid bare tonight—he has not and would not ever molest me. He’s never looked at me sexually, and may not even be capable of seeing me that way. He’s very… simple.”

“Okay,” Mrs. Macintire held her gaze for a long beat. “I believe you. If he was, though—one hundred percent no judgment or shame or anything, I just beg you please come out and tell me, so that we can make sure nothing like that ever happens again. But, nothing like that?”

“Nothing like that,” Tabitha shook her head with a smile, then leaned in to give her a hug. “I promise. But—thank you. For a second there I was mad at Elena for saying anything, but just the fact that you all wanted to check and make sure, that means a lot. Thank you. I’ll clear things up with Elena.”

“Alright, thank God,” Mrs. Macintire patted her across the back as she held her. “I—I think I really didn’t think anything had happened, but I feel so much better really knowing for sure.”

“Yeah,” Tabitha nodded into Mrs. Macintire’s shoulder. “He’s, my dad’s an idiot. Not a… not abusive. Not that.”

“He is an idiot,” Sandra let out a bitter laugh. “Do you… do you want to talk about this Julia girl?”

Tabitha did want to talk about her, but to her frustration and relief she didn’t know how to do so. Somehow or other, Elena seemed to have not exposed the time-travel context, so of course Tabitha was reluctant to delve into all of that and inextricably complicate everything here. She simply sat there in Mrs. Macintire’s patient embrace, considering things and gathering her thoughts for a long few minutes.

“Julie was bright and full of life,” Tabitha finally said. “And, I didn’t realize how much she meant to me until that brightness was just suddenly gone. I knew what she was going through, but I didn’t know it, I didn’t understand it, really, until it was too late. What that sort of pain did to her, how she struggled to live with it, until she decided to not struggle any more. For a long time I hated her for that, because—because how dare she just give up?!

“Then, after that rage subsided, the hate burned inward. Because, blaming her was unfair and selfish of me—she was the victim of terrible circumstances. I told myself I was going to be vigilant, I, I started to rebuild myself this past summer, to change, inside and out, and. I’m ashamed to say that I just wasn’t vigilant. Not enough, at least. All of the clues were there with Ashlee, and I simply didn’t want to think about it. I put it out of my mind. I knew she had bad bruises that didn’t make sense, I knew she was terrified of her sisters, b-but. But, I was also terrified of them! M-my ‘vigilance’ couldn’t even measure up to my, my willful ignorance, an-and cowardice, and fear that—”

“Okay shh-shh-shh-shhhh,” Mrs. Macintire shushed her, rocking Tabitha back and forth in her arms. “Enough of that, alright? Tabby hon, you may just be too close to the issue to realize, but—Tabitha, you were just as much a victim as Ashlee, there. Okay? You had every reason to be afraid! Ashlee had bruises, sure, but you have broken bones, and they nearly split your head open. You could have died. The both of you were being bullied—abused—and in the same boat. You know?”

“I… do know that,” Tabitha sighed. “Sort of. It doesn’t feel the same, somehow. Should have acted sooner, said something sooner, made someone believe me. I told my dad, but I knew he didn’t understand. I think I told him because I knew he wouldn’t understand. That he’d just think it was kids playing around and not—and not—”

“Not serious?” Mrs. Macintire interceded in a cold tone.

“I… I guess,” Tabitha admitted. “That’s not even all his fault, either. When you’re very young, everything is, you know, big and scary and seems serious and just has this dreadful personal impact. Then, you take it to the adults, and they decide what matters and what’s unimportant. They have perspective. I think that’s why I have to blame myself for not speaking out sooner about the Taylor family. Because I am an adult, sort of. I had that perspective, have that perspective. I bore the responsibility to act, especially after what happened with Julie. Especially then. And didn’t act soon enough.”

“Tabitha… Tabitha, you know you’re still a kid, right?” Mrs. Macintire asked in a soft voice. “You’re fourteen years old.”

“In a lot of ways, I’m just now realizing that,” Tabitha shrugged. “I thought, I was so sure that, that because of certain circumstances, that I’d… that in some ways I had grown up, all at once. Now, after these past few months, I mean? Now, I’m kind of seeing that in other ways I was prevented from growing up at all. That parts of me were, I guess I should say, psychologically stunted. Parts of my psyche just never got past a certain point and really matured.”

Mrs. Macintire’s shoulders shook, and to Tabitha’s surprise she realized the woman was crying. She wasn’t sure why she thought this conversation would be accepted with stoicism after how much Mrs. Macintire displayed her care over and over again, and Tabitha felt a pang of guilt. It was touching and tragic and it made her want to cry, too—but sadly in this moment Tabitha’s more emotional side was still a bit burned out by everything. Instead, she squeezed her eyes closed and hugged Mrs. Macintire and decided not to say anything more.

In another way, it was jarring. Tabitha found herself completely unable to connect the ideas of Mrs. Crow, the head bitch from the Safety Plant’s main office and Mrs. Macintire, fiercely protective surrogate mother to a wayward trailer park teen. The dissonance she felt there went beyond the context of situations or people being multi-faceted and Tabitha simply refused to accept that they ever could have been the same person. Sandra Macintire had without reserve completely adopted her as a daughter and positively showered her with love and support.

Last lifetime, the very thought of her made me want to scowl, Tabitha finally felt her eyes water. Her irritated look, her sharp cheekbones, how tired and angry her eyes were. Thinking back on it, remembering how much I loathed her—it breaks my heart, now. Because I didn’t know her, because I didn’t love her. I’m, I think, I just keep getting closer and closer to just giving in and calling her mom. Because, I’m NOT as grown up as I thought I was, even from having aged on through a future. I never did mature like I should have. I was stunted. My actual mother who should have filled this role, Shannon Moore? She’s worse off in that regard than I ever was. And obviously, it’s not something I know how to fix. How could I?

“Tabitha,” Mrs. Macintire’s voice was thick with emotion. “Do you—do you promise me that he’s never touched you? Not, not even just him. Your dad, your uncle that got into all that trouble, anyone? I-if anything’s happened to you, honey, I need to know. Please.”

“Nothing like that, I swear,” Tabitha assured her. “Certainly nothing sexual. I’ve seen my dad yell, mostly at doctors or school staff, and I saw him angry enough to break a plate once. I-it was a nice plate, I’ll always remember it. He’s never hit me, I don’t think he ever would.”

“Your uncle?” Mrs. Macintire pressed. “Anyone else?”

“I was a fat little girl, and my uncle’s tastes skew… lean and skanky,” Tabitha tried to introduce some levity. “The bleached blonde junkie thin-types, that are bony but still have boobs. He never even glanced my way, I promise. There was one single instance where boundaries were crossed with someone, but it was—it was someone my age, we were, it was something like our first date, and. It was very quickly resolved. There were some harsh words, but he backed off. I did cry quite a bit, but that’s all—that’s all over and done with.”

“What,” Mrs. Macintire bit out through what sounded like clenched teeth. “Was the kid’s name?”

“He’s long gone, everything was resolved, and I promise I’ll tell you right away if there’s any of that kind of issues ever again,” Tabitha said. “It wasn’t even that bad, it was just—it was a boundaries thing. Not even something I could have pressed charges for, I don’t think.”

“Okay,” Mrs. Macintire blew out a breath and finally released Tabitha from the long hug. “Okay. If you’re sure. Because—between Karen and me, we can still give whatever boy plenty of trouble. I’m guessing—he was getting too handsy?”

“That’s, yes, that’s what it was,” Tabitha nodded in embarrassment. “It’s resolved. I was firm with him.”

“Good, good,” Mrs. Macintire wiped her eyes. “You’ll—do you want me to talk with Elena?”

“I’ll explain everything to her,” Tabitha said. “She… well, her and I have a sort of ongoing disagreement over this one particular thing. I think her misunderstanding stems off of that. I was a little upset that she said something to you about it, but then also I do appreciate her intentions.”

“She was really nervous about it,” Mrs. Macintire recalled. “But, yeah. It was a ‘better safe than sorry.’”

“I’ll talk with her,” Tabitha said again.

“Well,” Mrs. Macintire let out a laugh. “Thank you. This was all… a relief. I’m sorry to come in and bother you, tonight of all nights, on such an uncomfortable topic. How are you holdin’ up, hon?”

“I feel a lot better! Actually,” Tabitha smiled. “I really do. Thank you. For—for everything… mom.”

----------------------------------------

Ominous quiet filled the cab of his truck as it rumbled down the Springton roads and brought them back down the hill into their trailer park. Alan knew his wife was cross at him over the whole Tabitha and Lisa hoo-haw, but if he didn’t stand up for his sister-in-law, then who would? It rankled how Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Macintire were so quick to dismiss Lisa’s innocence as impossible, how quick they were to judge and just see the worst in people.

He’d feared that coming into that big lump of settlement money would change Tabitha, and it seemed like his every fear was confirmed—and worse. It honestly hurt seeing how quickly the girl's colors had changed, to see her sitting on the other side of the table from her family now and openly despising her simple upbringing. Was simple really so bad? Tabitha had always been happy before. She had a bunch of cousins to run around and play with, friends at school, a warm roof over her head and plenty of food on the table—a loving family at home.

“I just don’t understand it,” Mr. Moore remarked to himself, shaking his head.

They were getting back real late—Mrs. Moore was in a mood and had insisted they go right around on another shopping trip. He knew the why, but was smart enough to hold his peace as he followed her up and down the aisles of the big Walmart all over again. That snooty woman that Tabitha was staying with had made a big fuss about all sorts of ludicrous Christmas things she was spoiling her own little daughter with, and she’d obviously just been doing it to stir up bad feelings between them.

It worked, because of course everything with those people was money money money all the time, and now his wife had it in her head that she needed to buy back her daughter’s affection with more Christmas presents. In his mind, the holidays should be about spending time with family, not some sort of contest to see who can get all the big price tags or cram the most presents under a tree. The trip through the store hadn’t done nothing but frustrate Mrs. Moore more and more, and from the set of her jaw when they returned to the parking lot empty-handed, he’d been sure she was about to go off on him.

He didn’t want to fight about it.

They lived in a material world now, and who knew—maybe he really was just behind the times. Everything was all about spending money and having a bunch of stuff, without much thought put into whether anyone even needed all that sorts of nonsense. That Macintire woman buying her little girl a whole new play cottage, when she already had one? It was ludicrous!

Even if that Hannah girl is growin’ up and gettin’ taller, the obvious solution woulda been to buy a couple four by fours—nail together a frame to set the playhouse up on. Plenty of folk in the area use pressure treated four by fours for lining their garden beds already anyhow, and for less than fifteen bucks and maybe… ten minutes of handiwork, they’d’ve had the whole kiddie cottage raised up. Put an easy four more inches of clearance to the little door, if like they said Hannah’s startin’ to bump her little head on it. More weight on the bottom’d make the whole kerdoodle a bunch safer, too! Help keep the whole mess from tippin’ over and somebody gettin’ hurt, if they’re climbin’ around on it like kids always do.

Maybe I shoulda spoke up about it, Mr. Moore frowned. Doesn’t sit right with me if they’re spendin’ all sorts of money on a new playhouse cottage if there’s such an easy fix for the one they have.

Then again, it did definitely seem like Mrs. Macintire was already keen on just gettin’ a fancier new one, so maybe it was better that he held his tongue. That was the way some people were, and there was just no changing their minds. It just made him want to sigh and shake his head, seein’ the impression that kind of thinking was making on both his little girl and his wife.

Why would Tabitha need an expensive typewriter or IBM computer? They couldn’t afford it, and Tabitha had all of her story-writing stuff down in writing already. Was there really any kind of need to take all those pages and pages and just copy them into computer databit whatevers to print out? Even if there was, she could do that at a school or a library somewhere. Getting important papers printed out somewhere cost ten cents a page—the idea of spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a whole personal computer setup with all the expensive little hookups and accessories and doodads you needed for it to run seemed like sheer vanity.

Really makes me wonder what in the hell was goin’ through Danny’s head, tryin’ to just take all those computers, Mr. Moore thought as the vehicle slowly lurched over the speedbump on their street and then pulled into the familiar spot in front of their trailer.

Guilt and frustration went through him again at seeing that Danny’s Oldsmobile was still missing. He’d intended on looking after it while his brother served out his time and thought about the mess he’d gotten himself into, but then this whole kerfluffle with the police happened, and now it was at the impound lot. Getting it back was gonna be a whole big affair, because Lisa hadn’t had the mind to give him the papers for it for safekeeping back then in October.

Well, they’re all gonna feel pretty stupid once they realize Lisa’s innocent of all them trumped up drug charges, he thought to himself with a wry smile. Maybe then they’ll be trippin’ all over themselves to try an’ make amends, sort out the impound nonsense for us. It was the same once all those people realized what was what with the whole Tabitha thing withdrawing from school.

With his outlook improving, Mr. Moore switched off the ignition and unbuckled his seatbelt. He was just getting ready to open his door and step out into the December air when he caught his wife’s look.

“Alan,” Shannon made no move to get out of her seat. “Do you understand why Tabitha left us to go stay with that other family?”

Whew boy, here we go, then, Mr. Moore suppressed a sigh.

He rested his wrists on the steering wheel for a moment as he figured out how best to console her.

“She’s growin’ up and goin’ through those teenage phases,” Mr. Moore explained in a soft voice. “I think mayhap she’s got it in her mind that there’s somethin’ wrong with—you know, with livin’ in a trailer park, when there ain’t nothing wrong with it. Somebody musta said something, or one o’ her friends teased her, and it mighta just rubbed Tabby the wrong way. We’ve got a mobile home, yeah. And her room she’s grew up in, yeah, it’s just an itty-bitty thing. We don’t have all kinds of money to throw around on this and that like them Macintires do.”

He glanced at his wife in the passenger’s seat, but she was staring at him an incredulous expression.

“Oh, c’mon,” Mr. Moore shrugged and opened his hands from where they rested in a what can you do sort of gesture. “You know well as I do that she’s had her struggles lately. She’s different—our Tabby’s special, an’ that didn’t sit right with some of the other kids her age maybe. Growin’ up’s always gonna be tough. Right now she’s got her mind set on—I dunno, on separatin’ herself off from her roots and tryin’ to make herself out to be like she’s different now. In with the cool crowd, in with—you know. Havin’ money and clothes and mall fashion and all that jazz.”

“So,” Mrs. Moore continued to stare at him. “So—you don’t understand what’s going on? At all?!”

“Alright, okay,” Mr. Moore shook his head, looking out across the row of trailers lining the street. “Here we go again, huh?”

“She was right about Lisa, an’ everyone is saying so,” Mrs. Moore hissed out. “She was right. About—about everything with her. Lisa had a thing full of heroin, they caught her with it. All that money we gave her for that piece of shit car that didn’t run went right into her nose, or into her arm, or, or—however heroin goes, I don’t know, Alan!”

“There’s just no way Lisa would—”

“No—stop, STOP!” His wife hollered over him. “Lisa never gave a damn about those kids, she never gave a damn about nobody but herself, an’ if you’re still tellin’ yourself otherwise, you’re a goddamn fool.”

“Hon—”

“She struck her own child right there in front of us, and over what?!” Mrs. Moore spat out. “Over nothing. Just ‘cause he was irritatin’ her! Well, guess what, Alan? Kids are gonna irritate sometimes, and if you just—if you just backhand them every time they do? That’s not raisin’ up a kid. That’s more like abuse! Those four boys are not h-her, her belongings she can do whatever she damn well pleases with, they’re children, and not a one of us but Tabitha did a damned thing to protect them from her.

“Tabitha was worried, Tabitha was watchful, and when she went to you ‘splaining that she thought Lisa was doin’ drugs? What do you do? Nothing. Because the perfect pretty Lisa in your head can’t do drugs, because ‘oh, a sensible person wouldn’t do that,’ because she’s got family, an’ so she knows better. She doesn’t know better, Alan! For Christ’s sake!”

“Alright, alright, calm down—”

“No! No!” Shannon slapped his arm away from her. “You listen to me! Every time someone points out to you how insensible Lisa is all the time, you go on and say ‘oh, well she made a mistake.’ It was the same with your brother Danny! ‘Oh, he made a mistake.’ Lisa was doing heroin, Alan! All that money she took, all o’ her comin’ back an’ askin’ for more money, it was for heroin! Your lousy brother, stealing all that stuff—heroin, Alan! That’s not an accident! That’s not just a mistake!”

There was no stopping her now, so Mr. Moore didn’t even try to—he needed to let her get all of this out of her system so she could calm down. She’d been working herself up about the whole crazy mess more and more as the days went on, and a big part of him worried that she wouldn’t come to her senses.

“You’re a goddamn fool, Alan,” Mrs. Moore wept bitter tears as she continued to glare at him from the other side of the truck’s cab. “Tabby, she didn’t leave ‘cause o’ money. She didn’t leave ‘cause she’s goin’ through phases! She left because you’re a goddamn fool, and more an’ more? I think I must be one, too.”

“You’re… not a fool, honey,” Mr. Moore assured her. “When everything gets figured out, I think—”

“You keep saying that,” his wife huffed. “You keep on just thinking this is all some big goddamn misunderstanding someone else is gonna sort out. It’s not. An’ that’s more and more clear to everyone the longer this drags on. I’ve talked with Laurie about it, you know? ‘Bout how your heart’s just so much bigger than your head. That you’ve got all this, this blind trust for people, even where it don’t belong. Laurie said it, said there’s that saying—trust, but verify.

“Tabitha told you Lisa was doin’ drugs, and then you just shook your head at that and trusted that she wasn’t. Without verifying, without any sort of due diligence. To you, that’s someone else’s job to figure out, the police maybe, the courts. Because you’re family, so you can just trust everything blindly. Not your problem, right! This wasn’t even the first time this has happened, Alan! Tabitha told you that Taylor girl pushed her off of that trampoline jumper. If you’d gone in and looked into all that, maybe Tabby wouldn’t have been bullied so bad at school, maybe she’d have not gotten hurt again and again. But, you just blew it off. We both did, didn’t we? Kids playin’ around, it’ll sort itself out! Except it didn’t, Alan! It got worse and worse and worse for her, an’ all this after she told you about it, told US about it! She told you someone pushed her, she told the both of us at the dinner table how she’d been bein’ bullied.

“Both of us just, well, we refused to believe it. Trusted that everything’d work itself out. Or someone else would look into it—leave all that to the school board, the teachers or whoever. That’s their job, right? Never our problem. We never did jack shit about anything any time Tabitha came to us for help. That’s why we’re goddamn fools, that’s why Tabitha left the minute a better family than us opened their doors to her, and Alan? In my heart, I’m not even sure she should come back.”

“Now don’t you say that,” Mr. Moore told her in a tired voice. “It’s been a night, and you’ve got yourself all riled up over this whole thing again. Sure, some of them things seem clearer when you’re to where you’re lookin’ back on it all. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty, they say that, too. Let’s get you inside, honey, you’re liable to catch cold out her like this, we both are, okay? We’ve done the best we can as parents, and sometimes, well, things just—”

“I’m going inside,” Mrs. Moore said abruptly, turning to face him again as if she hadn’t heard a word he’d just said. “I’m—I’m going to clean the house. Go through the fridge, and do up meals and prepare them up for the week like Tabitha did. Check through my old clothes and see if any of it even fits anymore—tomorrow I’m going out, I’m going out and finding a job. I don’t even care where! There’s all sorts of signs up for seasonal help, I’ll work at the mall, if I have to. I’m done being fat and miserable and just waiting around the house for all my problems to magically fix themselves on their own!

“I’m done being a goddamn fool, Alan.”

----------------------------------------

“You didn’t open your other presents,” Hannah remarked, peeking over the lip of the bucket in Tabitha’s room. “Are they for Christmas?”

“No,” Tabitha admitted, turning from where she was laying on the bed. “They were for my birthday.”

Tabitha had been too quiet this morning, and Hannah once again felt like she was on full alert trying to figure out what went wrong. They’d made breakfast together for everyone—bacon, eggs, and toast. Sometimes Hannah’s sunny-side-up eggs still weren’t coming out right, because you had to be more extra careful with the yolk. But, Tabitha had taught her it was okay to just scramble the ones that didn’t work out right, because scrambled eggs were still okay too. Today they only scrambled one portion, which Hannah claimed for herself.

Tomorrow I’m gonna be SUPER EXTRA careful, and none of the eggs are gonna havta be scrambled up.

Hannah had gone to school, another boring day at Springton Elementary. She sat with her friends Jennifer and Laura and did dumb school assignments, they talked about what they thought they might be getting for Christmas, and they argued with the stupid boys who sat on the other side of their table as usual. Her school friends weren’t cool like Tabitha was, though—as always, Hannah had been thrilled to clamber down the steps off the bus coming home and see Tabitha waiting for her at the end of their street.

The problem was, Tabitha wasn’t okay today, and Hannah could definitely tell.

There were still smiles, but they were smaller, subdued, not as cheery as they normally were. Was Tabitha unhappy? Lapses into silence felt unusual, and Hannah would look up at Tabitha with expectation—but Tabitha apparently didn’t want to talk about whatever was bothering her, and unlike with her parents, Hannah was genuinely worried about trying to pester the truth out of the girl. She hadn’t had any real fights with Tabitha, they hadn’t ever argued except in silly, teasing ways full of giggles and hugs, and the idea that she might someday upset Tabitha, that Tabitha might just leave—that honestly terrified Hannah.

“Well—open them!” Hannah said, confused and bewildered by the teenage girl’s restraint. They’re your presents!

“I should,” Tabitha said. “I’m just… scared to, I guess.”

The concept of not being super excited to immediately open up presents was so alien to Hannah that the little girl couldn’t help but frown and consider things again, staring down at the still-wrapped gifts resting deep in the bucket. It was true that you couldn’t tell what they were, so they could be anything maybe, but Hannah didn’t think they would ever be anything scary. Scary like, spiders? Dead stuff? Cleaning chemicals like under the sink, or a sharp knife, or razor blades, like mom said bad people hid in Halloween candy sometimes? Drugs?

“Is it… do you think they might be drugs?!” Hannah blurted out, looking up from the bucket in shock.

“No! No,” Tabitha let out a wry chuckle. “I don’t think they’re drugs.”

“Okay,” Hannah felt flummoxed, giving up on the bucket and clambering up to join Tabitha on the girl’s bed. “Then—what?”

“Oh, Hannah banana,” Tabitha sighed, draping an arm over her. “I don’t want to put all my problems on you.”

“You have to,” Hannah insisted, giving Tabitha her most serious expression. “Because, I said so.”

“Because you said so, huh?” Tabitha gave her a weak smile.

“Uh-huh.”

They laid there for a while in silence, with Tabitha just gently patting Hannah’s back. It didn’t feel patronizing, and the teenage girl didn’t seem to be clamming up, either—it seemed like Tabitha was at a loss as to how to explain what she meant. Mom got that way too, sometimes, Hannah remembered how difficult it had been for the adults to explain what happened when dad got put in the hospital. Some topics were really big and… heavy, Hannah supposed, not knowing how else to articulate the thought. Topics that weren’t for kids to worry about, usually. Grown-ups dealt with stuff like that all of the time. The thought that her dad might die, back then? That was unbelievably heavy for Hannah, it was absolutely crushing, suffocating, and although yeah she’d been mad that they didn’t just come out and tell her, after they did finally reveal it—she sorta understood that the weight of all of that was too much for any seven year old.

It hadn’t been easy when Tabitha got attacked at the party, either.

Adults stuff was sometimes boring like taxes and bills and work, but sometimes heavy with… with hurt and stuff that wasn’t even fair to deal with, but they had to anyways, because they were grown ups. This felt like that. Maybe Tabitha turning fourteen had piled up more grown-up heaviness on her a bit, because for the past while Tabitha had seemed tired, less herself. Hannah knew what feeling sad felt like, and that made her able to recognize that whatever was weighing on Tabitha, it wasn’t sadness, exactly. It was a weary sort of… emptiness, like Tabitha was missing something.

“I think…” Tabitha whispered out after the long silence. “I think I’m afraid that I’ll open up the presents and be disappointed. So long as I don’t open them, then, they can be anything! Schrodinger’s presents. But, once I do open them—then they can’t be anything, anymore, they might just be things that, that. That disappoint me. Or, make me mad. My relationship with my parents right now is just so very, very fragile, Hannah banana. It feels like it’s hanging by this one last little thread, this string that might snap any minute. I’m just… I’m not ready to risk any more disappointment, right now.”

That was… a lot.

Hannah didn’t know what to say to that, but it did all fit with her understanding of the heavy adult stuff, and not wanting to try to put that load on one little string. Not if that’s all that was left for now to hold it all up. She knew from the things she overheard her parents say, and from how all the grown ups acted, that Tabitha’s mom and dad had messed up, big-time. It wasn’t very clear on the why or how or what they were in trouble for, exactly, but Hannah did know that it was why Tabitha was staying with them.

“I hope they’re good presents, then,” Hannah lied.

“I’m sure they probably are,” Tabitha gave a little shrug, sliding her hand off of Hannah. “I just, I’m not ready to even see, yet.”

It seemed to be like a touchy subject, but Hannah sat up on her knees beside the girl, and then dropped down on top of Tabitha to give her an extra-strength hug. Maybe it would be rude to say Tabitha should just forget about her parents and instead stay with the Macintires forever. Hannah kept wanting to hint at that, or at least strongly suggest it, but now didn’t seem like a good time—not when Tabitha was feeling vulnerable about the parents thing like this.

If I say the wrong thing, I don’t think it can be like you just scramble the eggs and they’re still okay enough for breakfast, Hannah’s brows furrowed. If I say the wrong thing, it might be… like saying something bad you can never take back. I feel like that’s what Tabitha means with the string thing, with why she doesn’t even want to open up the presents from her parents. THAT’s scary. How do dumb parents even GET like that?

Her own mom and dad were dumb, they both always gave baloney non-answers to the how long can Tabitha stay with us question, with lots of we don’t know yet, honey, and we’ll have to see how things turn out. When the obvious correct answer was that she should just stay forever. Tabitha belonged with them, she was a perfect fit. Just the right age to feel like a big sister, but she could also do responsibilities stuff, like a nanny or babysitter. Sometimes she could be like having another daughter to her mom, a teenage-aged one, and sometimes when Hannah saw those two chatting alone, it was like they both spoke to each other as adults, as equals.

Okay… sometimes it’s still weird with dad, Hannah admitted to herself.

A few nights ago at dinner, dad had really ‘stuck his foot in his mouth,’ with a joke that Tabitha was getting to be like their family’s red-headed stepchild. The lighthearted teasing atmosphere with mom had gone from amusement to full-stop actual anger in a heartbeat. Hannah had frozen up and gone wide-eyed, Tabitha had insisted that it was okay, that everything was okay, but both girls had watched from their side of the table as Mrs. Macintire helped her husband out of his seat and then escorted him back to bed. Where he was apparently grounded for the rest of the night.

That had been awkward and bad.

Likewise, when mom came back and Tabitha had hurried to apologize, that just seemed to frustrate mom even more, so Hannah wasn’t blind to how delicate weird family stuff was with Tabitha around. Last night, when they came home from Applebee’s dinner with Tabitha’s parents, mom had been excited to take Hannah aside and explain that Tabitha would be with them a little longer.

No one had ever even told her that was a risk! Or that there was a possibility of it happening so soon! The realization that Tabitha might have instead gone back to her own family that night blindsided Hannah to near tears. The idea that Tabitha might just be yanked out of her life, at any time, made her feel like she was about to go ballistic and have a total meltdown; Hannah couldn’t let it happen.

“Hannah? Oof—okay, Hannah?!”

But, what do I even DO? Hannah frowned, refusing to unlatch herself from where she’d piled herself on top, even when Tabitha kept trying to struggle her way free. How do we make sure she just STAYS with us? Stays with us forever and ever like she’s supposed to?

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The four Moore boys plodded home through the cold from their bus stop together, weary from a school day but lapsing back and forth into serious discussion over what they wanted for Christmas. It was a difficult thing to talk about, because they wanted so many things, but basically already knew everything they would be getting this year. Everything with the exception of one new revelation; that apparently Tabitha had a present for them this year.

“I can’t tell you, ‘cause it’s a secret,” Joshua couldn’t help but feel smug.

The experience at the roller rink made them all want roller blades, which then prompted the topic of getting hockey sticks. It went without saying that they always wanted more video games and action figures—they were boys. A new bike would have been awesome. The four boys shared two bicycles, and only the newer one had the kind of handlebars you could have another kid sit on to tote them around—so, no matter what, one of them was always going to be running behind them, stuck on foot.

They trudged up the porch steps and into the warmth of their grandma’s apartment, shedding backpacks and then their winter coats into the big typical heap near the door. Next, eight beaten and battered sneakers were kicked and wrestled off and nudged into the edge of the entryway pile. Grandma was working on mac and cheese for supper, and after a few minutes of four children clambering for the kool-aid pitcher from the fridge, drinking, setting their mostly empty cups everywhere all across the counter—to grandma Laurie’s exasperation—the boys were all swatted away and shooed out of the kitchen.

They trooped over instead into their room together—them having a room of their own here at all still being a somewhat recent development to adjust to.

When it became clear that their stay would be semi-permanent rather than a long visit, the sewing machine stuff and laundry and old storage from the study was transferred to grandma Laurie’s room so that the boys wouldn’t have to camp out in the living room every night. A beat up and blocky old wooden bunk bed from a yard sale took up the left side of the room, while a brand new metal bunk bed from the mattress store in Sandboro dominated the right side of the room. The bottom bunk of the metal one was a futon bed, and when it was folded out it reached all the way across to touch the wooden bunk bed opposite, eliminating any remaining floor space.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The former study had never been large.

Both of the beds had ladders, and the narrow confines of the room meant the pair of bunk beds were something of a tiny jungle gym for the boys to play around on. Their dresser had been forced into the scant space left to put it, despite that meaning the bottom half of their window was blocked off. Because Joshua was still the shortest of them all, a third of his mattress space on his bunk was occupied by their toy bin and boxes of their stuff that wouldn’t fit anywhere else. The crowded area was as messy as it could be with toys and clothes, scattered books and magazines and school papers—the simple lack of space meant there really wasn’t room for too much clutter to even exist.

“Just tell us,” Aiden whined.

“It’s a secret!” Joshua said again.

“Is it a Nerf gun?” Sam asked, rummaging up to his shoulder through the toy bin to fish for the smaller items that sifted through towards the bottom.

“Yeah, we need more guns super bad,” Nicholas said.

It was true—the boys’ arsenal was in a sorry state. Their dad understood, and usually got them a pair of new guns each year, but with him gone and their grandma still against buying them ‘awful guns,’ they hadn’t been able to replace any of the broken ones or the ones whose darts went missing. The neighborhood kids nearby like Kenny and Liam and their friends all had tons of Nerf weapons. While some borrowing and lending was expected when they wanted to equip everyone for a super huge battle at the park playground—that still meant the other kids kept the best picks for themselves.

No one felt quite so poor as the kid stuck with some cheapo second hand gun and one or two crooked foam darts that barely managed to fire a few feet away.

The four brothers shared ownership of their Nerf Eagle Eye—a big heavy bolt-action contraption that maybe once had a laser scope—both the batteries and battery compartment cover were missing, as well as all but two of their darts for it. They had one Nerf bow and then one generic brand dollar store-version of a Nerf bow, but well over a dozen foam arrows, because at one point they’d had a dollar store bow set for each of them—those ones broke a little too easily. Their only halfway decent gun was their Nerf Ballzooka, for which they still had nine of the original ten balls for ammunition.

“It’s—well, no, it’s not a Nerf gun,” Joshua’s expression soured. “I did ask. She said she didn’t think of that, but maybe next year?”

“Lame,” Aiden scoffed. “Bogus.”

“You’re lame,” Nicholas argued. “Not like you’re even getting her anything for Christmas!”

“Yeah, she didn’t even havta get us anything,” Joshua scowled at his ungrateful brothers. “But—she actually got each of us something.”

“Like what?” Samuel asked again, fishing out one Ninja Turtle after another from the toybox. “Action figures?”

“Probably something stupid,” Aiden rolled his eyes. “Like she sewed us a stupid sweater with grandma on the machine. They always used to be in there doing stupid stuff with it.”

“Wait, for each of us?” Nicholas perked up. “Definitely action figures, then. Right?”

“Nope, but I’m not telling,” Joshua smirked. “But, it was expensive.”

“Expensive?” Samuel looked up from the toy bin.

Each of the boys exchanged glances with each other—Joshua now had their undivided attention.

“How expensive?” Aiden asked, shoving Joshua’s shoulder.

“It’s a secret,” Joshua grinned. “But. Like, eighty dollars.”

Their room exploded with commotion at that, because that was a huge sum of money. Forget an action figure or two or even an action figure-sized vehicle, eighty dollars was all the way clear into big playset territory! Each of the boys couldn’t help but ache with longing at the thought of some of the pricier-looking big stuff in the Toys-R-Us ad pages. After all, aside from their Bruce Wayne Manor playset, the biggest thing they had to play with with their figures was their old Fisher Price castle from forever ago.

“Wait wait wait, shut up,” Samuel quieted down his cheering brothers by holding both hands up. “Is it something separate for each of us? ‘Cause then, if she spent eighty dollars total, that means it’s really just, what, twenty-five bucks spent on each of us like individually.”

He was the oldest of the boys, and they couldn’t argue with his math. It was a sobering thought for each of them, but not altogether bad news, either—twenty-five bucks for a toy just to have for themselves was still really good. The question was, what did Tabitha get them? They’d already snooped through grandma Laurie’s closet and found their Christmas presents from her there, so in a lot of ways that fire of excitement had already died down to embers of impatience, since they obviously weren’t allowed to open them yet.

Their parents were both in jail or prison or whatever, so they knew they had to expect less stuff than normal for Christmas. Grandma had told them they could look forward to a letter or a card from their mom and dad… but who cared about letters or Christmas cards? Not boys their age, and Joshua wasn’t even all that excited about driving out to see their dad for a visitation soon, either. Yeah, he wanted to see his dad, but he wasn’t all that excited for it.

“So—what is it?!” Nicholas threw one of the pillows from the bed across the room at Joshua.

“It’s a secret. So, I’m not telling,” Joshua answered with a proud look, then putting on his best wizened, cryptic smile. “ She said it’s like a Tamagotchi, but not a Tamagotchi.”

“What is it?!” Aiden pushed Joshua again.

“Ow! Quit it.”

“Like a Tamagotchi, but not a Tamagotchi…” Sam mused, trying to imagine what it could be. “So it’s like a little thing… one for each of us.”

“Mighty Max?” Nicholas guessed. “It’s probably like a Mighty Max.”

“Or Z-bots,” Aiden perked up. “Or Star Wars!”

“Maybe,” Sam said, leaning back over the toy box again and pulling out a stormtrooper head. “But… does she know we’ve already got one?”

Many different toy brands jumped on the Mighty Max and Polly Pocket compact craze and introduced transforming playset toys. Their plastic Micro Machines Stormtrooper Action Playset head folded out into to reveal a few tiny little Death Star scenes inside, with space to put a fighter ship at the top, and then the bottom was a trash compactor zone with a little dial that could make it open and close.

“Right, that’s probably what it is,” Aiden nodded in understanding. “We saw last time in the toy section; there’s a bunch of different ones. So it could be one of those for each of us. Like, Boba Fett opens up into Cloud City.”

“It might not be Star Wars ones, though,” Nicholas said. “Could be Mighty Max, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Alien or Predator or anything, really!”

“You’ll have to wait and see?” Joshua gave them his most obnoxious knowing smile and a big shrug—before being buried by thrown pillows and wadded-up bedcovers as his brothers tossed everything they could at him.

He felt a little guilty at getting their hopes up, but there was no way he was not going to take advantage of finally being the one to know something that none of them did. It was okay if the Christmas presents from Tabitha were just off-brand cheapo Tamagotchis instead of something neat like a new Nerf gun or a bunch of Mighty Max sets for them. They’d never had Tamagotchis before anyways, so it wasn’t like they’d know the difference from the expensive official brand ones.

Just having one that’ll be MINE will be super cool, Joshua thought as he struggled to toss the pillows back at his brothers—it was futile, because they were just grabbing them and throwing them back at him even faster. Grandma’s always griping about how we have too many toys, but it’s only like A LOT of stuff if you consider it for like, one kid. Four of us being told to share… well, it’s not even that much, really.

No one really learns to hate the word ‘SHARE’ like a kid with three siblings—let alone being the youngest one.

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“Okay. So; what do you think about Tabitha joining Art Club?” Alicia asked, leaning heavily across the scuffed glass counter.

“I’m all for it,” Casey shrugged. “Is she coming back to Springton High, though?”

Monday nights at Family Video were slow. Aside from a bit of midday activity that consisted mostly of people returning their weekend rentals, there just wasn’t much to do. Casey was closing tonight, and although the Family Video franchise was technically open until midnight every night… Springton was a real small town. She was the only one staffed in the store until close, and close was gonna be nine o’clock if Casey decided it wasn’t busy enough—her manager, Doug, was a cool guy and left things to her discretion.

“Yeah, I think after Christmas break she’s coming back,” Alicia said. “Elena and I are kinda-sorta fighting over who gets custody of her? Elena’s doing cheer tryouts and Tabitha might go for that, but I wanna pull her into Art, instead.”

“Cheer?” Casey made a face. “Gawd, I hope not. Tabitha doesn’t strike me as the snooty rich bitch type?”

“I know!” Alicia clapped a hand on the counter in agreement. “And Elena’s like—she said she’s not going back to blonde, so like—?!”

“Right?!” Casey sniffed. “They should both come to Art Club, f’ya ask me.”

“Yeah,” Alicia bobbed her head in a nod. “They totally should.”

Casey let out a groan of frustration, out of habit checking the drop-off bin beneath the counter again. Just like last time she looked, it was still empty. There were no videos to rewind, nothing to put back away, nothing to do. When Alicia showed up, Casey had teased the freshman girl about making her vacuum the carpets for her before close, but at this rate Casey was going to plug in the cleaner and get started just to help kill time.

“Is it always this slow, here?” Alicia asked.

“Nah,” Casey blew out an exasperated breath. “When we’re busy we get slammed, just—when we’re not busy, it’s this, and I do homework or something.”

“That’s cool,” Alicia shrugged. “Get to get all your stuff done and get paid while you’re at it.”

“I guess,” Casey sighed. “Doug’s cool with me doing school stuff, but he won’t let me just play my Gameboy on shifts.”

“I mean,” Alicia gestured across the empty aisles. “How’s he gonna know?”

“Eh,” Casey made a face. “I’d know. So—yeah.”

“Hmm,” Alicia gave her a curious look. “I had you pegged for like, more or a rule-breaker? Like, a rebel.”

“I am, sorta,” Casey said. “If Doug was a dick, I’d blow off whatever he says and just do whatever, I guess. But, he’s cool. Letting me do my assignments and stuff when it’s slow is already cool, he’s chill about a buncha stuff. I don’t want to like, let him down for the rules he is serious about, you know?”

“Huh,” Alicia pondered that over.

“So,” Casey gave Alicia a look. “Tabs is from the future?”

The dark-skinned freshman girl gave a start at that, out of reflex glancing over her shoulder as if there might be customers who could have overheard. Family Video remained empty, and Alicia returned her attention to Casey with a sheepish smile and a shrug.

“I mean, yeah, kinda,” Alicia mumbled. “Elena doesn’t believe her.”

“But you believe her?” Casey asked, arching an eyebrow.

“I… yeah, I think I do,” Alicia answered with a helpless shrug. “But, it’s real complicated. Annnd—I dunno if I should ever even say anything, without her here to like… I don’t know? It’s so weird. Tabs is cool with letting stuff slip, but then Elena doesn’t even believe her and she’s all like you can’t go around saying stuff if it’s true, ‘cause government scientists will abduct you and dissect your brain or whatever.”

“It’s interesting,” Casey remarked. Is that why you’re interested in her, Alicia?

“Yeah,” Alicia nodded. “I love—uh, well I could just sit there and listen to her go on and on about all the future stuff for hours, I think. It’s all just so fascinating to think about, to get this like, outside perspective on everything. Whether or not it’s true there’s just this whole big ton of thought put into everything. She’s got song lyrics, she’s got movie information and books and video game stuff, fashion, like, cultural trends, internet stuff—social medium. No, media. Social media. I always get that wrong.”

“Movies?” Casey perked up. “That’s like—couldn’t we quiz her on stuff that’s about to come out? Super easy way of testing for if she’s telling the truth or not?”

“Kinda?” Alicia held up her hands in a helpless expression. “She knows some and it’s real legit, like it rings true, but then she just hasn’t seen a lot of stuff since she’s not all that into movies. Or, she wasn’t in the future.”

“What’d she know?” Casey couldn’t help but ask.

“She’d for sure already seen Pleasantville before we sat down and watched it,” Alicia revealed. “Elena thinks she might’ve heard spoilers from somebody else, but I don’t. Tabs is like… she doesn’t get out and around and talk to people all that much in the first place. She knows all the Star Wars movies coming out.”

“Okay stop, stop,” Casey warned. “I’ve gotta ask, but I also don’t want any spoilers, so—just tell me, is Episode One gonna be good?”

“She, uh,” Alicia winced. “She said she liked it? But… but then, she also said most Star Wars fans didn’t like it.”

“Shit,” Casey swore, more convinced than ever. “She really is from the future. That sounds… depressingly realistic?”

“Yeah,” Alicia turned glum. “It’s like that with a lot of things.”

“What’s bad about it?” Casey pressed. “Wait, no—what’s good about it?! I’ve gotta, like, I need to—do I havta bring my expectations way, way down before I go see it? We were gonna—Matthew and I were gonna do the big fan thing, gonna camp out overnight for the day Sandboro theater puts tickets up. Is it—how bad is it?!”

“I don’t know?!” Alicia threw her hands up in frustration. “Wanna ask her once you’re done here?”

“Damn, kinda?” Casey sighed, patting the pockets of her work slacks as she surveyed the empty rental store. We could probably close up a little early, right?

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With a heavy sigh, Tabitha let the borrowed harlequin novel rest open on her chest as she stared up at the ceiling. The book was a sixties-era romance about a greenhouse owner and his savvy new secretary, written by an author who had vague ideas about gender equality in the workplace but was apparently too horny to really go anywhere sensible with them. The sex scenes were frequent, sloppy, and written in such purple prose that Tabitha honestly began to wonder if they had been put in coded metaphors to bypass censorship of some kind. In the end, Tabitha found herself emotionally empty and mildly annoyed rather than hot and bothered.

It seemed curious and a little crude to her how often this writer referred to male genitalia with weapon words—it was always a meaty cudgel, bearded scepter, or a sword shaft. A tallywhacker. Rather than inviting images of intimacy, Tabitha couldn’t help but then picture a desperate fight against weedy arbor overgrowth. As if the hapless businessman character had stumbled into a closed garden of overly articulate and questionably passionate bafflegab and was forced to struggle for survival, beating back an entire thesaurus of slithering synonyms. It was futile—he was now wholly enraptured—flowery adjectives blossomed in twos and threes to suffocate each and every root noun, all while a heady pollen of poetic emotional undertones laced the greenhouse air.

It was hard for Tabitha not to read it all as the sensual schadenfreude of a lonely writer engorging her wordcount between sips of wine, transforming her frustrated ‘you know, I’d really rather be getting laid right now’ sentiment into manuscripts that would pay the bills. Perhaps this was one of those despised authors who could stamp out a novella like this in a single month, the kind that churned out constant content without pause. Tabitha lifted the book again to skim across one of the descriptive lines.

“...Stiff staring truncheon, red-topped and rooted in a thicket of curls,” Tabitha repeated out loud in a wry voice, then closing the book with a decisive clap. “Yeahhh. Yep. That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

She set the romance novel aside on the stand beside her bed, where Message in a Bottle already rested—both had failed to pull her out of her melancholic funk. With Message in a Bottle she caught herself having to reread swaths of paragraphs, because she would reach the end of a page and realize she’d absorbed nothing and processed none of the words. The romance novel on loan from Mrs. Macintire was potentially risque enough to hold her attention for a brief while, but then squandered it in meaningless but vaguely sexual… romance novel babble. She didn’t know how else to describe the drivel that had been put to those pages but romance novel babble. Maybe if she was really in the mood for that, the sentences would all magically align with her subconscious and make some kind of better impression… but, she honestly doubted it.

Tabitha simply wasn’t in the mood.

I just—ever since I failed to get through to my dad with all of that last night, it’s like some part of my brain switched off. And now, I just don’t really feel much about anything. Don’t really care. It’s not even depression exactly, it’s—I don’t know. Depression lite? Zero calories depression? I just—I don’t care about much of anything at the moment. I don’t even feel BLAH, because I’ve FELT blah before, and that was feeling SOMETHING. This is reaching thrilling new levels or tiers of BLAH.

In Tabitha’s opinion, one tended to build their idea of their own identity or characterize oneself according to what was important to them. Wasn’t a person defined by their aspirations, or who they wanted to be, or what things they cared about that drove them towards this or that life goals? Then… what about times like this, when she didn’t feel much of anything?

If this was a book, this here would be one of the bits that gets glossed over in a time skip, Tabitha decided as she stared upwards again. This is where I am. I guess the me of right now is just the blank, leftover page space that precedes some next chapter of my life. Just a bunch of blah, a bunch of BLUHBLAH BLAHBLUH not worth elaborating on or putting into words. Not worth the keystrokes. Not worth putting into ink.

Perhaps worst of all, Tabitha found this feeling all too familiar.

Her previous life had mostly been spent in this sort of meaningless daze, day by day going through the motions of life without actually ever seeming to live. There was scant material throughout the broad years of her life that would have been notable enough to merit putting into words. That was depressing. It was eerie how time could just sort of start slipping on by, and the daily routine turns to weeks and then years without much of anything major happening. Until, before you know it, it’s too late. You’re old and tired. Despite having accomplished just about nothing, despite never feeling like the protagonist of your own story.

A knock on her bedroom door jolted her out of her moping thoughts, and Tabitha jumped, fighting down the urge to hide the harlequin novel on the bookstand.

“Hey, Tabitha kiddo?” Mrs. Macintire called. “You still up?”

“Come in,” Tabitha answered, sitting up and swiveling her legs off of the bed.

“I think you’ve got a late night visitor outside,” Mrs. Macintire peeked in through the door with a smile but didn’t enter. “Why don’t you have a look?”

“A… visitor?”

Tabitha retrieved her hoodie and grabbed her new shoes, carrying them down the hall and over towards the tiled entrance area by the door. The front window beside the door revealed a vehicle with its lights on idling out by the streetlight, and after struggling her way into the hoodie and donning the brand new blue Nike Air Maxes she hurried out the door to see who it was.

“Tabs!” Alicia opened the passenger-side door of what Tabitha now saw to be an old early nineties red SUV, with Casey giving a wave from the driver’s seat. “We’re gonna go drivin’ around—you wanna come with?”

“Uh,” Tabitha’s mind went blank but a smile crept into her features. “Yeah! Hold on one sec, let me tell them.”

“Cool!” Alicia yelled back. “‘Kay.”

As she darted back towards the house, Tabitha realized she was almost giddy with relief. Driving around with friends was exactly what she needed right now to climb up out of her ever-deepening teenage ennui. Realizing the obvious just made her feel sheepish about it, because it was simply difficult and awkward to adjust to the mindset of having friends. She’d spent too many years alone, and kept falling into a tendency to isolate herself and sink down into her own thoughts.

When I don’t even HAVE to anymore, I just need to—you know—to JB Weld, to look up, to remember everyone, to get over myself and stop having these ONLY-TABITHA’S-INVITED pity parties. Might even have to cancel the pity parade!

“Mrs. Maci—” Tabitha reopened the door and leaned back inside.

“Mom,” Mrs. Macintire corrected with a smirk from where she was lounging on the living room sofa.

“Mrs… mom, is it alright if I—?”

“Have fun, try to get back before eleven,” Mrs. Macintire made a shooing gesture.

“Thanks,” Tabitha beamed from the doorway. “Thank you.”

She was excited, Tabitha felt like she was grinning like an idiot, and it was embarrassing how quickly her depressive malaise was overturned. As a freshly-minted fourteen-year-old girl, each mood she fell into hit like a truck and seemed absolutely inescapable. Her mental state could crater into an absolute wreck after that meeting with her parents one night, and then apparently rebound up afterwards the next none the worse for wear, just at the prospect of hanging out with friends! Being a teenage girl was an incomprehensible roller coaster of ups and downs regardless of whatever her ‘memory age’ might really be, and once again Tabitha felt like she was just strapped in and along the ride, now—rolling with the twists and turns as best she could.

The front door of the house was carefully closed, and then Tabitha dashed out to the JMC Jimmy. The bounce in her step wasn’t just excitement, either—the soles of her new shoes lent a spring to each step in ways her beat up old sneakers with their worn out old soles never could.

“Hi guys!” Tabitha said.

“Heeeey,” Casey drawled.

“Sup!” Alicia snorted. “We were talking about you, and thought—hey, why don’t we just all get together? Sorry, were you busy?”

“I was… moping,” Tabitha admitted.

“Moping?” Casey asked as she shifted into gear and pulled away from the curb.

“Dinner with my parents last night,” Tabitha said, slumping in her seat upon the middle bench for a moment before thinking to look around for seatbelts. “About the whole… all that stuff. Living situation and stuff with Lisa. Ugh. Where are the seatbelts for—?”

“Oh, uh—probably tucked into the seat,” Casey glanced over her shoulder. “Sorry. You might havta dig ‘em out.”

“So your parents are all still weird about it?” Alicia asked.

“Yeah,” Tabitha shrugged as she twisted in place to try to fit her good hand in between the cushion between the middle seat and bench rest.

“My mom seems to get it, but my dad—ugggh he still just can’t believe Lisa would ever do drugs. There’s like this—ew ew ew why are there so many crumbs?! There’s like—you have like an entire handful of, of, of chips and fries and pretzels and stuff down in these seats?!”

“Wellll,” Casey drawled in an unapologetic voice. “That’s actually how trail mix is made! You see, you get a plastic baggie, and then you reach between the cushions there, and anything they find is—”

“Oh, gross,” Alicia groaned. “Now I’m gonna think of that next time I see trail mix.”

“It’s—I dunno, I never sit back there,” Casey laughed. “It’s my damn Jimmy! I sit here, in the captain’s seat. Probably some dudes from youth group spilling food or shit like that.”

“I found the seat buckle,” Tabitha reported with a sigh. “...And some change, I think.”

“S’all yours, s’your finder’s fee,” Alicia grinned.

“Wait, change, how much change?” Casey paused. “Quarters?”

“No quarters,” Tabitha ignored the pennies and nickel she’d discovered and tried to wipe her hand clean on her jeans. “So—where are we going?”

“Just cruisin’ around,” Casey said. “Was always saying we should hang out with you more often, right?”

“Yeah,” Alicia agreed. “We’ve gotta get you in more with the art club peeps. Before the cheerleaders get their claws into you.”

“Definitely,” Casey nodded. “Like—hey, you interested in an art club tee shirt?”

“Yeah, that’s—wait, that’s my line, Alicia playfully slapped Casey’s shoulder. “I’m treasurer now, right?”

“Sorry, force of habit,” Casey stuck out her tongue.

“How much are they?” Tabitha asked. “I’ll buy one.”

“Awesome!” Alicia beamed. “The uh, well the box of them’s in the art room right now actually, but they’re fifteen dollars. Whenever we can get you over there for art club, we’ll get you whatever size shirt you want.”

“Cool,” Tabitha said. “Thanks.”

Casey did appear to be taking the scenic route rather than heading directly out of the neighborhood and towards Springton’s main strip. Streetlights passed by one by one as they explored the swath of suburb here, seeing where each street took them and simply driving along aimlessly. The radio was on, but when commercials began to air Alicia twisted the volume down until it was background noise, and when they finally pulled out of the block the Macintires lived in and steered into another neighborhood, Casey began to point out at the dark houses.

“Gary lives in that one, he’s a sophomore,” Casey said. “He’s cool. Real into basketball, whenever any of the guys around school talk about playing casual games, they’re talking about Gary and his friends. They hang out and shoot hoops all the time in their little group.”

“Are you into basketball?” Alicia asked.

“Ehh,” Casey made a noncommittal sound. “Nah. If it’s just Matthew and a couple of his friends, sure. Or, I’ll play Around the World or back and forth shots or something, but whenever it gets to where there’s a lot of people or it’s all competitive, I start feeling like I’m just in the way. We have the half court there at church for the youth group. I’m more into volleyball, I guess?”

“And running?” Tabitha asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Casey said. “Definitely. You allowed to run yet? Like, has the doctor cleared you for stuff?”

“‘Nother week or so,” Tabitha said. “I can’t wait. I hate thinking how flabby I must be getting!”

“You’re fine,” Alicia shot Tabitha a grin. “Trust me. Look at me, I look great and I never run!”

“Okay, but—so, Tabitha, you’re from the future?” Casey drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “I’ve just gotta know. Is Phantom Menace good, or bad?”

“Um,” Tabitha flushed. “Both?”

“Both?” Casey shared a skeptical look with Alicia before returning her eyes to the road. “Explain!”

“Without spoiling?” Tabitha asked.

“I guess as much as you can, yeah.”

“Alright. Sooo… where do I even start?” Tabitha floundered.

“Story? Like, is the movie good?” Casey laughed. “Yes, or no?”

“It’s… alright?” Tabitha hemmed and hawed for a moment as she tried to think of what to say. “Okay, let me think about it for a second. Try to remember everything—it’s been a while.”

Casey waved to indicate she could take all the time she needed, but Tabitha wasn’t sure what to even say. When someone liked a movie it was usually pretty easy to determine why, and when someone hated a movie it was usually for pretty clear-cut reasons, but Tabitha found herself… mostly ambivalent to the Phantom Menace. It had high highs and then also low lows, it was easy to praise, and just as easy to criticize. Here in the late nineties, Episode One was shaping up to be a big memorable event—it was Star Wars, after all, so of course Casey seemed to be of the mind that it would make a gigantic impression on everyone either way.

“Okay, so—The Phantom Menace, right?” Tabitha clarified. “I enjoyed it, I think it’s a good movie, but it also has a lot of flaws. Some might find those flaws to be crippling? It might depend on what your expectations for the movie are.”

“Flaws?” Casey frowned.

“One of its biggest problems, I think, was that it was a Star Wars movie,” Tabitha explained. “Which meant it did not have as much freedom or leeway in what it could do. It needed to feel like it was cut from the same cloth, it needed to connect to the old movies, and at the same time, it needed to be it’s own thing, it needed to be fresh, and new, and innovate.”

“Okay,” Casey nodded. “That’s, like—you mean it has to be kinda familiar to the Star Wars movies, and that’s good and bad?”

“Yes,” Tabitha admitted. “From what I remember, that became one of the bigger talking points about Star Wars down the line with the other films, but for even worse reasons. If George Lucas only shows these new ideas and places, the uh, styles of architecture and spaceships and all of that—then you’ll have all of these hardcore fans who feel like it’s not Star Wars anymore. If he goes in the other direction, it’s, well, it feels derivative, it’s like he’s just retreading the same boring things again. Does that make sense?”

“Kinda?” Casey quirked her lip.

“Now, to me—and this is just my views,” Tabitha warned, “the Phantom Menace struggled a bit because there wasn’t a clear single protagonist to connect to. It bounces around, for the first act, it’s Obi-wan and Liam Neeson, then in the second act they introduce Anakin, and it feels like it’s his show for a bit. Then, going into the climax, who we follow jumps from person to person and it feels like—like, whose story is this, exactly?”

“Okay,” Casey slowly parsed all of that information. “That’s—that doesn’t feel like a deal-breaker, just yet.”

“Jar-Jar Binks was universally panned by audiences,” Tabitha said, cringing. “You may have seen him in the trailer? He was this slapstick, comic-relief goofy alien character… annnd, everyone hated him.”

“Oooh,” Casey made a face, taking a glance at Alicia’s anxious expression. “Okay.”

“Additionally, pretty much all of the aliens in that one faced some criticism for possibly being racist caricatures,” Tabitha remembered. “I don’t know how much of a deal that would be here in 1998, but there got to be more of a fuss over it later on. Jar-Jar I think was vaguely Jamaican? I know the junk dealer fairy guy was clearly supposed to be Jewish, and then the corporate baddies with the mannerisms and way they talked was kinda leaning on these tropes, uh, ‘chinaman’ tropes of Chinese-American speech patterns with the choppy engrish, and how it was done in an insensitive way.”

“Alright, that’s—that’s alright,” Casey gave a small shrug. “Throughout the original movies it’s like all the Empire has those stiff upper-class British accents and they’re all in like, quasi-nazi looking uniforms and have stormtroopers and all that. While the Rebels are all like, plucky American accents and all that jazz. All that sort of culture vibe’s gotta come from somewhere originally. What else?”

“Um,” Tabitha appeared to be racking her brains.

“Is the space-chariot-racing thing dumb?” Alicia asked.

“Chariot-racing?” Tabitha blinked. “Oh, uh, the pod-racing?”

“Yeah, that was one of the things that worried me, from reading articles about it all,” Alicia admitted. “The whole ‘pod’ thing seems kinda ehhh, and then using rockets instead of horses or space-future animals just seems—honestly? Absurd.”

“Well—no, actually,” Tabitha shook her head. “The pod-racing part was really cool, in my opinion. I would give it full marks. Great sound design, it was filmed well, had a lot of tension, the CG holds up really well even on into the future, it was all pretty brilliant.”

“...Really?” Alicia rose up in her seat a bit in excitement.

“Yeah,” Tabitha gave her a serious nod. “There was—oh wait! No, there was one real bad part about it. The two-headed announcer guy for the races, he was awful. Like, the official race guy, giving commentary for the people in the stands. He looked bad, sounded bad, they, honestly they should’ve just cut him out. The whole rest of the race sequence was phenomenal.”

“Okay, pod-racing; good,” Casey noted. “Except announcer guy.”

“Really good,” Tabitha confirmed. “George Lucas was—I don’t know if you know, but he was really into cars and racing for a big part of his life, and so then he managed to incorporate that into his films finally. It was really well done.”

“What about the Queen chick?” Alicia asked. “What’s her deal?”

“Natalie Portman? Well,” Tabitha pursed her lips. “She’s okay. Didn’t impress or disappoint, really, I guess. They try to do a sort of twist reveal with her character’s identity, but I don’t remember it really having a strong impact like they might’ve hoped. They put her in crazy elaborate outfits with weird hairdos as kind of a throwback to Leia.

“Oh! Keira Knightley was cast in a little role as one of the royal handmaidens. She’s not real big now, but she’s a pretty famous actress later on, in the pirate movies. Pirates of the Caribbean, bunch of movies based on the Disneyland attraction. Or maybe it was Disneyworld? One of those big theme parks.”

“Huh,” Alicia looked thoughtful. “I think I’ve been on that ride? It sounds familiar.”

“How about the new darth?” Casey pressed for details. “Cool? Lame? How is he?”

“Very cool, but—um,” Tabitha paused. “I don’t know that I can comment on him without really spoiling a lot. He’s used very sparingly! So, it doesn’t give us much of anything in the way of character or motivation or backstory or anything like that, but he has amazing screen presence, and the action scenes with him are incredible.”

“Okay. So that—” Casey bit her lip. “He dies?”

“Don’t spoil it!” Alicia exclaimed.

“Cover your ears, quick,” Casey said with a grin. “So, he dies in this Phantom Menace movie, or…?”

“He… does, yes,” Tabitha whispered, giving Alicia an amused look as the girl clutched both hands over her ears and turned away. “So, in my opinion, he was fine if you consider Episode One as a standalone film! Perfectly fine. But, then when you consider it as the overall prequel trilogy… they wasted him too soon. They had to set up a new darth for the next one, and I think between some characters dying in Phantom Menace and some characters like Anakin needing to be recast with different actors, it felt like it hurt continuity from film to film, for me. I honestly struggle to connect Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones mentally even, because even the consistent characters that go through like Obi-wan just feel too different.”

“They recast Anakin for the next one?” Casey made a bewildered sound of aggravation. “Already?! Why?!”

“Um…?” Tabitha shrugged. “I don’t know why, really? I think it might have just been one of those things, where a child actor doesn’t develop into the sort of teen actor they wanted? Maybe? Or maybe they just needed him to look older for the time skip they do. The kid that plays Anakin in the first one never really gets roles in anything else, and then for Episodes two and three they have Hayden… Hayden something or other. He was alright-ish? The acting kinda became the low-point of the prequels in general.”

“The acting is bad?!” Casey gaped.

“It’s… awkward, yeah?” Tabitha flinched back a step. “This all happened when full green screen sets were first becoming a big thing, so you just have actors on this big empty set reading lines, with no real firm idea of who they’re talking to, a lot of the time; where they are, or what the atmosphere is even like. So, and uh—Lucas isn’t the best screenwriter to begin with—a lot of the delivery is real wooden.”

“Ouch,” Casey felt like she’d taken a physical blow. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Tabitha gave her an apologetic shrug. “I remember Ian McKellen I think, on the set of one of the Hobbit ones, he broke down crying during takes because he just couldn’t work like that. With all of the everything being greenscreen and there only being like, placeholders for the people who were supposed to be there with him in the scene.”

“They make A HOBBIT MOVIE?!” Casey cried out, clutching at her heart with both hands.

“Hey—hey, hands on the wheel!” Alicia chided her.

----------------------------------------

Bobby could only sigh in dismay as he walked another set of inserts from the make-table he was tearing down over to the sink in the back of the Springton McDonald’s. No matter which way he did the numbers, they were cruel and unforgiving—he would slave away all next year and probably still not be able to afford a car at sixteen. Getting one at seventeen was eminently probable, but was that really how he wanted his high school years to go?

$5.15 an hour, MAYBE a ten cent raise in another two months. Maybe not, Bobby wanted to scowl as he tossed a tray to soak in the slopping dishwater.

It was easy to dream about being the one savvy teen who stood out from all the others. By buckling down, working all the hours he could, and saving each and every hard-earned cent so that he would have a decent set of wheels sometime late in his sophomore year of high school. Actually accomplishing it was something else entirely—Bobby had only four hundred dollars saved. Four hundred dollars could buy a beater car in Kentucky.

But, that’s how they get you, Bobby frowned as he made his way back out to the make table to continue tearing down. Joe’s got the right of it. Beaters are a big ol’ trap. Few months after putting your name on the title—few WEEKS, if you’re unlucky, and BAM! You need suspension work. New tires. Or a whole new transmission. Or need to rebuild the engine, who knows what kinda shit you might get stuck with the bill for. Nah, not me. Not no way, no how. Gonna save and save and get a real dependable LIGHTLY used older car.

New cars ran upwards of twenty-grand, making them a total pipe dream.

He was stuck on minimum wage, and between his hours being throttled by some dumb child labor law and all of those stupid taxes, his best take-home pay wound up being a hundred and fifty dollars for a two-week period. Usually it averaged out to just a little under three hundred dollars for a month. An enormous sum for a child; an absolute pittance for a young adult who wanted a car as well as a tiny bit of casual spending money.

His brother had helped him keep an eye out for local vehicles going up for sale, and the figures attached as asking prices were… dismaying. Almost five thousand dollars for a ‘95 Jetta that was in pretty okayish shape. Seven and a half thousand for a not-quite-new truck. Just under three thousand for an old Taurus that was iffy on passing next inspection, likely needed a fair bit of work done. There was a small chronic market of beater automotives that went for under two grand in the Springton and Fairfield areas, and Bobby remembered going out and taking a look at some of them back when Joe was trying to get his first car.

Ain’t nothin’ cheap about a cheap car, Bobby remembered his brother saying on one of the trips back home afterwards.

The’d both been a little blazed, sure, but at the time the wisdom had struck him as one of the most impressive insights his brother had ever spoken. How many teens just like them were blinded by the lower apparent price and bought vehicles that actually needed a lot of expensive work done on them, and soon? No, Bobby was going to work more hours, save more money, and find a dependable car that would last him.

It’s just—damn, it’s hard to save anything, Bobby wanted to blow out a sigh as he restacked the ingredient bins.

The make table was half in disarray, because their McDonald’s was still open, and he still needed to be able to assemble whatever random odd sandwich came up on a drive-thru or walk in order this late. While he was under sixteen, he could only work three hours on a school day, so naturally Sherry worked him to the bone scheduling him as the pseudo closing cook. Meaning, he did all the tear down and closing clean-up work a closing cook would do, and then went home before actual close, leaving the shift manager to solo the last hours of operation without a cook.

At least, on paper that’s how it worked.

In reality, there was no way in hell Bobby was going to spend damn near a half hour walking home in the cold. He worked hard to get everything done during his shift, and then basically hung around, helping out off the clock with whatever was needed until close. In return, whichever manager—be it Sherry or John—would give him a lift home afterwards so he didn’t have to walk, and also never bitch about him goofing around or rat him out for slacking off. It was a good arrangement. Bobby had more room to get away with being Bobby than any of the other workers his age, all of the work got done, and everybody was happy.

Well. Be a bit happier with that raise, Bobby plied the pink cleaning cloth to the inside of the make-table, scooping out errant bits of lettuce and crumbs and tossing them to the floor where he’d sweep later. S’okay. Six month evalutation’s almost here. They don’t give me my ten cents… well, then they can forget about me doing ANYTHING besides the absolute bare minimum ‘round here. Pay minimum wage, get minimum work.

Despite making almost three hundred dollars a month, Bobby was only able to set aside a fraction of it for savings. Their mother was the kind of penny-pinching old harpy who thought dry noodles, rice cakes, and bulk bran cereal was more than good enough for groceries—if Bobby or Joe wanted to eat better, they had to do so on their own dime. For all of his many faults, Joe was a great brother, too—for the past three years, whenever Joe went out somewhere in his busted old Toyota, Bobby was invited along. When Joe went out to eat, he took care of Bobby’s food as well. The times Bobby needed to be somewhere, Joe was there to give him a lift.

So, yeah I COULD put aside every cent from my paychecks, but it’d be super shitty of me to, Bobby rationalized to himself.

Sometimes that reasoning was the only thing that could dull the sting of his car savings accumulating so slowly.

Getting him gas money now and then is more than fair after a couple years of me basically just being the mooch brother, Bobby thought. Dropping thirty or forty bucks on a random late-night grocery run, when we’ve both got the munchies? Just being able to open up my own damn wallet now, and say ‘I got you, bro.’ You can’t put a price tag on that. Not after all those times of him ordering pizza for us or pickin’ up random drive-thru stuff for me.

The drive-thru sensor let out a warbling beep from somewhere deep in the spongy foam of his headset’s earpad.

Damn, speakin’ of drive-thrus… Bobby flicked moisture off of his food service gloves and tried to nudge the headset the whole way on with his wrist.

The things were damned uncomfortable, especially as the nights wore on, so he’d taken to wearing it canted partway on his head so that it was only over one ear.

“You gettin’ that?” John yelled over from where he was mopping out front.

“Yeahhh, one sec’,” Bobby replied, doing a quick check of the slide trays in the warmer to see what patties he still had. Almost nothing—but this late, what could you do? He flipped his headset microphone down and toggled to speak.

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Springton’s premiere fine-dining experience. My name is Bobby, and I’m honored to be assisting you tonight!”

Bobby put on his customer service voice for the joke like he always did, but he was hardly grinning with anticipation or anything—he used variations of this same gag almost every night.

“Oooh, that sounds good, yah,” the voice of a teenage girl sounded through his headset. “We’ll take one of those for sure. One medium Bobby, please.”

Giggles sounded over the line partway through the girl’s sentence, indicating she wasn’t alone, and this time Bobby did grin, because it was rare that anyone he knew from school pulled through this late. After all, he was a freshman, and freshman didn’t have driver’s licenses yet.

“I’m… sorry about that, ma’am, we only have Bobby in extra-large and supersize,” Bobby joked, trotting around the make table and towards the front trenches where the drive-thru window was.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” another girl’s voice scoffed.

“Supersize, huh?” The first voice sounded amused.

“I’d like a happy meal with extra happy, please!” a third girl’s voice called out.

“...Tabitha?” Bobby asked, honestly surprised.

“Oh, and for the drink, can you make sure the ice is only on the bottom of the cup? I hate it when the ice rises up to the top.”

“Alright, what the hell are you jackals doing out this late?” Bobby laughed. “You know it’s a school night, right? Who’s there with you?”

“Wow, he’s forgotten me already. Ouch.”

“Alicia?” Bobby guessed.

“I’m just… wow, I need a moment. I’m kinda devastated?”

“You have ice cream, right? Well, we want ice cream. So. Give us ice cream.”

“And… Casey?”

“ICE CREAM.”

“They have McFlurries, right?”

“It’s actually probably out of order,” Tabitha’s voice sounded out again. “There’s this big racket they’ve got going, where the machines are built to break down and have confusing error codes and all, ‘cause the company that’s contracted to service them gets these kick-backs from—”

“Whoa, whoa whoa,” Bobby interrupted, unlatching the drive-thru window so that he could lean out and see the headlights of Casey’s GMC Jimmy. “This ain’t amateur hour, I’m not one of those morning-shift bozos who can’t handle Big Bessie. Big Bessie is fully armed and operational, I can do ya soft serve cones or sundaes or McFlurry—M and M’s or Oreo.”

“Ohmigod, really?” Casey jeered.

“You got the ice cream machine. At a McDonald’s. To actually work?!” Alicia cried out.

“Don’t they have like, a four hour cleaning cycle, though?!” Tabitha let out a dramatic gasp.

“Whoa, really?”

“Four hours?”

“Alright, how do you know so much ‘bout Big Bessie?” Bobby couldn’t help but chuckle. “Has somebody been lettin’ trade secrets slip?”

“It’s ‘cause she’s from the—”

“It’s a secret,” he could almost hear Tabitha’s smile from her tone. “We want McFlurries. Oreo for me, please.”

“Same—’nother Oreo.”

“Should I go M and M, then?”

“Pssh, no way. They get super hard when they’re all frozen in ice cream, it’s like you can chip a tooth on those beady li’l suckers.”

“That’s fair. Three Oreo McFlurries, please!”

He had already snatched the first cup from the dispenser and started pouring vanilla soft serve into it with practiced motions.

“And… one medium Bobby?”

“No, it’s a supersize Bobby, remember?”

“Ehhh, I kinda doubt it.”

“Wait, can I get fries, too?”

“That depends. Who’s paying?”

“I’ve got… hold on, lemme look.”

“Should I get a Happy Meal anyways? So I can get Hannah another toy.”

“Wow. Woooow. You’re gettin’ as bad as Matthew or the Macintires, spoiling her.”

“I am not!”

“Damn, now I kinda want fries, too.”

“...Am I?! I don’t spoil her.”

“A likely story.”

“Ladies, ladies,” Bobby interrupted with a chuckle. “Tell you h’what? If you can pull around the building once or twice, maybe reset our drive-thru timer a bit and help our numbers, I’ll pay for two of your three McFlurries. Sorry Casey, you’ve gotta boyfriend already.”

“Aww, man. Stupid Matthew.”

“Bobby—you don’t have to buy me anything, I can—”

“Tabitha, ssshhh!”

“And uh, honestly I don’t really wanna drop another batch of fries unless I reaaally have to,” Bobby admitted. “So, if—”

“Three large fries, please!”

“Alicia! We don’t need to—”

Tabitha’s voice trailed off as Casey pulled the Jimmy away from the ordering board and towards the drive-thru window at a slow crawl. All three of the girls were grinning at him, and Casey was leaning partway out of her own window with one elbow resting out on the door.

“Yo. You for serious about buyin’ their Flurries?” Casey asked, looking him up and down. “I can pull around a couple times, sure.”

“You don’t have to, Bobby,” Tabitha protested.

“Tabs,” Alicia looked exasperated. “Let the man be chivalrous? He’s gettin’ mine, too. Right?”

“For you?” Bobby smirked. “Anytime.”

“What’s the damage, then?” Casey grunted.

“That’ll be… buck seventy-nine,” Bobby said, punching a single McFlurry order into the drive-thru terminal. If Sherry was here instead of John, he would have entered three and paid for two, but Bobby regularly caught John eating food he hadn’t paid for and thus felt no compunctions giving a freebie or two out for friends.

“Sweeeet,” Casey ducked back into her car to scrounge through a purse. “Guys—thank the nice ice cream man.”

“Thanks!” Alicia beamed.

“Thank you,” Tabitha said in a soft voice. “I was having a rough day, and—and I really needed some ice cream.”

“Damn, did something happen?” Bobby made himself comfortable, resting both forearms on the window sill—the stress of work and all thoughts of catching up on the closing checklist pushed completely out of his mind as he met Tabitha’s eyes and took in her nervous smile. She wasn’t just cute, she was damned cute, and unexpectedly seeing her again so soon really did make his entire night

“Well hey, it’s not busy here at all. Lay it all on me, what all happened?”