Twelve - Tyler

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chapter song - I didn't change my number by billie eilish

I stare at the redhead blankly as the cat attempts to crawl all over me until it decides sitting next to me on the bench with a paw extended out to rest on my leg is adequate

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I stare at the redhead blankly as the cat attempts to crawl all over me until it decides sitting next to me on the bench with a paw extended out to rest on my leg is adequate. Tally has the most comical look on her face and I'd laugh if this wasn't feeling like some weird time travel into the past. Tally clears her throat, brows raising as she glances over me.

"She wasn't lying about you, then," she mutters under her breath.

I sigh. "You live together, don't you?"

Tally jumps, not realizing how loud she'd spoken. "Who?"

"Franny, dumbass," I say.

"Okay," Tally sticks a finger into the air. "We are not in high school, Tyler, and so you cannot call me childish names anymore. I have a degree, which means I had enough confidence to be in debt for the rest of my life in exchange for a piece of paper declaring my intelligence. What do you have?"

"A degree and no debt."

Tally blinks. "Fair play."

She looks at the cat who stares back at her and sighs, stepping up to the bench and grabbing the animal before it runs off again. She slumps onto the bench beside me and sits the cat on her lap, hands hovering at its sides. "It's Franny's cat," she says. "He ran out the front door and then somehow went - in what I can only assume is goddamn feral mode - and got down the stairs. I still don't understand how he did it. Little asshole."

"So you almost lost Franny's cat."

"But we're not going to tell her that, are we?"

I huff a laugh. "Scout's honour."

"Sweetie, we both know you wouldn't have made it as a scout," she says.

I grin at her and relax back into the chair, the sting of my shoulder slowly fading into the background. "So, Toronto?" I ask.

Tally shrugs. "I was working as a child therapist for a while," she says. "Bunch of different countries. Germany, Australia for a bit. It was a lot though. Way too much actually. I needed a break and got back in touch with Franny this year so decided to come see her."

"Got back in touch?" I frown. "You weren't...?"

"Ah, no. We lost touch a couple years after high school. Different counties, too much going on," she sighs. "Sometimes things just fade."

I nod but can't help wince. When we were all friends in high school, Franny and I decided that dating wasn't going to work with both of us going to different colleges in different states. We broke up at prom knowing that we eventually would stop keeping in touch and we too would fade away. But to hear that Franny and Tally - best friends that could never be separated - had also lost each other was surprising. An unexpected and unnecessary shot of guilt runs through me. It's stupid to think that I could have been anything for her but part of me imagines what it could have been if we never broke up. If we tried to stay together. Even just tried to be friends.

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