The Tiff Singularity (A Collection of Lake Wonder Fiction)

Tiff Spills Her Beans All Over The Goddamn Kitchen

Tiff bounces into the house through the sliding back door of the kitchen. It's a Friday night, and things are going great.

Well, they're going as well as they can. As it turns out, when things go utterly sideways, it's hard for them to be perfect. Things have never been perfect for her, though. Why would they start now?

There's no doubt about whether or not things have been upturned in the water. Tiff thinks briefly of the fae and the elves, of condescension and manipulation, of Betty and Drake leaving, of all of the messy parts of reality that don't fit neatly into a set of bullet points about monsters and phenomena.

There's no time for that, though. She's hungry.

She forgot to eat breakfast again, and the lunch she got at school wasn't nearly enough, and she forgot to eat dinner, and she has to check on the mold she's been growing on the kitchen counter anyway, and she wants to get this done quickly so that she can get back to work on the camera she has been fixing. These are all very normal things for a quick-to-act, self-admittedly reckless, and scatterbrained teenage girl to be doing. There is no real plan for the rest of the night, just the promise of fixing cameras and ignoring homework she still has to catch up on, research, and going to bed early so she can get up earlier and head to work at the Book Nook the next morning. And maybe a sandwich. She doesn't know. It depends on what they have in the fridge. She would like a sandwich, though, if they're not out of bread. Or maybe some leftover lasagna. She already fed Kepler (that she remembered), so it's not like she has to worry about him.

Tiff sticks her head in the fridge and looks around. The door is full of condiments and jam, the drawer holds some cheese in a green bag, and there's an unopened kielbasa next to some peppers on the bottom shelf. Her mold, sitting in a container on the counter between the stove and the sink, is growing just fine. Good, good. That's good. She's excited to do some experiments and maybe try to make her own penicillin sometime soon. Mold has other purposes, too. She just has to figure them out.

Tiff takes out the cheese, then turns to the cabinets for a plate and a tortilla. This is going to be great. She loves microwaved quesadillas, even when the cheese goes hard and greasy and the tortilla turns to rubber. It's a comfort. It's an absolute delight. She scatters a handful of cheese over the tortilla, folds it in half, and sticks it in the microwave. While it's warming up, she does a little dance. She's alone. It doesn't matter that she's doing a little dance. That makes it a little more fun. She needs something to do while she's waiting, anyway.

When she tries to think of it, Tiff realizes that isn't sure where her cousin is. She does know that her aunt said she would pick up some groceries on the way home today. It's getting late. She should be back soon.

Tiff thinks about that, about her aunt telling her things and keeping her updated on what's happening. How they got to this point is a little embarrassing, when she looks back on it. She is aware of how they got here, to a place of relatively-normal conversation. Tiff remembers how she cried into her Aunt Esther's shirt, how she cried for the first time in over a year and it was from something as silly as her aunt telling her that she was worried about her. She remembers how it took her so long to regain control of herself.

Tiff has had a lot of issues with that, lately. Control. Emotion. Mostly control.

Blowing up at Aconita wasn't nearly as fun as yelling at Oneiron. Both were smug and condescending, but something was off the second time around. Aconita was cruel, and Tiff didn't have the patience for it. Like there was nothing but rage between the hemispheres of her brain she started with the screaming and goading, and she practically begged for Aconita to follow through on her veiled threat of bodily harm. Tiff doesn't hate the fae, but, by god, does she hate Aconita. And Oneiron, to an extent, but she's fine with that. He wasn't fae. Also, he's dead. It's not like he can target more fourteen-year-old boys with promises of power, autonomy, self-determination, and happiness.