Beach Day

31: Tiff Goes To Youth Group

Tiff yanks open the door to the church, straightens out her shirt, wipes her boots on the ground by the mat, and steps inside.

The door isn't always unlocked. There aren't many scandals around here that manage to live in the consciousness enough to get talked about, so even Tiff remembers how, years ago, they started locking it because some college kids on a road trip visiting the fort "broke in" at night and vandalized the chapel. How funny— she knows her friends would do the same thing. She would do more if she weren't terrified of giving them more fodder to feed their persecution complex, making them more and more insular in the process. Closing themselves off from the world she loves... It's a terrifying prospect. She won't put the marker in her pocket to good use.

She heads for one of the classrooms. It's one she knows well, down the hall and away from the actual chapel and its pipe organ.

The church at night is an odd, liminal feeling she knows well. She can hear pop covers of Christmas hymns muffled by the thick wood of a door older than Tiff is. Light leaks under the door; she pulls it open to the sight of a few girls she once knew all gathered around a table, getting set up for the night's festivities. She supposes that makes sense. Christmas is Sunday. Peepaw tricked her again.

That isn't all true. She just didn't get enough information to prepare herself, and now she looks like an idiot in a shirt screaming about a bucket of eyes. Suddenly self-conscious, she buttons her rain-soaked overshirt. At least it's green. That's almost festive.

She kicks herself in the head for not realizing that of course they would have gotten older when she was away. They would be thirteen or fourteen now, right? They're already so much older than they have any right to be. Tiff thinks she should find the Time Gnome and introduce him to her ray gun. When did Alice Hooper's hair get so long? When did Christina Lovelace get braces? Denim skirts, khaki pants, and tartan down to their ankles— they're older now, and she missed it. The girls turn to look at her briefly, but pay her no real mind. It only lasts until one of them realizes who she is.

Alice Hooper pauses with a plate of homemade coconut cookies in her hands. "Tiffany May? Is that you?"

"Tiff Sheridan's in the building, baby." She winces. Why the hell did she say that? "Yeah, it's me. I'm back."

"Mom said that was you on Sunday, but I didn't believe her, I thought it was— Oh, I don't know. I didn't think it was you. But it is you."

"It's a-me," she agrees. Shit. She's going to get such a bad grade in this social interaction. The health bar at the edge of her vision flickers and goes down.

Oh, she's an idiot and a fool. She has to retreat.

She could. Peepaw would hear about it, though, and tell her to apologize and repent and split.

"Well," she says, stepping back toward the door and trying to take her leave anyway, "I was just dropping in to say hi, and I did—" She opens the door behind her and steps back. "So it was nice to see you again, but—"

She runs back-first into someone. Tiff turns around slowly, horror dawning as she realizes it's her mother.

How the hell did she forget? Why the hell didn't she anticipate it? Did Peepaw plan on forcing a reunion between the two of them? Tiff remembers suddenly her boots, and freezes. She's in such deep, horrible shit and she's going to get in such deep, horrible trouble.

This is it. This is the worst timeline. Forget the version of her that died at thirty-one. The Time Gnome was wrong. She can't make a good guardian because she's going to die right here and now.