Beach Day

46: Tiff Loses Her Shit Entirely

Night ticks on. And on. And on. Tiff isn't even sure where she is anymore, until her aunt opens the door to the room and tries to put two and two together.

Esther does the math in her head. Numbers float in front of her eyes. Tiff can track her train of thought: if Matt is dozing off on the files, Tiff is tinkering with a weapon at the table, and Kepler is burrowed under a bed, then who is in the shower? There's no mathematical answer to this question.

Tiff sets her screwdriver to the side and swings herself out of her chair. With one hand on her aunt's shoulder, she leads both of them out into the hall and lets the door schnick closed behind them. She doesn't say anything. She hasn't since she left her parents' house. She isn't sure how to.

"Tiff, what the hell is going on?" Esther whispers, voice near-panicked and mostly-concerned.

Though she's a few inches taller, Tiff can't help but feel tiny in comparison to her aunt. Miniscule. The kind of thing you could leave behind and never miss. It isn't the same as it was in her parents' house. She stands up straight, but not in anger; it's because there's no other way to hold herself together.

When she doesn't answer, Esther insists, "Tiffany May, I need an answer. You and Matt didn't pick up some werecoyote on the side of the road and let him shower in our room, did you?"

"No, it's— why did you jump to that immediately?"

"Because you have habit of picking up werecreatures—"

"I know two! Total! Denny and a clown you don't know!"

"What about that Galloway boy?"

"I guess he's also a clown?"

The joke does little to lighten the mood. Tiff wants to lay face-down on the ground and breathe into the hotel hall carpet. That amount of mold would definitely help the situation.

She grumbles, "Drake just shapeshifts. He isn't even secretive about it. Why are we talking about this?"

"Well— If you didn't drag some hapless lycanthrope into our motel room for a shower and some symptom charting, then what was it?"

"Andy." It's barely a word.

"Excuse me?"

"It's Andy, they— They sent him away, and— I didn't know what else to do because you and Drew were picking up dinner and I know you have more experience with all this but I couldn't just leave him there while they talked things over and decided not to change their minds, I mean—" Tiff pulls her own hair again. "I should have called, I know I should have called, but it slipped my mind, and I thought they were going to be better for him and I was wrong, I mean— There's bruises all up his arm, Auntie Esther, and he's going to say it's from falling down the stairs outside but I know it isn't because I used to say the same thing to reassure him and now—" Her voice breaks before she can stop it. "I'm— I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do."

"Hey, hey, hey." Her aunt swats her hand away from her hair, gently. "You did good. I wish you had called me; it's too late to go back and change that. Stop pulling your hair."

"I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. I panicked and I lost it, and— I think I made it worse, because I took some of his stuff, and they're going to be so pissed, and I don't know what to do and I didn't want to hurt him more, or make things worse or make him think he's unwai— unwa— un-wan-ted. And, like, I can deal with elv— everything under the sun, but I can't deal with this?"

"You have before, and you are now," Esther assures her. "And it isn't like you're going to be doing this alone. You have us. You have me. I need you to remember that, while you may be an adult, I'm still watching over you."