Beach Day

47: Kind Of A Shitty Bedtime Story

The room is mostly dark when she gets in there. The one source of light is the lamp Matt is using to keep reviewing Tiff's attack plan. She appreciates that she gets to work with someone who cares about plans (for once) and that will pick up the slack when she's dealing with all this shit (oh, how the tables have turned for Tiff Sheridan), but she kind of just wants him to turn out the light. She doesn't even want to eat dinner, which someone definitely put in the fridge.

The other light source is from under the bathroom door, where she can hear Drew engaging in a passionate debate about whether or not Kepler is allowed to get in the tub with him. (He isn't and he knows it.)

Both sources are more than enough to see that Andy is standing in a corner, terrified, dressed in an unholy combination of Drew's basketball shorts and one of Tiff's Doll Skin shirts. Matt or Drew must have gotten them out for him so he didn't have to wear dirty clothes from the hamper. It sure as hell wasn't Tiff's doing. He clutches the clothes he had been wearing to his chest.

Tiff remembers herself, two years ago: wearing Aunt Esther's extra pajamas, unsure what to do with the board shorts and the white shirt, unsure what she was and wasn't allowed to do. Maybe time is a loop. Tiff became Eliza, so Andy must become Tiff. That's the way the story goes. Someone must play the role of a wounded child, or the circle breaks and the story stops. The wounded child, the angry teenage girl, the responsible adult— the roles are filled. Must this be a story?

If she fulfills her role, she lashes out like she does in the heat of the moment. Life is not a story, though; it is a series of events, neverending. Why, then, should she stick to the script offered to her? Must the angry, terrified teenage girl be confined to her Cruggs and mommy issues? Must she be defined by lashing out and going into a rage?

She crosses the room to her brother. She's so much taller than him— she has been for years, and he definitely hasn't hit a growth spurt of any kind yet— and it's a challenge not to tower over him. Scaring her brother is not the goal here.

"Hey, bud," she says, voice gentle.

This is hard. She isn't good at this. What would Denny do? What would Aunt Esther say? Tiff isn't meant to help people out on a small-scale emotional level. She tried with Eliza. It didn't work. It never works. She's the one who stands outside the shack to make a bomb while her friends engage in relationship drama inside. She's the one who stabs a man to death when she should be crying. That's the way it goes. That's what it is. She should go back to her mother's house and burn it down. She should break her father's glasses. She should find vengeance through violence, should be enraged, should let herself die if she can spit in their faces first.

She can't light the match against the gasoline. She should. She should stand up for Andy. She should go off on her parents. She should show them who she really is, should take the sword to Ruth Sheridan's neck, should end it, should kill the monster to save the world.

But is it even an option? This is the real world. For once, this isn't a dream.

She puts a hand on her brother's shoulder to steer him away from the wall. For some reason, all she can think to ask is, "Did you eat dinner? Did you brush your teeth yet?"

It takes him a long second to answer. "I don't have a toothbrush."

"Ah. Yeah. Well... Could you use your finger?"

"I guess so."

"Alright. Good. Good, good." She nods. (How the hell does Denny do this? This would be so much easier if she were here.) Tiff takes a deep breath and turns to Matt. "Hey, Matt, would you mind going to get Andy a toothbrush?"