Chapter 12 No Show #2
She feared she wasn't strong enough to let someone in again and not lose herself.
A mental image of a stoic man staring deeply into her eyes caused her to close her eyes tightly, pressing the heels of her hands against them.
The summer air tickled the hairs at the nape of her neck, and she shook his image out of her head.
That breeze picked up in strength, and she suddenly felt a bubbling happiness of twirling and delightful dizziness.
Her head tilted sharply up, and she smiled as she felt Lola's spirit dance around the graveyard, her childlike happiness a rush, so pure and glittering that she couldn't help but be swept away with it.
Sometimes she remembered what absolute genius was woven into the emotional abandon of being a child. They didn't ask permission to feel, to hope, or to twirl. She smiled again for the little girl's soul. She smiled for her own.
Then a new presence filled the space, alive and bold, and her smile widened. Her dearest friend took a seat next to her on the ground. There was something upfront about Jen that Tilly admired. She felt it in the way that the air moved for her, parting for her forward steps and sure spirit.
"I don't have many carefree childhood memories," Tilly mused. "I watch you sometimes and I think how brilliant you are, unafraid to make mistakes. Do you get that with good parents who let you feel?"
Jen took in her friend, her sadness cloaked around her in a way that dulled the light in her eyes, pulling down one corner of her mouth, and she could see the workings of untangling something in her mind.
Tilly could almost hear Jen's voice, though her friend simply looked at her.
Could hear her saying that Tilly was taught to keep to herself; anything other than equilibrium was to be shoved down deep.
That her fear of making mistakes was by design, so she barely left a footprint in her parents' lives.
Or maybe these were Tilly's thoughts, wrapped in her friend's bold voice, borrowing her courage so that perhaps she would believe the words.
A rustle of branches above drew Jen's eye up to where birds gathered. "I do fear making mistakes. The difference is that I was taught it was okay, and to learn from them. Your parents forgot to teach you the glory in that piece of fucking up."
Tilly laughed.
Jen looked back at her, smiling. "What's going on, friend?"
She almost shrugged or chose words that danced along ambiguity, but she'd learned that with Jen, she could read her too well, and it would come to a head eventually.
"I hate that I did so much work after my divorce, only for a guy like Ronnie to blur the lines of those boundaries."
Jen sighed and reached over to take the container of food from Tilly's hands, spearing a tomato with the fork for a bite. After a thoughtful chew, she said, "You know I don't hide my feelings and thoughts about things like that very well."
"I don't want you to."
Jen held up a hand, stalling her. "I appreciate that. But something I want you to know more than what I think about Ronnie, or any guy who treats you badly, is that you are lovely and I am here."
Her words were honey.
"I didn't agree to go to dinner with Ronnie with any hope of anything," she explained. "I have no feelings for him."
"And yet," Jen nodded in encouragement.
"And yet," she sighed. "Him not showing up reminded me of how he made me feel back then. And it feels pathetic."
"It's not pathetic. It's a time machine. Also, fuck him for not showing up."
Tilly laughed.
"No, seriously. He swoops back into town, and what, did he think you would be a still frame waiting for him? I'm guessing he did not like seeing Mr. Chief of the town looking at you like a delicious snack," Jen waggled her eyebrows, and Tilly rolled her eyes.
"Can I be whiny and annoying for a minute?"
Jen smiled widely and nodded for her to go, to release. She ate more of the Greek food as she sat next to her friend, knowing she needed to get words out into the world for her insides to settle down.
"I want to know why. I want to understand why someone would use someone else, hurt them, and take advantage of them. Selfishness cannot be enough. I cannot get behind that someone is just..." She made a little growling sound of frustration and finished, "an ass."
Jen listened. Tilly talked. It was the perfect summer evening for speaking the ungrounded and shadowed fears into the world to see if they sank or took flight. Good friends will sit there and give wings to truths, and be ready with a shovel to bury the lies.
"You know, learning why won't heal you."
"I know," Tilly replied, her words drooped with exhaustion. "But how then? Is it just time because that sucks."
Jen laughed. "I think that is outdated advice.
How about this?" She turned toward Tilly and grabbed her hands, hers larger and slender, her dark skin cocooning Tilly's smaller hands beautifully.
"I promise to witness your heartache. I will hold it in my hands until you have the strength to hold what's left.
" She shrugged. "Maybe we need each other to witness our fractured selves so that they can also witness when we put ourselves back together.
It's," she paused, thinking. "Well, it's bigger. "
Something loosened inside Tilly's chest.
"I like that. You know, when I moved here, after Brent, you didn't try and pull that story out of me.
I was scared to put the story out in words and, I don't know.
I was just scared. And still, until I told the girls, I kept it to myself.
But you didn't push. You saw that I was broken and you just walked alongside me. "
Jen nodded thoughtfully. "Sometimes we need people to bring a lamp to our darkness; not to fix us, but to sit with us and create light while we heal."
Jen's words lightly wrapped around Tilly's ribcage, a soft caress. How had she known that was what Tilly needed back then?
"Maybe you were scared that you would hand someone your story and they would tell you it's not that bad." She looked over her friend's lovely face. "You know what I watched when you moved here, all broken?"
Tilly snort-laughed. "I'm afraid for you to paint the picture."
"What made me kind of fall in love with your spirit was that you didn't just rebuild."
She nodded. "Yes, pathetic wallowing new girl has its charm."
"Will you let me talk, you self-deprecating psycho?"
Tilly nodded with a small smile.
"You didn't just rebuild. You spent time with the pieces.
You got to know what the brokenness created and its shadows, and I think you learned from that.
And not in a pathetic, sad victim way. But in a way that helped you know how to put yourself back together and know yourself better, all the pieces, the shadows included.
It was beautiful. I knew that you'd be a soul friend. You stick around even in the rubble."
Tilly's lip trembled. "Thank you," she whispered.
"I didn't need the details to see that. But I would have taken them, you know."
A tear fell from Tilly's eye and she wiped it away as she nodded. "I know."
"Your mom and your sister suck. And your ex-husband. And Ronnie."
"This is starting to sound like a slam book."
"Adult version."
Tilly smiled. "You and our group of friends were the first time I felt like I could breathe emotionally. After thirty-some years of not being able to."
"That is one hell of a scab," Jen replied, handing back the container.
"Seriously needing debriding."
"This got really gross really fast."
Tilly laughed, pressing her shoulder against her friend's, reveling in the way that they could be so honest and vulnerable and also so light. What an art.
"So, Satan's asshat is in town?"
"How did you..." Tilly started, then shook her head. "Eloise?"
Jen nodded.
Tilly sighed. "Yeah. She's in town."
"How are you doing? We'll get to why you didn't tell me in a minute."
Tilly gave her a look. "You would have come over and called her Satan's asshat."
Jen smiled, not denying it.
"As far as how I'm doing, I have no idea. Ask me again in a few days after she's had time to make me question my sanity and worth."
Jen wrapped an arm around her, pulling her to her side. "I'll hex her if I have to."
Tilly laughed, again amazed at the silliness and beauty of having a friend to walk through pain with.
Sulphur joined them in the graveyard, winding her way between them to get forced attention.
By the time the moon was a ball of light high overhead, Jen stood, wiping ground from her pants, and helped Tilly up.
"Alright, it's late, I have a business to run in the morning, women to help navigate our weird bodies as we age, and you have a wicked sister to rest up for."
They walked down the path, and Jen whispered, "So, what exactly is it about Ronnie? I guess he's not ugly if you have to choose from only men. But," she made a face. "I don't get it."
Tilly sighed. "I think it's a mixture of a teenage crush carried over into adulthood and his hair."
"He does have nice hair. You know who has nicer hair, though?"
"If you say the chief-"
"The chief."
"Oh yeah. You're squeamish about me dating men in general, but you're willing to lay me at the feet of a vampire?"
"Well, I wasn't planning on sacrificing you on an altar," she laughed. "I have a feeling you won't feel the sting of loser Ronnie much longer," she promised when they parted ways that night.