“Sweetie, you’re growin’ up to bein’ just the prettiest li’l thang!” Aunt Lisa praised again, reaching over with a visibly sweaty hand to pinch at Tabitha’s cheek. “C’mon, now. Yer at ‘bout that age—you tell yer Aunt Lissie ‘bout all them boys yer seein’!”

“Can’t talk about boys,” Tabitha leaned back from her Aunt’s grasp in a struggle to keep her composure. “We’d fail the Bechdel test.”

It was the same joke she’d managed back when first meeting Mrs. Williams, delivered with even less feeling this time. It honestly rankled that the immediate first question some women had for her was whether she was in a relationship, or chasing after a boy, or had herself set on one. That was a joke, because it simply wasn’t how Tabitha defined herself or her life. Maybe that kind of relationship—with a man or with a woman—would never even be part of her life.

“Hah! Beshul test, that’s tha Kentucky public school system for ya, ahyup, nothin’ but test test test,” Lisa guffawed, turning her look of skepticism from Tabitha towards Mrs. Moore. “So, no boys been comin’ round at all? Not a single one?!”

“She’s... a little young for that still, don’t you think?” Mrs. Moore frowned. “She just started high school this year, and between what happened with—”

“Hell, I got mah cherry popped my first year o’ high school,” Lisa boasted. “Was datin’ one of the Seniors, mah Freshman year! Kenny Michaels. He got married an’ lives over by Elk Creek, now. Back then, we—”

“I-I believe that’s my cue to retire for the night,” Tabitha rose from her spot on the living room sofa, still clutching the Flounder pillow against her chest. “Goodnight Mother. Goodnight Father. Goodnight… Aunt Lisa.”

“Ahyup, beddy-by time for Tabby, you go on and get!” Aunt Lisa cackled at Tabitha’s manner of speech. “Retoir for the noight, hah! Listen to her. What a hoot! Nightie-night, girly-girl!”

Another cold chill crept up Tabitha’s back as she slowly stepped back down the hallway to her bedroom, being extra careful not to stomp. She wanted to stomp, she wanted to throw a fit—she was so livid about this whole unexpected junkie mess that was dumping itself in their lap that her blood had adrenaline racing throughout her body in a fight or flight response. Lisa’s careless laughter and exaggerated Kentucky drawl continued on behind her, and each and every poorly enunciated syllable just kept getting under her skin in a terrible way.

Closing her bedroom door behind her only slightly muffled the woman’s voice, because of course, the wall paneling of their mobile home was paper-thin fiberboard. Trying hard to tune out the somewhat-audible sound of Lisa speaking until it was just loathsome trashy noise, Tabitha nudged aside the crumpled flannel of her turned-back bed covers so that she could sit upon the edge of her mattress and regard herself in the mirror.

Okay. Okay. Deep breath, calm way down, Tabitha locked eyes with her reflection and tried to focus on nothing else. Okay. Okay. OKAY.

Calm didn’t come quickly, but it did eventually come to her, and she hugged Flounder and plucked absently at the edge of her cast while she considered what to do with the situation. Tabitha had never had a good impression of Uncle Danny or Aunt Lisa. Was that fair, though? Memories of her own mother from her first lifetime were uneasy at best, and rife with an entire heap of complicated, conflicting feelings otherwise. Initial perception of Elena had been so rotten that a middle-school phantom of the girl had shown up in her subconscious to bully her during one of those surreal fever dreams. The four cousins had once upon a time been annoying hooligans she didn’t care for at all.

Okay, so yes—some of the anger at Lisa IS warranted, Tabitha blew out a slow breath. Some of this is... overreaction. My knowledge and experience, my ‘software’ is arguably a little more advanced, but the hardware it’s installed on right now is vintage thirteen year old girl, and emotions are dialed up to eleven.

Even more than that, I’m feeling so helpless because I’m intentionally sinking deeper and deeper into the ROLE of a thirteen year old girl. Somewhat. Right? Classic Stanford prison experiment—I’ve been psychologically conforming to my expected social role here in nineteen ninety-eight. I haven’t really been fighting that regression, because... being a simple teenage girl makes me happy, while depressing future knowledge mostly just attempts to poison that happiness or monkey’s paw me at every turn.

So, my anger right now, how FURIOUS I am at Lisa showing up also feels so INFANTILE—and that just makes me angrier. It’s the worst of both worlds—the teen outrage and frustration, and the adult knowledge and sense of responsibility that comes with that. They play off of each other in the worst way, make me feel like I’m slipping down into a tantrum spiral. As a teenager, I’m angry and sullen because I don’t have the agency to just DO anything about her. I’m supposed to abide, to treat her like family, when she’s actually this white trash junkie, and yeah, I just don’t even WANT to ever treat her like family!

As this once-upon-a-time grown up old lady from the future, I’m mostly upset because... now I HAVE to do something about this. I’m going to HAVE to get involved, I’m going to HAVE to be in some ugly confrontation, I’m going to HAVE to raise a fuss, and I hate it. I’m thirteen years old, but by necessity I’m going to now need a voice, a real say in the family stuff going on, at the level of what adults decide. Just when this fragile, happy little illusion of a simple, NORMAL childhood was finally starting to stabilize into something I could enjoy. I hate it I hate it I hate it, I wish Lisa would just go away. I wish she’d just go back off to whatever truckstop men’s room she was probably whoring herself out from, and stay out of my life. Out of all of our lives. Is that so much to fucking ask?!

“Can’t do anything about it!” Tabitha grumbled under her breath to herself. “Have to anyways. Fuck.”

Staring at the bedraggled and distraught teen reflecting back at her in the mirror, Tabitha let out an aggravated huff and threw Flounder against the far wall. Her actions looked just as silly and immature as they felt, but she needed to start venting some things out at times, or she really was going to explode. It was so frustrating—she needed someone to talk to, and it already felt like never having anything but identity problems and family drama to dump on Alicia and Elena was going to sour their relationship.

With a dramatic sigh, Tabitha reached up, managed to catch the lightswitch with the bit of finger her cast exposed, and turned off the lights. The darkness gave her senses nothing to focus in on but the sound of Aunt Lisa still gabbing away out in the living room, and it was hard not to get upset all over again.

So, what do I DO about this? I’m not a teenager, exactly, Tabitha eased herself back down onto her pillow and began resituating her covers over top of her. And, I’m not an old lady anymore, either. Right now I’m just—I don’t know what I am. Something I’ll have to figure out as I go, right? I’m still changing. Elena’s changed a ton. Mom’s completely different to who she was, or how she was supposed to be, or whatever.

I’ll give Aunt Lisa a chance to change. I’ll try. Try to cut her just enough slack for her to either pull herself up—or hang herself with it. That’s the MATURE thing to do, here, right?

“So, I was all, Debra!” Lisa laughed. “S’like I been done told you—you can’t never let someone disrespect you like that. Definitely not’n front of yer kids!”

To Tabitha’s annoyance and disbelief, she blinked open bleary eyes the next morning to the continued grating sound of Aunt Lisa’s voice. Their trailer’s furnace was blowing hot air in through all the vents at full blast, and her normally cozy morning blankets now felt absolutely stifling. It was hard not to grimace at the sheer waste of running the temperature so high—in late November, wearing a sweatshirt and thermal pajamas around the house was still comfy, and it kept their bill way down.

Surely… surely they weren’t up discussing things all night? Tabitha furrowed her brows, squeezed her eyes shut again, and pressed her face back into her pillow for a moment. Do drug addicts sleep more than normal, or less than normal? Google won’t be here to tell me for years and years, yet.

She had never expected Lisa to be an early riser, but the acrid smell of instant coffee and cigarette smoke became apparent as Tabitha finally kicked back her too-warm covers. The wrist inside her cast was likewise balmy with sweat already, and despite her midnight resolution to give the woman a chance to redeem herself, Tabitha could feel that determination eroding a little more each time she heard her Aunt open that mouth of hers to say something.

“Don’t matter if it was jus’ bullshittin’ over beer or jus’ makin’ fun or nothin’! So I says, somebody treats you like that, Debra? You get them right by the balls an’ make sure they ain’t fixin’ to ever jus’ run their mouth off on ya ever again. S’way you gotta do it—I ain’t playin’ no games.”

Letting out her most dramatic teenage sigh, Tabitha rolled out of bed and wrenched open the door to her room so that she could pad down the hallway in her now too-warm wool socks.

“Why is the thermostat so high?” Tabitha asked, immediately twisting the dial from where it read eighty degrees all the way down to sixty. Eighty degrees?! Are you fucking kidding me?

“S’colder’n a witch’s titty out there, that’s why!” Lisa guffawed. “It’s the dead o’ November, little girl.”

The peroxide-blonde delinquent mother of four was already sitting across the table from her father, while Tabitha’s own mother Mrs. Moore was nowhere to be found, probably still sound asleep back on the other side of the trailer where the larger bedroom was. Though Lisa wasn’t smoking right at this moment, the stifling smell of it was present, and a glance up towards the kitchen ceiling confirmed that the smoke detector’s cover was hanging open and the nine volt battery had been removed. Further observation revealed Lisa had slopped instant coffee into one of the nice teacups Tabitha had set aside for ice cream in the cabinet, and Tabitha decided she wasn’t going to let it get to her—after all, Lisa couldn’t have known any better.

No, you know what? Tabitha all but huffed. It DOES still bother me! I’m honestly going to be heartbroken if her nasty coffee stains my lovely porcelain tea set forever. I don’t have many nice things, and the few nice things I DO have need to be cherished.

“Mornin’, Sweetheart,” Mr. Moore said.

“Good morning,” Tabitha sighed.

“Y’all know I prayed for this, right, Alan?” Aunt Lisa gushed. “I prayed an’ prayed—an’ I just knew HE would answer mah prayers. Yer Tabby baby is a miracle, you know that?”

“Yep,” Mr. Moore agreed, frowning over his newspaper. “She is a blessing.”

“She’s an honest to God miracle, and the money—the money from those settlements? Alan, she’s saved this family. She’s like—she’s like our own li’l red-headed guardian angel. Idden that right, Honey? Hah!”

ISN’T that right, Tabitha mentally corrected. I’m not sure which is worse— that her southern REDNECK dialect is so thick that I can barely understand her, or the fact that I CAN still understand her. I wish I couldn’t.

A certain kind of morbid curiosity kept Tabitha fixated on the woman as her Aunt Lisa applied mascara and ‘made herself up’ for the day. The woman didn’t even bring the applicator up to her own eyes, instead carefully turning over each plastic false eyelash in her hands and plucking at it with the black bristles of a little mascara wand. Was she going to apply the falsies afterward? That seemed backward to Tabitha, and the strange preening motions were grotesque, because Lisa’s fingers and thumbs now sported the curved hot pink of two-inch long acrylic fingernails which made her digits seem sinister, spidery, and menacing.

Beneath all the beauty product she plasters all over herself, and these feminine odds and ends she glues on—would any of us even recognize her? Tabitha wondered in a bleary daze as she pulled out one of the chairs so that she could sit with them at the dining room table. Does anyone even know what Lisa actually looks like? Who IS Lisa, really?

“You like mah look?” Aunt Lisa crooned with a self-indulgent giggle. “Now, I weren’t no movie star like yer momma was, but oh you know yer Aunt Lisa still knows how ta turn heads and drop jaws!”

“Yeah, it’s… sure something,” Tabitha was trying not to stare, but it was difficult to look away. Maybe there ISN’T anyone beneath it all.

The bleached and frazzled bottle-blonde, the plastered-on foundation, the garish red lipstick—it was difficult to imagine what the woman was going to such exaggerated lengths to hide, because each treatment seemed so much worse than whatever flaws they might have concealed. The longer Tabitha spent observing Aunt Lisa, in fact, the less she seemed like a real person. It was as though the woman simply strived to express a stereotype, or a caricature. If she was acting, Tabitha felt sure Mrs. Moore would call it bad acting. But—she didn’t seem to be acting.

The writer in me wants to say that everyone possesses SOME nuance, some… hidden depth of character. The realist in me, on the other hand, suggests that she’s exactly what she presents herself to be. I know some of the trashy old women I worked with at the plant weren’t particularly two-dimensional. I already know I’m biased against her. Every word out of her mouth makes me want to condemn her more and more. What am I even looking for? How would I even GO ABOUT giving her a chance to change? Convince her we can send her through rehab?

“Aunt Lisa,” Tabitha blurted out before she even really knew what she was asking. “Why… why did you come back?”

“Why’d I come back?” Aunt Lisa snorted, cocking an eyebrow. “Well ‘cause I don’t gotta work at the Wild Wings in Shelbyville no more, ain’t that right?”

“You mean isn’t that, and—is that right?” Tabitha asked. “Why is that? Why is it that you don’t have to work at the Wild Wings anymore?”

“‘Cause now we got all that money, Sugar,” Lisa explained slowly to Tabitha, as though she were speaking to a much younger child. “Our money problems are over, ain’t a one of us gotta work no more. Isn’t that right, Al?”

“Oh?” Tabitha’s eyebrows went up in mock surprise. OUR money problems, huh? “Dad—you’re quitting your job?”

“Hah, o’course he is,” Lisa snorted. “Why would he—”

“No, no, I’m not quitting my job,” Mr. Moore assured his daughter, seemingly startled to have been pulled back into the conversation. “No way in heck, not no way, no how. Not with a little one on the—”

“Yer NOT?” Aunt Lisa was the very picture of incredulity. “I mean—wow. I would. I did! Hah! You sure must love yer job, Al. Workin’ when ya don’t have to? Not me, no siree. That’s crazy talk.”

“I don’t... think I understand,” Tabitha hinted, attempting to convey a clear it’s YOU that doesn’t understand. “Why wouldn’t you have to work, Aunt Lisa? The lawsuit and the settlement money, that doesn’t have anything to do with you. Even if it did, it wouldn’t be enou—”

“Of course it has to do with me, I’m yer Aunt Lissie!” Lisa chortled, giving Tabitha a dismissive smirk. “Listen to you! Tryin’ to be a selfish li’l shyster an’ wantin’ to keep that big ol’ settlement all fer yerself! You do know that bein’ too greedy is one o’ the deadly mortal sins, don’tcha? There’s a reason they kicked all them money-grubbin’ Jews outta Egypt, that’s in the Bible. Written ‘n black ‘n white, an’ that’s tha God’s honest truth. Tabby, honey... yer still a li’l girl, you don’t have no place havin’ that much money fer yerself—an’ what would ya even do with it? Buy dollies and dollhouses? Hah! Tabby sweetie, that money’s all goin’ to the family, so we can best decide how to raise you all up right. You think raisin’ up a kid is cheap?! Yer Aunt Lissie’s got four of ‘em!”

That Aunt Lisa had the sheer gall to assert herself as a parenting figure—after walking out on her own four children for months on end without a word to anyone—had Tabitha seeing red despite every attempt to maintain her cool. She inhaled deeply as the rage gripped her, and was forced to clench her teeth simply to prevent herself from lashing out thoughtlessly.

Have you even visited them, or did you just beeline straight here for us, where the settlement money would be? You couldn’t have been there yet, Grandma Laurie would have called us right away. Do they even know? Your own kids. Your own goddamn kids don’t even know that you’re back, do they? Now? Now I DON’T WANT THEM TO. I really wanted to try to give you a chance—but fuck it, I can’t. I just can’t. I just, I just want you gone. Gone and out of our fucking lives.

“Pfffftt—don’t get all huffy with me, girl,” Aunt Lisa rolled her eyes at Tabitha’s smoldering glare as the teenager fought to keep it all in. “Lookin’ like someone pissed in yer Cheerios. Jesus H. Christ Alan, look at this attitude on her! Y’all need to get a handle on that big ol’ swollen head o’ hers, an’ raise her up proper. Yah right, like some suit ‘n tie lawyer was gonna hand all that money to a li’l girl barely inta her pushup bra. O’course it’s goin’ to us—yer parents. Hah!”

“Forgive me, I’ve indeed lost my composure,” Tabitha rose from her seat and gave her father a meaningful look. He should understand by now just how she was feeling when she chose her words so carefully. “Please, excuse me.”

“We’ll... talk about it when—” Mr. Moore began to promise, but he was cut off by Aunt Lisa’s boisterous mocking laughter in response to Tabitha’s apparent prim and proper dialect.

Now not wanting to talk to anyone at all, Tabitha stalked on down the hallway towards the bathroom so that she could brush her teeth and wash her face.

Okay. Calm down again, calm down again. CALM DOWN. Why is it so hard for me to calm down?! Tabitha took special care not to slam the bathroom door, despite the urgent motion of it trembling within her arm, desperate to explode out. She’s just this shitty fucking—she’s just, just getting under your skin. Keeping you off-balance. I still have all the advantages, here, right? I have all kinds of future knowledge, I have—I just need to… to calm down, to go through and remember anything I can that might be useful with this.

It was easier said than done.

She swiped her toothbrush out of the holder, glared at the dab of toothpaste she applied atop the bristles, and then bared her teeth in a snarl towards the mirror so that she could angrily brush her teeth. With each passing month it became more difficult for her to detach herself from situations and manage that numb robotic act, where with her eloquent manner of speech she could pretend she was more of an observer than a participant in this second life. She was involved now, she was mired in this trailer trash shitpile life, and now she was going to have to get both hands into the muck if she wanted to somehow climb out of it someday.

Furious, Tabitha spat into the sink before she meant to, wasting some of her toothpaste.

Damn. Do I have, what, latent anger management issues I never discovered? Tabitha paused for a moment to regard her foaming-at-the-mouth reflection with a glare and then spat again. Just never even found out if I had a temper or not last time, because I always kept my head down and shied away from those situations? Maybe?

Her psychological issues were complicated and increasingly hard to self-diagnose, and she wasn’t sure she trusted herself to sort out relevant factors from misleading ones. She knew why Aunt Lisa got her so riled up; the woman was one hundred percent pure, undiluted trailer trash. Soon-to-be or already a heroin junkie, and a shameless parasite uncomfortably close to worming her way back into the small group of people she cared a lot about.

At least, I care a lot about them THIS time, Tabitha glowered as she viciously resumed scrubbing her teeth. Yeah. That’s probably it. Probably why I never got angry at much of anything in my last life—I wasn’t real close to anyone. Or anything. Not here at this age, at least. To me, me and my immediate family were trailer trash, and then that whole side of the family over there with Uncle Danny and Aunt Lisa were worse, just... garbage, petty criminals. Convicts and drug addicts, and their drug addict and dropout kids.

Not relatives she wanted to associate with, but ones that certainly lingered on in her mind all throughout her life. Because, while she always personally felt like trailer trash, at least she had these other people in her life to prop up as examples of worse trailer trash.

Okay. Doesn’t feel great to admit, but that’s what they were to me, I think, Tabitha spat again into the sink. Uncle Danny, Aunt Lisa, all of the cousins. They weren’t FAMILY, they were just... examples, some idea for me to cling to. Because, I could look at their lives and then console myself with ‘well I may have always been trailer trash, but at least I was never THAT bad.’

It was another tough pill to swallow, but since she’d begun to make progress in bettering herself in this life, it was getting easier to recognize her own shortcomings. As for what she was going to do about it—Tabitha just had to start drawing lines. Her four cousins were still young, and swerving their paths onto a better future was entirely possible. Uncle Danny was already in jail, that ship had apparently sailed and there was nothing she could do about it. As for Aunt Lisa…

If I’m completely honest with myself, I just don’t even WANT to help her, Tabitha made a face as she rinsed her mouth. I can’t stand her, and that’s just a fact. Maybe with some kind of brilliant 4D CHESS, JUST AS KEIKAKU plan, I COULD get her to clean up her act and be a proper mother, and maybe that WOULD be the ideal best outcome for the boys. MY mother seemed just as rotten just a few months ago—and look how far she’s come.

I just… Tabitha grimaced at her reflection as the weight of difficult choices seemed to press down and smother her once again. I’m a planner, but I’m not some kind of super schemer. I don’t know if I can put in that kind of effort for Lisa. I mean, I know I could try—but more and more, I don’t think I will. I’m a good person, or I try to be, but maybe I’m not THAT good of a person. It’s easy for me to be flippant about it, I guess, until I stop and really think about how much NOT helping Lisa change into a different person might cost the boys. But, then on the other hand… some people can’t be helped. Right?

Shortly after Aunt Lisa finished applying her falsies and seemed all fancied up to go out somewhere—the woman crashed, settling in on their couch with her newly-made-up face smooshed in against the armrest to sleep. Tabitha could see the cosmetics smearing into their worn upholstery, and she regarded the unwelcome guest in their living room with confusion and bewilderment, finally turning towards her father with an are you seeing this expression. All she got in return was a slow sigh and him asking her to try to keep her volume down today while her Aunt was sleeping. Then, Mr. Moore left for work.

She still stinks, too! Tabitha scowled as she quietly crept as close as she could. So—she didn’t shower last night.

Lisa had passed out with her purse squashed protectively beneath her one armpit, and despite hovering over the woman for a long, tense moment, Tabitha didn’t see any way she could tug it out from under her Aunt without waking her.

Worst thing is, she maybe DOESN’T have heroin in her purse right now, Tabitha fretted, crossing her arms. Maybe she’s not actually into heroin yet. Maybe she is, but she’s already used whatever she had. That seems likely. Heroin probably isn’t cheap—or is it? I honestly don’t know, and again—no Google here. Maybe she only came to us because she was out of options and couldn’t afford to pay her dealer, or whatever.

There’s no way of knowing for sure, and if I cry wolf now and her purse turns out to be empty, it damages my credibility towards further attempts to remove her. And, I NEED to remove her sooner rather than later if I’m going to. Or this is all going to become unbelievably messy the further she entangles herself back into the family. Make a choice, Tabitha, make a choice. Help her, or get rid of her. Help her, or get rid of her, c’mon, think, think, think. I don’t know how to help her. I also don’t know how to get rid of her. Either way, I need to come up with something smart, real soon.

Torn with indecision, Tabitha was still drawing a complete blank as to how she even could hypothetically help Aunt Lisa. There didn’t seem to be any way to. The woman was crass and stubborn and would laugh off any attempts to get her to turn her life around. In fact, the more she thought about it… if Aunt Lissie were to reintegrate into their lives, she would negatively influence everyone in Tabitha’s close family—starting with the boys. Under Aunt Lisa’s continued careless ‘parenting,’ the four cousins’ relatively thoughtful and considerate behavior Tabitha had grown proud of would unravel, and in a matter of time they would revert back to being the absolute shitheads they were in Tabitha’s previous life.

Aunt Lisa’s reappearance would once again drive a wedge between Mrs. Moore and that entire side of the family, cutting off that fledgling avenue of growth. As an anxious and agoraphobic shut-in weighed down with repressed issues that was only now in early stages of healing and recovery, Tabitha’s mother wasn’t really psychologically equipped to handle a loud and outspoken personality like Lisa. Grandma Laurie and Mr. Moore would both suffer in silence, bending to Aunt Lisa’s whims if they were able to rationalize that it was for the sake of the four boys or whatever excuses Lisa cooked up. After all, those two were used to it, to an extent—just a few months ago, Mrs. Moore had been just about as toxic and intractable.

It’s oh so very humbling, Tabitha’s stare turned more and more grave the more she considered the implications. That almost all the changes wrought in the people around me could be undone so easily. All the blood, sweat, and tears, all the STRUGGLE that went into changing things for the better, healing people, mending relationships—and almost all of it can collapse and go back to the way it was with the reappearance of just one Aunt Lisa. Putting aside whether or not it’s even POSSIBLE to help her—can I let her presence destroy all of this?

I think… I think I need to make Aunt Lisa disappear.

The realization—no, the decision hit Tabitha like a pang to her stomach, and for a moment she felt sick. Hugging her arms tight across herself, Tabitha hurried away from her Aunt and retreated back down the hallway to her room. It was one thing to be affected by her teenage emotions and feel anger and outrage that made her think some dark thoughts. It was something else entirely to coldly deliberate removing someone like that.

I’m not going to kill her! Tabitha wanted to swear at herself, angry all over again at that all-too-familiar wash of nauseating guilt. It’s not like the thing with Jeremy Redford.

I didn’t even kill him! He just, well, he just died and I was technically at fault for it. I was at fault for it because I made it happen, but not like, like, I’m not PERSONALLY to blame. It did happen because of me, but I didn’t kill him. He almost murdered a cop anyways, so what if he even DID just happen to get his, his comeuppance this time through? Right? I didn’t kill him. Karma came along. I didn’t kill him. I’m not going to kill Aunt Lisa, either—I just need to, to, I don’t know. Make her disappear off somewhere, out of our lives. To prison or somewhere. I don’t know. Anywhere but here.

Fuck me, this isn’t fair, Tabitha discovered her good hand wouldn’t stop shaking, so she crossed her arms tighter about herself and tried to squeeze her arms into stillness. Why is this so hard?

The morning hours passed by in a whirl of indecision and abortive attempts at rationalizing various courses of action and inaction. Tabitha was upset, and she knew why she was upset. All of her hypothetical solutions were unrealistic and oblique to the point that her common sense rejected them. The route for helping Lisa change predicated upon being able to sit down with Lisa for a serious conversation and convince Lisa herself that she was a problem. Which, based on what she knew of Lisa’s personality, and the lack of confidence Tabitha possessed for her own persuasive ability and finesse in dealing with the woman in a heated argument... meaningful dialogue with her Aunt Lisa was somewhere between improbable and impossible.

Getting rid of Lisa seemed to require the opposite—convincing her parents that Lisa was a problem, but not their problem. Not a burden their family should attempt to shoulder. Tabitha would have to convey the severity of a problem that Lisa had become, and then illustrate to them how their attempts to help or support Lisa would in fact enable Lisa to become more and more of a problem. Paring down her thoughts and feelings on the issue and sorting everything out, however, did remarkably little towards solving anything. To Tabitha’s endless frustration, she honestly didn’t believe she could convince Lisa or her parents of either narrative. She knew she’d made major strides in this lifetime towards better expressing herself and communicating with others, and having a sense of that progress made it just as clear to her how much she fell short here.

Certainly doesn’t help that I’m so AFFECTED by all of this, Tabitha thought, lifting her elbows up and attempting to roll the stiffness out of her shoulders. Spent most of my morning here just pacing back and forth in my room, going in circles in my head. Yes, I’m smart and I can think things through—eventually—but in the heat of the moment, actually out there with Lisa? My temper flares up right away, and it’s like I just get locked out of rational thought. Start to act and speak out on impulse, or get myself caught up in this psychological loop of angry thoughts that doesn’t actually go anywhere else. So, in short—I’m stuck.

It was just as easy to feel trapped in her bedroom with Aunt Lisa snoozing out there in the living room, because Tabitha wasn’t well enough yet to do the kind of morning run she needed to help bleed off some of these feelings. Likewise, she wasn’t able to power walk around the neighborhood or busy herself over the garden plot like she wanted to. Going outside at all while she was still recovering from surgery wasn’t feasible until it was mid-afternoon and sunnier out—late November was cold, colder every day, but mornings were bitter cold, with dreary overcast skies and a steady biting wind that would sap her strength.

A completely teenage Tabitha would go out anyways and damn the consequences, Tabitha quirked her lip in a bitter smile. A completely grown-up Tabitha wouldn’t feel so damned ANGSTY cooped up in here waiting for Mom to get up.

As such, naturally time appeared to slow to a crawl and Tabitha stewed in her simmering thoughts for what felt like several eternities before she heard the door to her parent’s bedroom finally open. Listening intently, Tabitha found her mother’s heavy footsteps were treading slowly down the hall. Unable to help herself, Tabitha cracked open her door and leaned out around it as her mother passed by her room.

“She’s sleeping,” Tabitha whispered. “Out on the couch. Good morning.”

It took Mrs. Moore a moment to register what was saying, and when she did, the hint of an aggravated scowl was visible across her face for a moment before she was able to hide it. That tiny change in expression was a merciful balm to Tabitha, and she swung her door open the rest of the way and stepped out to hug her mother.

“Alright—and good morning,” Mrs. Moore whispered back, giving Tabitha a small squeeze. “Do you know why it’s so warm in here?”

“Sometime overnight, she went and turned the thermostat to eighty!” Tabitha tattled in a hushed voice. “I already turned it back down to where it should be.”

“Hmph,” Mrs. Moore grunted, shaking her head. “Well. First thing’s first—I’m giving your Grandma Laurie a call.”

“Grandma Laurie?” Tabitha repeated, crashing headlong through a dozen different emotions in quick succession, too fast to individually process. “Do we have to, um—”

“If we’re tryin’ to have dinner with the Macintires on Thanksgiving day, we’ll have to do whatever little family Thanksgiving we do early, either today or tomorrow,” Mrs. Moore explained in a low voice, pausing for a moment. “And… well, I’ll need to let her know to set the table for your Aunt Lisa too, now.”

Please don’t, Tabitha just barely managed to not blurt it out, but from her mother’s knowing sigh and pat on the shoulder, she knew it was already written all across her face. It seemed inevitable that Aunt Lisa would be reunited with the boys, but at the same time, the prospect of it filled Tabitha with alarm and had her mind racing in every direction all over again.

After all—isn’t it suspect that Aunt Lisa, a mother of four, returns from wherever she was in Shelbyville not to her own children, but instead to the home of a brother-in-law whose daughter happens to be on the receiving end of a large settlement of money? Is everyone just ignoring the apparent motive that could be driving Aunt Lisa’s priorities, here? Am I in the wrong for not just giving her the benefit of the doubt because she’s family?

“Your Grandma Laurie says it’s fine with her if we move family Thanksgiving up a bit and have it today,” Mrs. Moore said, returning the cordless phone back to it’s dock. “She already got her shoppin’ done for it, so...”

“Did you tell them about our unexpected guest?” Tabitha asked in a low voice, glancing past the kitchen counter and dining room table over to where Aunt Lisa was still sprawled out on their couch, but questionably awake now and watching daytime soap operas.

“I did,” Mrs. Moore paused. “She said she isn’t gonna tell the boys just yet. So they can maybe have a... nice surprise.”

“‘Nice surprise.’ Or, so that they won’t have a nasty surprise if she decides not to show,” Tabitha pointed out with a sour look. “If she doesn’t want to see her children again… are we okay with her being here in our home while we’re not? Unsupervised? Or, uh, at all?”

“I’m sure she’ll go with us,” Mrs. Moore frowned. “Just—well, we’ll see.”

“Where’s she going to be staying? Sleeping? Our couch? Mom. I don’t think we should provide her a place to stay if she isn’t going to be a mother and look after her kids,” Tabitha’s voice dropped to a lower whisper. “She’s either their mom, or she isn’t. And, if she isn’t family—then. Well.”

“Well, I don’t think we should even get into it,” Mrs. Moore sighed, resting her hands on the counter. “Bless his heart, your father was... very patient with me when I was going through things. For years. And, he’s liable to try to do the same for your Aunt Lisa now that she’s goin’ through her problems. I… Tabitha, I don’t have any place to say anything.”

Tabitha bit her lip. She didn’t like it, but Mrs. Moore’s position on this was difficult to refute. Pushing her mother to force things with Lisa towards an ultimatum wasn’t going to work, and her father was going to be even harder to convince. As the teenage daughter, she once again didn’t have enough traction on swaying complicated family matters. The only clear way to make her case was the drug angle, and for that she needed some measure of proof. Any and all of the evidence to substantiate that kind of claim, if such evidence existed at all, was likely in the purse that Aunt Lisa was currently half-sitting on. The handbag still protectively tucked beneath one armpit as the woman reclined on the sofa, as though it were another pillow.

“I was thinking we should bring somethin’ over with us for Thanksgiving,” Mrs. Moore sighed, tugging open the fridge door and surveying what they had to work with. “But, we don’t really have much of anything here. We do still have half of that bag of potatoes in the cupboard, but just bringin’ mashed potatoes doesn’t seem like enough.”

“How about... scalloped potatoes?” Tabitha suggested, stepping over to take a glance inside the refrigerator as well. “Hmm. Maybe not.”

“You think we should go out and buy stuffing or something?” Mrs. Moore fretted. “Normally you’re supposed to at least bring a casserole or something to Thanksgiving. Right? I just, it’s… it’s been a while since I had a Thanksgiving that was more than just bein’ here with you and your father.”

“We have cheese. If you can give me two or three dollars, I’ll walk up to the gas station and buy a quart of milk,” Tabitha said, stooping down to pull a glass dish out from where it was stored in the bottom cabinet. “Preheat the oven at three hundred and fifty, and if you start peeling now, I should be able to help make scalloped potatoes when I get back.”

“Okay. Okay, scalloped potatoes are perfect,” Mrs. Moore agreed, hefting the bag of potatoes down from their little pantry. “Are these still good? Will we have enough? How many should I—”

“They’re fine,” Tabitha promised. “I’ll help you peel them all.”

“Not with that cast on, you’re not,” Mrs. Moore protested, but it was clear her resolve was weakening. “Let me get you some cash from my purse, and you can—do you want me to go on up with you? I don’t want you goin’ out all by yourself.”

“It’s just at the top of the hill, Mom,” Tabitha said. “I’ll be fine. You start peeling, I’ll help you finish once I’m back. I’m okay to take a five from your purse?”

“Of course, sure. You make sure an’ wear a sweatshirt and a jacket.”

“I’ll be fine in just a sweatshirt. It’s just a few minute walk.”

Leaving her mother to her own devices with the peeler would be cruel—Mrs. Moore had no culinary talent and even less experience. Tabitha had already began resuming her previous role in preparing meals for the family over this past week. After all, watching her mother attempt to whittle away potato skin in tiny thin slivers at a time was always so painful that Tabitha’s patience whittled away faster than the spud. Actually holding onto a potato herself was obnoxious with her cast encompassing as much of her thumb as it did, but even with the awkward grip Tabitha could peel a potato in a matter of moments using a knife.

“Aunt Lisa?” Tabitha rounded the kitchen counter and carefully tread out into the living room. “Do you... need anything from the—”

“Sssh!” Aunt Lisa all but snarled at her. “I can’t even keep up with what all’s goin’ on here with all yer fussin’!”

Tabitha paused, slowly evaluating the blonde occupying their couch as the gangly heroin addict once again grew absorbed by the ongoing drama of One Life to Live. She hadn’t actually intended to get the woman anything from the store, of course. A step forward and a snatching movement could maybe wrench the purse Aunt Lisa was safeguarding out from under her—but would she even be able to get away with it, or get it open before Lisa was all over her? The body odor of the woman was still noticeable, and Tabitha could just imagine what those frightening two-inch acrylics would feel like clawing into her.

I can… bide my time, Tabitha told herself, shoving her sudden emotion back down to an angry simmer. There’ll be an opportunity at some point. She’ll drop her guard, or… or I’ll think of something.

The whole mess with Aunt Lisa was easier to put out of mind as Tabitha turned and hurried down the hallway to fish a five from her mother’s purse where Mrs. Moore kept it in the back bedroom. She of course knew that was the point—her mother could tell the Lisa situation was upsetting her. And so, Mrs. Moore was somewhat play-acting, subtly creating tasks that Tabitha could set her mind to, so that she would feel productive and useful. It did help. She didn’t begrudge her mother for it at all, and she thought that both of them were aware that it was on purpose. In the past few months, each of them had discovered the other was a lot more intelligent than they’d ever let on before this year.

She’s reading my Goblin Princess outline, Tabitha told herself as she stepped into her sneakers.

After fighting her way back into the oversized hoodie, Tabitha opened the door and bustled outside and down the steps, swinging the door shut behind her. It was bright enough that she was forced to blink rapidly and even squint, but also bleak and muted—unlike picturesque, postcard views of Kentucky in late autumn with trees in brilliant oranges and yellows, here in the trailer park fall colors were simply washed out and dead. The crisp chill to the air was sharp enough that her face stung right away, and she hugged her arms tightly against herself as she marched on up the street at a brisk pace.

She’s reading it. Not just skimming through it like I was afraid of—she’s really reading it, studying it, and that means the world to me. Everything I know and feel gets put into the project, so if she’s reading it, she’ll know me. She’ll understand. She’ll start figuring everything out, piecing together the clues. She has to. Because, I don’t know what I’m even gonna do if she can’t.

“Ah, damn,” Bobby exclaimed, frowning as he saw some petite chick was tugging open the door of the Minit Mart and the bell jangled. Where’d SHE come from?

Checking again through the broad glass windows of the gas station, he confirmed that no cars had pulled up. Bobby was supposed to be keeping an eye out for customers while his older brother Joe—the actual employee on shift right now—abused access to the store phone line here to chat with his girlfriend Kimmie, who’d been forced to travel to Minnesota with her parents over Thanksgiving break. Charges would show up on the store’s bill, but in theory, so long as she initiated the call, Joe could just tell his boss that some customer called with a bunch of questions, and that he’d had no idea they were calling from long distance.

The girl who’d just entered the convenience store was cute, if a little frazzled-looking, with her uncombed tangle of red hair and how her pale skin seemed to emphasize the dark circles under her eyes. More to the point, however—she was cute, and he recognized her. This was the infamous Tabitha Moore, the freshman dropout of Springton High, mysterious and inaccessible enough to have grown into her own urban legend throughout the school. When she noticed him and did a double-take, he found himself already sheepishly throwing her a small wave.

Oh shit, she kinda recognizes me, Bobby was a little thrilled.

The girl normally seemed quiet and a little mousy and always kept to herself, but something about her just really ruffled the feathers of all those flocks of two-faced harpies that called themselves Springton High girls. In fact—the more all of those buzzard bitches ragged on her, the more Bobby started to like Tabitha. Whatever ran contrary to what the bitch brigade was saying was probably closest to the truth, right? The rumor mill at school spun up into full swing whenever Tabitha got brought up, and although he’d asked around with the few buddies he considered pretty reliable, nobody seemed to know what was really going on.

“Hey—uh, Bobby, right?” Tabitha guessed.

Oh shit, she ACTUALLY remembers me! Bobby’s flash of nervous excitement took him by surprise.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bobby chuckled. “You remember me?”

“Yeah,” Tabitha blinked at him. “We were in a couple of my classes together. You walked me up to the office the day I withdrew from school—when I was that blubbering mess.”

“Naw, you weren’t blubberin’ or nothin’,” Bobby tried to assure her. “Maybe just a li’l sniffly? Teary-eyed? Hah ha. It’s cool.”

“Everyone’s really, uh, missed you at school,” Bobby couldn’t hold back any longer. “You ever wanna hang out or do somethin’ sometime? You seein’ anyone?”

“Um, what?” Tabitha’s weary expression showed nothing but surprise and bewilderment. “Hah, no I’m not seeing anyone. You do realize I’m only thirteen years old, right?”

“What?” Bobby scoffed, eyeing her again. “Thirteen? No way, I call bullshit. You’ve gotta be at least fifteen, right? Don’tcha gotta be fourteen to even be in high school?”

“Don’t turn fourteen until next month,” Tabitha shrugged, stepping past Bobby and walking towards the row of cooler doors that took up the far wall.

Thirteen? No way. She’s gotta be messin’ with me… right? Bobby couldn’t help but stare.

The redhead girl was on the smaller side and had a pretty slight figure, sure, but thirteen? That didn’t fit with his perception of her at all, the way she carried herself, how collected she seemed to be and how mature she acted with things. She had to be at least fifteen, she definitely seemed like a fifteen-year-old. Maybe even older. Sixteen? Maybe not sixteen. Bobby watched as Tabitha didn’t pause to browse the drink selection, instead immediately grabbing a carton of milk to bring up to the register.

“Uhh,” Tabitha looked around. “Where’s whoever works here?”

“‘EY, JOE-BRO!” Bobby cupped his hands and shouted back behind the counter. “YOU GOTTA CUSTOMER, HERE!”

His brother Joseph ducked out from the back room with a look of consternation, holding a cordless phone’s handset against his chest.

“Sorry ‘bout that, I’m on the phone with a… customer,” Joe lied, quickly bringing the phone up to his ear. “Hey babe, gotta put you on hold. Yeah, just a sec.”

Bobby and Tabitha exchanged a glance at Joe’s half-hearted charade.

“Ahem. Will this be everything for you today?” Joe asked in his mild-mannered customer service voice. He tilted the quart-sized milk carton up so that the scanner could read it with an electronic beep.

Tabitha silently nodded.

“Uhh hey, sorry if askin’ that was weird,” Bobby apologized. “Just, everyone at school’s always talkin’ about you, it’s all crazy out there stories and you don’t know to believe, right? I’d much rather just, like, get to know you for real and hear what’s up straight from the source, you know? No pressure or anything.”

Joe shot his brother a subtle yo, who’s this chick glance over the counter as he accepted the five dollar bill from Tabitha and punched the sale into the register.

“They can’t…” Tabitha cleared her throat and then let out an uneasy laugh. “They can’t still be talking about me, right?”

“Oh, yeah—all the time,” Bobby nodded. “I mean, from what I heard, Erica just ‘bout knocked your head off, y’know? But, nobody really knows why, an’ that’s like, a step or two up from the usual petty bitch stuff, you know?”

Current popular theory on Tabitha Moore was that she’d dropped out because she was pregnant, and that the whole bullying thing was just some flimsy excuse to bail out on school before she started showing. Tabitha stealing a boyfriend and getting knocked up was the only reason anyone could imagine Erica Taylor would go so far as to try to murder her—but, it was also a point of contention as to whether Erica had even actually been dating anyone. The sophomore girl hadn’t been official with anyone, or ever really hinted that she might be seeing someone. Assumed availability and showing that extra inch or two of cleavage was part of the leverage Erica Taylor had over the tenth grade guys, so who would she give that up for? Matthew Williams? Some persisted in thinking that, because of his appearance in some of the other rumors, but none of the sophomores Bobby had talked to bought into it.

Nah, no way, Bobby’s friend Liam had outright refused to believe it. Can’t tell you who... but Matthew’s definitely already seeing this girl, and it’s absolutely, one hundred percent not Erica Taylor. Matthew and Erica knew each other, yeah, but there was nothing between them, no spark or anything. No way.

Bobby wasn’t really sure what to think—from everything he’d personally witnessed about the girl in the classes they shared, Tabitha wasn’t traditionally social. She hung out with that skinny black girl during lunches, and she was briefly seen interacting with Elena Seelbaugh, before Elena suddenly turned wiccan or lesbo or whatever. That was weird, and the introduction of occult nonsense to the gossip surrounding Tabitha had made all the stories floating around pretty wild for a while. Fueling things even more was that whenever a rumor went a little bit too far, or whenever someone had actually tried to mess with Tabitha, like Chris, Kaylee, and Clarissa—they were suspended or expelled. That meant she was actually a somebody, that she had important parents or came from a bigshot family or something, which totally torpedoed all those tall tales saying she lived in the trailer park back behind this Minit Mart.

“It... um. It had to do with Erica and Brittney’s little sister, Ashlee,” Tabitha explained. “Ashlee Taylor and I used to be friends. I stopped going over there to play when one of the sisters pushed me off their trampoline and gave me a concussion, this past summer. Ashlee started hiding her older sister’s things—to get back at them for them being, uh, mean to her—and then blaming me for it, as though I were still going over there and just stealing things. When the bullying at school with me escalated, something I said about their situation to one of the school board women apparently prompted them to step in and separate Ashlee from her sisters. Which in turn seemed to further provoke Erica, and... she lashed out at me.”

“Oh, wow,” Bobby blinked, not having expected her to actually tell him a whole story. “Does—”

“That’s the general synopsis of what happened, from my point of view, but I’d love to compare it to all the rumors and examine the differences,” Tabitha continued, staring at Bobby with a somewhat blank expression. “I want to call it a comedy of errors, because that’s one of my favorite expressions, but I’m not sure that it actually fits. I think just implying there’s a certain dark humor to everything going wrong makes it easier to accept—and life often just feels like this long, continuous crashing chain of things going wrong. Doesn’t it?”

“Uhhh—” Bobby began.

“Maybe I should start dating?” Tabitha seemed to be looking through him off into the distance and talking to herself, now. “I’m, I’m really losing my grip on reality, and I need someone to talk to. But, I live in constant fear of actually speaking out, of overwhelming those few I’m close to and pushing them away. Maybe what I really need is someone who will listen to me, but doesn’t particularly care what I have to say. Is that what having a boyfriend is like? Or, would assuming that be the real comedy of errors?”

This time Bobby opened his mouth but had no idea how to reply to that.

“Sorry,” Tabitha seemed to snap back to the present, and she gave him a sad smile. “That was a strange thing to ask?”

“Hell, uhh, I don’t mind at all,” Bobby mentally set aside her unexpected long discourse to reexamine later and gave her a reassuring smile. “It really is kinda like that, right? Like I dunno ‘xactly what all you just said, but hell—I do like the way you say it.”

“Right,” Tabitha gave him a bitter smile as she accepted her change from Joe. “It was nice seeing you again, Bobby.”

“Would you like a bag for that, Ma’am?” Joe offered in his obsequious customer service voice.

“Nah, I’m just down the hill there,” Tabitha said, pausing for a moment to give the handset phone Joe was still clutching against his chest a look. “I wouldn’t dare to trouble you further—do instead extend your every courtesy to the other customer you’re servicing.”

Wait, what? Bobby froze, shooting his brother an incredulous look.

Their overly posh customer service voice had become an in-joke between the two brothers—Bobby himself worked part time at the Springton McDonald’s.

Ma’am, could I tempt you into adding a side dish of Springton’s finest french fries to the main course of your meal? No? Are you certain?! I assure you, these french fries are a Parisian delicacy direct from France! To this day, the closest any of the other teens in town came to appreciating the Anderson brother’s rather nuanced sense of humor was an occasional sarcastic why thank you, good sir, from Kimmie and her friend Caitlyn. Where had this Tabitha girl pulled a genuinely good line like that from?

Did Tabitha have a sense of humor?

In class she hadn’t, but then again she’d been pretty careful during school hours—and with good reason, glares from the freshman and sophomore girls alike made it clear everyone was eager for her to slip up and say something, anything, that could be twisted around and used against her. Did she have some similar in-jokes with her friends, and was that there just some brilliant coincidence where two private jokes from different parties met in a great way? He intended to catch up with Tabitha and get a few more words in, but by the time he realized it she was already headed out the door.

The electronic door chime sounded, and Bobby watched the attractive redhead walk on past the Minit Mart’s glass windows and disappear from sight. Girls at fourteen and fifteen around Springton with an actual decent sense of humor were rare. Although many of them laughed all the time, it usually wasn’t at anything funny. It was just self-aggrandizing noise, social lubricant, as his Grand Nan put it. Keeping up the appearance of their little clique being so great and having so much fun, despising and alienating anyone who didn’t laugh along. It was currently one of the reasons he propped up as to why he hadn’t had a real girlfriend yet. The thing with Tracy didn’t count. That was way back in seventh grade, and they didn’t even kiss.

“Hey, was that that Tabitha chick?” Joe asked, pausing for a moment in the door to the back. “Freshman dropout chick everyone’s always in a tizzy about? One that got pregnant or whatever? Drama queen chick?”

Bobby had seen quiet, guarded Tabitha keeping to herself at school, he’d seen her being hurt and vulnerable, sobbing quietly into her good hand, and now he’d seen her tired, rambling, and cracking jokes. At first, back then he’d spoken up to defend her because—well, she was cute. He kept doing it simply because he was a born contrarian, he liked stirring up trouble and ruffling everyone’s feathers. He’d been there the day after some Sophomore jock pushed her and got her wrist broken, he’d snuck glances over when the beauty had set her head down at her desk and fallen asleep. Bobby hadn’t actually seen whichever stuffy bitch knicked Tabitha’s folder or whatever, but he’d been able to tell from all the hushed whispers and self-satisfied smug looks that they’d done something.

When Mr. Stern’d asked Bobby to walk her up to the office—as class clown of sorts, Bobby was often one of the first students teachers remembered by name and subsequently one of the most frequently called upon—of course he’d jumped at the chance. Tabitha had managed to hold back her tears just about until she got out the door. He’d been thrilled, but also a little ruffled—watching a girl cry, up close? It did things to him, it stirred up natural protective instincts, had him feeling confused and contemplative and brooding about it the whole rest of the day. High school drama was something you only enjoyed fucking around with when you didn’t have a personal stake in what was going on, after all.

DO I want a stake in it? He’d always been pretty interested, but did he actually like Tabitha? Before it was something he’d wondered about, but now it was something he was more and more sure about.

“Naw,” Bobby decided, throwing a thoughtful glance back out the storefront. “Forget all that bull-hickey you heard ‘bout Tabitha. That’s my future wife, right there.”

“Uh-huh,” Joe gave him an evaluating look and then a solemn nod of understanding and acceptance passed from brother to brother. “Yeah—in your dreams, dick muncher. Don’t let any more damn customers in, I’m on the phone.”

I talked to a boy? Tabitha trudged back down the hill with a small smile. Sorta?

It was a very strange feeling. She didn’t like Bobby—he was just that redneck kid from class. She didn’t like anyone, really. There were a few freshman boys she’d noticed who were cute or handsome in their own way, but she didn’t have a crush on any of them. In her first life, she’d harbored a small hopeless crush on one of her classmates towards the end of high school. To her embarrassment, after forty some years she didn’t even remember his name, now. Maybe it would come to her, if she ever recognized him again. In any case, since being reintroduced to the wilderness of horrors that was 1998, she’d been reeling from her various traumas and identity problems disassociating from things too much to form something like a crush on anyone.

Still, though, Tabitha felt torn between giddiness and weary resignation. It was cool. Fun. I’m—I don’t know. It’s a teenage girl thing. Not my fault! Maybe I just get some automatic rush of endorphins or something by talking with a boy. It’s so strangely ENGAGING just talking with a boy, getting into conversation, even if it’s… well, it was really just me babbling like an idiot, wasn’t it? Shit. I don’t even remember what I said.

Boys, and the almost forgotten prospect of dating. She hated that she didn’t hate it, and despite purposefully schooling her expression back into neutrality, the smile crept back in. Being asked about boys by Mrs. Williams or Aunt Lisa was endlessly vexating, so it was with great consternation that Tabitha found herself forced to concede to herself that yes, talking to boys was pretty interesting. Part of the high school fantasy she’d clung to over the summer while working herself to the bone was that she’d be loved and accepted by everyone if only she was thin and pretty. The boys would be polite and aim to court her, the girls would all want to be her friend.

Ugh, the sheer fucking naivete, Tabitha’s grimace stifled her giddy smile by a notch or two. The inexperience and sad, deluded wishful thinking that things were as simple and easy as that. The fat unpopular girl just assuming life was easy and convenient if only you were thin and pretty. I don’t know that it’s WORSE, but it’s definitely an entire new spectrum of bad to adjust yourself to, and I wasn’t ready.

The reality of the situation turned out to be more complicated, with other high school girls at best polite and distant, and at their worst openly hostile to her without reason. As for the boys, Tabitha had fended off a few atrocious come-ons, and then been ignored by most of them. At this age most seemed to be watching and waiting, still—not many throughout the ninth grade were dating or ready to date yet, and the few pairings that did happen were well known and often discussed.

According to Elena, dating was more common throughout the Sophomore year, and then if you weren’t in or between relationships by your Junior or Senior year there was something wrong with you. That thought rankled, the thought that peer pressure had an affect on her stung, and she realized that now the idea of being completely unfettered by social mores was—

Fuck! No no no, stop stop stop, Tabitha grimaced. Rein it in, c’mon Tabitha. This isn’t the time to get distracted by BOYS, or DATING, of all things. It’s not gonna happen anyways—probably never will. There’s a whole Aunt Lisa situation to deal with, and these damned hormones just have my thoughts careening out of control in every direction but where they should be. Focus, FOCUS.

“Bobby’s not even that good-looking!” Tabitha rationalized to herself. “Just okayish-looking. Maybe kinda charming when he smiles. Charming, but not TOO charming. Right? He’s… okay, at best, he’s like a scrawnier Heath Ledger. A super young Heath Ledger, but with his hair cut real short.”

Her attention remained in deficit for the rest of the walk back down the hill. Before she really remembered that his name was Bobby, he was just that redneck kid from class—why wasn’t THAT bothering her? Everything trashy and redneck about Aunt Lisa got under her skin in a big way, but with Bobby it didn’t seem to trouble her. Was some sort of distorted electra complex providing attraction based on the superficial similarities between Bobby and her father? While that same perceived ‘redneck’ social standing made her more and more hostile to Aunt Lisa? Did that even make sense?

...Maybe? Tabitha felt surprisingly glum about it. I was completely at odds with Mom back when she was trying to be the trailer trash queen despot of our mobile home. Wasn’t until she tried reconnecting with her roots as a would-be-actress and acting less like trailer trash that she actually started reaching me. Shit. Fuck. Definitely maybe something like an electra complex. Do I need to start reading up on Carl Jung, so that I don’t wind up letting this grow into some sort of neurosis down the line? I’ve got enough of those already as it is. Would a therapist help?

It was a troubling distraction, and when she got back home and stepped inside it felt like her thoughts were still pinballing back and forth throughout her head.

“Oven’s still preheating,” Mrs. Moore fretted. “How much milk did you get?”

“Just a quart,” Tabitha placed it on the counter with the arrangement they’d prepared for scalloped potatoes. “Here, your change.”

“Don’t mind that. You just hang on to it for if you ever need some spendin’ money.”

“‘Kay,” Tabitha sighed.

“Are you alright?” Mrs. Moore paused.

“I’m… I’m tryin’,” Tabitha promised, giving her mother a weak smile. “C’mon, let’s do this.”

She instructed her mother in how to whisk the milk in with butter and flour to make a cream sauce, trading occasional quiet banter back and forth with Mrs. Moore, who was always uncomfortable following a recipe that didn’t provide exact measurements. They peeled potatoes together in silence as One Life to Live out in the living room gave way to General Hospital, and then the spuds were washed and sliced and carefully arranged in their glass dish beneath a healthy layer of cheese. The dish went into the oven, where it would remain until shortly before they left to have Thanksgiving with Grandma Laurie and the boys.

Hmm. With this much cheese, these might be more potatoes au gratin than scalloped potatoes, but—so sue me. They’re gonna be delicious, that’s all that matters.

Aunt Lisa remained quiet the entire afternoon, lapsing in and out of consciousness as the TV played away in front of her. Some small respite from dealing with the woman’s grating voice suited Tabitha just fine, and after very carefully scrubbing the instant coffee dregs out of her nice tea set with her mother’s help, she carried them one by one into her room to hide the pieces away. When the last teacup was turned upside-down and placed on a small towel on her dresser, Tabitha’s eyes continued to wander.

A pair of the golden-foil wrapped Reese’s peanut butter cups were paperweights upon her school withdrawal papers, and the homeschooling information printouts Mrs. Cribb had sent them. The rest of that small mountain of Reese’s from the Halloween haul was hidden in the freezer, where the chocolate wouldn’t tempt them with its seductive wiles. She’d kept a few get-well cards and had them propped up, but the Ariel costume had been folded and put away.

Otherwise, her tiny bedroom was still as sparsely decorated as it had been back during Halloween, when the girls had had that sleep over. Tabitha’s spartan bedroom seemed to reflect the limbo of her state of being, because it wasn’t the place of a budding young girl, cluttered with her hopes and dreams for the future, and it also wasn’t the living space of an old woman, full of fond memories and knick-knacks from days gone by. It was some empty in-between, without any indication of what direction her life was going in.

I’m happiest when I can just be a normal boring teenage daughter, Tabitha thought, glancing around her room with a listless expression. When things can just be simple and I can just have the loving family I always wanted. When I can just be the person I always wished I could have been. SHOULD have been. Or work my way towards that, at least.

Tabitha’s identity problems were beginning to reach a sense of actual crisis.

Thirteen was supposed to be a time of metamorphosis, but everything for her was completely backwards, a baffling psychological reversal of concepts. Her future adulthood was in the past, now, and the childhood she revisited was nothing like she remembered—it was almost all treading entirely new ground. Even despite her mind weathering through all of this reasonably well enough, Tabitha felt she was sometimes emotionally regressing in a serious way. All the intelligence in the world wouldn’t help her if the way she felt about things completely overwhelmed every rational decision she might make.

That, and also… I’m completely off-balance again here because Lisa showed up out of nowhere. Blindsided me. Despite how I’m supposed to know basically what events happen, and generally when. Or, at least know things in a vague way. Unwelcome BUTTERFLY EFFECT surprises that aren’t part of my future knowledge at this point start to make me feel real... extremely vulnerable. On edge. Especially after—yeah, after all the nice ‘surprises’ so far. I’m less and less okay with these kind of surprises each time, BECAUSE IT ALWAYS SUCKS, and, naturally, it’s going to happen more and more often, because of the little ripple effect changes spreading outward and changing everything.

Pretty soon, there won’t be ANY comfort to be had from future knowledge, and… who even am I at THAT point? I’m not from the future anymore, then. I’m just a crazy person, with almost completely irrelevant knowledge from some... hypothetical divergent timeline that no longer has any bearing on the one we’re in here and now. I’m just an actual fucking thirteen-year-old again, but with added crazy. Basically—bottom line—I’m crazy. I’m crazy. GREAT.

Physically, she wasn’t faring much better than she was mentally. Her body had still been undergoing puberty when it was suddenly subjected to the extreme flux of weight loss and the repeated shocks to her system—head trauma from being pushed off a trampoline in the first place, the wrist fracture from being shoved off the curb at school, then renewed head trauma from being attacked at the Halloween party more recently. Not for the first time, she wondered if all of her future knowledge maybe really WAS some sort of hyperactive hallucination brought on by some tissue or nerve damage to her brain.

Tabitha turned her head in the mirror so that she could see her stitches. They looked fine, they hadn’t been inflamed or irritated or swollen or anything, and the shaved patch there on the side was beginning to grow back in as a downy soft fuzz of red hair. She was still very, very pale.

What a grand delusion this would all be… but once you start doubting, it never really stops, does it?