Cradle Her In Darkness, Love Her In Light

Chapter 10

Nine days, elven hours, and a handful of minutes without Ava. No physical contact, no video chat, no phone calls... a pair of cryptic texts were all Tara had to survive off. Shawn had called in sick the morning after Tara got left outside alone and had yet to reappear, except to send dramatic claims of his vomit prowess (apparently his projectile record was now six feet). She may be human, but she was no fool. Tara didn't think for a moment that his sick leave wasn't connected to Ava's silent treatment.

She had only been mulling over her dire love life every waking moment since their parting. It was only consuming all her spare thoughts. She was okay. She was a grown-up, and she could handle heartache. The limbo was frustrating though, the nothingness, the silence. But she could make it through. It would all make sense soon. She just had to wait. Then her obsessive phone-checking could stop, and her brain would let her focus on something else, anything but the absence of Ava.

Their newest team member tapped the counter beside her, bringing her back to the present, standing at the till of an almost-empty Jessi's Java.

"Your shift ended a few minutes ago, Tara," she said.

Tara sighed. "Yeah. Sorry."

Dawdling on her walk back home, Tara was not paying a great deal of attention to her surroundings. This was a walk she took twice a day, five days a week. And perhaps her brain had once again returned to the last few moments she spent with Ava, breaking down every scrap of information she could remember to piece together even a hint as to what was going on. She had so far deduced a big fat nothing. So when a hand snatched her by the knee-length pastel purple sweater dress she was swamped in, her body was yanked along with it, feet a few inches from the floor. Her back hit the grimy brick wall of the alleyway she had landed in. Ava's face leant over her with a stern expression.

"We need to talk," she said, her tone dark.

"Y-yes, we do!" Tara agreed breathlessly.

It was surreal seeing her face again when she wasn't expecting it. Partly shrouded under a grey hoodie, it didn't quite match the version in her head that Tara had been aching for, the one that smirked at her like she always held a secret on the tip of her tongue.

"But I don't have much time."

Tara could almost laugh with incredulity at her girlfriend's words, if she weren't so furious. "You're too busy for me?"

"Not busy. Cautious." Every word she spoke was blunt, bludgeoning Tara between her eyes.

"Well, I have a lot to say!" she yelped, although despite her best effort, she could not match Ava's firm tone, could not take control of the conversation. She felt like an audience member in the interaction, as though she were not included in the discussion.

"And I would love to listen, but I don't have time. I'm sorry."

"Are you serious?!"

"Deadly."

Tara's face burned with a combination of anger and embarrassment at being shut down so simply. "How..." her mouth fumbled for a moment and her cold fingers clenched and unclenched. "How dare you!" she snapped. "How bloody rude-"

"We need to end this. Now."

Tara spluttered, but could not form a single solid word.

"I am not trying to hurt you and I know this is terrible timing." Ava huffed to herself, blowing a strand of hair that had escaped the hoodie from her face in the process. "This is not how I would want to do this if I had the choice, but I genuinely don't have one."