Tabbs

Chapter 19

Valentina parked her car outside Tabbs' apartment, killed the engine, and stared at the apartment's decrepit facade. She spotted the missing lengths of tan wood paneling where dull pink insulation was reshaped into a squirrels nest, then eyed the long spider webbed crack in the window opposite Tabbs' unit. The place she had called home for the past two months was a shithole, that was without a doubt, but it was more home then she had ever had.

She stood out of the car, slung her purse over one shoulder, and reached for the car door when she noticed the rusting heap next to hers. Tabbs' black Saturn. She wondered how Tabbs had been getting around. It wasn't something she had considered, leaving like she did. For the first time in their relationship, Tabbs had asked her for help... and she had left her in the dust.

Valentina swallowed the lump in her throat and began her ascent up the stairs. They creaked with every foot fall like it was warning the entire neighborhood she was back. Finally at the door, she inserted her key into the deadbolt, but was unable to will her wrist to turn the lock. Instead, her hand just hung there lamely like a wet noodle stuck to a wall. She knew she had no right to just walk back in like that. It really did only take one cross word, one disagreement, for her to pick up and run like she had. What was she expecting? For Tabbs to just forgive her? Welcome her back with open arms? But she couldn't just leave things the way they were. Tabbs would be angry, and rightly so. She would likely yell and say some nasty stuff, but... she would just have to take it on the chin. Accept the consequences and apologize then... then... well she didn't really know what then.

Valentina shut her eyes tight, unlatched the lock and shoved the door open. When she reopened her eyes, the living room was presented before her, bathed in the amber glow of the day's dying light. Aside from the disturbed dust motes, all was quiet and still. She called out and heard only her own voice echoing back to her off the bare apartment walls. Her body instinctively stepped inside and shut the door behind her. She threw on the light switch and the kitchen lit up with a bright florescence.

Her mind was suddenly taken back to that night weeks ago when she had first started cooking for them both. The half-assed quesidillas she had made that she and Tabbs had gobbled down like it was their last meal. Then the following liquor-induced confessional they both shared.

'Why did you take me in?' she had asked.

'Because it was the right hing to do.'

Of all the people in the world, it was the tall, gangling, weird alt girl at her workplace, whom she had only ever exchanged pointed glances with, that had treated her with such generosity. And somehow, despite everything, Valentina had somehow known she was genuine. She really did just do it out of the kindness of her heart. Not only that, but she had never asked for compensation, never even pressured her to leave. That despite having so little, she was still willing to share.

Of course the girl wasn't perfect. She soaked in more booze then a sponge to water and she walked around as if she were constantly apologizing for merely existing.

'Because, I'm tired of seeing you bullied, Tabbs!' Recalling her words peppered her heart and soul with a thousand tiny cuts. Valentina didn't regret saying what she did, but it hadn't come from the right place. She could see that now. She hadn't been trying to help Tabbs when she said that, she had been trying to put the girl in her place. Telling her to get with the program or get out of the way. She wanted to wound the girl before she had the chance to do the same to her.

Valentina's downcast eyes fell upon the chairless dining room table and found it cluttered with text heavy print outs and hand scrawled notes. She felt herself pulled in and began sifting through the papers. They appeared to be about various civil suits and property laws in the past twenty years. She pushed a few of the discarded papers to the side and discovered Tabbs' laptop covered in the melee of legalese. She flipped open the computer and the screen immediately illuminated, showing its last viewed screen.

Valentina had lost count the number of times she told Tabbs to password protect the thing, but for once she was glad she hadn't. What she first read through as nonsensical lawyer jargon turned out to be a blog dedicated to legal advice in regard to inheritance law. She flipped through the many open browser tabs till she found a scanned still of a document titled 'Last Will and Testament of Edwina Parker' with a slew of annotations and virtual highlights.

Valentina's heart began to pound with something between elation and fear. Tabbs had not only listened, but she was actually going to to face her mother. Valentina immediately tugged the phone out of her back pocket and dialed Tabbs. The phone rang till the machine picked up. She hung up without leaving a message and saw the long archive of missed calls from Tabbs and the mountain of unanswered texts. Another drop in her stomach.

She had figured Tabbs would try to reach out, so she blacklisted the number with no intent to ever reply again. Another hasty mistake she hoped wasn't too late to fix.

The whole thing reminded her of one the book manuscripts she had been toying around with for the past couple of years. Her story followed a pair of lovers who found themselves working on the same cruise ship. Halfway though the book, one character hatched a plan to play as a ship guest during a ball and just managed to convince her partner to join in on the scheme. They both got caught and it nearly ruined their budding relationship for good. Of course, in the end of her book, both characters saw though it and ended up on the other side for the better. But that was a book, this was real. And in her experience, things rarely ended up so nice and tidy in the end.

Valentina found herself, after apparently wandering for some time, in front of Tabbs' open bedroom door. A place she secretly always wanted to be invited into. In the center of the room was a wide, squishy looking bed which was covered in pillows with mismatched cases, the baby blue sheets sitting precariously at one side. Laundry of various freshness was scattered across the floor with the exception of a carved out walkway. As before, Valentina found herself suddenly laying in the bed, her hands curled around a discarded black band tee that smelled like the ocean. She found herself staring at a corkboard across from her that was covered with several dozen concert tickets and photo stills of Tabbs' favorite band, the Unihorns.

'What am I doing?' she thought. 'I'm acting like some sort of gross voyeur.' But she still didn't let the tank top go, instead smoothing over a section of the fabric in one of her hands with the pad of her thumb.

'Some emo girl with mommy issues. Really, Val?' a bitter sounding voice accosted her from the deep black part of her mind. 'She's weird, has self esteem issues, and wears dark clothes all the time. Like, has she even heard of the sun? Is that someone you think you really feel anything but pity for?'

"She's more then that," Valentina said out loud to no one in particular. "And that's something she needs to know too. Something I need to tell her."

Valentina balled up the fabric and pressed it to her chest, her mind a sudden and thankful blank. After a moment she draped the top over the bedside and sauntered over to her keyboard, which was thankfully untouched in the living room. She turned it on and the speakers mounted on either side of the keyboard gave a satisfying pop. She set the sound to 'grand piano,' sat on her modest keyboard bench, leveled her fingers expertly over the keys, and played the song leaking from her soul and into her fingers. Shades of grays and dark blues filled the quiet room, all highlighted by a bassy black undertone. They then led into the occasional pricks of pinks and sprouts of purple like flowers or fireworks. She felt her heart begin to soar when a knock at the door disrupted her flow. She paused, glancing back at the front door.

There was another knock that soon turned into a heavy-fisted pounding.