By Any Other Name

Chapter Fourteen

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Tori stared down at the screen of her phone, sniffling away the last throes of her crying episode. Staring back at her were three little words. A ten minute tirade of jumbled thoughts accompanied by tears and those three little words were all she had to show for it.

It wasn't exactly a monologue and they certainly wouldn't have thrilled an audience... but they meant so much.

'I need you.'

And they carried so much meaning. So much meaning that Tori wasn't even sure what half of it actually meant.

Releasing something that may have resembled the lovechild of a human sigh and an animalistic groan the young Latina fell face-forward into the couch, seeking solace in the fabric as she waited (dreaded, feared, slowly died for) a response.

It couldn't have been more than seven minutes before Tori heard the front door swing open with all the force of a hurricane behind it. She looked up just in time to see the thick slab of wood rebound off the wall and come slamming back towards its frame. When it was halfway there all Tori had time to register was a pale hand flashing out, quick as lighting. That hand stopped the door in its tracks, the wood trembling as momentum sought frantic release.

Tori stared dumbly for a moment, eyeing the hand in suspicion as fear began to grow in her chest. Actually, maybe fear isn't the right word... have you ever had that feeling that something astronomically important is about to happen, something that you're not quite sure is good or bad and, what's worse, you have no idea how to handle it?

That's how she felt. It was like, suspense to the max. The kind that makes you nauseous. Her head was so busy trying to process this feeling that her porr brain couldn't even form a cohesive thought, so where you'd normally find a witty mental quip you'll find only an explanation as to why there is no witty mental quip.

So as her mind tried to catch up with the rush of silent emotion that had forced its way into the room, a moment became a minute, and mocha eyes continued to stare.

And stare.

And stare.

...and the silence was deafening.

But then something funny happened.

As Tori continued to stare, all of a sudden she began to see. She saw the almost painful way those pale fingers gripped the door. She saw knuckles, fiercely white, and she saw veins, pale blue rivers hiding beneath a layer of snow.

And then she saw the ring.

Stark black against that pale hand, Tori saw the ring that she had given to a certain someone a few days before. She saw the smooth black petals, shining with the slightest hint of dew (had it started to rain?) in the soft artificial light of her living room. She saw the silver thorns, wrapping tenderly around that single finger, cool and familiar to their owner's touch but posing a silent threat to everyone else.

She saw that ring and all tension left her body. Her muscles relaxed and she sank some back into the couch, breath escaping in a silent sigh.

Her mind may not have been brought to speed just yet, but her heart knew what to do. So it hijacked her body. Her eyes began to move without her mental consent, following the hand to wrist, the wrist to an arm. The arm led to a shoulder, and in some corner of her brain, completely detached from anything emotional (because that was all still kind of a hot mess) realized that it had in fact been raining.

She also realized that the girl standing in her doorway had forgotten to bring a jacket.

Her eyes stopped for a moment at that shoulder, watching a single bead of rainwater find its way down from its high perch and tumble down pale skin. Soon enough she was moving on, finding curled tendrils of black hair, soaking wet and dripping. A gentle smile tugged at the corner of her lips, so slight that even a close friend could have mistaken it for a twitch.