The Nothings

Tabitha (Chapter Nineteen)

     Tabitha didn't sleep all night after the funeral. She sent a few texts to Kate, but they were never answered. Then Tabitha tried calling Kate a few times, but she still didn't answer. She kept getting her voicemail. Her phone was probably dead again. She was always forgetting to charge it as she hated it when people called her. Tabitha felt a wave of irrational irritation towards her friend even though Tabitha had told Kate that she needed some space.  

   Anita called the day after the funeral, and she asked Tabitha if she'd seen talked to Joan lately. She was worried about her, Anita said. Joan took off in a sprint after hearing about Elizabeth's death, and no one had seen her or talked to her since. A swoop of fear went through Tabitha's stomach as she hung up after promising she'd tried to get a hold of Joan.

Tabitha called her ex-best friend Brianna. She knew practically everyone in town, and thankfully she knew Joan's step-mother. She told Tabitha where their house was, and Tabitha set off into the night to check on Joan. Anxiety be damned, she told her nervous self. This was more important.

  Joan's house was a personality lacking modular with kid's toys strewn across the yard. Tabitha could see a huge, glowing flat-screen TV through the window. Tabitha couldn't help but think of Joan's step-mother screeching in the parking lot for Joan every Wednesday. Would she yell at Tabitha like that? And how bad did Joan's Dad have to be to marry and have kids with her? Tabitha quickly knocked on the door before her fear and her sneakers [Kate's] led her back down the crumbled walkway. Dogs started barking as soon as she knocked, and she heard a woman curse at the sound.

  "Yes?" She threw it open. "Can I help you?"

  She didn't look as scary up close since she was shorter than Tabitha, and her eyes weren't unkind. Just dazed and obviously drunk. Tabitha felt her voice catch in her throat as it always did when she spoke to new people, but she remembered why she was here. She wanted to check on Joan. She had to fight through her nerves. 

  "Is Joan here?" Tabitha finally found her voice.

  "In her room," said the woman and pointed towards the dark hallway. "It's the third on the left."

  She didn't seem to care who Tabitha was or why she was there. She let Tabitha into the house, and she made her way across the cluttered living room. There were three over stuffed couches draped with sheets that took up 80% of the room, and the two big dogs kept barking at Tabitha but the woman shushed them in a far more kindly voice than Tabitha had ever remembered the woman using with her step daughter. 

Tabitha could hear music as she approached the third door, and she knocked lightly. Nothing. She knocked again.

  "GO AWAY!" Joan yelled.

  "It's... Tabitha," Tabitha tried to make her voice heard over the music but not so loud she would bother the rest of the household. The music suddenly stopped. "... Can I come in?"

  Joan wrenched the door open. She had none of her dark make up on, and she was wearing a white and blue pajama shirt with Tinkerbell on it and black and white striped pajama pants. She looked far prettier without all the eyeliner thought Tabitha. You could actually see her eyes, and they were a sea green. Her hair wasn't in her face for once. It was tied back and wet from a shower. Joan looked embarrassed to be seen the way she was, but she let Tabitha in.

  "How do you know where I live?" Joan asked; looking suspicious as the two girls stood facing each other. Joan slammed the door shut behind them and made Tabitha jump. She hated loud noises.

  "I asked a friend of mine," Tabitha admitted. "Brianna Daniels. She knows your Mom."

  "Step-mom," Joan corrected as she sat on the mattress on a floor that was her bed. There was really nothing in the small room except the bed, some old stuffed animals, and the walls were littered with posters of bands that Tabitha had never heard of or wanted to hear of. Tabitha smiled to herself as she saw one forgotten Jonas Brother poster in the corner of the room; half falling down.