What Crawls Below

11 § Confession

Tuesday spent two days in a row going to Jordan's after school. On the second, the other girl suggested they go to Tuesday's place, but she wasn't eager to be labeled a freak so soon. Tuesday doubted that would happen, but was still slightly worried her aunt would come off as too eccentric. After all, she'd already chased off one of Tuesday's friends.

Even if she had been right about him...

These hangouts were becoming a much-anticipated part of Tuesday's day. They didn't always smoke or stuff like that. Jordan, true to her word, had turned on Netflix, given Tuesday the remote and told her to go wild. They stayed up late enough watching cheesy scary movies--things so unrealistic Tuesday could only really laugh at in reaction--that she earned herself a scolding from Aunt Mary.

She didn't regret it, even when the next day it was even more difficult than usual to get out of bed. With Jordan, she didn't have to face who she truly was.

But even that began to eat at her.

Lies had a way of coming to the light, and Tuesday wasn't eager to have her own double-life revealed. On a second round of b-rate horror flicks, Jordan fell asleep beside her and Tuesday didn't bother waking her. She watched the other girl, seeming even more serene in sleep, bathed in the yellowish pale glow of the television--and silently confessed her sins. She hadn't been to confession in months, and it was not easy to fall back into the routine, especially considering she hadn't even spoken aloud yet.

She obsessed over just what she could say and how so long that she, too, fell victim to exhaustion. When she awoke, the movie had switched to the "Are you still watching?" screen and the room had fallen into otherwise total darkness beyond the television's subtle light. Glancing beside herself, Tuesday jumped, seeing Jordan was already awake and sitting upright--so still she hadn't even realized. The other girl was slowly scanning the room with wide eyes.

"You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost," Tuesday joked, jabbing her with her elbow.

Jordan laughed, the sound coming out forced, and glanced down at her lap where her hands were twisting anxiously. "Yeah, man, I just--thought I saw something, or someone." Seeing the look on Tuesday's face, she quickly added, "It totally had to have been a nightmare, a really vivid one. You know what they say about eating too much sugar before bed." Jordan sheepishly gestured towards the empty candy wrappers littering the coffee table.

Though a shiver wracked her spine, Tuesday nodded along in agreement. For several minutes they chatted about something insignificant she couldn't really focus on, simply reacting where it seemed necessary but not contributing anything valuable to the conversation. In their sleep, the two girls had jammed together closer on the sofa--facing each other, legs overlapping--and the comfortable closeness only served to remind Tuesday how unfair she was being. She couldn't keep enjoying someone else's presence until she was sure they were completely consenting--obviously, Tuesday couldn't disclose all of her sins, but the first one was surely a start.

"Are you okay?" Jordan suddenly said, interrupting her own monologue.

No, she wasn't. She didn't even know why these things bothered her so fiercely now. For as long as she'd been helping Cyrus, she basically did so without batting an eye. Maybe that was the problem, though, maybe he was what made it so easy to tamp these feelings down. She'd gone a whole month without that influence, and it had been debatably the most hellish month of her life. Even if her reactions had changed, though, nothing else had.

"I don't know," Tuesday said quietly. "I don't know how to explain it."

"Maybe you just need to see things from a new perspective." With a crooked grin, Jordan twisted around and repositioned herself so her legs were raised over the back of the couch and her head dangled off the cushions.