enna

The shop doesn't have much left to it. This is the second pass, after all. Van had been there for the first, had made all the rough-edged jokes this adult version of her couldn't resist. She'd laughed, though never from her belly, and she'd smiled, though her eyes no longer crinkled the same way, and she'd grabbed the shit she cared about. Taissa had helped as much as Van had allowed, which wasn't as much as Van might have wanted to. They weren't them again, not yet. They weren't quite back on track.

They should be back on track. Instead, Van's heart is being digested in the pit Taissa's become, and Tai is here: sifting through the final detritus of the most vibrant life ever to touch her own.

She wants to scream. To shatter glass. To throw up, to throw a TV down a flight of stairs, to throw herself off the roof.

Instead, she sets to work. Life is always a little more manageable with a project. Life always makes a little more sense if you can put your hands to something tangible, force the matter of your world into order. She makes piles: things to toss, things to keep, things she can't quite see even Van caring about. Wonders if they were gifts from halfhearted friends or half-cared-for lovers. Wonders if anything really matters when a person is no longer around to assign affection.

Under the bed, she finds a box. She remembers it well, this old shoebox in which Van used to keep her favorite cassette tapes. Here, across the cardboard lid, are Van's teenage doodles. Wonky cats and lopsided spaceships, a feeble attempt at recreating the Jurassic Park logo. And here, right beside them, in a lighter hand with far more dexterity: Taissa's own drawings.

They'd been rained in, she remembers. Rained in, and Van had been vibrating with boredom, and they'd had all these markers and all these hormones. It had felt safer, leaning into the markers.

She can't believe Van kept this. Equally, she can't believe she's surprised Van would keep everything she ever cared about. Her hand skims the lid, caressing, and flips it up as though expecting a bomb to go off.

Inside, she finds no cassettes at all. Just paper. Envelopes, she realizes, for the most part. A few folded scraps, torn off those little pads intended for phone messages. All of them covered in Van's looping scrawl.

A journal? Van wouldn't keep one like this, surely. Van was never the type to keep journals. She'd maybe have an enormous file saved somewhere, or a bag of little video cassettes with her own face aging over time as she talked through her memories, but no paper journal. Not her style. This must be something else.

And, even before she tugs the first envelope open, Taissa knows. In her bones, in the part of her that felt so essential to fight for so long, she knows what she'll find.

Van's handwriting, chaotic as it ever was, etching Taissa's name again and again.

She sinks back on the floor, back to the wall, heart between her teeth. Letters. Every last one of these are letters addressed to Taissa Turner. Every last one, some so faded, they must have been written decades ago. Crumpled or pristine, it makes no difference; these are Van's thoughts, Van's words, Van writing to her. Van, who loved her in 1996, who loved her in 2001, who loved her just last week.

Van, who wrote I miss you, and don't think I don't hate myself for it. Van, who wrote, I almost called again. God, you wouldn't even pick up if I did. Van, who wrote, You got married today, you fucking asshole. Didn't even invite me. Thank fuck for that, huh?

Taissa cups a hand to her mouth, reading each one slowly. Savoring each insight into Van's psyche from bygones past. Her favorites are the ones that hurt the most, the ones where Van rages. The ones where Van says, I can't believe I still wake up in the night and think you're tied to my arm. Fifteen fucking years, and I still wake up rubbing my wrist. So glad I'll never get to tell you, which means you'll never get to make fun of that shit. You'd be right to.

Her favorites are the ones where Van is aching, where she writes things like, Tried to sleep with someone today; she smelled like that horrible perfume you tried junior year, and I almost leapt out of my skin. Or, Even porn reminds me of you, how fucked up is that? You ruined porn for me, Tai. You suck, do you know that?

Sometimes, the anger is spitfire, and sometimes it's tinged with morose humor. Sometimes, it isn't there at all. Just Van writing as if to her best friend, to the girl she'd cared for so deeply, she forgot how not to. Those hurt the worst. Those hurt like Taissa's the one with a knife between her bones.

Got so sick last week I thought I'd die. Reminded me of getting the flu after we got back, and you getting so mad at me for refusing to go to the ER. I went this time. Just to get back at you.

Watched While You Were Sleeping tonight. It's a perfect movie, even though some part of it always tastes like wolves. The last time I saw it, your head was in my lap, and I had a kernel of popcorn stuck in my back molar, and I thought I'd go insane trying to ignore it. Kept thinking about that the whole time, instead of Sandy.

Finally got that diagnosis. It's bad, Tai. It's real bad. I'm not gonna send this, because fuck it, right? I don't send this shit, but I've never wanted to so badly. Just to see what would happen. You'd probably just have your assistant send flowers or something, so fuck you, dude, but...I wish I could tell you.

Taissa's hand spasms around this missive, scrawled on the back of a bar napkin. She imagines Van with a beer in hand, three more in her bloodstream, her vision swimming. She imagines Van, who was just told she had months to live, itching to pick up the phone.

"I wish you had," she whispers to no one. But she doesn't, not really, because she can't be sure what she'd have done. Maybe nothing. Maybe something supremely idiotic. Maybe she'd just have pretended never to have gotten the message at all.

Or maybe she'd have reached through time and pulled Van in close, kissed her through a wave of tears, told her they'd do whatever it took to chase down a cure. Maybe she'd have killed for Van Palmer. Probably, she'd have killed for Van Palmer.

She closes the box, hand pressed to the lid. Inside, the letters seem to hum. She hasn't read them all. She doesn't know how to stop, or how to continue. She doesn't know how to do this.

Judging by those letters, Van didn't know, either. Van did this instead, unable to stop, unable to continue. It seems right, somehow, that they'd both be trapped in the same kind of limbo.

Hand shaking, Taissa draws the phone from her pocket. Hesitates briefly. Taps the voice recording app.

"Van." Her voice is tremulous. She shuts her eyes, clears her throat, begins again. "Found your box. Keeping that shit under your bed is some sad-ass shit, but...it's more of you. More than I thought I'd ever get. More than I thought was left."

She waits, half-expecting to hear Van's rasping laugh. Met only with silence, she leans her head against the wall.

"I almost called you today, driving down. Thought you could talk me through the worst of the highway. How stupid is that?"

Van's gone, she knows, swallowed down by the hell they've never been able to leave behind. Van's gone, though it shouldn't be possible, though she should have been rendered immortal by those woods. Van's gone. Taissa isn't.