"You look terrible. And you have a box full of your things from what I am guessing was your desk, seeing as there is a stapler and a picture of gorgeous women." The picture was a gold-framed shot of their friend group. Black witch hats, various trends of black outfits, smiles. Magic, really. It was one of her favorite memories.
She smiled weakly. "Fired. They are cutting fat at the station, and apparently I'm chubby."
Jen's angular face took on a look of annoyance but before she could threaten to burn the building down, Tilly held up her hand and amended, "They did not call me fat. Don't worry. Actually, I think my boss, ex-boss, hit on me," she said with a scrunched look on her face that said she had found it unwanted. "And did it in a semi-racist way."Skeptical eyebrows raised. "How can something be semi-racist?"
Tilly shrugged and drank her latte. Always softening the problematic blows.
"Well, ew."
"Yep."
"Where are you at?"
It was their question, the one Jen had learned to ask her if she went to a dark place or if there was a threat of it.
Twice now in one day, she'd fallen into a place of insecurity and fear. It wasn't something she had struggled with for a while. Why now? It felt like every strong wall she had built over the last few years had started falling. Even now, as she sat with her closest friend, the one who knew her heart in its depths, she wanted to brush off today's misfortunes and hold tightly to her fears and shame. Guard others from these kinds of personal emotions so that they don't have the obligation of sharing the load.
She'd set aside time and put in the work to be kind to herself, to enjoy and love who and what she is. Today, she woke up and it was like none of that stuck. She was seventeen again in a silver dress, stuffing her pain into a mental box and locking it shut. Watching party store stars taunt her loneliness.
She was twenty-nine and biting back words that would get her punished by him. He was good at using loneliness as his weapon.
It was a lie that a woman alone is always lonely; just like it is a lie that a married woman feels connected.
She was stuffed with emotions, which was not surprising as her divinely chosen tarot card was the wheel of misfortune.
"Babe?" Jen asked, her warm eyes looking at her in concern as she came back to this moment.
"Sorry. I'm just having one of those days, you know? But no need to raise the alarm."
"I'm going to get us a piece of black magic cake to share, and then you are going to tell me all about it." She got up and pointed a manicured finger at her. "You, do whatever you need to do to unlock your thoughts to share." Then her friend left Tilly at the table with her thoughts and a great relief of being so known by someone.
Jen was the friend who had first called her out on her habit of hiding pieces of herself. Pieces she spent over thirty years naming trifling and superfluous.
When people taught you from a young age that to feel your own hurt was an attack on them, she learned to lock up the pain like the supposed weapons they were.
But after much healing, a dash of counseling, and a heaping of beautifully tough love from her friend, she learned that every piece of her held merit.
And a weapon, her pain was not.
What better way to tackle such a worrisome day than with this kind of friend who invited her to lay it all out so that she, too, could help carry the burden? Add in Kelsea's black magic cake and Eloise's coffee, and Tilly could nearly smile despite her situation.
Then she felt a presence, strong and stoic, before she looked up and nearly choked on her latte. Chief Landry was staring down at her.
"Miss Nguyen," his voice rumbled.
He was dressed in a white button-up long-sleeved shirt and uniform pants. The man took up space, and not simply by his size, but by how he commanded the elements around him. She felt like she had to coax air into her lungs to keep breathing.
That evening came back to her as she blinked up at him, unable to form a simple hello. The feeling of that night had lingered in the corners of her mind, where they hunkered down in shadows, where she had to go searching for them by lamplight, and even still, she couldn't quite name how he made her feel. But she liked to sit with it.
"Hi," she finally got out. And then cleared her throat.
"I haven't seen you in a while." It was a statement. It may have been an accusation, but she caught a glint of humor in his dark eyes.
"I keep busy. And I don't make a habit out of going to the police station to hang out."
"That's odd. It's such an eventful place."
"The coffee is terrible, and the furniture leaves a lot to be desired. Like comfort."
