Even as I say it, I know it’s a bad idea.
The hurt from the blowout is still ping-ponging around in my chest, amplifying every hot flash of shame and regret I’ve ever collected. I’m covered in the bloody residue of my self-imposed punishment and splattered with the emotional shrapnel of my own failures. As I rise from the couch, I don’t bother finding something to clean it off.
It feels appropriate to let her see exactly how fucked up I am.
Stomping into the hallway, I hear the door slam behind me. For a second I want to turn around and save Rafe from Taurus’s wrath. But they need to deal with one another because I’m fairly certain from the vibe that Rafe screwed something up with his ‘plan’. I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse for my ability to figure out how to fix shit with Talia now.
Her energy is easy to follow; it’s a trail of bad emotions that pelt me with needle pricks of anger and fear and heartbreak. I sigh heavily as I climb the stairs slowly, my body protesting at everybump and stretch. I could apperate to the upper floor, but I’m still riding on the adrenaline of my aches to keep going.
My heart is hurling itself against my ribs, howling at scars that have opened up. I round the corner at the top of the landing and spot her hunched on the window seat at the end of the corridor, knees drawn to her chest and wild hair curtaining her face. She’s trembling, not with rage but with the strange, vibrating grief that sometimes follows nuclear family meltdowns.
The worst part is that I want to fix this, and I want to comfort her. But I can’t, because I also want to scream at her for pushing such a painful button from my past trauma. I pause briefly, studying her silhouette in the blue-wash light of dusk. She looks so much smaller like this, like she’s regressed back to her childhood in her miasma of emotions.
Sigh. I know how this is going to go and I don’t think I’m going to get the resolution I desperately need.
I clear my throat, suddenly uncertain what I’m going to say. “Talia.” Her name comes out softer than I expected. I’m still furious, but the sharp edge is gone, dulled by the sight of her hunched and broken. “Hey. Are you?—”
She doesn’t look up, but her voice cuts clean through the silence. “Don’t,” she says. “Don’t start. I’m not in the mood for a lecture.”
I raise my hands, palms open as I stand in front of her. “I’m not here to fight,” I say, and as I say it, I almost believe myself. “I just… You really hurt me last night. Maybe it wasn’t on purpose, but I had to chew on it all day, and after work… Well, things went poorly with stuff and having your word echo in my mind made it so much worse. I’m sorry that my pain caused everyone else to go bonkers.”
She laughs, a short bark of derision. “We’re always sorry, aren’t we? That’s our thing. We fuck up, then we apologize, then we fuck up again.”
I want to argue, but she’s not wrong.
Shifting my weight, I feel the bond between us thrum like a plucked cord. Even when we hate each other, we’re still two halves of the same disaster. There’s no getting away from it.
I sit down on the edge of the window seat, careful not to crowd her. The silence stretches, taut as wire, but neither of us moves to break it.
If we’re going to survive as a family, the two of us have to figure out how to move past this.
“Can we just talk, like normal people?” I murmur softly. “I’ll do my best to not magick shit up and you can keep the snake under wraps. We’ll share why we’re feeling bad, and then help one another understand how to avoid it in the future. Would that be so hard?”
Talia sighs, looking up at the ceiling as she replies, “I can try. It’s hard because these people are capable of making you so miserable and they’re not worth it. They aren’t even a tiny bit worthy of your heart or soul or body, but you’ve given some of that to them so they have it as a weapon. That weapon injures you, but it also stabs me and Taurus. I hate it and I love you at the same time.”
“I can’t erase the past, Talia. You knew that when you made your mark as I did when I made mine.” My voice is low, but it’s full of truth she needs to hear. “I also can’t stop them from talking about it—whether it’s fondly, wistfully, or even snarkily. That’snot how people work and you know it. All I can do is do my best not to encourage it.”
She rests her forehead on her knees, muttering, “I don’t know how to handle it. I keep trying, but it’s just…”
“But you have to if we’re going to be a family, Talia. I wish I could say something else, to make you happy, but I can’t. You know what reality is as much as Taurus does. He and I talk about this without him making me feel like you did last night. And even if I was handling my issues wrong earlier, both of you did something that brought Rafe into it, and he didn’t do shit as far as I know.”
She just looks sad and I roll my eyes up, trying not to lose my temper with her wilty shit.
This isn’t going well and I have no idea what I can do to get us both where we need to be so this is resolved.
The Artist And The Bird Talk It Through
RAFE
Sighing, I ignore the shallow furrows on my chest from my tear through as I sink onto the bed. My shoulders slump and I rub my hands over my face. “Fuck me.”
Taurus sinks into a chair of his own, catching blood off his chest and sucking it off his finger. “Can’t say I’m in the mood right now, thanks.”
“That’s not what I meant. Don’t be a dipshit.”
He arches his brow. “Ratchet it back, Rafe.”
I stare at the ceiling, unwilling to argue with him about my right to be angry after what he pulled with my wife earlier. “Sorry.”
