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“Hey.”
He sounded tired over the line. Resigned.
“Hey yourself. Did I wake you up or something?” Tandy projected calm and collected, but deep down she was terrified the reason Ty sounded like he did was something to do with her . Her bothering him one too many times. Calling just a little too late, too often (because when Ty called her it was alway ten o’clock. Always. Tandy was nowhere near that dependable and she hated it).
“Nah, no. I, uh, I just got home, actually” His voice wavered and Tandy was instantly worried.
“Come over.” It was out before she’d even thought it through, but she didn’t regret it, not when she heard the soft exhale of a laugh, the barest hint of his chuckle.
“Tandy, did you miss the part where I said I just got home? As in I was just out, and now I can finally get into bed and sleep so I’m not dead for my chemistry test tomorrow?” His words were scolding, but the laughter in his voice destroyed any weight they might have held and made her heart feel floaty.
“How was Mister Goody Two Shoes out so late anyway? Did your mom not go ballistic?”
Tandy was happy their joking seemed to be boosting his mood, but that worry still niggled at the back of her brain, telling her something was off.
“She didn’t, ah, know I was gone?” His voiced ticked up at the end, and the giggle that escaped Tandy was definitely something only Ty could drag out of her.
“Daaamn, bad boy. Ty, you know, I think I’m rubbing off on you.” The smugness in her voice was possibly a bit too forced, too tinged with the worry she was still feeling, because he went quiet on the other end of the phone.
Tandy really started to think about the fact that Ty was just getting home at a quarter past midnight on a school night. It wasn’t altogether uncommon for him at this point, but that was usually because he was with her. Tandy shook her head when the thought occurred to her that she might somehow be jealous of wherever he was, with whomever he was with.
No way.
Ty was firmly and unwaveringly her friend. Because he had to be. She needed him way too much to ever fall in love with him. Her life was a toxic disaster area and he deserved a whole heck of a lot better than loving her.
Ty broke the silence (though it wasn’t awkward- it never was with them) by clearing his throat and inhaling deeply, like he was about to launch into something- something lengthy and important. Tandy didn’t let him.
“Seriously. Come over. You don’t sound yourself, we can just hang out for a while. I can even help you study, nerd.” She tried to leave it lighthearted, but she was serious about seeing him. She was worried. Probably over nothing, but Tandy had learned a long time ago to trust her instincts.
He didn’t reply right away, so she opened her mouth to try and tease him mercilessly into coming, but before she could, she felt him.
Ty didn’t make a sound when he disappeared from one place and reappeared in another. It was disconcerting as fuck. But Tandy didn’t need a sound to alert her, even though it was creepy he could just appear places silently. It was like her connection to him that always existed- down in the root of her belly somewhere, always warm and ever-present since that first night they’d touched and her world got set on fire- spiked up when he was near. It always set her heart racing. Tandy was absolutely positive it was the weird connection thing. It couldn’t just be him . That would be entirely too dangerous.
“Hey.” He said again, but this time from right beside her, as he stepped down and settled himself on the stair next to her. There was a smile in his voice this time, and Tandy for sure didn’t whip her head around like a crazy person to try and catch it on his face. She would never.
“Hey yourself.” She said back, studying his face to try and discern what was wrong. The smile on his face was faint, and she had to look past the fondness he always held in his eyes whenever he was looking at her to try and figure out what was wrong.
Damn weird-ass magic fucking connection. It was making her flush, and her heart still hadn’t calmed from when she’d felt him appear beside her.
She could tell by looking at him something was wrong. His shoulders were curled in just slightly, and his eyes were downturned at the corners despite the smile that still graced his face. When she met his eyes, they were pained for a second before they filled with mirth, and that one second broke her heart.
“When you’re done checking me out…” He was grinning when he said it, and that made Tandy smile, but she wasn’t just going to forget why she’d invited him over to her dark and dingy abandoned church. As much as she loved spending time with Ty, she would always rather it be anywhere but here. He was too good for this place. It was too ratty for him, too stained. Ty was pure, and as much as possible Tandy wanted to keep him that way.
“Alright, smart-ass, chat it up, but when you’re finished, I’m here to actually listen to whatever it is you need to talk about.” She smirked at him, but inched a little closer to show she meant what she said.
Because as much as Tandy loved the idea that Ty would use his teleportation to come at her beck and call, part of the reason she admired him so much was because of his principles, his righteousness, the fact that he stood by what he believed was right, even if it meant he was bullheaded sometimes. If he didn’t want to come over, he wouldn’t have. There was a reason he was here.
“I was just at Evita’s.” He let out, and Tandy had to quash down the gross feeling that crawled up her throat that was totally 100% not jealousy. Because that implied things. Tandy was not jealous of Ty’s girlfriend. She wasn’t.
“Oh?” Was all she could manage to get out, her poor brain running out of the bandwidth needed to accept all this denial she was drowning it in.
“Yeah. Um. She broke up with me.”
When the gross feeling disappeared as quickly as it had come and was replaced with a feeling of spiteful pleasure that Tandy could only realistically compare to a cat catching the canary, she had a little bit more trouble convincing herself she was impartial to the situation.
“Oh.” She repeated, staring straight ahead.
She was scared to look at Ty because he had gotten scarily good at reading her the last couple of weeks, and she felt vulnerable. Why? Why did she feel this way? They couldn’t they even touch for christs sake and here she was, excited over something that was obviously distressing to her best friend she’d ever had, and shit was she being selfish.
She turned to him and wished she could wrap his hand up in hers, put her hand on his shoulder, something to communicate physically that she was there for him. She wasn’t very good with words when it came to the real shit, but she guessed she didn’t really have a choice. She caught his eye and put her hand down beside his, pinkies millimeters apart- as close as they could get without triggering their crazy.
“Are you okay?” She said it quietly, feeling as if what they were about to talk about warranted the change in tone.
“I, I think so?” He lifted his right hand to scratch at his eyebrow, very pointedly not moving his other hand even an inch away from their almost-touch. “It was just really unexpected. Or, I guess, not that unexpected, I just didn’t think it would happen so out of the blue.”
At that Tandy sent him a questioning look, somewhere between skeptical and what the hell are you on? He laughed dryly and looked away before looking back at her, into her eyes, right into her soul. Ty was disturbingly good at looking into her soul.
“Tandy, I spend literally all my free time with you. That’s not exactly conducive to having a relationship with another girl.” Even though his words were supposed to convey humour, his eyes burned through her as he said them, trying to tell her things she wasn’t sure she was ready to hear.
Tandy felt like she was caught in the eye of a storm, all the shit she normally dealt with seeming distant all of a sudden. His eyes were magnetic and all the reasons she had against letting herself get romantically entangled with wonderful, beautiful, kind Tyrone Johnson went up in smoke.
“Ty…” His name came out of her mouth on a whisper.
Their faces had gotten close without Tandy realising, and she couldn’t keep her eyes from falling to his lips. This, them, it felt inevitable. She didn’t want to fight it anymore, Ty was everything good in her world and maybe she didn’t deserve him or maybe she did, maybe he was meant to bring light to her life, but the maybes didn’t matter when she could feel his breath butting up against her lips. He was so warm.
He licked his lips and everything else fell away. She moved without a second thought, and everything went blindingly white before the church rushed back into her vision and her body slammed against an old, beat up pew.
“Damn it!” She said it with all the venom she could muster, the frustration rushing through her body making the reality check of their situation all the more bitter tasting.
“Tandy?” Ty’s voice came from across the cavernous room, echoing a bit as she heard the faint ruckus of him climbing back to his feet- it sounded like he’d been thrown into a statue and gone right through it. Was it blasphemous to destroy a statue of the Virgin Mary? Tandy didn’t care about those things, but she somehow thought Tyrone might.
“Hey, hey- are you okay?” Ty was right in front of her, how did he get there? She felt dazed, his teleportation powers occuring to her later than they should have. He reached his hand up to her forehead and then rapidly drew it back before they connected. Tandy mourned the absence.
“You’re bleeding, Tandy. I think you hit your head.” She could hear the concern in his voice and it made her sad. She didn’t want to worry him.
Reaching up to her forehead, her own hand drew back with blood on the fingertips.
“I...definitely feel like I hit my head” And then she was giggling again, which could've been due to minor concussion, but was still probably just because Ty got her like no one else did.
She always felt pinned down by the weight of the fact that everything about their situation sucked except for the fact that they had each other. But a moment ago, when she’d leaned forward to kiss him, he’d leaned towards her too. Maybe everything didn’t suck as much as she thought it did. Maybe, actually, since Tyrone had come into her life, it had gotten decidedly less sucky, and she just hadn’t looked outside her own head enough to notice.
“Okay, crazy white girl, let’s get you cleaned up and into bed.” He said as he chuckled, and then both of them were laughing- together this time.
Tandy (and her possibly bruised brain) hoped they'd stay that way.
~~~
When Ty finally did get her into bed (after many sexual innuendos that Tandy stood by, head injury or no), Tandy wished for the nth time that night that she could touch him, hold him. He was sitting next to her, that same fond look he always gave her gracing his face, mixed with exhaustion.
“Ty, why are you still here? Go home.” Tandy said, her voice already gravelly with sleep.
“After you hit your head so hard you were bleeding? Because of me? Yeah, I don’t think so. I’ll just pop back home right before Mom’ll be expecting me for breakfast, and I’ll check back in on you before I go to school, okay? Just sleep now, Tandy. I’ll be here.”
There were things wrong with his statement, but his voice was comforting and his presence even more so, so Tandy listened to him and went to sleep.
The last thing she saw before entering oblivion were his eyes. Those damn eyes.
Her
eyes. She smiled, and then everything went dark.