Beach Day

40: Kepler Exits The Bathroom

"It's not my fault I keep getting distracted by more important things."

"Honey, you've— you've got to eat. It isn't good for you to—" Esther cuts herself off. "Goddammit. You distracted me. Go take a shower. We'll talk things over and have some dinner, and then you're going to bed, young lady."

"Auntie—"

"No, no, I'm not hearing it. You didn't sleep last night. I'm putting my foot down. And none of that weird Dream Walking stuff you were talking about earlier, either. Actual sleep. I don't know how I'm going to enforce it, but I will."

"You can't keep me from doing that." Tiff frowns. "I'm an adult."

"An adult who can't take care of herself, it would seem." Esther shakes her head. They both know full well Tiff's going to do what she's told. There's no need for Esther to say what she says next, but she says it anyway, probably to complete the intricate dance of words and tiny domestic rituals both of them do but never talk about. "I know I can't make you do anything, Grapenut. But I'll be very disappointed in you if you don't."

She frowns, in line with the part she plays, but nods. "I'll go shower, then."

"Thank you, Tiff." Her aunt gives her a quick kiss on the cheek, then immediately visibly regrets it. "That was weird."

"Yeah, that was weird."

"Let's never do that again."

"Let's never do that again," Tiff agrees. "I'm going to go shower the undead goo off of me now."

The door flies open. Drew stands there, in all his righteous anger. He doesn't get like this often, unless something goes horribly wrong at the auto shop or he sees something he hates.

"Tiff," he announces, "your parents suck."

She isn't sure what that's about, but she does agree. "You're telling me!"

"No! We will talk about this in twenty minutes!" Aunt Esther demands. "Everybody break!"

Tiff shakes her head a little, but heads into the bathroom all the dame, dragging her duffel bag behind her. She opens the shower before she starts stripping down. Sure enough, her hunch was right. Kepler was in there, reading one of the free tourism pamphlets from one of the rest stops they stopped at on the way down.

She looks down at him in the stained tub, shakes her head, points to the door. "You're not going to stay in here. Out."

He shakes his petulant little rat head.

"No, I mean it. Out."

Another gesture.

"Last time you were in the bathroom while I was showering, you tried to eat a bar of soap and then almost knocked the radio into the water, so I love you, but no, I'm asking that you not be in the tub while I'm showering. You sentient little rat experiment— I love you so much, but I just kind of want to shower by myself."

Pouting, he throws the pamphlet on the floor, then makes a grabbing motion.

Tiff sighs. She pinches the bridge of her nose the way her aunt does. "Of course you can get yourself in there but can't get out. How long have you been in there? Have you been in there all day?"

A sad nod.

Tiff rubs a hand against the tender part of her forehead. "Alright. Up you get, then."

She lifts Kepler around his middle, sets him on the ground, and opens up the bathroom door. He scampers out of the bathroom. Alone with a closed door and buzzing yellow lights, she undresses quickly and tosses the clothes in a pile under the sink. Kicking them into place is a nasty habit she picked up months ago, before she got the foresight of buying herself a cheap laundry basket so she didn't have to worry about leaving a mess and affecting the rest of her family's clothes with sweat, grease, paint, and chemicals. It isn't like there's a hamper here, though. There's just a pile of clothes she's going to have to wash all the blood, mud, and goo off of later, even if she has to do it with dish soap and a toothbrush.

She catches her reflection in the mirror as she straightens out the jacket and hangs it on the back of the door. There are marks from all the falls and from rolling over rocks that she knows she'll feel in the morning; the area around her eye is already darkening into a horrible bruise. It isn't as bad as she thought it would be, but her aunt is right. She looks like total shit.

She kind of always does. Even if they're fading, the scars are still there, and she hasn't been able to shake the dark circles under her eyes now that she's back into the swing of things.

She sighs, steps into the shower. Lukewarm water is simultaneously unbearable and soothing on her skin. She scrubs every last scrap of the black goo from her body, remembering a little too late that she forgot to take the rolled-out gauze and medical tape from her arm, but maybe it's better if she doesn't expose the wound to so much water. She doesn't know. She would have to ask Matt, or Dr. Deseret, if she were here. She isn't, though, so Matt will have to work for now.

She catches her reflection again, in the fogged-up mirror. There isn't really a way to get back to who she once was, is there? She used to be sixteen. She used to be terrified. Now she's eighteen-years-and-score, and everything is so different.

She's the thing that's different, maybe. Maybe nothing else changed.

There's still a place for her, though— isn't there? If she tries hard enough, if she's good enough... It's a particular kind of heartbreak, she knows, to know that she might not fit here anymore. Maybe she never did. Ankle length skirts and hair to her waist, gilt-paged Bible tucked under her arm: she hasn't been that girl for two years, but two years isn't that long.

Maybe she could try. Not for her grandfather. He's a piece of shit murderer. Though a part of her still desperately wants to impress him and makes him proud, she knows— there is no salvaging that relationship. There is no way to do what he did and still be good. (She tries not to think of herself. She tries to remind herself that Aunt Esther is right. When the world is ending because of one person, someone has to pull the trigger.)

There's too much to think about. She towels off, dresses in the loosest clothes she brought with her (her pajamas, luckily), and exits the bathroom with everything in her arms.

The scene is entirely different when she exits to stash her stuff under the bed. Kepler is in the middle of pulling Tiff's notebook out of her bag, Aunt Esther has the laptop out again and is searching for something on her phone, and Drew is angrily slathering peanut butter on a piece of bread slammed against the table. Clearly, whatever happened at her parents' is still pissing him off.

She kicks her stuff under the bed (where it belongs, so saith the Lord) and strides over to grab one of the sandwiches her cousin made. It's a very easy excuse to ask, when she's close enough, "Hey, are you okay? What happened?"

"Your mom's a bitch, is what happened."

"Hey, you don't have to tell me twice!" She pauses. "Are you okay?"

"Are you okay? How the hell did you survive living there so long? She just— she makes my skin crawl, Tiff. I don't get it."

"Yeah, she isn't a great person."

"I feel so shitty about leaving Andy there with those fucking animals."

"It isn't like we can do anything about it. We live in the real world. Anything we could do there would have consequences. And, even with all the time that's passed, I don't think I have it in me to kill her again."

"Excuse me?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Nightmare stuff. You get it. Don't you worry."

He stabs the plastic knife deep into the jar of peanut butter. "Mom, Tiff's out of the shower. I think we should get started."