Beach Day

49: Rats, Blasphemy, Muffins

"Oh, shut up."

"If that's it, then—" She turns to leave.

"Wait, wait—" He holds up a hand. "Hold on."

"Holding. Not for much longer."

"There's a lot happening. We don't have a way out to the woods to mount our assault anyway. Mom needs the car. We can't take it and we're not walking there, so— I'm going to go get my stuff and find a minute to call Matt and wake him up."

"I'm just... I'm just going to go outside. I don't know what I'm doing. I just know I can't do nothing." She pauses, groans. "Fine. I'll wait. I'll go outside and I'll wait."

"Ten minutes, Tiff. Just ten minutes."

"Ten minutes is an eternity."

"Yeah, well, you're not going into the woods by yourself, so suck it up and hold on."

"Absolutely not. I'm, uh... I'm going to walk to the general store and grab myself some breakfast. I don't want to be inside anymore. These walls are going to kill me."

"Could you get me a muffin?"

"I guess, if they have muffins?"

"Why wouldn't they have muffins?"

"They're not a bakery, Drew."

He pinches the bridge of his nose in the way his mother does. "Fine. Okay. If they have muffins, will you get me one?"

"Yeah, I'll get you one." She pauses, remembering something she forgot. "Will you grab my contacts?

"Why don't you come back inside and take care of that yourself?"

She doesn't say anything. They both know she isn't going to do that.

Drew groans. "Yeah, fine. I'll grab them for you."

"Okay. Don't forget your armor. Or your bat. Or—"

"I'll remember, Tiff. I'll remember."

"Okay. Sure. Thank you." She turns quickly before she can say anything more or worse, and exits the hotel. It's all she can do to keep it together.

Tiff shoves her fists in her pockets and leaves the motel. She clips Kepler to his leash, harness, and her hip. What's the point of pretending anymore? It's winter in Florida. It's hot as hell. She takes off Despina's jacket— or maybe it's Janus's, or maybe it's just hers now— and shoves it down into her bag. She chews on the thought some more. What's the point of pretending to be nice and pious and a good person? Nobody around here respects her anyway. Nobody here thinks she's worth remembering or thinking about when she isn't here. Nobody gives a shit— so why should she?

It's Florida. It's December. She cut the sleeves off her shirt and she doesn't give a shit if the whole world sees the burns on her bare shoulder.

She heads down the street. Alien rats and blasphemy. She is God's mistake— or, rather, she is the mistake gods make. So why shouldn't she show them just how much of a mistake she is? Sword on one hip, and empty place where her ray gun should be on the other. Ray guns, rats, blasphemy— she steps into the goddamn general store to get her cousin a goddamn muffin. If something's going to happen, it had better reconsider. Ray guns, rats, blasphemy, muffins.

She tracks them down: cheap packages of off-brand snack cake blueberry muffins. What do normal people eat? Is this a good thing to call Denny about? She would make her normal bad decisions vis a vis caffeine, but they don't sell that kind of thing here. This town is stuck in the past. It's stuck in its own pasts, and it's only ever the ideal version. It's the one where war heroes come home and don't kill random mystery women and girls don't randomly go missing. It's the version where everyone is straight and normal and there's no need to fix anything because nothing is broken. Nobody gets hurt. Everyone is content.