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“Take me home, please, Van.”
Taissa’s words are soft. Not a question, just a destination. They have always been heading here.
Van turns to look at Tai, the right side of her face bathed in reds and blues from the ambulances and the cop cars.
“Where’s home?” Van asks, and then silently answers her own question by slipping her hand into Tai’s.
Taissa inhales, humming as she considers the question. “Somewhere without so many trees,” she says. “And somewhere with a bathtub. I’m too old to run through these damn woods. My joints hurt.”
Van smiles, winding an arm around Tai’s waist and pulling her close.
She’d like to lie to herself, and tell herself that she always knew they’d end up like this, but the truth is, she’d been almost certain Taissa was lost to her. She’s always been quick to believe in everything but herself. She thought she’d spend the rest of her days tracing Tai’s face on campaign posters and newspaper clippings.
It’s been years of newspaper clippings. She subscribed to fucking legal journals to read about Tai’s cases; complex appellant appeals and routine foreclosures. Then, she started obsessing over campaign photos. Taissa Turner and her perfect family. Tai grinning on magazine covers, answering questions for drawn out, overdone profiles. All that publicity of a watered down, presentable version of the woman Van loved. Portraits done by someone who’d only ever looked from one angle. And there was Tai’s voice, answering questions about bipartisan issues and diversity quotas on a grainy television. Van got so used to falling asleep in front of it, she would sometimes dream that Tai was there, talking right to her.
Van knows what pain is. But, in her experience, a moment of agony is always preferable to a drawn out deterioration. Taissa left scratches across Van’s skin when she pulled away all those years ago. They never healed.
The sun has risen, and then set again by the time they make it back to Van’s place.
Taissa kept dozing off in the passenger’s seat. Van spent a while staring at her; flying blind down long country roads, eyes locked firmly on Tai’s sleeping face. Worst case scenario, she might’ve hit a deer, or some other animal, but she wasn’t worried. God knows she’s done worse to buy a bit more time looking at Tai.
But miraculously, they make it back unscathed. Make it home unscathed.
Van coaxes the car into park and shuts off the engine, letting the wheels rock forward, settling into place.
“Tai,” she murmurs, but Taissa doesn’t stir, so she stares for a while longer.
Taissa looks like the kind of woman who would’ve scared the shit out of Van in high school. The tall, well dressed, professional type who’s likely to snap at you if she doesn’t like your tone, or the look on your face.
But she also looks like Taissa. Just a bit older, with longer hair and more worry lines. The lawyer; the politician; the wife.
Wife.
Words can be bullets, Van thinks, and mouths can be guns, and wife is an especially cruel weapon, especially when spoken in Tai’s voice. Especially now.
She sighs, clearing her throat and speaking louder this time. “Taissa,” she says, watching Tai’s eyes flutter open. She sits up, frantically looking around for a moment before her eyes find Van’s and relax.
“Oh, God, sorry,” she says, “shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I’ve just been up for… fucking ages. God. Where are we?”
“Back at mine,” Van says. “I can drive you to a hotel or something if you’d prefer, I just thought-”
“This is perfect,” Taissa says. “I’ll just… stay awake. And it’ll be fine. Just for tonight.”
Van nods. “Just for tonight,” she echoes.
Half an hour later, Taissa is at her kitchen table, nursing a mug of shitty instant coffee while Van boils water.
“Natalie’s dead,” Taissa says.
Van toes at a piece of peeling vinyl on her kitchen floor. The water in the kettle on the stove is halfway to boiling. For Taissa’s sake, Van is making her brandy the old fashioned way; secret, piping hot, with a teabag in it. She waits for Tai to keep talking, but she doesn’t.
“Were you guys close?” Van asks.
“She was one of us,” Tai snaps back, eyes cutting across the kitchen to fix on Van. “I thought we were done dying for each other.” She pauses for a split second, and then continues. “And don’t even try to tell me it was the Wilderness’s choice. We went into those woods. It was our choice.”
Van stays silent.
“What if it had been you?” Tai says. “We all lie to ourselves, over and over. We think it owes us something. We think we owe each other something. Every time I drew cards, I never thought for a moment that I would be the one running for my life. Or that you would. No, that was someone else’s problem. I was me, I wasn’t going to die, I was going to be kept alive by someone else. Someone expendable. How fucked is that? I mean, we killed each other so that we would survive, ourselves, we didn’t risk our lives for anyone else. It was self-preservation by way of fucking Russian roulette. That’s why they all ran. And that’s why we hunted them. Because everyone thought they were the one who deserved to survive.”
“Natalie jumped in front of that girl on purpose,” Van says.
“Yeah, well, she’s about thirty years too late for self-sacrifice,” Tai says, standing up. “Can I please use your bathroom? I feel disgusting.”
“First door on your right,” Van says, forcing herself to keep her face neutral as Tai walks out of the room.
Her water boils and she pours a little bit of it into an old mug, throwing in a perfunctory tea bag and topping it all off with Hennessy. The water burns her mouth, and the liquor burns her throat. She drinks deeply, silently sending it up to Natalie’s memory, which she thinks Nat would’ve appreciated.
In the other room, she hears the creak of the pipes and the rushing of water into the tub.
Setting her cup down, she walks to the bathroom, the acidic liquor slothing in her stomach as she finds her way to Tai.
The door is open a crack and Van peaks through, finding Taissa kneeling next to the bathtub.
“You can’t run the hot water that fast,” she says.
Tai startles.
“Shit, sorry,” Van says, walking in and kneeling down next to Taissa. “Just, old, shitty pipes. If you turn the hot water all the way up, you’ll run out pretty fast. Just, turn it down a bit, and balance it out with the cold-”
She reaches across Taissa to fix the taps.
“I assume you want hot water,” she says, to fill the silence. Taissa’s arm is pressed against hers, and she wants to scoot away, but she can’t make herself. She inhales, and it smells like forest, and she likes that smell. She thinks she always will. She leans against Taissa, just a little bit.
Blame it on the brandy. She’s more unsteady than she’s been in years.
“Hot water is good,” Taissa says, standing up and shrugging her jacket off onto the floor. Van inhales, without Taissa next to her to feel it.
Tai sits on the floor and starts to unlace her boots. Without looking at Van, she speaks again. “Would it be… disgustingly selfish if I asked you to stay in here with me?”
Van cracks a smile. “Yeah, sort of,” she says, turning around to sit facing Taissa, her back leaning against the porcelain of the tub.
“Well,” Taissa says, pulling off one boot and starting on the other. “I’m pretty sure it won’t be the worst thing I’ve done tonight.”
Silently, Van disagrees.
“Oh, come on,” Taissa says, giving a smile of her own. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” Van says.
“Like I’m breaking your heart?” Taissa says, brows raised.
Van’s breath catches in her chest, and she coughs.
“Jesus, Tai,” she says.
“Van, my wife is in the hospital right now,” Taissa says, her gaze unwavering. “My kid is God knows where. Steve is probably back in the pound by now.”
“Who’s Steve?” Van says.
Taissa waves a hand dismissively. “A mut I bought to make myself feel like a better person.”
“Did it work?” Van asks.
Taissa gives a slow shake of her head. “I think the good person ship sailed a while ago. Which is why… I don’t really have it in me to feel guilty about wanting to be near you anymore. I just don’t. It’s selfish, and it’s shitty, but it’s true. For tonight, I think, I just need to be here.”
She really wishes she’d brought her mug in here with her. Taissa Turner wanting to be near her is far too much for her to handle this sober.
“I think all that good person bullshit is nonsense,” Van says, shaking her head.
Tai is still looking at her. She’s gotten both her shoes off, and now she’s just sitting, staring at Van.
“What do you mean?” Taissa asks, quietly. There’s a nervous, childlike curiosity on her face, like she thinks Van might be able to fix this. Absolve her.
“I mean… we’re put onto this earth, with no warning, no instructions. Some of us, the lucky ones, get a set of decent parents to try to teach us the right way to live, but most people don’t. And even if you do, you grow up thinking these two people are perfect, but the older you get, the more you realize, pretty much everyone is fucked up in some way or another, and the people you used to think are perfect are actually pretty awful. And you’re just… supposed to live, and it hurts so much to live, and you’re supposed to do it anyway, and worse, you’re supposed to enjoy it. And everyone makes mistakes, just awful mistakes, and they hurt each other, but we’re all just supposed to pretend that isn’t a fact. We’re supposed to act surprised when people who never got taught how to live do it wrong. I mean, shit…” she trails off.
The liquor is starting to reach her blood. Taissa is still staring at her.
“I have to believe that everyone in this stupid world actually secretly believes that they’re worse than everyone else. Because I cannot be the only one who feels like that. I mean, you and me, we cannot be the only ones. How can someone be a bad person? What does that even mean? We’re all just people, trying to stay alive. Trying to be better than we used to be. And I’d bet anybody who had to live through what we lived through would’ve done things that are hard to understand now that it’s over. But that’s what happened. So what now? We can either give up and die, or we can keep living. And I don’t see the point in letting society convince me that I’m somehow different from them, something other, just so they can feel better about their own shit.”
Taissa gives a slow shake of her head, and sighs heavily.
“God, I wish I could think like that,” she says.
Van sighs too. The bath is just about full, and she pushes back up onto her knees, turning off the taps and running a hand through the water.
“You should get in while it’s hot,” she says. “I won’t look.”
“I don’t care if you see me naked, Van,” Taissa says.
Van stares down at the water in front of her; her own reflection, and much to her surprise, she looks terrified. She hates mirrors, and this is why. She can see the fear written clearly across her face, and she hates to think that this is how Taissa sees her.
She can hear a rustling of clothes behind her, the soft rush of air as fabric falls onto the tile.
“Tai,” she says, and fuck, her voice breaks. One syllable. She can’t even speak one syllable.
A hand comes to her back and she flinches, hard.
It’s like torture. Like fucking torture.
“Tai, I can’t…” she starts, staring at the blurred reflection of Taissa’s face in the bath water. “This hurts, Tai. This hurts. I can’t do this again. You can’t be with me, I know that, it’s fine, but I can’t compromise, or separate this from everything else. I can’t-”
“Van, Natalie’s dead,” Taissa says. “My life is fucked. Nothing is normal. Can you please just get in the goddamn tub with me?”
Van exhales, very slowly, counting seconds.
She feels Taissa kneeling behind her again, her chest coming to rest against Van’s back, chin coming to her shoulder.
“I’ll beg if I have to,” she murmurs, right into Van’s ear. “Van, I feel like something brought me here. You’re the only person who knows everything about me. You’re the only person who I can tell the truth to, I... I feel like I need you. I feel like I need to be close to you. I don’t want to hurt you, or hurt Simone, but it’s hurting me. I need-”
Van isn’t strong. She never has been. Not really.
So she spins in Taissa’s arms and kisses her before she can speak another word. Her hands come to the sides of Taissa’s waist; bare skin cool under her touch. Taissa’s hands come to the sides of her face, her fingers neatly slotting into existing scars; the invisible ones, the ones Tai scratched into her when they were pulled apart. Her fingers find their way into them, and dig, and it hurts.
Van’s mouth falls open; totally helpless against Taissa’s lips. Her legs fall apart too, seeking anything but empty air.
And then Tai pulls away.
Van gasps for breath, chest heaving.
Tai stands up, stepping into the tub. Van hears the splash of the water, but for a moment, she can’t move. Her heart is pounding so fast, she can feel it in her throat.
“Tai?” she says, and her voice barely comes out. She clears her throat. “Tai?”
No response.
Shakily, she pushes up to look in the tub, finding Taissa fully submerged in the water, her face a blur beneath the surface.
“Fuck,” Van mutters, kicking off her shoes, then slipping out of her jeans and pulling the shirt over her head. She steps into the tub quickly, grabbing Taissa by the shoulders and pulling her up.
Taissa gasps for air and then immediately kisses Van again, breathlessly. Like she’s been starving for it as much as Van has.
Tai’s teeth sink into her bottom lip and she moans, pulling back, even as Taissa tries to pull her closer.
“Wait, wait,” Van says, blinking, gasping, still shaking.
Taissa stops, looking at Van expectantly.
Van brings one hand up in the water to touch Taissa’s face.
“I just need to check. I need to know that you’re… you,” she says. “Not her. You.”
“I’m me,” Taissa says, “I swear.”
Van nods, smiling slowly; an overwhelmed, disbelieving kind of expression.
“I know how this is going to go,” she murmurs, hand tracing down the side of Tai’s face.
“Do you?” Taissa says.
“Yes,” Van says, buying time, dragging her fingertips over the curve of Tai’s jaw. “It starts with me falling at your feet, like always. And it ends with me all alone, crying myself to sleep. Like always.”
“Not this time,” Taissa says.
“Not this time?” Van repeats, raising an eyebrow. “Taissa, you have a wife. And I have a diagnosis.”
Taissa raises her own hand to Van’s face, tracing over her scars, one by one. Van tries not to let the touch consume her, but it does anyway, fizzing hot in her chest and fingertips, pulling her down into the water like a siren song. There’s steam rising between them, blurring everything. And Taissa is beautiful.
“Where is it?” Taissa asks.
“Where’s what?” Van asks. Her own hand has stilled on Taissa’s skin, too caught up in the dizzying pattern Tai is tracing across her cheek.
“The cancer,” Taissa says. “Where is it?”
“Oh,” Van says, the warmth in her chest rapidly cooling at the abruptness of the question. “Well, it’s sort of all over, honestly.”
“Show me,” Tai says, holding up her hand for Van to take.
Van sighs, taking Tai’s wrist in hers and guiding her fingers first to the side of her chest, between two ribs.
“Metastatic breast cancer,” she says. “It started under one arm, then it got to my bones, my ribs.” Taissa’s fingers slide over Van’s skin, eyes narrowed in concentration as she traces the path; over each rib, then down the center of her chest, pausing over her sternum. “Then the lungs,” Van says, voice barely a whisper. Taissa brings her other hand to Van’s ribcage, holding both sides of her steady, thumbs rubbing gently over her skin. “Then the liver.”
Taissa says nothing, just brings her lips to the center of Van’s sternum. It burns, deep in Van’s chest.
“Shit,” Van breathes.
“Come’ere,” Tai says, taking Van by the shoulders and maneuvering her around in the tub, so her back is to Tai.
Every survival instinct Van has left protests the blind trust, but they’re smothered by the far stronger instinct coursing through her; the need to be as close to Tai as humanly possible.
Taissa leans back against the tub, pulling Van to lay down on her chest. Passion cools to quiet affection. Taissa’s fingers prod gently at the spaces between Van’s ribs, like a curious child, digging for treasure.
“Does it hurt?” she says.
“No,” Van says, even though it does. This whole thing hurts. Everything hurts these days.
Maybe it hurts a bit less now that, for the first time in years, she isn’t holding up her own weight.
Maybe it hurts a bit more knowing that Taissa is the one keeping her afloat.
“You know, I wouldn’t have let them hurt you,” Van says.
Taissa hums in question, but says nothing.
“You do know that, don’t you?” Van presses.
Taissa’s fingers trace Van’s bottom rib, then trail up her stomach and chest, finding one collarbone and ghosting across it.
“What happened to the Wilderness choosing?” Tai asks.
“I still believe in it,” Van says lowly. “But if it tried to take you, I would’ve fought it. I would’ve fought it until it killed me. And I would not have let it take you. Not last night, and not back then. And I think it knew that. If it took you away from me, I would’ve stopped believing.”
“You saying you’re what kept me alive?” Taissa asks. Her fingers have stilled, resting at the hollow of Van’s throat.
“Shit, I don’t know,” Van says. “But you said… something brought you here. Maybe that’s why. So I could keep you safe.”
Taissa sighs heavily, and Van feels the movement of her chest; the rise and fall, and then again, silent breaths.
“Maybe it brought me here so I could take care of you for once,” Tai says. “Maybe I owe you that. You ever think of it like that? I’m not the only one who needs help. You’re skin and bones, Van. You’re all alone out here.”
Van smiles, surprised at the words.
“That’s a nice thought,” she says, after a long moment of silence.
“I thought about you all the time,” Tai says, fingers trailing down over the plane of Van’s stomach. They graze lazily over her navel, over one hipbone, then back up. Van’s stomach burns hotter than the water around them. She wants to move, to thrash around, to shake off the intensity of this intimacy and get to safer territory; something fast and thoughtless, dark and impersonal, but Tai is holding her steady, and she can’t.
It’s so familiar, it scares her.
Like if she let them, all the years between them could wash right off in the water, and they’d be teenagers again, fooling around in the woods.
“I saw you on TV,” Van says. Her voice is dropping out a bit; unsteady in this quiet. Taissa’s hand has found her’s beneath the water, and she begins slowly lacing and unlacing their fingers, tracing the inside of Van’s wrist and the lines on her palm. “I watched you,” she says. “Every interview you did. All the press conferences. Everything.”
She waits for pain to flare in her chest; the familiar sensation of missing Taissa like she would miss a limb, but it doesn’t come. Taissa is right here. And Van cannot make herself just not want this.
She’s never managed that, actually. Never managed to not want love, or safety, or approval. Her whole life, she’s been begging for scraps. From her mom, from her team, from a barren wilderness she did not understand.
She sits up in the bathtub, pulling away from Taissa and turning around to face her.
Tai’s face is open, slightly nervous, like she’s unsure of what Van is planning.
“What’d you think?” Tai asks, finally responding to Van’s words.
Van gives a small shrug. “I thought you looked nothing like yourself,” she says, and pauses. “And… I thought…” she sighs, trails off, shakes her head.
“Thought what?” Taissa presses. Van knew she would.
“I thought, what is my girl doing up there without me?” Van finishes, with a small smile.
Taissa smiles back.
“Half the time, I was thinking the same thing,” she says.
“And the other half?”
“Thinking how fucking scared I was?” Taissa says.
Van’s smile widens. “See, this isn’t gonna work,” she says, but it’s light.
Taissa’s face crumples anyway. “What do you mean?” she says.
“I mean you taking care of me,” Van says, bringing her arms up to circle Taissa’s neck. She draws closer, waiting for Taissa to close the distance between them in a slow kiss. “I think it’s gonna have to be the other way around for a little while.”
“Maybe we can take turns,” Tai says.
“Who said this was a negotiation?” Van says, and kisses Tai again. She wants it to be passionate and heated, but her smile keeps getting in the way. She laughs, after a second, pulling her lips away from Tai’s and trailing down her neck.
How many nights has she spent wishing she could turn back time? She never knew it would be as easy as getting Taissa beneath her lips again.
She lets her hands wander, searching Tai’s face for any hints of hesitation or discomfort and seeing none. When Van touches her, her head falls back against the tub, and Van grins. Making Tai lose control always felt like scoring a point.
Taissa taught Van exactly how to touch her all those years ago, in impatient commands and sweet words of praise. For all of Van’s cocky flirtation and bravado, her hands were shaking the first time Tai guided them between her legs.
They’re shaking now, too, though no longer from lack of experience. She’s been trying to keep hold of some shred of Tai for decades; her muscles have ached with the effort every day since they broke apart. And now they’ve slammed back together, and Van cannot catch her breath.
Van has always been a believer, but how can she be expected to doubt when the miracle that is Taissa Turner is sighing out her name?
Taissa comes on Van’s fingers and immediately pulls her into another kiss; messy and all consuming. Van doesn’t even notice Taissa reaching to drain the tub until the water level begins to fall.
“Bed,” Taissa says. “Your bed.”
“We’ll soak the sheets,” Van says.
“That’s the idea,” Taissa says.
“No,” Van says, scoffing, “the bath water. Where are we going to sleep?”
“You’re no fun,” Taissa chides lightly.
“I… guess we could crash on the couch,” Van says.
“Thatta girl,” Tai says, standing up and stepping out of the tub, waiting for Van to follow.
Van is slower than she used to be; the sickness eating through her like flame through a wick. But she doesn’t think there’s a force in the world that could stop her from following Taissa Turner to bed.
They kiss their way down the hall, dripping a trail of water behind them, feet slipping against the floor, catching each other and laughing into each other’s mouths.
In the bedroom, Taissa’s hands find Van’s hips, pulling her to the bed, and then they come to her chest, pushing her down onto the mattress.
Before Van can push herself up to sit, Taissa is on top of her, kissing more feverishly than before, their bare chests, still wet from the water of the bath, sliding together maddeningly. Van’s fingers dig into Taissa’s hips.
“Don’t tease,” she says, more a plea than a command. “I’ve been waiting for years.”
“And I’ve been dreaming of the sounds you make when you’re desperate for just as long,” Tai says.
Van moans. Taissa grins.
When Taissa finally settles between her legs, Van says her name so many times, the word turns from praise, to begging, to something like a prayer.
Taissa holds her legs in place until Van is shaking, no longer forming words, wanting a kiss but too overwhelmed to ask for one.
Taissa kisses her anyway, hovering over her, lacing her fingers through Van’s with one hand and brushing her hair back from her face with the other.
Taissa pulls back, sighing.
“What?” Van says.
Taissa smiles. “You," she says. "You’re… so beautiful.”
Van smiles, blushing in spite of herself.
When Tai collapses next to her, Van, Van’s eyes fall shut.
“Baby,” Taissa says, shaking Van’s shoulder.
Van stays silent, holding back a smile, letting Taissa try to wake her up for a moment longer.
She hears a rustling of sheets, then footsteps on the hardwood.
Squinting one eye open, she finds Taissa standing next to her side of the bed.
“What are you-“ Van starts, but wordlessly, Taissa scoops her up, lifting her from the mattress.
Van’s mouth falls open in surprise, arms quickly winding around Tai’s neck.
“I’m carrying you to the couch,” she says. “Because you’re not sleeping on wet sheets and getting sick.”
“Since when are you this strong?” Van says.
“Hey, fuck you,” Taissa says, with no bite, carrying Van to the couch and setting her gently down. “I told you,” she says, “I’m gonna be the strong one now.”
Van doesn’t have it in her to protest anymore. She hums happily, holding out her arms for Tai to lay between.
“Let me get a shirt,” Taissa says.
“Don’t,” Van whines, “just come here.”
“Give me a second,” Taissa says, laughing indulgently.
When she gets back, Van is very nearly asleep, but Tai doesn’t try to wake her. She just slips between her arms, a tight squeeze on the couch, but not bad if they press together.
“I love you,” Tai says quietly. “I always have. I never managed to lie to myself about that. You knew, didn’t you?”
There’s hope in that last sentence.
“Please tell me you knew,” Taissa whispers.
Van sighs, her eyes closed. “I knew,” she says. “But I did lie to myself.”
“I should’ve come back sooner,” Taissa says.
“You wanna know a secret?” Van murmurs, drunk on exhaustion and heady satisfaction.
“Of course,” Tai says.
Van gives a small smile, burying her face in Taissa’s hair and inhaling. “In the wilderness, whenever it wanted a kill, it withheld our food. The animals all disappeared,” she says. “And now, I can’t stop thinking, it was keeping you away from me, all this time. Cause it was hungry. And now that it’s fed, I get you back.”
Taissa inhales, but says nothing.
“It’s unnatural,” Van continues. “I know that. I used to think the cancer was some kind of punishment. Or a way to get me away from the world. To keep everyone else safe. Now I wonder if it was just a hand, pushing me to you.”
“I don’t really care who dies if it means I keep you with me,” Taissa says, pulling Van a bit closer to her. She sounds tired. It’s a heavy thought spoken in a soft tone of voice.
Van smiles.
It’s like she’s been awake for twenty-five years, waiting for someone to give her permission to sleep.
And now she does.
In the morning, Van wakes up with a blanket wrapped securely around her, and blinks in the sunlight confused.
“I was-“ she murmurs, some murky dream slipping away from her.
“Dreaming of Natalie?” Taissa says.
Van starts. Tai is sitting on the loveseat across from her, a cup of coffee in her hand.
“You were saying her name,” Taissa says, by way of explanation
“God. I thought this was the dream,” Van says, still slightly confused, but coming back to herself. “I thought you were the dream. I thought Natalie was real.”
Tai smiles sadly, shaking her head. “Just me,” she says.
“Just me?” Van repeats, staring at her. “You’re the love of my life, Tai. Please don’t tell me you woke up this early to say goodbye.”
Tai shakes her head, smiling.
“No, no,” she says. “I woke up this early to make you breakfast.”
Van laughs incredulous, grinning as she looks over at the table. There’s a shitty, handpicked bouquet of dandelions in a cup on the table, and plates of home cooked breakfast steaming up the air.
Van can’t remember the last time someone cooked her breakfast.
“I told you,” Tai says. “I’m taking care of you. I meant it.”
Despite herself, Van blushes, shaking her head. “And I told you, we’re taking turns.”
Taissa fixes her with a stare, raising one eyebrow. Van shakes her head, smiling broadly.
“Fine,” she says. “You win.”
Taissa smiles back.
“I always do,” she says. “Why do you think I play?”