She runs.
That’s about the only thing she’s ever known how to do with absolute certainty. Her legs take her before her mind can even catch up to the fact that she’s a mile into it with no destination, there’s never any destination. Only a necessary urge to escape the overcrowding in her head. She runs from the thought of her mom, alone and with her vices, from Liam and her feelings, from the girls back home in those ambulances, from the image of Ty on the church concrete surrounded in his own inky darkness.
From herself, and her own guilt.
From Tyrone.
Except, when it comes to Tyrone, she always somehow makes her way back to him. Like clockwork. Like a boomerang. Like a straight shot arrow to the bullseye.
Like inevitability.
She’s already moved past being annoyed about it a long time ago, has accepted the fact that he’s just always going to be there, that they’re a packaged deal in some cosmically fucked up way despite the damages. Or maybe even in spite of them.
She thinks of her dad the most, though. And when she does, it’s always something carcinogenic, the feeling that she gets in the pit of her stomach. It feels huge, monstrous, the weight of the shame she hasn’t been able to shake off. The shame of believing in him, that hope of justice that carried her through the pain of losing him. How naïve she thinks it must make her look, how childlike. She knows it’s not how she’s actually perceived, and she knows that Ty would tell her how stupid he thinks that is, so that’s why Tandy runs another two and a half miles. Like the farther she goes, the more likely chance he won’t be able to know what she’s thinking.
Which is dumb, she’s completely aware. It doesn’t matter the distance, he always knows. He likes to tell her that they live inside each other, his bones are her bones. His blood, her blood. His soul, hers. Etcetera, etcetera. She’d roll her eyes and tell him he’s being dramatic, but he’s essentially built a room for himself in her head and she’s all but thrown him the only key she has for it. Tandy can print up and plaster an eviction notice on the door all she wants but he’s not going anywhere. The most irritating part is, no one’s ever been allowed all-inclusive access to her like he has, not even Liam, and all Ty had to do was just…see her.
They end up in a roadside motel on the way to New York. It’s grimy and crumbling, the walls stained yellow with age. Ty gets them a room near the back entrance, right in front of the pool. Tandy knows it’s not what Ty’s used to with its thin, threadbare carpet, faint musty smell of cigarettes choking the air and patchwork of peeling wallpaper, but it’s the best they can do at the moment.
Tandy has about $13 left in cash in her back pocket so she announces she’s going to the vending machine outside the lobby for snacks. Ty glances at the clock on the bedside table as it blinks back 10:04pm in flashing green digits. “Should I wait up for you?”
Tandy can detect a hint of sarcasm in his tone, like he knows she’s itching for a run. So she rolls her eyes and slips into her sandals. “Don’t piss me off. Salty or sweet?”
“Whichever you’re not getting,” he says, and she nods. So they can share.
He tosses her the key card with a “be careful” and she shuts the door behind her, but not before accusing him of being an overbearing parent and god, I’ll run away for real if you even joke about a curfew. She knows it’s not without justification, though, so she makes sure to blow him a kiss for good measure. She sees his grin through the crack in the door.
Her mother’s advice is a constant reminder in the back of her mind so the last thing she’d ever imagine herself doing is needing someone (not like Melissa could even take her own advice, though). But for Tandy, it’s easy. She’ll risk her life to keep him safe, a thousand times over. She doesn’t even think about it. And she knows that he would do the same for her, which is the worst part because it’s absolutely without a doubt Tandy’s biggest fear. Losing Ty while playing savior to sacrifice his life for her own is not something she would be able to bear in this lifetime or any other. Tandy is not sure she wouldn’t try jumping off that goddamn bridge again. It scares her sometimes, the lengths, staggering as they are, that she would go to for him. Because that could mean something she’s maybe not entirely ready to admit to herself just yet, let alone to Ty.
So she gets him his favorite snack and ignores the uneasiness in her chest when she starts thinking of f-f-f-feelings and Ty, and especially those two words in proximity, afraid that he’d suddenly been gifted with mind-reading abilities over night or something. How embarrassing would that be for her.
“I’m alive, you can breathe now,” she says as she makes it back into their room. She hears the shower running, though, so she tosses the snacks on his side of the bed. That’s another thing she’s had to accept - they’ve only got one bed to share, and her mind is already a mess as is, so this particular situation is definitely exacerbating her need to tie up her shoelaces.
But, she’s not thinking about it. Not even as she swipes his gray St. Sebastian sweater and pulls it over her head (she’s spent so much time stealing his clothes, they might as well be hers too), instantly ambushed by a smell so distinctly Tyrone that her head spins faster than a basketball on Ty’s finger. It’s something like pine and soap, the expensive kind that her mother couldn’t afford anymore. Tandy buries herself in it but she’s not thinking about it.
“Don’t use all the hot water!” she yells to him as a warning, because she has got to be normal again, has got to get back to their regularly scheduled program.
“Where do you think we are?” he calls back, amused. “The Ritz Carlton? I’m warning you now to lower your expectations before you get in here.”
And then of course, she’s thinking about Ty in the shower, and then her in the shower, and then her and Ty in the shower. She lifts the blanket over her face and groans. If she’s not thinking about Ty, she’s thinking about Roxxon, and Andre, and ambulances, and record players, and blood. She’s sure there are days where she wakes up with more underneath her fingernails.
Tandy knows how easy it could be to handle it like her mother does, with alcohol and pills and weed, how easily she could get some, and then all that pain and all that grief and all that remembering would disappear. Temporarily, but they’d disappear. And her mind would quiet, for once. These days, she’s begging for silence. Almost gets on her knees a few times to pray to a god she’s not sure even exists.
He must, she thinks suddenly, just as Ty appears from the bathroom, pristine white towel around his waist. It’s such a stark contrast on his skin that it leaves her almost breathless. He must exist, to bring him to me.
He always thinks she’s being cute with him when she calls him her angel. She’s waiting for him to understand that that’s the one thing she wouldn’t joke about.
“You should’ve let me break us into a room at the Hilton at least,” she responds. “We could’ve had free room service.”
“I shouldn’t have to tell you that room service isn’t actually free.” He’s turned around, rummaging in his backpack, which is the only thing he brought with him on the bus, as she rolls her eyes. Tandy knows he can’t see her do it but she hopes that he can sense it somehow anyway.
“Saint Tyrone,” she replies. “Harshing my vibe. Gonna have to brush you off my shoulder.”
He laughs, throwing his head back. She loves that, that she can amuse him so easily.
“We’re feasting tonight, choir boy,” she says once he faces her, jutting her head to the peanut m&ms and salt & vinegar chips on the bed.
He grins at her, makes himself comfortable in the spot next to her. The stiff bedsheets scratch at their skin but she doesn’t notice too much. “Made for kings. How can I ever repay you.”
“Just with your undying loyalty and devotion to me.”
“Is that all?”
Tandy arches an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth lifting. She is so, so fond of him.
“Easy,” he continues with a shrug, grinning as he pops a yellow m&m into his mouth. “Could do it in my sleep.”
It always comes as a shock to her, although she guesses it shouldn’t at this point, at how nonchalantly and bluntly he admits these kinds of things to her. She finds that that’s the most intriguing thing, the most admirable thing, about him- his honesty. She’s never really been good at that, exposing her feelings with such alacrity, with no room for second guesses or doubts. She’s learning, though. She’s got a great teacher.
“Tyrone Johnson.” She holds out her palm and Ty dumps a few m&ms and chips onto it. For a brief second, she’d thought about holding his hand again. Like, just asking him, starting there. But she chickens out at the last moment. “All slick and sweet. Can’t say I hate that about you.”
There’s that laugh again. “Tandy Bowen.” Another m&m. She wonders if his mouth would taste like chocolate under hers. “There’s so much I don’t hate about you too.”
“That’s definitely what every girl wants to hear. Can’t imagine why you’re still single.”
“I don’t know, maybe it’s the hiding from the police thing, or the cloak thing. Or maybe the Tandy thing.”
She frowns. “Tandy thing? What do you mean Tandy thing?”
He watches her, maybe like he expects her to know already. “Where you go, I go. Always and anywhere. Everywhere. Thought that was obvious.”
“Boys are so clingy nowadays,” she replies and fidgets with her nails, scrapes off the light pink polish to keep her hands busy. Feelings are hard. They get stuck in her throat, lodged like a concrete block. If she has to be honest, she’s jealous of him and how easy he makes it seem.
“I’m serious, Tandy.”
Tandy looks at him, and of course he’s looking back. He is always looking back. She’s surprised he hasn’t turned to salt yet. Either of them, actually. “I know. I know. I’m with you too.”
That’s all he needs, it seems like, for him to accept the reciprocation. He nudges her shoulder with his, and she almost expects a spark to ignite, or for the air to explode. Neither happens, and she gets to pretend for a moment that they’re just normal teenagers in a normal world sharing a bed and the most dramatic thing she’d have to deal with is the possibility of bed bugs and squeaky mattress springs.
“We should go to sleep,” she says suddenly. “Big day tomorrow.”
Ty rolls his eyes but he’s still smiling, one that can almost be described as affectionate. Or something. “Always running. Should get you a warning sign.”
“I am literally not though.”
“You can still run and not be moving.”
“Doesn’t make sense,” she refutes. But she knows what he means, she always does. That’s the thing with the two of them- they understand each other on such a molecular level, on a cosmic level, in a way that shouldn’t exist but does anyway. There is literally no one else in the world who could grasp either of them the way that they can each other.
Ty holds his hand out towards her. “Thumb war? Winner gets the side with the AC.”
(She loses. He lets her have it anyway.)
When Tandy wakes up, his arm is thrown around her waist. And she decides finally to let him catch up to her.
It’s not new, this casual physical intimacy between the two of them, but the feelings that come with it that they’ve had to accept are. At least for Tandy. She knows there’s no pressure from Ty, with whatever this is, that they have time to define the space between divine and pairing and whatever that means to them.
It still kickstarts her heart into overdrive, though, all that hope that she’s not used to. The boy next to her, who she’s been drawn to like a magnet since the moment they met at that bonfire. The boy who couldn’t let go of her baby pink ballet slipper for eight years. The boy who carries it all on his shoulders like Atlas- she can’t imagine how heavy it must be, how he never runs from it like she’s been struggling not to do. This boy who is so good, her best friend, who always knows just the right thing to say (she should add Master Wordsmith to his long list of superpowers), who believes in her when she struggles to find the strength to give that to herself. The sheer faith he has in her is enough to make her believe in a god.
So maybe she loves him- it’s so easy to. Her anchor, her port in the storm. And there’s been so many of those, and there will continue to be so many more.
“Hey.” She feels his grip tighten. His voice is thick like honey and she’s sure he hasn’t gotten much sleep either. “You okay? I can feel you thinking real hard over there. Don’t waste all your brain cells, we need those.”
Tandy rolls her eyes, turns so they’re face to face, and she’s not scared of her feelings for him, that’s never been the case. She’s scared of what comes after, of the divine pairing prophecy, of losing this kind of love. He is her hope, she knows that now. And she’ll do anything to keep it, she’ll fight whatever monster, whatever demon is out there waiting for them.
“Do you know?” she asks then. “That I’m in love with you.”
“Well,” if he’s shocked, he doesn’t show it, but he gets up so he’s leaning on one elbow, his other arm still around her, “I guess now I do.”
“So you know that I can’t lose you,” she continues, so uncharacteristically serious that that’s probably what shocks Ty the most, “so you better not even think about dying—“
“Is that what you’re worried about? Do you not listen to anything I say? Where you go, I go, remember? I’m not dying as long as you’re here on this earth, Tandy.”
“Ty, you don’t know what we’re going to find—“
“Doesn’t matter, I already told you. So believe it.” He says it with such a finality that Tandy can’t help but to listen, can’t help but to believe it.
“Are you scared?”
“I have you, so no.” And she believes that, too. He takes her hand then, interlocks their fingers together. She sees light all around her, underneath her eyelids when she blinks, feels it like a helium balloon blossoming in her chest cavity. Love is light. She can see it; she can feel it. Whenever she’s with Ty it’s there, begging to be acknowledged.
It’s so stupid and corny and nauseating, but it’s the honest truth. She knows this with absolute certainty.
“Me neither.” When she looks at him, Tandy can see her entire future. She’s never wanted something so badly before. Despite what they’ve gone through, despite the other hells she’s sure they’re going to walk into, she’s never felt so happy to just be alive in this world, in this moment, with everything she could ever want within touching distance. All she’d have to do is reach out. “I’m glad it’s you.”
“I’m in love with you too,” he says, flipping their hands so the back of hers is facing up. He brings it to his lips, presses so slightly it leaves such an ache in her gut, “just in case that wasn’t clear.”
Tandy grins. “Ugh, baller lady-killer, I’m gonna vomit. Soo charming or whatever.”
“I can hear the sarcasm, but I know you actually do think so.”
“Buddy, I wasn’t denying it.”
He laughs and then he kisses her and it’s like everything she’s imagined and it’s like nothing she expected. His mouth is soft and sure, and she’s never felt so safe. Time slows down just as the rhythm of her heart does and she can’t believe she used to run away from this. Everything bright white light surrounding them, lifting them, Ty taking them to Paris, Tokyo, Santorini, all in a blink. And it’s everywhere, the love and the hope and the staggering power surging between the two of them. They’re bigger than the whole sky.
And of course she’s scared of what it means to be who they are in a world where they are perpetually hunted, where the future is this sort of vague and ambiguous concept of maybe hopefully we’ll survive this - but it’s also exhilarating. Like the adrenaline rush, that kind of pins and needles sensation buzzing right underneath her skin, any time she got away with a con job scot-free. And she feels so lucky, that she gets this with Ty. There’s absolutely no one else she’d want to do this with.
So when she runs, she knows he’s going to be right along there beside her.
>>>
“A confession first thing in the morning is crazy, what is it like 7am?”
“Don’t test me, Tyrone I’ll take it back. I will take it right back and I won’t even think twice about it.”
“No you won’t. Besides, I got it on tape.”
“Irritating, I swear to god you are so irritating, like a tooth ache—“
“Can you even afford a root canal?”