violet and tiffany

"I need a favor."

"Always needin' a favor when you call me, Dean.  What is it this time?  Need help with a case?"

"Actually it's Tiffany."

I stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk at the mention of my BFF.  "What happened?  You know I'll do anything for my bestie."

Dean sighed.  "I'm worried about her.  Sam and I are working on a case and Tiffany won't answer her phone.  When we left she was fighting a lot with this guy she's seeing..."

"Whoa, when did Tiff get a boyfriend?"

"It's not official," Sam said.  "They're quote-unquote just friends."

I groaned and rolled my eyes.  "Oh, I know who you're talking about."  It was the reason Tiffany and I hadn't spoken much lately.  "The narcissistic asshat who doesn't have an honest bone in his body."

"Yeah, that one."

"As I was saying," Dean interrupted, and I imagined him glaring at his younger brother.  "When she fights with him, she won't eat, drinks too much, and is likely to harm herself.  We were checking in every day, then yesterday she stopped answering."

"Say no more.  I will find her and beat her ass for worryin' you."

"Thanks, Violet.  I owe you one."

Hanging up the phone, I turned around, heading towards Tiffany's house and calling Chloe in the process.  "Girl's night.  Let's have a sleepover at my place."  She agreed and offered to bring mind-altering substances, and even though I'm supposed to be straight-edge for a little while, I agreed.  Tiffany could probably use them.

A few minutes later I arrived at the run-down peach colored duplex.  The driveway was empty, oil stains where Dean's impala usually sat.  I walked up to her front door and pounded on it 3 times, then pushed the doorbell.  No answer.  Pressing my ear against the door, I heard the beat of Tiffany's favorite song, then her high-pitched voice singing along (badly).  Knocking again I said, "Tiffany!  It's me!  Open up!"

She still didn't answer so I reached for the doorknob, surprised to find it unlocked.

"Hey!  What the fuck, don't you answer your phone or door anymore?"  I pushed the door open fairly easy, though beer cans had piled up everywhere making it a little hard to get inside.  A stench of liquor and piled up garbage came from the kitchen.  I followed the sound of Tiffany's music to her room nearly scaring her to death when I kicked the door open a little dramatically.

"You coulda called ya know!" she shrieked, clearly drunk but happy to see me.

"I did, bitch.  You didn't answer!"

She giggled and offered me a drink, which I declined.  "What's up with you?  Why are you holed up in here on a Friday night?"

"I'm waiting for Brad to message me back.  He's at his ugly ho girlfriend's party.  He's been such a dick lately."

"He's always a fucking dick.  I don't get what you see in him."

Her eyes rolled.  "You wouldn't understand..."  She was about to try to explain it to me, but her phone buzzed and she immediately went to see who it was, hopeful at first, then disappointed because clearly it wasn't Brad.

"Come on, let's go to my place.  We're gonna have a sleepover."

Tiffany scrunched up her nose.  "You know what we should do instead?  Let's go crash Brad's girlfriend's party.  We can make a scene, like the old days."  She took another big sip of her whiskey straight from the bottle until I snatched it from her.

"We're not crashing any parties.  Let him and his girlfriend be for god's sakes.  Who gives a shit?  Fuck them and their parties.  My party's much better, sis."  I put the whiskey bottle to the side and helped my friend to her feet.  "C'mon, Chloe's gonna meet us at my place, we'll order pizza and talk shit.  I gotta tell you bout this case I'm working on, it's crazy."

She didn't really seem convinced but obediently came along with me, attached to her phone the entire time.  We couldn't even have a real conversation because the whole time she was just talking about Brad, rambling on and on as if I wanted to hear it.  But I tried to be patient — I'd learned a lot about patience since starting to work with Gabe, so now I could at least put it to good use.

Molly and Chloe were already home chillin' when Tiffany and I arrived.  Everyone exchanged hugs and/or fist bumps, catching up for a few minutes while I ordered a pizza.  Molly brought out a six pack of Corona and I grabbed one.  Even if Gabe had strongly encouraged me not to drink anything, desperate times call for desperate measures.  And at least Molly could help make sure I didn't overdo it... hopefully.

x-x-x-x

By midnight I was feeling the alcohol, and so were the others.  We had our music loud and played Cards Against Humanity, Chloe taking the win every time.  Tiffany finally put her phone away for a bit, distracted from thinking about Brad and having fun with us.  We had a lot of girl talk, even dragged a bunch of blankets into Molly's room to make a moderately comfy place for everyone to sleep on the floor.  We stayed up almost all night talking.

I awoke the next morning with a stiff neck and bitchin' headache.  The sun shined right in my eyes and my bladder was full, otherwise I would've tried to go back to sleep.  It took me a few minutes to convince myself to move.  When I finally did, I saw that Tiffany was already awake sitting up against the wall, scrolling through her phone frowning.  A beer bottle was next to her, half empty and with condensation, so it was fresh.  I also noticed for the first time that she had a few recent cuts on her arm.

Instead of saying anything, I just went to the bathroom, trying to calm myself before I exploded on her.  But calming didn't work.  The whole time I was away, all I could think about was how terrible Brad is and how much I hate the person Tiffany becomes when she's with him.

And the more annoyed I get, the more I can't keep my mouth shut.

"What the fuck is this?" I asked when I came back, grabbing her arm.

She snatched away.  "Don't fucking touch me."

"You're cutting yourself again and doing all this stupid shit just because of some fucking asshole."

If looks could kill, her gaze would have murdered me.  "Fuck you."

"Seriously, though!  What is up with you?  Why can't you just fucking take your anger out on him instead of yourself or the rest of us."  My tone was getting louder, and I heard the others stirring.

"Like I told you yesterday, you just don't understand."  She stood now, chugging the rest of her beer and then letting out an impressive belch.  "I don't need this shit.  I'm out."  She went around the room gathering her boots and beginning to put them on.  "Thanks for the pizza and letting me stay."

"That doesn't sound sincere."

Now she had her boots on and was fixing her ponytail, ignoring me.  "Have a nice life," she finally said, walking past me to the front door.

Glancing at the ceiling I silently prayed for more patience before turning around and following her.  "Wait, where are you going?"

"What do you care?"  She didn't turn around, walking out the front door and down the hallway.

"Wait.  I'll go with you.  Don't leave."  I hurried back inside to get dressed and then ran outside, still hungover and not really feeling this, but something gave me the feeling that my friend was going to do something stupid and the rule was that all stupid things we have to do together.

She was waiting outside smoking a cigarette when I saw her again, and the two of us walked in silence towards Brad's house.  I didn't want to go, and kept my mouth shut the whole walk because I wanted to be a loyal friend, but inside I was dying.  The only thing that made me feel good was that we were probably about to take both of our anger out on the asshole that deserved it.

His blue car was parked out front of his house.  It was still early in the morning so his street was empty, giving Tiffany the perfect opportunity to slash his tires without any witnesses.  I kept the lookout, though also couldn't help it and keyed his car.  I'd just gotten finished writing the word "ASSHOLE" when the nextdoor neighbor came out and shouted at us.

We took off running as fast as we could, rounding the corner and, seeing that nobody had followed, stopping to laugh.  That'll show him.

High on adrenaline, Tiffany and I went to get breakfast to take back home for us all.  We were both much happier after taking our anger out on Brad, and getting along much better.  When we got home, it was almost as if we'd never been angry at each other to begin with.

"Brought breakfast!" I shouted entering the apartment.

Since we'd left, both Chloe and Molly had gotten up, and Izaak and Toby were there.

"Sorry, didn't bring enough for you two," I said.  "What's the occasion?"

"Remember?  I told you we were going paintballing again today."

"We should've invited Brad so I could shoot him in the nuts," Tiffany said.

"Again with that asshole?  No one wants him to go paintballing, calm your shit."

She rolled her eyes at me.  "He's so gonna kill me for the car thing."

"What car thing?" Toby asked.

"Nothing," I said, glaring at Tiffany to shut up.  "And nobody cares about Brad, let's stop talking about him."  I dug into the bag full of Mexican pastries, finding my favorite pan dulces before sharing with everyone else.  The others made small talk while Tiffany stared at her phone, looking like she'd gotten caught.

Suddenly Izaak looked at the time.  "We need to leave in ten minutes... are you going in pajamas?" he asked me.

I looked down to see that I was still in my red plaid pj pants.  "What's wrong with wearing this?" I joked, but went to my room anyway, Tiffany following behind.

"He knows it was us!" she said when I closed the door behind us.

"Fuck him, who cares?"

"He's gonna kill me."

I grabbed a pair of jeans from my suitcase and groaned loudly.  "Fuck him, who caressss!"

"Oh shit he's calling me..." 

"Don't answer!"

But she already had.  And he was telling her off about everything, and she was just acting so submissive.  And it was starting to really piss me off.

When I finished dressing, she was still on the phone.  I tried to ignore it the best I could, opening the door and walking towards Molly's room where everyone sat waiting for us.  Tiffany was still talking to Brad on speaker phone as she followed me, and then he said something that triggered me.  

"Listen here, Bradly," I said angrily, snatching the phone from my friend.  She tried to take it back but I was too busy talking to him now.  "You deserve every fucking thing that happens you because you're a piece of shit."  He started yelling at me and Tiffany tried to get the phone back.  It was really a shit show.  Everyone screaming at each other, me keeping the phone high in the air, my friends just staring at us, watching the scene.

It was like slow motion when Tiffany finally tackled me, trying to get the phone.  I pushed her off of me, throwing the phone without caring that it smashed into the wall and then landed on the floor with a thud and cracking sound.  That just further fueled her anger and she tackled me again.  We rolled around on the ground, her fingers wrapped around my hair, mine on her throat until we crashed into a floor lamp, which knocked over into Molly's dresser, causing it to shake and one of her porcelain figurines to go flying onto the ground, shattering into tiny pieces.

I stopped for a minute to see what'd happened, and also noticed Izaak in his calmness telling us to knock it off (or something, idk, it was hard to hear), and then looked back at Tiffany just in time to see her fist make contact with my left cheek.  After that, I was seeing red, no longer in control of my body.  I pushed her off me and slapped her across the side of the head then crawled on top of her, ready to punch her back.  And I would have, except somebody grabbed my wrist and twisted my arm behind my back, then pushed me off her face first into the floor, knee on my back.

"I told you to back down, Violet," Izaak scolded.  

"Let go of me!" I shouted, struggling to get free, but it was never going to happen — Izaak is almost twice my size and definitely in much better shape than me.  I looked over to see that Toby had ahold of Tiffany and her nose was bleeding.  When had I done that?