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Tai has gotten used to calling Van and hearing nothing, just an automated voice reading Van's number in a monotone. She's practically got it memorized by now.
So it's startling when she calls, leaning exhausted against her headboard, and the line clicks on. "Taissa?" Van says.
"Shit, hi. I didn't think you were going to answer."
"Well, here I am." She sounds tired.
"I thought you might have blocked my number," says Tai.
A silence. "I did."
"Well." Tai rubs her temple with the hand that's not holding the phone. "And to what do I owe the pleasure of being unblocked?"
Silence again. "I guess I missed you."
Tai's breath catches. "Oh yeah?"
"Don't get too cocky about it, all right? I'm still pissed at you for leaving me here."
"Okay, well, you remember I have a kid, right? And a fucking...divorce to deal with?"
Van lets out a hah sound. "So it's really happening, huh?"
Tai sighs. "It's really happening."
"Have you seen Sammy?" Van's almost tender now; it's giving Tai whiplash.
"A couple of times. It's not—no one's really happy with me right now. Which is, uh, which is fair."
"Well, they can join the club." She doesn't sound as angry, though.
"I am sorry, really. I know we told Lottie we'd be there, and I didn't—I just, I left." She's getting good at that—leaving.
"You could at least call her, you know?"
Tai swallows. She'd tried once, using the number Misty gave her, and another patient picked up, quoting Bible verses at her and not answering when she asked for Lottie, or Charlotte, or whoever. "I—I have tried. I just—" Every time she pictures it, Lottie in that space, she thinks about Van saying If she is, then so are you. She could be there so easily, if Simone wanted to be vindictive or just got too scared.
Van sighs. "I get it, Tai. It's not bundles of fun."
"I'll try again, okay? I'll call."
"Thank you."
They sit in silence for a while.
"So," says Van, "what are you wearing?"
"Oh my God," Tai says, and she's laughing. "Shut the fuck up." (But something in her remembers Van's mouth hot against hers, and something older remembers late-night adolescent trysts, Van's tentative hands that grew more sure each time. She swallows hard.)
"I do wish you could be here, Tai. Not just for Lottie, but..." She doesn't finish the sentence.
"Yeah," says Tai, heavy. "I think I'm stuck here, for now, anyway. I think I've done enough, uh, child abandonment for a while." It's a phrase that's been thrown around enough now that it's starting to stick. Not that she's getting enough time with Sammy to have the opportunity, but her various lawyers have advised her to stop leaving the state unexpectedly, and her campaign manager has done the same, with the cadence of a threat.
"Can't argue with that," says Van, but it sounds like she wishes she could.
"Yeah. Can I uh, call you again?" Tai asks.
"Yeah, I'm around. If I'm not at the hospital, I'm just...here."
Tai pictures a grungy hotel room, a staticky TV with a malfunctioning remote. "Right. I'll...tomorrow, maybe?"
"Sure. Talk to you tomorrow."
—
Tomorrow, it turns out, ends with a meeting in a lawyer's office that runs over, and the next day finds her visiting in the hospital til they kick her out, so it's three days until she gets Van on the phone again.
"Hey, Tai."
"Hey. Sorry I haven't called...things are a little hectic here."
"Yeah, way to leave a girl hanging," says Van, with something like a smile in her voice.
"Sorry," says Tai again.
"Hey, you don't need to apologize to me, okay? I got a feeling you're doing enough of that all day."
Tai sighs; it's a fair assessment. "Okay." Then a pause. "How was your day? Or, couple of days." The question feels at once blandly impersonal and achingly familiar.
"Pretty boring," says Van. "Lottie's doing good, I think, or at least she's good at faking it."
"Good," says Tai. After a moment, she asks, "Are you doing good?"
Van sighs. "I...I don't know. Don't have a lot to keep me busy, you know?"
Tai, with too much to keep her busy, nods. "Yeah."
"I just keep thinking...if we just hadn't listened to her, or if I'd listened to you—maybe..."
Tai waits to let Van finish, but she doesn't, just trails off into nothing. She doesn't want to say the name, and Tai doesn't blame her. They shipped Nat's body back to Wiskayok for the funeral, which Tai attended and Van didn't. The memory of the event is a blur; all Tai can recall is Natalie's mother, her broken, wailing sobs.
"We can't blame ourselves," says Tai, as if she believes it, but Van scoffs.
"Who do we blame, then?" says Van. "We did this."
Tai closes her eyes against it, against everything, but she can still hear Van's heavy exhale over the line. "So what, now you don't think it was the wilderness demanding a...sacrifice?"
"Fuck, Taissa, I don't know anymore."
A long pause. Tai opens her eyes again, taking in the blurry shapes that resolve into her furniture.
"I'm afraid Lottie's right," Van says slowly. "I'm afraid—I'm afraid I'm going to get new scans and they'll tell me I'm in remission."
Tai lets her breath out slowly. "Would that be so awful?"
"Fucking yes, Tai, it would be awful if I sacrificed my friend's life for mine."
Tai presses her lips together. "You're right," she says. "You're right, I'm sorry."
"I told you before," Van snaps, "don't fucking apologize to me, okay, I can't take it."
Tai says nothing, lets her sit in her anger, lets the silence grow between them.
Finally: "Sorry," says Van. "That's not—I just have a lot of time on my hands right now."
"It's okay," says Tai, "I know."
They sit in silence for a moment longer, until Van says, "I gotta go, okay? I've got to get dinner, and I...can't be on the phone with you right now."
Before Tai can respond, Van hangs up, and Tai sits alone in the ensuing silence.
—
It's a week before Tai musters the courage to call again, and it takes a minute before Van answers.
"Hey, Tai," she says, and it comes out a little awkwardly.
"Hey. How are you, uh, how are you doing?"
"Fine, I'm...doing fine."
Silence.
"Listen," says Van, "I'm sorry about the other day. I was a dick."
"You were," Tai agrees, smiling a little. "Can I say I'm sorry too, or will you get pissed at me again?"
Van breathes out a laugh. "You can say it."
"Well, I am. I didn't mean to...you know."
"I know."
The silence feels more comfortable now, and occasionally she can hear Van breathing on the other end of the phone. "What are you doing now?"
"Sitting on the bed. Flipping channels. It's a thrilling life I lead these days."
Tai's sitting on her own bed. Her discarded button-up is rumpled near the foot of the bed, and she's leaned against the headboard in her undershirt and khakis. "Sounds like it." Pause. "How's the store?"
"Oh, you know. Floundering." She laughs, a little harsh. "I had to give Samuel a raise for watching it while I'm gone, and it's not like I can afford that right now."
"You can't just close for a while?"
Van sighs. "I mean, we're going to be closed for good soon enough. Might as well let the people have it while it lasts."
"You know, I could try and help. Maybe keep you in business a while longer, or at least keep you in your apartment."
"Please," says Van, "don't offer me that, Taissa." (Tai's chest clenches. All her instincts are telling her to help, to try, do something.) "That's not why I'm talking to you, okay?"
"So why are you talking to me?" Tai asks. It doesn't feel like a loaded question until there's a long moment of silence on the other end.
"I guess—I think I need you," says Van, and the weight of the admission hangs in the air between them.
Tai lets out a long breath. "Okay. Yeah."
"Fuck, I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to say that, I'm just—"
"But is it true?" Silence. "Van?"
"Just forget I said anything, okay?"
Tai smirks. "Oh, you're not getting away with this that easily," she says. "You're pining."
"Oh my God, shut up, I am not pining."
And then they're laughing and the space between them feels comfortable again, safe, but with an undercurrent of something new. Tai switches her phone to the other ear and makes a hm sound.
"Well, what are you doing on the phone with me, huh?" Van asks.
"Oh, I'm just waiting for you to get naked," Tai says, straight-faced.
"Oh yeah, okay." Tai can practically hear the eye roll. "Fuck you."
"Is that not what this is?" Tai asks, all innocence.
"Tai..."
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding."
But they don't say anything for a while, and then Van says: "It could be, you know."
Tai's breath catches. "Van, you know I'm—I'm not even divorced yet, everything is so up in the air—"
"Whoa, Tai, I'm not asking for your fucking hand in marriage."
Tai breathes out a faint laugh. "All right, I hear you." Pause. "I do...think about you."
"Yeah?" Van asks, and there's a hint of desperation, of vulnerability, in her voice.
"Really." And then she thinks, okay, fuck it, and says, "I've never been kissed like you kissed me that night," and the hell of it all is that it's fucking true. She's been kissed urgently before, greedily, desperately, but nothing like the way Van kissed like she wanted to devour.
Van lets out a shuddering breath. "I...can't stop thinking about it." And then, almost in self-reproach, "Fuck."
"If Misty hadn't interrupted us..."
"If Misty hadn't interrupted us, I would have had you right there in the dirt." It's so barefacedly honest, and Tai flushes hot thinking about it: her back pressed into the hard ground, Van's hand inside her jeans.
"Just like old times," Tai says, and almost laughs.
"Like old times," Van agrees.
It's a fantasy, carefully excising from memory their flustered apologies, Van's confession. In hindsight it's just the two of them, hands on faces, clinging desperately to each other.
"I wish you were here, in this shitty motel room, on this lumpy-ass bed," says Van.
Tai almost says Well, I wish you were here on my not-lumpy bed, but the right side of the bed is still very much Simone's side, so instead she murmurs, "Me too."
"All right, lady, you've gotta give me something to work with here."
Tai snorts. "What are you, impatient?"
"Come on, you never made me do all the work." There's almost a whine in her voice, and the sound makes Tai shiver.
"Fine." She pauses. "This is stupid, but I think I'm...nervous."
"I mean, it's been a long time." Van draws out the o in long. "Look, pretend I'm there with you, okay? I've got you."
Tai closes her eyes. Van's face, her hands. "I do wish you were here." Even with Simone's ghost beside her. "God, I want to kiss you again."
"I want to hold you," says Van, "I want to feel you...see what you're like now. How you're the same, how you've changed."
"Okay, seriously, though—what are you wearing?" Tai asks, and Van bursts out laughing.
"A fucking flannel and sweatpants, what do you think?"
"Hot," says Tai, rolling her eyes. "Take off your shirt."
"...All right," Van says, after a pause, and there's a rustling sound over the phone. "That really doing it for you?"
Tai pictures Van in her sports bra and sweats, so like her old post-game loungewear, and she has to admit: "Yeah, kind of." She closes her eyes, lets the image wash over her. "I don't know if you're aware of this, but you're really hot, actually."
"I've been told," says Van, faux-smug. "Well you...are fucking gorgeous, and it's killing me that I can't see you right now."
Tai closes her eyes. "And what would you do with me, if you had me?" she asks, low. It's such an overt come-on that she flushes hot around the ears when she says it.
"Well," says Van, like she's settling in for a story. "First I'd kiss you again, like I did at Lottie's fucking compound."
"Mm-hm."
"And then I'd kiss your neck, your chest, take off your shirt. Reach under your bra."
Tai's already just in her undershirt, but she places the phone down for a moment to take it off. When she picks it up again, Van's saying "...kiss you there, see if that place by your hip still makes you moan."
"It does," Tai supplies, tracing the mentioned spot with her fingers and gasping a little. "Do you want me to touch you?"
"God, yes."
"Are you—touching yourself?"
"Not yet," says Van, but her words come in a sigh. "I was going to—ask. Before I did."
It's almost sweet, and Tai smiles. She shifts her phone back into her left hand, traces around her own breast through her bra. "Do it." She can hear Van shift over the phone. "Are you taking off your pants?"
"Yeah, I, uh—and throwing this nasty-ass comforter in the corner. At least I know the sheets are clean."
"Glad you're taking care of yourself." She doesn't mean it like that, not at first, but then realizes what she's said and laughs.
"Well, if you were waiting for me to get naked..." Van says.
Tai hums, picturing it: all of her, pale scarred skin, laid out on the sheets. "Thank God," she says. Her throat feels like it's going to close up, but she manages to say: "Are you wet?"
"Fuck, Tai. Yes."
"I wish I was there to taste you," Tai murmurs. "To hold you, to fuck you..."
Van moans in earnest now, and Tai can't hear it but she can imagine it, the slick sound of Van's hand on her cunt.
Tai's own arousal is making her clench her thighs, and she unbuttons her pants and slips her hand underneath the band of her underwear, meeting coarse curls and then her own wetness. It feels too cheaply pornographic to say oh, I'm so hot for you, but she can't deny that this is for Van, and what she manages to say is, "Fuck, I want you."
"Oh God, Tai. I need you." And Van makes a sound, high and keening, that sends a rush of heat to Tai's core. She's barely touched them but arousal alone has made her nipples painfully hard against the fabric of her bra, and the sensation makes her arch her back, a bid for friction and pressure that won't—can't—ever come. She grinds down against her clit instead, gasping, the angle of her hand restricted by the underwear and pants holding it in place. She kicks off the pants, slides the underwear down her thighs, and lets out a soft moan as she slides two fingers inside herself.
"Tell me," says Van, and she's gasping, the sound crackling over the phone, "tell me what you're doing."
"Oh, God, I'm—inside, and it's good but I wish it was your hand, I wish it was you."
"I wish it was too—fuck—all I can think about is...fucking you, eating you out—" and her words end in another moan, and she becomes breathless and wordless and Tai's whole world is the soft panting in her ear and the fingers in her cunt, the heel of her hand pressing against her clit, and Van whispers, "Oh, God," and then lets out a cry, a sound that Tai would know in her sleep.
"I'm right behind you," Tai murmurs, biting back the "baby" that should follow. "I'm—oh, Van. Oh, fuck," and she's gone, waves of pleasure pouring achingly through her. "Fuck, I...God, I miss you so bad," and it's the kind of thing that could only be said in this moment. Her fingers slide out and circle her clit, rubbing gently, letting the aftershocks run through her.
"I wish..." Van says softly, but she doesn't finish.
"I know," Tai says, still breathless, hand slick against her thigh. "I'm sorry. I know."