Chapter Text
I wake from a stray jolt in the train's rhythmic swaying. The man across from me is a 30-something salaryman in a dirtied and slightly rumpled suit. His red-rimmed eyes trace across my face, assessing whether I'm a threat. Halfway through, the effort seems to defeat him, and his chin drops back to his chest. No one on the train seems to be concentrated on much of anything at all so much as frantically struggling to pretend they're in any other carriage, traveling to any other city. Unfortunately for them, however, it isn't long before the locomotive sounds its whistle in a five-minute advance warning of arrival. I grab my disintegrating jean jacket off the moldy seat and make my way to the nearest grime-smeared door to wait.
I step off the train and into a stinging, choking mix of coal and smoke and heat. It cost quite a bit for a ticket; seats are normally reserved exclusively for workers at the processing plant five miles out of town, a dubious honor given that no one I've ever seen onboard the train actually seems like they want to be there. Pushing through the thin crowd of scraggly mine workers, I make my way to the exit. The station was originally designed to haul freight, and it only begrudgingly tolerates passengers in its halls. Accessibility of any kind is out of the question, so the person I'm looking for will be waiting for me a good distance from the acrid smog of the arriving locomotive.
I struggle my way out of the station and back into the comforting embrace of the Mother Gaia. Back to my home, too. It doesn't take me long to spot her.
"Tara!" I call.
The girl standing across the misty grass startles, then carefully steps in a slow circle to face me, flinging wet leaves into the air as she moves. A beaming smile lights up her face and she starts towards me at a quick trot. Tara's pretty hard to miss; her pale yellow spider body, with near-translucent skin peeking through curly white hair, strikes a hard contrast to the much darker tone of her upper half. She has frizzy hair and the thickest pair of glasses you'll ever see from years of staring at screens.
She finally skids to a slippery stop a few meters in front of me, but her momentum, and the soggy leaves and grass, carries her into my open arms for a hug that slams the breath out of me.
"Hey, faggot." I gasp.
"I missed you," she laughs. "Missed you a lot."
"Come on, it's been what, a week?"
"Yeah. How was the tour?"
I take a deep breath. "Wow, Tare, it.. It was amazing. Um.. It was like.. a network. Of so many people supporting each other, like- the college was tangled up in itself with businesses that the students were running. I think we're gonna have the time of our lives."
"If I get in." She reminds me. "If. Meeting the early decision deadline must be nice."
"Yeah, well, you'll get in."
Tara locks her front legs and sort of slowly rocks back and forth in a way I've always found incredibly endearing. "I.. I'm just worried about my English grades, otherwise I think I'm okay."
I give her a look. "You'll get in. You're really good at programming. Plus, you'll fill their DEI quota for cave dwellers."
She sticks her tongue out. "I changed my mind, I didn't miss you at all, dick-face."
"Real. Wanna get going?"
She snorts. "Sure."
The way back home is a rocky and uneven path curling lazily around a mountain. I walk alongside Tara, arms slung through each others' for companionship. Tara taps rhythmically with her two teeny front legs as we go along. I remember once when we were young we got on the computer and looked up what the hell they were called once, but I don't honestly remember. Tara's vision is- well, even with her glasses, "fine" is pushing it, but at least she's not blind blind. Even so, she does her little drumming to try and figure out what's up ahead. She's really uncomfortable on this kind of rough trail, but unfortunately for the both of us there's not really any other choice. She couldn't get her parents' permission to come pick me up - I'm sure they disapproved of me checking out the out of state, progressive college instead of our nice and "sensible" state shithole. I know my parents did. So short of piling ourselves into an oxcart along the much longer route of the main path, this is our best option. We stay pretty busy chatting on the way home, about dreams and troubles and the moments in between, with Tara occasionally gripping my arm and brushing her left hand against the roots on the inside edge of the path for reassurance when the turns get particularly hairy.
Tara's my best friend of god-knows-how-many years. The two of us come from the kind of town people politely describe as quiet. The kind of town where if you ask for a 'reference book', somebody hands you a Bible, the kind of town where the only tourists are mile-long freight trains hauling coal. Hanging out in this decaying corpse of a place is much more bearable once you have a buddy to brush away the maggots. Tara looks pretty weird with her darkish tan skin and translucent body. Being queer probably doesn't help. Me, I'm the lunatic who decided to hang out with her. We probably would have quietly rotted away together in that forgotten town otherwise, same as everyone else. Being there for me probably saved my sanity, and I'm not just gonna let her go like that.
A few months later, unsurprisingly, Tara gets a jet-black letter in the mail. On that day, a March 19th, I was over at Tara's, as usual. The morning was warm but not hot. A dry, heavy wind buffeted the house, loud enough that no one heard the knock. The wind died down in time for us to hear the boots clomping back down the stairs, and we looked at one another and were already dashing to the door before Tara's mom could even draw breath for her usual banshee yell telling Tara to go get the mail.
As the envelope spilled out of the other mail and onto the porch in our overexcitement, the letter flashed with a brilliant red from the heavy wax seal on the front. The two of us fairly sprinted to the dining room, Tara rifling through drawers full of her dad's possessions for an old and tarnished letter opener. Meanwhile, I glance at the letter tossed haphazardly on the table. It seems to almost vacuum up nearby dust, trapped inescapably by its mysterious gravitational pull. I turn back to Tara. "Want me to grab, like, a butter knife or something?"
Tara glances over to the drawer across the room. "Oh, to hell with it," she hisses, prompting an indignant response from her mother. "Just tear it open."
The two of us fall upon the helpless envelope like a pack of wild dogs. Black paper with shining gold ink curling elegantly across it flies across the dining table. Inside is a dark red letter. I present the open end of the envelope to my best friend with an overly serious look. "For you, milady."
She snorts and pulls the envelope's innards out with one smooth motion, opening the letter and holding it close to her face. After a few seconds of silent reading, she inhales deeply with a giddy laugh.
"Well?" I ask her, smiling.
"I got in. I can't b-"
Whatever she was going to say is cut off by my overjoyed shriek, wrapping Tara in a crushing hug and even lifting a few of her front legs off the ground in my excitement. Tara's mother flashes us a sharp look, and our celebrations continue upstairs in her bedroom, albeit somewhat muted.
"I told you you'd get in," I shout-whisper.
"I got accepted." She squeaks, with pure joy on her face.
"You did."
"I got accepted!!" Tara squeals.
"I was there, if you can believe it." I grin at her.
Tara stares at me with a mix of elation and annoyance on her face before returning my earlier embrace. I can feel her many eyes closing and opening against my skin. A deep, shuddering sigh escapes her chest as I rest in her arms.
"So...." I begin. "....When do we pack?"