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Tabitha was willing to entertain any and all explanations for what was happening to her and her cousin, except for the one that involved ghosts and ghost nightmare dimensions being real. Gas leak. Mold poisoning. A bad prank. A simultaneous stroke. Faced with the nauseating, shifting collage that was the annex and the growing undeniability of ghost nightmare dimensions, she threw out one last, desperate suggestion that they’d been drugged and were now high. To her annoyance, Lillian found that funny.
“No, this isn’t what being high is like, Tabitha,” she giggled. Tabitha rolled her eyes, and filed away the fact that her cousin knew what it was like to be high to hold over her later.
The fact was promptly unfiled and the giggles stopped as soon as they saw Stella.
The rest of the evening was awful. Some of what the ghost showed them she already knew about. Some of it she didn’t. All of it made her stomach churn and threaten to expel its contents. The fact that there wasn’t even a solid floor to puke on did not help. Trying to make sense of how she was occupying these warped, fluid spaces only made it worse. Her only point of connection with the reality she knew, the reality that made sense, was Lillian’s clammy, trembling hand. Which she was holding for safety and not because either of them were scared.
Their hands only broke apart when Lillian stepped forward to agree to something unthinkable. It was then and there that Tabitha realized she couldn’t do this. In spite of the grim plans looming over them, in spite of everything at stake if she failed, in spite of the fact that her cousin was an idiot and apparently knew what being on marijuana cigarettes was like, she liked Lillian. She was a good person who didn’t deserve this, and Tabitha didn’t want to see her suffer. Maybe, if she did this, she could delay the inevitable just a little longer. Do one good thing in her life before ruining it like she always did.
She stepped into the spotlight.
Taking Charles Shaw Jr.’s deal turned out not to be delaying the inevitable. In retrospect, she should have known she wouldn’t be able to do what her family’s legacy demanded to a person she sacrificed literal years of her life for, but it still shocked her when she committed to burning it all down. Not literally, but she may as well have. The dust finally settled in a Scarlet Hollow that was in ruins, and free.
The next two weeks involved a lot of paperwork. Having a business completely destroyed was almost as complicated as running it. Assets were liquidated, employees were paid what she could, insurance forms were sent out half-completed because she didn’t know how to put “mines destroyed in breaking of generational curse” in official terms. All of it made more complicated by the fact that her entire fucking house had fallen off the cliff. Another thing obvious in retrospect.
Tabitha cried when she realized it was all gone. There was something about losing the site of so many memories, and practically all of her earliest ones. It didn’t matter that they were mostly bad. Losing a piece of yourself, even a bad one, hurt.
Lillian also cried, but she was apparently just worried about the opossums that had been living in her drawer. Upon finding out that they were ok (Tabitha did not bother trying to determine how she knew the two random opossums she found were her opossums), the tears quickly stopped. Personally, Tabitha was more relieved that an extremely offended looking Frou-frou was also safe and sound nearby.
Enough chaos had managed to spill over from Sunday night into Monday morning that Lillian missed the bus. She insisted that was fine. It wouldn’t feel right leaving while there was still so much going on. No one was really waiting for her back in the city anyway. The second time she missed the bus was on purpose. Tabitha was too grateful to not go through this alone to protest.
Not that she would have been totally alone. Since she was the person with the most extra space and the fewest other housemates to object, she and Lillian were staying with Stella. It was… a little weird, but it was an undeniable relief to have her back in her life again. Things couldn’t go back to how they used to be, they both knew that, and neither were sure they’d really want that now anyway, but whatever new friendship they had was quick and easy. There were others too. The librarian and his daughter offered to look after Frou-frou for a while, so the poor cat didn’t have to suffer losing her home and living with Stella’s disgusting mutt. Said it was the least they could do. Dr. Kelly cornered her during an errand out in town and insisted on giving her a checkup. The concern in her eyes as she looked over her new wrinkles and gray streaks, and the tenderness in her cold hands as she worked made Tabitha feel small. Like she was a little kid again, trying not to cry during her shots. Her attempts at paying for the exam were rebuffed and when she expressed her discomfort with owing anyone anything, the doctor told her to consider it repayment for not killing her son. The words were spoken with a humorless chuckle. Even Kaneeka came by to talk with her. She told her, in no uncertain terms, that she would not apologize for her past feelings about Tabitha, or the way she treated her. She was not taking what Tabitha had done that week as evidence she was wrong all along, but as evidence she could become someone who would no longer deserve that past ire. Kaneeka was rooting for her, for her to be someone better. It was this that touched Tabitha most of all.
Still, even though she wasn’t alone, it was hard. This upheaval of so many lives was exactly what she’d been trying to avoid, what she thought all this sacrifice was worth it for. Between the miners, their families, and the rest of Scarlet Hollow’s residents, there had been hundreds of people counting on her, and she failed them. Tabitha wasn’t naive. The fatal blow had been struck, and all that was left was to wait for the death throes of Scarlet Hollow to finish. The guilt was suffocating, like packed dirt that spilled into her nose and mouth with every attempt to claw herself out of this pit.
It was during a particularly bad day that her cousin made the suggestion.
“Hey Tabs, do you remember what we talked about that time we hung out at your rental house?”
Tabitha, who’d been in the middle of filling out yet another form, pinched her brow and sighed. “We talked about a lot of things. Be specific, and also don’t call me that.”
Lillian laughed, and it still startled her how effortless it sounded, even after everything she’d been through. “Ok, fair. I meant that thing about the Outer Banks. How you always wanted to see it, and how we should go after the funeral. I completely forgot about it considering-” She gestures around before continuing, “Uh, everything. But we could totally just go now! Take your car and just… drive! Doesn’t have to be for long. But now that you can… well, whaddya say?”
And even though the idea made her heart sick with want, Tabitha protested. She was still dealing with the fallout of everything. She was busy. It was November and it would be cold. Lillian needed to get back to her own life at some point and stop putting it all off for her sake. Somehow, her cousin managed to cut right through her every argument.
And, scarcely even knowing how it happened, Tabitha found herself outside Scarlet Hollow for the first time in her life.
Crossing the threshold was a little anticlimactic. The woods outside the town limits looked the same as the woods inside. There was no grand, singular moment of freedom. But she kept driving, and the world outside the BMW kept changing, bit by bit, into something entirely unrecognizable. It got to a point where Lillian had to take over driving because Tabitha was too distracted looking at everything, trying to drink in every part of this unfamiliar world.
The Outer Banks were a roughly ten hour drive from Scarlet Hollow, and they both agreed that was too long to do in one shot, especially since they didn’t manage to leave first thing in the morning. On a duller stretch of the highway, Tabitha was finally able to tear her eyes away from the road to start looking at motels in the town they’d be entering come evening. Lilian instructed her to pick whatever was cheapest, saying they were both used to sleeping in less than ideal locations. Tabitha’s first thought was to defend the estate, but the sudden realization that she had no idea what Lillian’s living situation was like back in the city and the accompanying pang of guilt stopped her. It turned out she’d been living in the cramped corner of an attic crawlspace for the past few months.
“Damn. I thought you were just a suck-up when you kept telling me the estate was nicer than what you were used to, but you were actually serious, weren’t you?”
“Haha, yeah. I mean, I did want you to like me, so I kept my opinions on the mess to myself, but I probably would have been impressed with any sleeping arrangement where I could sit upright without hitting my head on the ceiling. Even that cell probably would have been an improvement!”
A cold sweat suddenly washed over her entire body, and her knuckles turned white as she gripped her phone. “Don’t joke about that.”
“... Sorry.”
An uncomfortable silence fell over the car, but it only lasted a few minutes before Lillian managed to ease the tension with a joke in better taste. The rest of the ride passed similarly. Sometimes one of them would say the wrong thing, pick at a wound that was too fresh. Other times they chatted with ease, about anything and everything. And when talking was too much, they were content to quietly watch the passing scenery.
By the time the sun sank below the horizon, Tabitha was done being in the car. The novelty had mostly worn off, and she was beginning to feel queasy. She’d been familiar with the concept of motion sickness, but had never really seen it in practice since nothing in Scarlet Hollow was more than a few minutes drive apart. She decided she didn’t like it. It was a relief when they finally pulled into the parking lot of the motel.
The room was cramped and a little run-down, but there were no holes in the floor and there was plenty of space above the bed to sit upright, so it was an improvement for both of them. Lillian immediately flopped down on the bed, exhausted after a long day in the car, and with some coaxing, Tabitha joined her.
“Do you know what you wanna do for dinner?”
“I brought some of my mac n’ cheese. I can just eat that, since there’s a microwave in here.” Tabitha gritted her teeth. “I… guess you could have one too?”
“Aww, look at us. From banning me from touching it to offering to share!” There’s a beat. “Man, did I ever tell you I considered putting that dead mouse in the pantry into one of the boxes?”
“Huh?!”
Lillian raised her hands in mock surrender. She was lucky Tabitha usually found her endearing because the rest of the time, she was infuriating. “I would have never actually done it! I was just so cranky from sitting on that bus for so long only to get there and have you act like a jerk that I thought about it for a second. Well actually, I thought about just eating it, but then I saw the dead mouse and thought that idea was funnier.”
“I changed my mind. I’m not sharing, go find your own food.”
They were both spending too much time with Stella, Tabitha thought as her cousin did her best impression of their mutual friend’s pleading expression. It wasn’t nearly as effective. Stella’s puppydog eyes were more effective than those of her actual dog, although the dog in question was such an ugly thing that it was hardly a fair comparison. Seeing its lack of effect, Lillian gave up and rolled her eyes.
“Oh, fine. I was probably just gonna get myself something anyway. Looks like there’s a burger place across from here.”
She abruptly got off the bed and started rifling through her bag. “Just gotta find my wallet…” she muttered, more to herself than Tabitha. It was a mess in there. With how last minute this trip was, neither of them did a great job packing, but Lillian had really just crammed everything into a backpack with no rhyme or reason. Bizarrely, every inch not otherwise occupied was filled with various snacks. Probably Stella’s fault. Apparently, Lillian had told her she sometimes skipped meals and her response had been to hoist food onto her cousin at every opportunity.
A small pile of stuff was accumulating on the floor as Lillian rummaged. After a few moments, she excitedly pulled out an object that was still not her wallet.
“Aww nice, I didn’t know these were in here!”
“What is it?” Tabitha asked, moving to the edge of the bed to see better. It looked like another snack to her, brightly colored candies in equally brightly colored packaging.
“Edibles!”
“What, as opposed to all this other food that isn’t?”
Lillian started laughing. Tabitha was usually bad at telling, but she immediately knew she was being made fun of, and scowled. That just made her cousin laugh harder. It continued through her answer.
“I guess I don’t know what I was expecting from the person who didn’t know what a joint was called, but oh my god. They’re weed gummies. It’s weed, Tabitha.”
“Wait, and that was in your backpack? You had that with you the whole time? Did you get high in the estate?”
By now, Lillian was laughing so hard it was almost inaudible, coming out in wheezes as she attempted to catch her breath. It was so infectious that Tabitha couldn’t help but join her, even though it was at her expense. Her own laughter was still an unfamiliar and strange sound, more like a seagull than anything.
“Of course not!” Lillian finally managed to get out, “But, like, you actually care?? You really think a little weed even cracked the top 100 problems with the Scarlet estate? The most miserable, creepy, nasty old house I’ve seen in my life?”
“It wasn’t that bad!” Tabitha said, her instinctual response to defend herself kicking in before the rest of her brain.
“It really, really was. Honestly, I’m surprised you aren’t more upset that I was apparently carrying around illegal drugs with me the whole time. Weed is illegal in North Carolina, right?”
“I can’t go after you for doing anything illegal. I’m a murderer, Lillian. You know that,” Tabitha said, suddenly much quieter, “It’s a good thing I was able to get you out of trouble with the police though. God, you’re so reckless…”
Her hands trembled a little. She shouldn’t have brought it up. There were a lot of things Tabitha hated dwelling on, and killing her mother was at the top of the list. She could still feel an ache in her arms, in her wrists, from putting her entire weight into holding that pillow down until she was sure it was over.
Lillian noticed, and gave a concerned little frown. She didn’t try to touch her, which she appreciated, but she did scoot closer to the bed.
“Hey, I know it probably doesn’t help or anything, but you know you don’t have to feel guilty about that. Evil old cunt had it coming.”
She was right, it didn’t help, but the description of Pearlanne as an evil old cunt made her smile anyway. “Yeah, it's… not about that. I don’t regret it, but it… ugh, I don’t know why it still makes me upset! It just does. And you’re right, the estate was that bad, it’s just a weird thought! Marijuana in the estate, I mean. I don’t know!”
“I guess I can agree with you there. I think the world would explode if anyone did something actually cool and fun in the estate. Also, when has hypocrisy ever stopped you? You can totally make fun of me for accidentally having illegal drugs.”
“I am not a hypocrite!” That just got her laughed at again, so she huffed and changed the subject. “I thought you were supposed to smoke marijuana anyway. You can eat it too?”
Lillian nodded. “Yeah, you can. There’s a whole world out there of ways you can get high. I used to smoke a lot, personally.” Her normally perpetual smile faltered again, and her expression grew distant. “I stopped after my mom got sick. I promised her I’d take better care of my health. She didn’t want me to end up like her.”
During her recent checkup, Dr. Kelly told her she was especially concerned about her lungs, which would have been in poor shape even if she was actually the age she now appeared to be. The ghost had merely accelerated what a lifetime of rotting wood, coal dust, and secondhand smoke was already doing to her. What was it like to grow up with a mother who didn’t want her daughter to be like her? A mother who wasn’t slowly killing herself and her daughter with the expectation that she would one day do the same?
“I like edibles much more anyways! They last longer and they’re more intense, so they’re great when you want to spend the whole night chilling. And they don’t make you stinky.” The sadness thinking of her mother brought was now totally gone from Lillian’s face. She looked down at the packaging, then back at Tabitha. “Actually, would you mind if I had one? I think I’ve earned a chill night honestly.”
She couldn’t really argue with that. After everything she’d done, her cousin deserved a ‘chill night’. Still, Tabitha eyed her suspiciously. “It won’t make you do anything weird?”
Lillian shook her head. “Nah, I’ll just get really relaxed and hungry.”
“Hungry?”
“Yeah, food tastes amazing when you’re high! You’ve really never heard of munchies? Don’t answer that.”
She didn’t answer, which was just as well since the answer would have been no, she hadn’t. That was an intriguing prospect, though. Eating was something she’d always struggled with. Pearlanne used to make her sit at the table until she finished eating, which frequently never happened. Eventually, she realized it was easier to accept Tabitha only ate a few things, and that was how it had been ever since. Even eating those few safe things was a chore. When was the last time she’d really enjoyed food?
Honestly, assuming Lillian was telling the truth, both now and when she’d assured her it was not like the ghost nightmare dimension, being high… didn’t sound bad? And like she was maybe curious about it? God, what was wrong with her?
“You’re thinking about something, aren’t you?” Lillian was grinning mischievously, which was never a good sign. “What, you want one too?”
“Absolutely not,” Tabitha shot back, way too quickly to be convincing. “Go ahead and do whatever you want, I don’t care, but I’m not some sort of… stoner. I wouldn’t do something like that.”
“Wait, I was just teasing you, but you were actually thinking about it, weren’t you?” Lillian’s grin widened. “I don’t know Tabs, you’re already doing a lot of things you thought you never would right now. And oh my god, it’d be so fun!! When have you ever gotten the chance to do something stupid and fun, just for you?”
“You already know the answer to that. I didn’t have time for ‘stupid and fun’, Pearlanne made sure of that. And she wasn’t right about much, but she had a point there. I mean, that’s the sort of thinking that ended with that girl losing her foot.”
“Ok, but we’re adults, and we aren’t in an abandoned mine.”
“We aren’t.” Tabitha agreed. And dammit, maybe the thrill of being outside of Scarlet Hollow for the first time in her life is getting to her. Maybe she’s finally losing her mind. “Ugh, fine. I’ll do it.”
It took a little more back and forth for her to actually do it. Lillian was briefly genuinely concerned that she was pressuring Tabitha into something she was uncomfortable with, and Tabitha struggled to assuage her worries without admitting how much she actually wanted to do this. Eventually, she seemed to catch on, teasing her that if pretending she didn’t want to was how she got Tabitha to relax, she’d take it.
The gummies were blue raspberry flavored, which Tabitha thought was stupid. How could something be supposed to taste like something that didn’t exist? Regardless of its lack of basis in reality, it tasted fine. Lillian was very insistent she only take one, since she’d never had any before.
“Sometimes, since it takes a while to kick in, people go ‘oh I’m not feeling anything yet, better take another!’ and that’s how you get in trouble,” she’d explained. Tabitha had sneered back that she was not an impatient child, and could handle delayed gratification perfectly fine. There was nothing to worry about.
That had been half an hour ago. Lillian still wasn’t back from the burger place, and Tabitha was starting to worry she’d fucked up. Apparently, she wasn’t supposed to start feeling anything for at least another half hour, but she kept convincing herself every change in sensation was the marijuana. What had she been thinking?
Before she left, Lillian had assigned her the task of seeing if there was anything watchable on the little TV in the room, and she tried her best to focus on it. There had never been a TV in the estate, so Tabitha’s experience with them was entirely limited to the Richmond household. Figuring out the ancient-looking remote had taken some time, but Tabitha was pretty sure she’d gotten the hang of it and was now free to explore the wonders of cable TV she’d missed out on.
She immediately switched away from the news. Learning more about the rest of the world was probably important or whatever, but Tabitha was stressed enough about the problems of a single town without throwing everywhere else’s problems in the mix.
Everything else was similarly unappealing, either too loud, too dull, or too rooted in something she didn’t want to think about. For a moment, her attention was grabbed by a channel playing old horror movies, but she unfortunately recognized the current offering as one she’d watched in high school with Stella. Which would have been fine if it wasn’t also the one that had preceded their first kiss. Whatever they had may be dead and gone, but it wasn’t so dead the memory didn’t make Tabitha’s stomach flutter. She did not need that right now.
When Lillian finally returned, it was to Tabitha watching and almost enjoying a show about antiquing.
“That ghost really did turn you into an old lady,” she laughed, setting down the bag of food. Tabitha glared at her.
“This was just the least annoying thing I could find. What took you so long, anyway?”
“I don’t know, guess the place was just having a bad night. Understaffed and busy. Been there, shit sucks. I’m never working in food service again, if I can help it.” She shuddered as though recalling some unpleasant memory, and pulled something out of the bag. “Anyway, you ever had french fries? I got extra in case you like them.”
Tabitha wasn’t sure if she’d had french fries. If she did, it was when she was much younger. Her diet had been pretty much the same since Pearlanne stopped trying to make anything else. Occasionally, Stella had gotten her to try something, but that was about it. Since she couldn’t remember, she shook her head.
“Well, if you feel like trying something new, it doesn’t get much simpler than fried slices of potato. But no pressure, again.” Lillian tossed a few fries into her mouth.
“Maybe later,” Tabitha replied. She got up to get her mac n’ cheese out, figuring she should be eating too. She preferred the kind you made on the stove, but the brand also made a microwaveable version that was… acceptable. Good for late nights at the office after the cafeteria had been shut down for the day. She found herself looking back at the TV and the antique show still playing on it as she waited, a little invested by now in spite of herself.
Unless there was something wrong with the motel microwave’s timer, it took the same amount of time it always did for her mac n’ cheese to finish. For some reason though, it felt much longer. A number of things felt off actually. Not like earlier, off in a way she was sure she couldn’t be imagining. Her tongue was taking up too much space in her mouth. Her eyes were starting to feel dry and heavy. It should have been unpleasant, but it just wasn’t, somehow.
So, this was it. Tabitha Scarlet was in a motel room miles from Scarlet Hollow, out of any job, let alone one running the mines, and she was high.
“Aww, is it starting to hit you?” Lillian asked. Tabitha noticed that her eyes were starting to look red and glassy. Did her own look the same?
“No,” she lied. She had no idea why she did that, but Lillian didn’t push it, or even sarcastically agree with her. Instead, she just shrugged and sat down on the floor in front of the TV. Tabitha joined her.
Maybe the drug’s effects were still kicking in, or maybe her issues with food were too deep-seated, but eating her mac n’ cheese was only marginally more pleasant than usual. The familiarity was comforting in this entirely unfamiliar situation, but it was still just an inferior version of the thing she ate almost every day. Not particularly special. She did notice she still felt hungry after she finished, which was unusual. Lillian did say that would happen. She looked over at her cousin, who was somehow getting her mouth around a burger the size of her head. Tabitha didn’t think there was any amount of marijuana in the world that could make her eat something with so many clashing tastes and textures. The thought alone made her gag.
Lillian noticed her staring, and said something that was completely incomprehensible with the amount of food in her mouth. Tabitha bit back a comment about Vivian not teaching her any manners. She wasn’t that person anymore, at least she hoped. Instead, she shook her head and told her to try again.
“Sorry,” she apologized as she finished swallowing, “I was trying to say, if you’re still hungry, you can have whatever snacks are in my bag. I don’t know exactly what Stella put in there, but it’s gotta be good. Oh, and the fries too if you want them.”
As she tried to form a response, it suddenly felt as though a very heavy blanket had been dropped on her. The sensation, and the fuzzy wave of pleasure that accompanied it, were so distracting that whatever she was going to say completely left her head. All she managed was a little nod, mouth slightly agape. She hadn’t been lying earlier then, this had to be what Lillian meant by it “hitting”.
Lillian clearly noticed the shift that came over her, and she grinned like there was no better sight in the world than Tabitha stoned out of her mind. She laughed warmly, and Tabitha tried to join her, but somehow missed and started crying.
She couldn’t explain it to herself, let alone her cousin, who was now looking completely dismayed. This had been such a good day. The kind of day she’d desperately stopped herself from dreaming about, to not make her current life and the inescapability of it any harder. She felt better physically, emotionally than she had… maybe ever. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? She was having this good day with a person she fully intended on imprisoning for the rest of their life just three short weeks ago. She didn’t deserve this.
Marijuana left Lillian’s awareness of her boundaries intact, thankfully, as she once again refrained from attempting to touch Tabitha. Still, the concern on her face was apparent.
“Oh fuck, I didn’t think you’d be the type to freak out. Sometimes weed makes you freak out a little. It’s ok, you just need to not do that. I know it can make you feel like you’re gonna be the first ever person to die from too much weed, but it’s not true. That won’t happen.”
“You can die from too much weed?” Tabitha asked, so bewildered that the tears stopped as soon as they started.
“No! I just said that! You are not going to die. And we’re not in Scarlet Hollow anymore, so weird stuff that’s never happened before like people dying from too much weed can’t suddenly start happening.”
“We aren’t in Scarlet Hollow,” she repeated, mindlessly. For some reason, this sent a visible wave of relief through Lillian.
“Oh, this is a Tabitha problem, not a weed problem,” she said, sitting back a little, “You’re enjoying yourself, and you feel weird and guilty about it.”
It wasn’t phrased like a question, because it wasn’t. Tabitha scowled. “It sounds stupid the way you say it.”
“Yeah, that’s because it is. Ok, you kind of sucked. Being miserable on purpose doesn’t make you a better person though, cause if it did, you would have stopped being like that a long time ago and you, uh, didn’t. The way to stop being a shitty person is to stop doing shitty things. Being happy is not a shitty thing.”
She’d been expecting assurances that she wasn’t a bad person, not that. She didn’t like it. It was harder to brush off. She tried to come up with a retort, but all the words in her head were being turned to sludge.
“I don’t know Tabs, that’s all I got. I’m not, like, dismissing you, but I think we should talk about this tomorrow when we have our brains back. I love you, and I think you should try to have the best time you can because I want you too and also it’s too late anyway. We’re already high. I don’t want you to have an actual weed panic attack. Avoiding it is a mindset kinda thing.”
“I’m not having a panic attack. I’m fine. That was nothing. I’m not going to die.”
That got Lillian to laugh again, breaking the tension Tabitha had unwittingly created. This time, she remembered how to join her. It lasted far too long, considering neither of them had said anything particularly funny.
They didn’t talk much after that. The unfinished conversation hung in the air, but it did so unobtrusively. Tabitha was ok with that. Her brief flash of guilt was almost entirely buried under the leaden pleasure filling her entire body, and besides, talking made her dry mouth worse. Lillian told her you could get dry mouth relief tablets at pharmacies and she’d make sure she had some on hand next time. Tabitha didn’t know how she felt about her cousin already deciding there was going to be a next time, but she didn’t think she hated it.
She was enjoying herself, after all. She found out that she liked french fries, and did not like the ketchup she’d been brave enough to try one with. Stella’s taste in snacks hadn’t changed much since high school and there were many she recognized and even some she liked. The TV channel had been switched at some point after the antique show ended and though Tabitha had no idea what they were watching anymore, almost anything was entertaining in this state.
Eventually, once all the food was consumed, they managed to get themselves up on the bed. It was so comfortable (or she was just that tired after a day in the car) that Tabitha had to fight off the urge to immediately fall asleep.
“You can pass out if you want, I won’t be offended,” Lillian told her after she yawned for the third time in as many minutes.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she grumbled back.
Despite her best efforts, she wasn’t able to stay awake for much longer. The only thing that stopped her from going to sleep even sooner was an interruption in the form of a loud snore. Tabitha rolled over to see Lillian completely dead to the world. It did make sense, since she did the lion’s share of the driving and all, but still. She was the hypocrite, not Tabitha.
She watched her a little longer before going to sleep herself. Her cousin was an idiot who knew what being on marijuana cigarettes and gummies was like, and had infected Tabitha with that knowledge as well. She didn’t hate her. She didn’t know how she got so lucky.