Perfection

Tama pushed Aria away with a gentle but steady hand. She could see the confusion in her friend's eyes but she was just as confused. Tama got up and started to move away.

"When did this happen?" she asked, whispering.

"I thought you would be happy-"

"To know that the only friend I have only wanted me . . . in a way I didn't want? I don't think so." Tama felt something build up in her own eyes. It stung and wanted to flow down her cheeks but she warded it off.

"Tama-" Aria tried to take her friend's hand.

"No!" she retaliated, snatching her hand out of reach. "How could you do this to me? Assume something like that about me?"

"I didn't. . . Tama, I didn't think you were going to act like this at all. I-"

"Then you don't know me very well, do you? Did you just pretend this whole time? Use me? What the hell, Aria? WHAT THE HELL!" Tama sharply inhaled, regretting the warm trickle of a tear run down her face.

"But-"

"No! No." Tama moved away even further. Though the two girls were only a few yards apart, they felt the miles that separated them. "I'm going home."

"Tama-"

"Don't follow me."

*~*~*~*

"Tama?"

"I'm home." Tama answered to her mother's call. The girl passed her mother and made a bee line straight to the stairs. "I'm going to bed." she said.

"Tama, wait. We have to talk." Linda stopped her by placing a steady hand on her arm.

"Mom, I don't want to talk. Not right now."

"We have to. Or, at least, I have to apologize for how I acted earlier. It's just. . ." Linda paused and walked around the railing that blocked her from her daughter and sat down on the first step. Tama wasn't quite sure if her mother was still drunk or not but it didn't matter at that point. She had hoped, fleetingly, that maybe if her mother wasn't sober, then the woman would actually open her heart a little.

"You see, when Warren . . . when he died, I-I've had some problems."

Warren. He was the local favorite, darling of the town, doting husband to Linda, and loving father to Tama. The sunshine went with him when local authorities found his body by the river, a mile exactly from the Main Square. No one knows how it happened. People, rotten people, gossiped, saying that it was Linda, who was known to drink before she met him, who drove him to do that to himself. Linda had been completely sober from the day she met Warren until the day he was pronounced Dead by Mysterious Means. She was hugging the neck of any bottle ever since.

Tama tried to be calm, but she couldn't. It was only two years ago and the wound was still so raw. Her father had always been good to her. Hell, he, along with Linda, were the only ones who had been truly, as Tama thought now because of recent events, good to her. At the very least liked her. He was her best friend and she knew it. So Tama started to cry alongside her mother.

"I'm sorry-"

"No." Tama's voice cracked. "Keep going." She nuzzled herself in her mother's arms as the woman continued to speak.

"I just. . . Tama, no man had ever loved me like that. He was one of the two best things that ever happened to me. The other, of course, was you." Linda held her daughter a little closer. "When he was around, I wanted to be better. That's why I gave up the drink. But I've been ignoring you. You needed me, too."

"Mom, it's-"

"Don't you dare say it's okay, Tama." Linda let go for one second, to wipe a tear, and then quickly tucked her arm around her daughter. "Because it's not. You're worth more than this. All of this." She gestured to the house. "This is why I want to ask you something. Something very important."

Tama sat up straight, looking her mother in the eye. "What is it?" she asked, rubbing her own eye.

Linda took her daughter's hand and pulled Tama close. She whispered in her ear, "How would you like to leave Tay?"