Chapter 1: i love your face and there's no more time
Chapter Text
Amber likes the way Richie thinks about life. She likes that it all seems so simple, so easy—predictable even in its unpredictability. All you have to do is figure out your role in its big, overarching story. To do this, you first have to diagnose someone with main character syndrome, and Amber finds that this is not very hard to do: neon signs, big and colorful with arrows and circles like a fucking YouTube thumbnail all point toward her best friend, Tara Carpenter.
That’s not to say that Tara is self-centered or thinks that she is the main character. No. Actually, part of what makes her such a good main character is her humility about being a main character. Like, don’t half of all movie protagonists complain that they’re just the side character in someone else’s life? That no one would ever make a movie about them, a book about them, and their lives are just completely useless, uninteresting and dull until the event, the rising action, the plot?
Therefore, the real diagnostic criteria for a main character is this: how badly could one really fucking shitty night where everything goes wrong impact this person’s pre-existing sense of stability?
For Tara, she’s right in the dream spot—one night could fuck her up, but not totally beyond repair. Her movie could end up on a happy-ish note, satisfying but open for a sequel. On the road to repair. She can get hurt and recover and develop as a character because of it. It’s perfect, really. She’s perfect. The perfect main character, and thus, the perfect victim.
That’s what Richie tells her, at least. Tara has maturing to do, and Amber can help her do that. Prepare her for the real world.
[She would never tell Richie this, but sometimes she likes being a kid. It’s still silly when Tara sticks her tongue out at her. It still doesn’t hurt her stomach too much to eat ice cream for dinner. It still makes her feel warm and fuzzy inside when she opens the heart locket that Tara had given her and there’s a picture of the two of them on the inside.
It was Tara’s necklace to start with. Her dad had given it to her for her 11th birthday when she started middle school and tragically discovered the allure of clunky jewelry and colorful jeans. The necklace was the perfect addition: big and borderline gaudy around her neck. She had worn it only for special occasions until her dad left. For a few months, she didn’t wear it at all, and then she started wearing it every day, buried under turtlenecks, invisible to everyone else but a cold reminder against her skin.
Amber had been the one to realize it was a locket the day Tara gave it to her (her 16th birthday, a promise that they would be friends forever). She had been modeling the necklace for her, promising to take good care of it, and when she had held it out to her it had popped open. There were just stock photos in it, someone else’s happy family, all smiles. Tara’s face had fallen, and Amber had told her that she would put a picture of her family in it. She went home and printed a picture of herself and her best friend, as tiny as she could get it on a Word document, cut it out as nicely as she could, and stuck it inside the locket.
They’re both still in it now, smiling all the time, forever, and sometimes, Amber likes to open it. She likes to open it and look at the crinkly picture and imagine that she’s there, right now: in the green grass, the perfect sunshine, the perfect day. Tara loved it. Kissed the locket and then kissed Amber on the cheek. Amber holds the locket and tucks it into her shirt before she slips the Ghostface mask on. No one will be able to see it, but she’ll know it’s there. That’s all that matters.]
The day of the attack, Amber paces back and forth across her room. She doesn’t think she’s nervous. It’s more like jitters, like when you’ve been looking forward to something for so long that when the time finally comes, you almost don’t want to do it: not because it’s scary or anything, but just because you’ve spent so long waiting that it doesn’t feel right to do anything but wait one second longer, one second longer. Richie texts her on Confide—this weird app where you have to swipe over messages to read them through and then they disappear when they’re done—and something about the rhythmic motion of drawing over the messages brings her some much needed calm.
RICHIE : Are you excited? OPENING SCENE TONIGHT, BABY. This is the BIG ONE. All the marbles. You’re going to be FUCKING AMAZING
It’s easy reassurance, and Amber appreciates it, needs it. He’s right. This is a big deal. The biggest deal. Everything is going to change tonight. Amber is going to need to be there for Tara once it’s all said and done: protect her from the killings while simultaneously committing the killings. It’s a daunting task, but she thinks she can do it. Protecting Tara is almost instinct, at this point. Even this—hurting her—doesn't feel right, even though Amber’s head insists that it is, that Richie told her it is, that it will help at the end of the day.
The robes look good on her, to be fair. That part feels right. It’s just the Tara of it all. What if Tara changes once all of this is over, and not just in a grown up way? What if she’s… anxious, all the time? What if she’s scared? Scared of Amber? Scared of anyone? Amber would be there for her through it, of course, but it’s still a risk. It’s still Tara, her best friend, suffering. The goal isn’t to make her suffer.
AMBER : are you sure this will help tara? there are plenty of other people in town we can use instead, and idk i’m just feeling weird about it
RICHIE : I know it’s hard, but if things don’t change, neither will she. She’s a kid. She isn’t grown up like you are. This will bring her to your level
RICHIE : I promise. She’ll never find out
There’s nothing else he can offer her, not really, so Amber takes it. She takes it and thanks him and tells him that she loves him and she turns on her voice changer. Everything’s ready to go. The woods are dark, but Amber has walked this route—her place to Tara’s—more times than she can count. Years and years, over and over and over. She could walk it backwards and blindfolded, nothing but the whistle of the leaves and soft flow of the creek to guide her.
Over the years, the dirt has worn itself to her feet, leaving a little trail, just for her. She read somewhere that love changes things, physically, like a stuffed animal losing its cotton in all the places where it was held the most, the paint peeling from its eyes, the color fading from its fur. People aren’t like that. They can grow gaunt and pale and dead without ever being loved at all. The path under her feet, however, is a testament to the labor of love, she thinks as she walks it. All of this is a labor of love, and maybe Tara will change for it.
She walks the familiar path, takes out her burner phone, and calls Tara’s landline. It rings, and rings, and rings, and goes to voicemail. As expected. Not according to plan, however, is Tara ignoring her texts. Amber had been texting her only a minute or two ago, but now it’s like she’s fallen off the planet. She had been heading down to the kitchen to make dinner, and now she was gone. It wasn’t like her.
Amber hesitates for a moment before calling her cell as herself, voice modifier off. There’s some strange feeling in her gut now. Something is not right. Tara always texts her back. She even has a stupid little Siri command for when she’s riding her bike for it to send: “Sorry, driving rn!!! Will get back to you soon!!!!”
Tara doesn’t answer. Her voicemail says: “ Hi! This is Tara’s phone, and Tara can’t answer your call right now! I think texting her would be better, but, if you insist, leave a message at the— ” It beeps, and Amber hangs up. Calls again. “ Hi! This is Tara’s phone, and Tara can’t answer your call right now! I think texting her would be better, but, if you insist, leave a message at the— ”
Even if Tara’s phone is on Do Not Disturb—which Amber’s calls should be going through anyway—the second call would have gone through. Do Not Disturb doesn’t mean completely MIA off the planet. Where is she? Had she figured out what was going on, somehow? Had she called the police? Was Amber walking into a trap right now, and Tara was going to look at her, all disappointed?
“Are you okay?” Amber asks when the phone beeps. “I’m- I’m coming over, okay? I’m on my way. I’ll be right there.”
She hangs up the phone and rips the Ghostface outfit off and shoves it under her arm, too concerned for Tara to think about properly getting rid of it. The worry is wiping away all of her other thoughts; it was one thing for her to hurt Tara, and it was quite another for something—someone—else to do it. At the end of the day, Amber loves Tara. She’ll hurt her in a way that’s good for her. No one else can be trusted to do the same. Tara is supposed to be hers to love and hate and hurt and curse and think about day and night.
The woods seem almost infinite now, too big, an ever-growing gap between her and Tara, her home and Tara’s. What if Tara was having an asthma attack and she couldn’t find her inhaler and Amber didn’t make it to her with the spare in time? What if she showed up at Tara’s house and she was already dead, skin pale and lips purple and body cold? What is Amber supposed to do then? She was supposed to be on the phone with Tara right now. She was supposed to be the one with the power, the voice changer, the words she had practiced in front of her mirror over and over and over again. What’s your favorite scary movie?
She bursts through the woods and onto the street, turning the last corner to Tara’s block, and to her horror, big, cloudy plumes of smoke float through the windows and into the air, brightening the whole sky with an awful sort of gray-orange glow. What the hell?
Amber’s feet bring her to the front of the house with no conscious thought of her own, and the sight from out front is worse. There are a few neighbors outside, adults Amber vaguely recognizes on their phones, but as she looks around, around, at all the distantly familiar faces, her eyes never land on the one she is so desperate to see: “Where’s Tara?” she asks, voice coming out a panicked whisper. She repeats, louder, urgent: “Where’s Tara?!”
The neighbors look at her like she’s grown three heads, and Amber can’t stop repeating: “Where is she? Where’s—where’s—Tara! Tara!” She runs around the sides of the house, shining her phone’s flashlight at the ground, but she doesn’t see her friend anywhere. Nowhere. She’s—Amber looks back towards the house. The windows shine with an eerie glow, and if Amber didn’t know any better, she would say it’s definitely haunted. The ghosts bang at the windows now, the floorboards, cracking like pop rocks and firecrackers and burning like soda in the throat: childlike wonder distorted into a monster not even strength could destroy. She thinks she’s calling out, thinks she’s screaming, but she’s not really sure. She can’t think. “Tara!”
There’s a loud sound from inside the house—a crashing boom, and Amber stares at all the onlookers and she scans the road but there are no flashing lights, no sirens. “She’s still in there!” She begs anyone who will listen, but she’s only met with looks of pity. The air is thin and smoky, burning her throat on the way to her lungs..
The others back away from the house as the smoke grows darker, darker, filling more and more of the sky. No one is coming and Tara is trapped inside and every single bit of fire safety Amber has ever known flies out of her brain. She takes a deep breath of fresh, only slightly smoky air and slams Tara’s front door open, racing inside.
She’s instantly hit with a cloud of smoke bigger and darker than anything outside. Her eyes sting, tearing up immediately, and her throat feels a bit like it’s collapsing in on itself, but Amber ignores that, ignores that awful, tangible heat that seems to be emanating through the air and moves further into the house, covering her face with her hand to attempt to breathe through the smoke. The entryway is mostly intact, as is the kitchen. It’s just filled with this unbearable smoke, unbearable heat, dancing littles lines of it bouncing off all the surfaces. The air is impossibly drier inside to the point where it barely feels like she’s breathing at all even though she’s going through all the motions. Instead of calling Tara’s name, she preserves her breath, looking into the kitchen for her friend. Upon coming up with nothing, she heads back towards the living room.
The house creaks and groans around her, and Amber knows she doesn’t have much time. When she puts her hand on the doorknob to head in, her skin burns on the metal and she pulls back with a flinch. Even the wooden door itself is hot when Amber puts her hand against it, and she can see the glow of flame on the bit of golden metal on the floor. She runs towards the other entryway instead on the other side without a door, only to see that the whole room is engulfed in flame. She doesn’t see anyone there, just the back of the couch, and without much thought, she chucks her Ghostface robe and mask towards the fireplace, hoping it will turn to ash with everything else. She dodges the rest of the room with wide eyes, heading up the stairs to where she knows Tara last was.
Shadows flash over the walls like ghosts or puppets or photographs, but Amber ignores them, swinging open the door to Tara’s room. The doorknob is cool to the touch, and, sure enough, Tara is there, sitting on her bed, face soaked with tears. She seems to be trying to gather all of her plushies and stuffed animals into her arms, tears flowing faster and harder every time she accidentally drops one. Her movements are stiff, labored, and her shoulders shake with the force of her tears. Smoke pours into the room from the vent in the corner probably designed for air conditioning, and Amber can only imagine how much of it her poor friend has inhaled in the last few minutes.
There are burns on Tara’s hands, on Tara’s palms, like she held them up in front of her face to defend herself from the flames that erupted in front of her. The sleeves of her favorite pink sweater are singed at the ends, darkeneed, and the whole thing is covered in a small layer of ash, making it look muddied. Tara’s nose is burnt, too, red and angry. She must have been right next to the fire when it started, down in the living room, whatever the fuck happened.
“Tara!” Amber calls, rushing over to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She takes a breath of relief, and her throat stings with it, a painful reminder she didn’t need about the state of the situation. “We have to go. We have to go now.”
Tara looks in her direction for a moment, but it’s almost like she’s looking right through her. Her eyes are murky with tears, white and wide and panicked, and Amber’s heart drops in her chest. “I can’t hold them all,” Tara weeps. “Mom’s downstairs, I—I can’t—I can’t hold them all…”
Downstairs? Amber hadn’t seen anybody in the kitchen, so if Tara’s mother is downstairs, that means she must have been in the living room, the unsalvageable living room. Smoke and bile make for a painful concoction in Amber’s throat as she fights back the urge to throw up at the thought of Tara’s mom, burning, charred flesh and—stop! Not now. Devastation creeps through her heart, and she’s not sure why since she never particularly liked Tara’s mother, but something about Tara’s childlike desire to be with her stuffed animals after losing the only parent that stuck around… it breaks Amber’s heart, and she remembers why there was a time that she would do anything her friend asked of her.
“Tara, I’m sorry, we don’t have time. Get as many as you can hold now. We’ll—” There’s another loud sound—the house going down—and Tara whimpers before bursting into a coughing fit. “We have to go through the window. Hurry.”
Tara takes a minute to stop coughing, breath heavy and throat mucusy, and by that point Amber has taken her by the shoulders and ushered her towards her bedroom window. Tara turns back, defiant. It’s like her brain has gotten stuck on those stuffed animals. It makes sense, Amber guesses. In a situation like this where you have no control, it only makes sense to seek out any small form of control. It only makes sense to need it, and even if Tara couldn’t stop the fire or find the inner strength to jump out the window and save herself, she could gather her stuffed animals in her arms and live and die with them. Tara seems almost… absent. Like she’s not really there, like she’s acting on instinct, and her instinct is drawing her towards comfort, distraction, like it always does: a youthful naivety so heartbreakingly characteristic of her.
After a moment of silence, consideration, Amber assures her: “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ll grab your favorites, okay? Go. You need to get out. Your asthma—I’ll grab them, Tara.”
Tara shakes her head wildly, still trying fruitlessly to clear her throat. One of her hands lands wildly on Amber’s shoulder; she wants the stuffed animals, but she doesn’t want to leave Amber behind, either. She would lose everything. Amber can see it in her eyes—they’re dark and glassy now. Not like she’s scared, but like she’s losing everything and she knows she must learn to accept it, and she must learn to accept it now.
“Hey. I’ll be right behind you.” Amber shoves the window open, fighting the urge to cough into her arm, knowing that ignoring that itch in her throat is the only thing that will allow her and Tara to make it out of this house. “Just like when we were kids, yeah? Remember how I used to climb up here all the time? Go .”
Tara nods and takes a moment before climbing out onto the windowsill. She pauses again, and when she jumps, it’s rather ungraceful. It’s more like she falls than jumps. Watching her is like a slideshow with all the smoke—it’s like one moment she’s in the window and the next she’s in the air and the next she’s on the ground, wailing loudly, hands coming to clutch her leg, which is bent at a near horrifying angle. Even through the haze of the smoke, Amber can see her face, all twisted up in pain, and she can hear her scream. It’s heartbreaking, but—it’s okay. She’s safer there, outside, away from the flames and the debris and the smoke.
Amber turns away, once again fighting the urge to throw up before she rushes back towards Tara’s bed, stuffing as many stuffed animals as she can into her arms, her pockets, anywhere where they will fit. It’s dumb, sure, but they clearly mean a lot to Tara if they were going to be the only thing she grabbed before running away from her burning home. Those toys are some of the last gifts her parents ever got her, some prizes Amber had won her at the carnival, all with a memory attached, a story. Tara’s always been a bit of a hoarder, a bit sentimental, and if her fucking mom is dead in the living room right now and her house is collapsing into pieces, going up into a pile of smoke, who is Amber to ask her to give up those precious memories?
The floor shakes and creaks under her and Amber knows that she’s out of time. She races over to the window and jumps out, uncaring of how she lands. There’s one moment of flying through the smoky air before she ends up in a heap in the grass and is instantly swarmed by firefighters, emergency responders. She holds the stuffed animals close to her chest, tears suddenly flowing down her cheeks. “You need to give these to Tara,” she says, voice coming out a croak. “She needs them. She’s scared. Her mom—her mom is in there.”
Some of the firefighters rush inside. Others are manning the firetruck, setting it up to extinguish the house. Only one of the emergency responders gives her the time of day. “Is Tara your friend, the one in the house with you? Which one is her favorite?” He asks. “I’ll take it to her, but she can only keep one for now. We can give her the others once she’s all set up at the hospital.”
Amber hesitates, deliberating on this important choice while another responder slips an oxygen mask over face. Breathing immediately feels easier, and she picks out a basic looking teddy bear. It has a little voice thing in it from when Tara had gotten it for her 13th birthday: it’s this little, difficult-to-hear recording of all of her friends and family—Amber and Chad and Mindy and Sam and Tara’s Mom and Dad—wishing her a happy birthday. It was her last big birthday party. “This one,” she says, but it comes out muffled through the oxygen mask.
“Perfect,” the responder says. “What is its name?”
“Barry,” Amber tells her. “He- he can talk. Tara will want him around, and—and she’s asthmatic. I have- I have her inhaler! It’s back at my house. I can get it if she needs it. Is she going to be okay? Did she breathe in too much smoke?”
“Hey, hey, calm down. We’ll do everything we can, okay? Is there anything else we should know about her, or you?” The responder asks, calm and collected. “Everything you’ve provided so far has been so helpful.”
“Um, well, Tara is—she’s allergic to the—the—I don’t know, the default anesthesia doctors usually use. They have to use something else. Her name is Tara Carpenter. It should all be in her file thing.”
“That’s perfect. Thank you,” the responder says. It seems clear that she’s trying to placate Amber with these responses, and despite Amber being well-aware of this, she finds that it’s still kind of working, even as she’s being loaded into the back of an ambulance. “And you are?”
“Amber,” Amber tells her. “Amber Freeman.”
Chapter 2: what's all that young life been wasted on?
Summary:
“Hi,” Amber rasps, soft. “This is a bit scary, isn’t it?”
Tara looks at her for a moment, seeming sheepish, shrugging her shoulders. The sight of her moving, reacting, thinking and feeling, settles some discomfort deep in Amber’s chest: Tara’s alive, right now. Whatever the fuck ends up being wrong with her, she’s here. She made it out and she’s holding her little stuffed animal and she’s looking at Amber like she’s an angel. Maybe she’s already a bit loopy.
“You’re allowed to be scared,” Amber tells her, barely a whisper. more earnest and genuine than she thinks she has been in years. “But you don’t have to be. Because I’m here. And if those doctors do anything to hurt you, or make you uncomfortable, or upset, all you have to do—” As a demonstration, Amber gently presses her wrist against Tara’s bandaged fingers, the softest touch she can muster. “—is tap my wrist three times, just like that, and I’ll fucking massacre them. John Kramer style.”
---
Amber stays by Tara's side in the hospital and reflects on her guilt.
Notes:
Again, sorry for the probably horribly inaccurate hospital stuff; I did my best! This is a pretty calm chapter with lots of Tara and Amber hanging out (both in the hospital and in Amber's memories), so hope you like it!
There's some discussion about anxiety attacks and slightly invasive medical procedures (a bronchoscopy) but nothing too bad!
Chapter Text
[Tara has a lot of health issues. She has asthma and a laundry list of allergies and medicines she’s supposed to take for anxiety. She had tried to wean herself off of it when they were 16; without either of her parents or their insurance in the picture, she just couldn’t afford it, no matter how many apps to make it cheaper Amber found. It got really bad. Tara would have these massive anxiety attacks so debilitating that she would be almost unresponsive for the next few hours following them.
The first time that happened, Amber had been so frightened that she had taken Tara to urgent care. They had sat together in the stupid lobby and Amber had held Tara’s hand and tried not to cry. They told her it would just be something she had to live with if she couldn’t get therapy or afford medication. Even the stupid fucking psychology apps based on pseudo-science were too expensive. Tara had seemed hopeless, drained, and Amber vowed that she would fix it, so she asked around the high school until she found a kid that would sell her his mom’s Zoloft.
She hoped she would never have to wait for Tara in the hospital like that again. Helpless, hopeless. If she had been the one to attack Tara, she could have ensured she would be fine. She wouldn’t have to be worried like this, afraid like this, afraid that Tara would spend her whole life hopeless, drained, frightened. She didn’t deserve that. Amber was meant to protect her from shit like this. She was meant to]
keep her safe. But she’s in her own hospital bed right now and she’s not allowed to see Tara. Supposedly, by the time Tara made it to the hospital, she was wheezing, unable to catch her breath, even with the oxygen mask and the nebulizer treatments she was getting for her asthma. They have to run her through tests, now, the doctor tells Amber: the wheezing was concerning. It means the smoke might have damaged her lungs. They have to put her through a chest CT scan and a bronchoscopy. Apparently, they’re going to stick a tube down Tara’s lungs with a tiny camera on it to look at her airways or whatever. It’s not supposed to take long—only an hour or so—and then Amber is allowed to visit her.
Though Amber wasn’t in the house for too long, she still got lucky with her injuries. Her lungs hurt a bit, but she never had any wheezing or real difficulty breathing. The doctors still gave her oxygen for a bit to help her out, but she would be okay to be released for the night. Even the jump from the bedroom only left her with some scrapes on her hands and bruises on her knees, probably because she had done it so many times. Tara was unlucky in that regard, as well, having broken some bone during the fall.
At least the doctors gathered the rest of Tara’s stuffed animals to take to her room, so they could be there with her right now even when Amber can’t. Fuck. She never thought she would be jealous of a fucking stuffed animal.
Restless, she pulls out her phone, glad that it stayed pretty much unharmed in her pocket aside from a new crack blooming all across the left side of the screen. She has a new text from Richie.
RICHIE: So, baby??? HOW DID IT GO???
RICHIE: Amber? All good? Should be done by now, right? Unless you chickened out
Amber doesn’t even know how to answer, staring down at the words until they disappear under her thumb. It didn’t go, she wants to say. It didn’t go and it never will. I can’t hurt her again. This is tragedy enough for this town. This is tragedy enough for her, for Tara. She doesn’t have time to be a killer anymore. Tara is going to need her, and Amber—fuck, Amber wants to be there. More than anything, even if it means abandoning the movie, abandoning Richie.
AMBER: there was a fire at her house we have to put it all off
RICHIE: ??? What do you mean
AMBER: her house was on fire her mom is dead tara’s hurt i can’t do it anymore
Her phone screen lights up with a call, and Amber declines it. She probably could talk to him right now, but the oxygen mask makes for a pretty good excuse not to. She can’t burn out her lungs or she won’t be allowed to visit Tara. She tilts her phone towards her face and takes a selfie with it on and sends that to Richie in response.
RICHIE: WTF
RICHIE: What the hell happened?
AMBER: idk how many ways i can tell u that her house was on fire
RICHIE: Yeah but why would you go inside then??
Amber is beginning to grow frustrated with him. He doesn’t understand anything. He knows that Amber loves Tara. He knows that she doesn’t want her dead. He knows that this wasn’t part of the plan, so what the fuck is there not to get?
AMBER: tara was inside i went to get her bc i was there before the firefighters
RICHIE: WTF Why would you do that????
AMBER: wdym she’s my best friend she would’ve died?
RICHIE: Yeah but a house fire would have been such a sick opening scene if we framed it as arson
Amber fights the urge to throw her phone out the window. Her lip quivers as she imagines Tara dying in the house. Tara choking on smoke, burning to death, nothing but her charred remains left up there. The thought makes her sick, makes her head ache.
AMBER: fuck you
AMBER: my best friend dying isn’t a funny joke for ur fucking movie
RICHIE: Woah chill out! She was always going to be hospitalized anyway
RICHIE: And let’s be honest it wouldn’t be the worst thing for the movie if she died
RICHIE: She was never going to make it past Act 2 anyway 😵
Amber has to shut down her phone so she doesn’t blow up at him. No, she wasn’t. Tara was going to be the final girl. Tara was going to live. Amber never would have agreed to any of this bullshit if Tara wasn’t going to live through it. That was the whole point: so she could grow. So she could really fucking live. Was Richie just lying to her about it this whole time? She wants to cry, wants to scream and punch the wall no matter how much it hurts to just flex her fucking fingers right now, even when they’re covered in whatever fucking ointment the nurses had put on them.
Speaking of the devil, one of the nurses knocks on the door to Amber’s room and heads in without waiting for an answer, a pleasant smile on her face. That doesn’t mean anything, Amber has learned. The nurses always have to have those little smiles on their faces. She thinks they’re meant to put people at ease, but instead they just look like something out of a fucking horror movie.
“Ms. Freeman,” she says, relentlessly pleasant, pleasant pleasant pleasant. “You asked for updates on Ms. Carpenter’s condition. Because of her allergy to general anesthesia, we have administered some midazolam for the bronchoscopy, which will help her relax, but ultimately, she will be conscious during the process. This… can be uncomfortable for patients given that it involves the respiratory system, so we believe that it would be helpful for her to have a familiar face around in addition to the stuffed animal you’ve given her just to ensure that she remains calm during the procedure.”
“Yes. Yeah. Of course. I’ll sit with her. I’ll hold her hand. Whatever she needs,” Amber says, immediately standing to follow the nurse out. “Jesus. She’ll be sedated but conscious? To have a little fucking camera poking around her lungs?”
The nurse pulls a face at this. “That’s a bit of a blunt way to put it.”
“But it’s the truth?”
The nurse sighs, turning and leading Amber towards Tara’s room. The halls bustle with movement and noise, wheels squeaking, fancy shoes headed around the building. Amber feels small here, smaller than she ever has. She is someone to rescue. She can’t help anyone, can’t save anyone, can’t hurt anyone. All she can do is go and hold her best friend’s hand and hope she doesn’t become cognizant of the fact that, again, they’re shoving a tube down her throat. The doctors know what they’re doing, Amber’s sure, but just the thought of witnessing it or enduring it seems horrifying.
But nothing could possibly hurt as bad as the sight of Tara in the hospital bed. She’s pale, and the white bandages all over her arms and her face certainly don’t help. She looks like a mummy, a ghost. Amber always thought mummies were stupid in horror movies—who the hell would be scared of one—and though this is more devastating than frightening, the gut punch hits quite the same. She still has the oxygen mask over her mouth, which is supposedly treating her asthma as well. She looks pathetic in bed. Pathetic and small. There was no world where she deserved this, no world that could justify it: all that pain and hurt and blood on such a small frame. The stuffed animals surround her like a halo, only Barry resting on her shoulder.
Her breath is still coming out in sharp wheezes as well, like a balloon, inflating and deflating and inflating and deflating and, with sudden horror, Amber imagines a hole in Tara’s lungs like the bottom of a balloon. In her head, Amber vows that if it came down to it, she would press her lips to Tara’s ribs, her chest, her lungs, and keep them sealed shut, full of air, forever. But that’s absurd, isn’t it? Tara doesn’t need that. That wouldn’t help her. It’s just an odd little fantasy for Amber to terrify herself over.
Regardless, Tara’s eyes brighten slightly when they land on Amber, and that shatters her heart in what is impossibly simultaneously the best and worst pain she has ever felt. She’s by Tara’s side in an instant; the doctors and the lights and the sounds and the squeaking are white noise. Tara’s hand is unrecognizable beneath a near excessive amount of bandages and dressing on burns that Amber hopes to god Tara never got the chance to look at properly, so, instead, she reaches out and holds Tara’s wrist, gentle, thumb tracing over the small bone between her veins.
“Hi,” Amber rasps, soft. “This is a bit scary, isn’t it?”
Tara looks at her for a moment, seeming sheepish, shrugging her shoulders, as if to say she is scared enough to be embarrassed about her fears but is aware of the fact that this is most certainly not the scariest thing that she’s gone through tonight. The sight of her moving, reacting, thinking and feeling, settles some discomfort deep in Amber’s chest, something she hadn’t realized was there until it was relieved. Tara’s alive, right now. Whatever the fuck ends up being wrong with her, she’s here. She made it out of that house. She made it out and she’s holding her little stuffed animal and she’s looking at Amber like she’s an angel. Maybe she’s already a bit loopy.
“You’re allowed to be scared,” Amber tells her, barely a whisper. more earnest and genuine than she thinks she has been in years. “But you don’t have to be. Because I’m here. And if those doctors do anything to hurt you, or make you uncomfortable, or upset, all you have to do—” As a demonstration, Amber gently presses her wrist against Tara’s bandaged fingers, the softest touch she can muster. “—is tap my wrist three times, just like that, and I’ll fucking massacre them. John Kramer style.”
Under her oxygen mask, Tara’s face tilts up into a little smile. Amber can see it in her eyes. Even though they’re glittering with unshed tears, they’re all scrunched up like they get when she’s listening to her favorite song or watching her favorite movie, beautiful, and Amber thinks maybe they’re going to be alright. One day.
[In her head, Amber had created a sort of anatomical map of where she would stab Tara, like a game of fucking Operation. It’s kind of what you have to do when you’re planning to repeatedly hurt someone without killing them.
When Tara slept, Amber used to trace the pattern of the punctures into Tara’s back, into her skin, warm constellations, a prize of life. She was always so soft, so peaceful when she slept. There are only so many decorative injuries someone can have, places in the body that don’t stick to nerves or important organs that help you breathe and shit. She would practice it on her pillow—grab a kitchen knife and move it right where she’s supposed to.
THE FOREARM: fleshy, away from major arteries; a decorative wound that many final girls wear because it looks cool and shows that they are, in fact, able to be injured. Name a horror movie with a survivor that doesn’t have a cut across their forearm.
THE SHOULDER: if you stab someone in the muscular part of the shoulder, while it obviously would cause muscle damage because, no shit, it’s much less bad than stabbing someone near the lungs. Or the kidneys. Or the heart. Or the whatever the fuck.
THE CHEEK: a little style slash. As long as it doesn’t hit the skull it’s okay. Amber’s practiced it so it won’t hit the skull. Same could also be said for the forehead, but she thinks that would make it hurt while Tara was combing her hair, and she doesn’t like that idea.
THE LOWER ABDOMEN: this one might be cutting it a little close, yeah, but… as long as Amber shoots to avoid the bladder or the reproductive organs or whatever… a stab in the stomach is a classic. It can’t be avoided. As long as she doesn’t hit the major blood vessels it will be okay. Nothing a little surgery can’t fix.
THE HAND: it would have to be Tara’s left hand since she draws with her right. Amber would never do anything to mess with her future art career. This one was only ever a 50/50 anyway based on whether or not Tara will move to defend herself with her hand, which she probably would.
Amber knew Tara. She knew Tara’s body. She knew how Tara breathed, knew exactly where her heart beat in her chest from how many times she had pressed her forehead against it, traced every single vein up her arm, pressed a heating pad against her uterus when she had cramps, felt her retching when she got a stomach bug. Tara, her body, is like clockwork.
Richie told Amber once that horror is all passion. You can feel it, the heart. The gore is a masterclass: only someone who loves it can make something like that because otherwise they wouldn’t have the stomach. You have to understand someone to scare them. You have to know the body to know where to stab it. Someone has to turn their back to you for you to stick a knife in it. You have to know. You have to know , and Amber does. Amber did.
She knew it all but she’s looking at Tara now, imagining her bloodied and broken on the ground, leaking red, leaking blood like she’s leaking shame, leaking life, she’s not sure how true it is that hurting someone is synonymous with loving them.]
The bronchoscopy goes well enough. Tara’s lungs aren’t too bad. There’s the obvious damage from smoke inhalation that definitely provoked her asthma and her oxygen levels are apparently much lower than acceptable so she has to keep the oxygen mask on, but it doesn’t seem like there is going to be any permanent damage. Strangely enough, it’s everything else that’s worse.
Her leg is fractured, or, how the doctors said it, she had a distal tibia and fibula fracture, which is technically closer to her ankle than her leg. Amber is almost lucky that she didn’t see Tara for too long after she jumped from the window because it was apparently a horrific sight, an open fracture, where the bone pierced through her skin. They took her into surgery for it when Amber was getting helped, and now it’s stuck in a cast. She has to be in a wheelchair for at least four weeks before she even starts trying to walk on a cane or whatever. It’s probably at least three months of physical therapy.
Her burns are second-degree but should turn into nothing but angry blisters in a week or two, and scab the week after that, and then slowly scar. She should regain full use of her hands afterward, a relief for her future drawing career. Amber had never felt such a palpable relief. Tara would be okay. It would be a nasty few months, but… eventually. Eventually she would be okay. Everything would go to plan and she would be alright. That’s all that matters right now.
The same can’t be said for Tara’s mother.
A police officer comes by Tara’s room, and Amber, of course, is sitting in a chair next to her bed. Tara’s not supposed to be speaking anyway, not with her oxygen mask on, so maybe it’s a good thing she’s here, to answer all the questions. He is aloof, distant, like any person who deals with such loss and tragedy on an everyday basis must be to make it through. His sentences, his questions, are mechanical, like he’s following a script. He says:
COP (stiff, uncaring:) My name is Officer Smith. Good afternoon. You must be Ms. Carpenter and… Ms. Freeman?
There’s a pause. Amber immediately feels put off by him, nervous. A part of her wonders if they found that robe in there. The Ghostface robe. The one that is hopefully nothing but ash, or at least nothing but some charred black fabric devoid of fingerprints. But part of her is afraid. She can’t help it. Regardless, she nods in the affirmative—this is her and Tara, after all.
COP (CONT’D): My deepest condolences for everything you experienced earlier this evening. I regret to inform you that we discovered your mother’s remains in the living room in the aftermath of the fire. I’m so sorry for your loss.
He delivers the news with an unprecedented calm, taking this life-changing news and reading it off like a fucking weather report. It’s the Weather app, you know, it’s not reliable. You never know when it’s going to rain, and, yeah, Tara, by the way, your mother is dead. Just wanted to let you know.
Amber looks toward Tara, kind of expecting her to cry. She’s always been sensitive, emotional. Crying over small inconveniences and big emotions, positive and negative and everything in between. Amber’s half-convinced that she’s used up all of her tear ducts for her whole life by now with how often she lets them loose. Maybe that explains this—now—why Tara is just sitting here, silent, stoic, still like the whole world has stopped.
A sense of helplessness, the same sense that plagued her when she saw the fire, nags at her stomach. She’s in over her head. She wants to help Tara, but how can she? She barely knows how to work through her own emotions, let alone someone else’s, let alone how someone reacts to the death of their mother.
COP (CONT’D): Luckily, we’ve determined the cause of the fire as well. It seems that a lit cigarette was left out near your curtains, which set them aflame, and the poorly structured base of the house caught flame along with it. Does this seem accurate along with what you experienced?
It’s all like that. Impersonal. Like Tara’s whole life being ruined is just another blemish on this man’s day. Tara doesn’t speak through the rest of the questioning, just staring at her hands, the bandages that wrap tightly around them. She can’t do anything on her own with them on. They’re too thick, take up too much room. She couldn’t tap a phone screen if she had one, couldn't pick up a cup of water, couldn't so much as adjust her sheets. She’s at the whim and will of the world, the whim and will of the men in front of her, talking about all this nonsense. Her house is gone. Her mother is dead. Can’t this wait? Can’t any of it wait?
They wind up playing this strange sort of game with Tara, a game of yes and no. Every question must be a yes or no so Tara can nod or shake her head accordingly, like a survey:
✓ YES, the fire started in the living room.
✓ YES, someone was smoking in the house prior to the fire starting.
✗ NO, it was not me.
✓ YES, it was my mother.
Over and over and over. Amber can do nothing but hold Tara’s wrist. She feels helpless, really, even though she’s not the one in the hospital bed, not the one with her life ripped away, but in a way it feels like she’s lost something valuable. Something about the way Tara reaches for her touch but does not turn to look at her, does not try to speak. It’s like she’s too upset to cry but also too upset to smile, too upset to do anything, really. She just lets Amber hold her wrist and rests her head on her shoulder and is quiet. She’s silent for hours, really. A lawyer comes by and she sleeps and wakes up before she finally speaks. She says: “You know, I’ll be able to afford college now.”
Amber tilts her head to look at her, confused. “What? What do you mean?”
“Mom,” Tara says, simple, like it explains everything. “She had some shitty life insurance plan. I mean, it won’t pay for—fucking, I don’t know, NYU, but… it’ll pay for something.”
Amber has known Tara to be a lot of things over the course of their however-many-year friendship, but sardonic was never one of them. She’s emotional. She wears her heart on her sleeve no matter how many times it gets broken. It’s almost as brave as it is naive. Amber admires it. “...Tara.”
“Isn’t that kind of funny? She couldn’t do shit for me alive but she dies in a house fire she caused with a lit cigarette and now it’s like I suddenly have a future.” Tara’s eyes are distant, like she’s imagining this future right now. “Am I supposed to love her or hate her for that?”
Amber’s always been clueless when it comes to feelings. Hopefully this is a rhetorical question. “I don’t know. Maybe you can do both.”
Tara doesn’t answer, just rests her cheek on Amber’s shoulder. Fuck. Amber hadn’t accounted for that when she planned on slicing her there. Now that she remembers, though, she crosses it off the list. Tara’s cheek should never be hurt. The warmth of her breath on Amber’s shoulder is far too important for that.
She leaves her phone in the corner of the room powered down, plugged into the charger. When she turns it back on for even a moment, it vibrates like crazy. Richie won’t leave her alone.
RICHIE: The plan can’t just be over, Amber. There’s a lot riding on this
RICHIE: Pick up the phone when I call you
RICHIE: PICK UP THE FUCKING PHONE THIS IS IMPORTANT
RICHIE: I told you your little friend was going to get in the way. That’s why she was meant to be the opening kill. This was what was supposed to happen. You can’t let this derail EVERYTHING! CALL SAM! GET HER THERE
RICHIE: Fine. I’ll do it myself. Don’t bother texting, and don’t assume anyone is safe
Amber’s not so dumb that she doesn’t know this is a threat. It is. It means he’s going to come here and he’s going to kill everyone. But Amber and Tara are in the hospital and for now, for tonight, they are safe. He can’t get through all that security, and if he does, then… Amber will talk him down. She’ll manage. For now, Tara’s mom is dead and she still hasn’t cried and she needs Amber and Amber will be there. She’ll be there.
[On Sam’s 18th birthday, Tara spent the whole day crying. She had ditched school, sick, and Amber had left immediately after realizing that Tara wasn’t there, slipping right out the back door in between homeroom and first period. It was way too easy for a sixth grader to run away from the adults in charge, but even today, Amber is grateful for it. She’s grateful that she was able to run across town to Tara’s house and climb up to her second-floor window back before the neighbors had cut down that tree.
She throws pebbles like Romeo and Tara answers like Juliet. Usually it’s a fun little game, playing Shakespeare, playing love and romance, but Tara didn’t seem in the mood to play. She barely seemed in the mood to open her window at all, but after a moment of hesitation, she did it anyway, lifting it just enough for Amber to sneak through, but only if she really, really wanted. Amber wanted.
Amber toed off her shoes and rested next to Tara in bed, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. Tara sniffled on occasion, eyes puffy and red like she was stoned or grieving. She had flipped over so her face was buried in Amber’s chest when she finally told her the truth: Sam’s gone. Everyone’s gone. It’s all ruined . She had told Amber all she knew about the fight, the journals, her parents. It wasn’t much. It was barely anything. That was more frustrating than anything, Amber had thought. Everyone gets to leave and Tara doesn’t even get to know why.
“It must be something about me,” Tara murmured into Amber’s shoulder. “There must be something wrong with me. People don’t want to be around me. I push them away. I don’t- I don’t give them a reason to stay.”
Amber had kissed her shoulder and whispered: “Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?”]
Tara doesn’t ask about the phone. Amber doesn’t ask about Tara’s, either. It was just one of the many things that got left behind in that house. It’s a bit sad to think about, really. Tara had so little as it was, and everything she did have, everything she held dear aside from a few plushies was gone, ash. When Amber looks at Tara, she wishes that she could read her mind. Maybe then she could know the right thing to say, the right question to ask to pull her out of this mood, pull her out of her head.
Tara sits there, sad, and Amber sits there, and blurts: “I hope your nose is still pretty when they take the bandages off.”
Immediately, she goes red, mortified. This is why you can’t count on her to start important conversations. Like, what the fuck kind of bullshit was that? That wasn’t—that was barely even a compliment. That was kind of an insult. That was definitely not a question about Tara’s well-being. It definitely wasn’t going to make her feel better. It—but wait, maybe not all hope is lost, because Tara scoffs out a laugh. “You think my nose is pretty? Or—sorry. You thought my nose was pretty?”
“Well, yes,” Amber scoffs. Obviously. Who the fuck wouldn’t? “You have a little button nose. Actually, maybe the burn scars will make it look even more cute. Like a kitten.”
Tara seems baffled but also flattered. “You’re such an idiot,” she says, not unkindly.
“Yeah. That’s fair. I just…” She wrings her fingers, nudging her shoulder against Tara’s. “I’m worried about you.”
“So you insult my nose?”
“No. Yes. Fuck. I know. I’m an idiot; I thought we agreed on that already. I just want you to be okay,” Amber insists. “You deserve that, at least. To be okay.” Tara doesn’t need to know that Amber ever thought anything different: that she needed to change, mature, grow with the times. She doesn’t need to know about Amber’s plan or Richie’s texts or any of it. Amber isn’t going to hurt her anymore.
“I know you want me to be okay. You don’t need to remind me,” Tara says. Her voice is slightly muffled by the mask, her breath slightly loud. “You… ran into a burning house to save me, and stayed inside to save my stuffed animals. You… you’re like, my hero or whatever.”
Amber’s stomach twists with guilt. “I’m not a hero. Don’t say that. I just got there at the right time. I wanted to surprise you. I had the actually good UberEats promo, finally. We were supposed to eat like kings.”
“I was scared,” Tara admits, quiet, barely a whisper. “I couldn’t think. It was like the smoke had fogged up my brain. I knew that Mom—I knew, and I didn’t know how to do any of it by myself. I would’ve sat up there with my toys and burned without you. I think that makes you my hero.”
“Anyone in their right mind would have done what I did.”
“But they didn’t. You did. You’re the only one. You’re the only one here right now. You’re the one who held my hand during that broncho whatever. You listened to everything the doctors said. I know that I don’t need to thank you for caring about me, but you have to know that you’re going above and beyond. You have to know that you’re all I have, now, and…” Tara hesitates a moment. “I don’t mean that to pressure you, but I mean it as thank you. For staying. And I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Amber replies, easily. Like a reflex. “I couldn’t think in there. All I could think about was you. We’re lucky the fire wasn’t in your room. I’m not sure I would’ve remembered to stop, drop, and roll. That’s how stupid I was at that moment.”
“I… understand that you’re worried. And I understand why.” Tara pauses, taking a breath. “And I promise I’ll talk to you, okay? But it all just feels like a dream right now, and I’m not sure I want it to end yet because then everything will be real. Done. You know? This will be my life. I’m not ready for that yet.”
“I get that,” Amber says. She does. That’s how she felt turning off her phone, putting off Richie until another day. “That’s okay. As long as you know that I won’t go anywhere. Ever. I got a taste of what it felt like to lose you, and I’m never going to feel that way again. You hear me?”
Tara leans into Amber’s side even more. “Yeah. I hear you.”
[Amber doesn’t remember the first day that she met Tara very well. It exists in one picture in her mind, a single still image, frozen in time forever, like in a museum: an old, dusty portrait with a spotlight on it, covered up in gloss and frames and a glass container to keep the specks of paint from flicking off every time you so much as breathe near it. Something like the Mona Lisa: beautiful in its simplicity.
In her memory, Amber isn’t sure how old she is. She thinks she must have been in kindergarten—one of the first memories she can really sink her teeth into: see and be there—but it’s Tara standing in front of her at the water fountain as Amber waits in line behind her. She can’t see her face at all, but she can see her hair. It’s long and dark, like a princess.
Tara’s hair goes basically halfway down her back, and yet it’s still so smooth, soft, glowy, like she had drawn it up on a piece of construction paper and covered it all with a glue stick and then drenched it with glitter that you can only see if you tilt it back and forth in the light.
Tara’s outfit changes each time she summons the image. The class they were both in changes every time, too—it’s kindergarten, were there really any classes at all, when you think about it? But Tara’s hair is the same every time. And Amber still remembers sitting across from her at a table when they were drawing, and she remembers having those fancy, scented markers that everyone in the class always wanted to use, and when she caught Tara looking, she asked if she wanted to share.
To be honest, Amber doesn’t really remember that part either. It’s just Tara with her hair and Amber’s markers, and then the slideshow flits right over to the two of them side by side, and she is giggling because Tara got the pink watermelon-scented marker all over her nose. There was a picture of it. If it wasn’t for that picture, the color might have changed in her mind every day, too. Now that she thinks about it, that probably turned to ash with the rest of Tara’s house.]
A few of their friends come by when Tara’s asleep: Chad and Wes and Mindy and Liv. They scratch the chairs on the hospital floor until they are all pressed right up against Tara’s bed, wanting to be as close as can be. Amber is the closest, obviously, gently holding Tara’s wrist, while the others take turns playing games to manifest some good luck for their friend.
Mindy talks all about fire in horror movies, how they like it when it’s used to represent a rebirth of some sort: yes, the house burned down, but the house was full of pesky Ghosts and Memories anyway; maybe sometimes things have to burn so the people inside can survive. Like The Boogeyman. Maybe it will be nice to start fresh, be someone new, go somewhere new, when the old memories do nothing but make you feel worse.
Wes reads some of Tara’s favorite poems. Amber doesn’t like him, the way he follows Tara around like a dog chasing a cat that doesn’t care for it too much, tongue out and panting, clunky and loud and awkward. What was only a day or so in the past but feels like a lifetime ago, Amber would have killed him for it, but now, she sits quietly as he reads:
You said Will you love me even more when I’m dead?
And I said No, and I threw the pills on the sand.
Look at them, you said. They look like emeralds.
Chad talks in stupid sports metaphors: football games and teamwork and can-do attitude and what-the-fuck-ever, and Liv insists that they try and meditate, listening to some dumb podcast she found on YouTube. It tells Amber to imagine a beach, and instead, she imagines Tara back in the house, tears on her face, glistening in the light. She imagines all of Tara’s stuffed animals that fell out of her arms, dropping to the carpet, turned into nothing but ash. She remembers Tara’s favorite clothes, and Tara’s favorite scrunchie, and she remembers Tara’s mother: even on her worst days, getting closer and closer until now, closer and closer to the end, she always left a box of Tara’s favorite candy in the pantry, refilling it when it ran low. It doesn’t make up for years and years of neglect, but Amber remembers the way that Tara would pause, just for a moment, whenever she saw it: a life. A love. A family. Like a symptom of a fever dream.
Needless to say, the meditation doesn’t go so well. Tara sleeps and her friends leave and Amber waits for her to wake up. Maybe this time her lungs won’t hurt so bad. Her oxygen levels will have risen and she can take off the mask, finally, breathe. Go… somewhere. Not here.
When Tara does wake up, she asks about it. Or, well, she says: “I don’t know where I’m going to go.” It’s a quiet sort of thought. Like a confession, even though Tara has no reason to feel guilty or ashamed. “I’m 18. That’s… too old for foster care.”
“Don’t be dumb,” Amber says, just as quiet. The moment has a sort of fragility to it, and she can’t break it by speaking too loud, sounding too excited, too sad. “You’ll stay with me.”
Tara shakes her head. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You don’t have to. I’m offering.” Amber shrugs her shoulders. Maybe that will make all of this seem casual, like Amber had not almost lost her mind at the thought of a world without Tara, like the thought of Tara in even a modicum of pain didn’t make her want to fucking scream. “You sleep over most nights anyway. You have your own toothbrush and everything.”
Tara’s face goes through a series of odd emotions. It’s the same humility first—wanting to turn down Amber’s offer just to be polite, kind Tara like she always is—before the realization comes that what used to be Tara’s extra toothbrush at Amber’s house is now her only toothbrush. The pajama pants she left in Amber’s house are hers, and they are all she has. Something survived. Everything is gone but something survived. It’s gratitude and it’s pain and for the first time, Tara tears up.
“My toothbrush,” she repeats.
“Yours,” Amber confirms.
[Guilt settles heavy in her stomach. She remembers this movie she liked about aliens. There was a page in the script that didn’t look like a traditional screenplay at all. The main character was frozen in the air and all the page said, over and over and over, was shecan’tmoveshecan’tmoveshecan’tmove, any thoughts and feelings forced to live in the middle of all of that. The guilt weighs on her in much the same way. There’s a phantom pain on her ankle where she had stuck her knife in her boot while walking, like it sliced right up her shin. It didn’t. There’s no blood. But Amber can feel the sting anyway.
Tara had spent her whole life suffering. She had spent her whole life afraid. Who was Amber to tell her that she wasn’t coping correctly? That she wasn’t growing up fast enough, the girl who was paying her own fucking electricity bill and phone bill and cooking for herself because no adult in her life would do it for her? Who was Amber to judge? Who was Amber to fault her? Who was Amber to do anything but love her?
Tara blows in a little tube to test her lungs. She looks like a kid, blowing bubbles.
That’s the worst part, isn’t it? Amber does love her, more than anything, more than everything. It’s impossible not to be endeared to her. Impossible not to fall to the whims of her puppy dog eyes or quivering lip or just a simple pretty please. With just a word from Tara Amber would throw anything away. Anything. And yet there was a phone in her hand and a knife in her boot and she was going to stab her, again and again and again. Traumatize her so she could grow. So they could get closer. If it wasn’t for the fire, Amber would have done it; nothing would have changed her mind.
Maybe that’s what the point of hell is. The fire is not to punish you; it’s to cleanse you. Burn the sin away like bacteria, boiling the blood out of the water. It destroyed Tara’s life and saved Amber’s. It boiled the sin and now all Amber is left with is this awful, charred feeling of guilt. Humiliation. Weakness. She wonders fruitlessly if it will ever go away.]
Chapter 3: there's nothing wrong with us as far as i can see
Summary:
Amber finally decides to ask the question that’s been weighing on the back of her mind, a nagging fear she’s put off for as long as possible: “Were you thinking of calling her?” A moment of silence, hesitation; she can’t bring herself to say it. “...Sam?”
Tara’s face tightens. She shrugs. “She must know. Someone probably told her. Her mother is dead. I know she didn’t want to acknowledge her family, but it doesn’t change the fact that she had one. She’s probably mom’s emergency contact or some shit. She probably didn’t even pick up.”
Amber doesn’t want Sam to come here. If she comes here, Richie will follow. Richie will follow and Amber will have to come clean about everything—she’s not ready for that. Not yet. But… She can’t help but think about how much Tara needs her right now: family. Her mom sucked, but she was there. Amber is here now, yeah, but Amber had been walking to her house with plans to fucking stab her, so that betrayal would destroy her without someone to lean on. “I wouldn’t answer some random fucking number either, but I would always answer if it was you."
--
Amber spends more time with Tara at the hospital and combats her hero worship.
Notes:
Surprise :)
I've been trying to write more recently, so here's a shorter update for this. I'm not sure if I'll continue this story from here, but I just thought it would be nice to at least give them their romance so we could actually reach the "lovers" part of friends to lovers.
I have tons of unfinished Tamber stories but for some reason with them it's hard to come up with ideas for stories that aren't basically novel length which is not something I have the mental capacity for right now!!! But know that I still think about them all the time and def still lurk in Tamber twitter and will post any story I do manage to finish <3
Hope you like this update!!!!
Chapter Text
After a few more days in the hospital, Tara’s lungs are looking well enough that she can switch to a cannula. She doesn’t need to pull her mask down to speak anymore, and she seems in better spirits than before. Amber stops back by her house to shower and get some of her things since Tara is more up for activities now. The first thing Tara does when she gets ahold of Amber’s laptop, however, is to go look at colleges. There’s a quiet sort of hope behind her eyes—the way the corner of her lips quirks up just the tiniest bit—that Amber has never seen on her before.
“We’re going to a city school, right?” Tara asks, sparing Amber a glance before she continues her scrolling. “There’s more people. We can walk everywhere. It will feel more home-y, don’t you think?”
“That sounds nice,” Amber agrees, resting her chin on her hand, tilting her head to see the computer. It’s near black due to Amber’s privacy screen, but she can pick up a word or two here or there. “I want to go to New York. I get that Hollywood is, like, film capital, but… I think it would be good for us to get away from the west coast for a few years, yeah?”
Tara does smile at this, her whole face brightening, a bit of a flush on her cheeks. “Yeah, totally. That was actually at the top of my list. Blackmore University. It’s right in New York City. It’s always been, like, my dream school, but I never thought I could afford it.”
The until now remains unspoken. Until my mom died and her life insurance saved my ass. Amber lets her keep it quiet, just smiles. “They have a film studies major?”
“Of course. And we can push our dorm beds together to make one big bed. Wouldn’t that be cool?” Tara asks with a gentle wonder Amber hasn’t heard from her in years—no hope. None of that optimism.
“Really cool,” Amber tells her. “We’ll leave the dorms as soon as possible, though. They’re always a scam. So shitty you wouldn’t believe it.”
Tara frowns. “It’s part of the college experience.”
“You don’t know jack shit about the college experience.” Amber presses her leg a bit closer to Tara’s, wanting the gentle reminder of her warmth, her breath, alive, alive, alive.
“Yeah, but I will. From living in a dorm.”
Amber rolls her eyes. “Fine. But when it sucks, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“It won’t suck.” Tara seems very firm in her belief. “It’s going to be me and you. That can’t be too bad. Our beds will be pushed together.” There’s an emphasis on the words, like they’re more than just words. Our beds, pushed together. Us, together. Our bed. It’s almost romantic. It creates a strange sort of feeling in Amber’s stomach, warm, like when her cheeks go red, but all in her chest, like all her blood is rushing right to her heart. Weird; isn’t blood supposed to do that anyway?
“I guess that’s a good point,” she concedes. “I already know you’re not a shitty roommate.”
“You’re a good roommate, too,” Tara says, reading between the lines. “I mean, you’ve already been sleeping in those awful chairs for days. For me. You’re, like, a simp actually. You would do anything for me, wouldn’t you?”
Oh. Yeah. Now the cheeks are red, too. Great. Can’t the blood just pick one place to go? “Shut up. Oh my god.”
“You don’t want me to shut up. You missed my voice so bad when you could only hear it through my breathing mask. You were nervous I would never be able to talk again.” Her voice is teasing. Her grin is teasing. Amber’s gut feels like it’s sinking down to her toes, slow, like molasses, like sludge. Like drowning. She can only imagine how her face darkens because Tara’s smile fades near immediately.
“Yeah,” Amber says, bland, numb. “I guess I was afraid about that.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think-”
“No, no, Tara. It’s fine. You’re the one who nearly…” She trails off. “You're the one whose house burned down.”
With bandaged hands, Tara reaches out and presses her knuckles against Amber’s shoulder, a lighthearted punch. The bandage is rough against Amber’s skin where it peeks out from beneath her sleeve. “You’re the one who saved me from the burning house. With, like, almost all of my stuffed animals.”
“Almost,” Amber repeats, feeling downcast all of a sudden despite Tara’s reassurance. “Which ones got left behind?”
Tara lets out a breath and slowly closes her laptop. She seems embarrassed, shuffling awkwardly under the hospital sheets. She puts her arm over Barry, her stuffed bear, who had been resting right by her shoulder as if to hide him. “Does it matter?”
Amber raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Of course it does. You were- you were going to- to… you were only still in there for them. So yeah. They matter. You decided that they matter.”
Tara bites the inside of her cheek, grinding it between her teeth. “Curly,” she confesses, finally, very soft. “The wombat. Bibble from that Barbie movie. A few others.” She sniffles. “They’re just—they were the only things I had left. You have to understand.”
“I do,” Amber tells her, immediately. “I do understand. That’s why I went back for them, too. I’m sorry I couldn’t hold them all.”
Tara’s lip quivers, fragile. Her eyes are frozen on the edge of the bed, away from Amber. “I can’t believe you did that for me. I still can’t believe it. I think about it every day; it’s almost hard to look at you. How can I ever look at you and not feel, like, stupid hero worship? Or just this impossible debt that I can’t ever pay off?”
“Hey. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s all paid off. When I saw that smoke, I thought-” Amber cuts herself off. The silence speaks loud enough. “I needed you. I need you. You don’t need to pay me back. I love you. Your fucking existence is enough. You hear me?”
Tara hesitates, then nods. She rests her head in her favorite spot against Amber’s shoulder and pulls Barry close to her chest.
Whenever Tara sleeps, Amber looks up what you’re supposed to do after a fire. There’s a lot of fucking people you have to call, it turns out. You have to call your water people and your electricity people and your HVAC people or whatever so they don’t keep charging you for shit you’re not using. With Tara’s permission, Amber pretends to be her for a little while, sorting everything out for her.
There’s home insurance and there are things to sort out with Tara’s mom’s funeral and her will and her estate. Tara lets Amber sit in on those conversations, too: apparently she hadn’t left anything for Sam, a brutal reminder of Tara’s lack of family. It’s all Tara’s. To make up for it, the will said. Legal document. It’s not very specific, but they don’t need a will and testament to know all the shit Tara’s mother had put her through for years.
Tara decides to use some of her mom’s life insurance to give her a funeral. For closure. The doctors tell her she should be out of the hospital in a day or so; she schedules it for four days away. It looms. They speak to people on Zoom and point at gravestones Tara’s mom might have found nice. All Tara knows is that she wanted to be buried here, in this town, her home: the place where her life had come and gone without her notice or permission. Amber writes the obituary, and Tara pretends to read it before giving her approval, closing the laptop.
It’s after that day—the day with the lawyer and the will—that Amber finally decides to ask the question that’s been weighing on the back of her mind, a nagging fear she’s put off for as long as possible: “Were you thinking of calling her?” A moment of silence, hesitation; she can’t bring herself to say it: “...Sam?”
Tara’s face tightens. She shrugs. “She must know. Someone probably told her. Her mother is dead. I know she didn’t want to acknowledge her family, but it doesn’t change the fact that she had one. She’s probably mom’s emergency contact or some shit. She probably didn’t even pick up.”
Amber doesn’t want Sam to come here. If she comes here, Richie will follow. Richie will follow and Amber will have to come clean about everything—she’s not ready for that. Not yet. But she can’t help but think about how much Tara needs her right now: family. Her mom sucked, but she was there. Amber is here now, yeah, but Amber had been walking to her house with plans to fucking stab her, so that betrayal would destroy her without someone to lean on. “I wouldn’t answer some random fucking number either, but I would always answer if it was you. Or, I guess, me, since your phone is shot.”
Tara thinks about this for a moment, taking a breath. “I’m not sure I want her here. Is that bad? If… For a while, she was all I wanted. I just wanted her to walk through the door and tell me that everything was going to be okay, but she never did. Never. And when everything was literally on fire, I thought I was all alone. I thought I was going to die alone. No family. No one left who loved me, and then- you were there—like an angel, Amber—and I felt it. I felt loved, like someone worth saving. I don’t need her when I have you.”
Amber doesn’t want to let it inflate her ego because she does feel guilty. She really does, but something about it almost feels good. Tara needs her. Tara needs her and Tara loves her more than anything else in the world. Amber is the only thing between Tara and hopelessness, and she’s doing it. She’s protecting her from it. The opening attack was never meant to kill Tara. Never. It was supposed to make her mature, all with Amber’s help. In a way, it’s like the best of both worlds. The only way this could be better is if she weren’t hurt.
She sits down on the edge of Tara’s bed, resting her hand lightly over the cast on Tara’s broken leg, moving it back and forth as if Tara could feel any of it. “You are worth saving,” she says. “And I can’t believe you ever thought otherwise. Tara, why?”
Tara watches Amber’s hand as it moves, like she’s yearning for it, like she longs to feel it. “Because you’re the only one here. You’re the only person who has ever thought that I’m worth disrupting your life. I think… I always believed that every person will get one other person in the world that’s just, like, destined to love them. They’re destined to love each other forever, and I didn’t think I was worthy of it. I thought I was unlovable, but I was wrong. I was wrong because you love me like that. Enough to run into a freaking burning building. You’re my miracle.”
“God,” Amber says, like a reflex, unable to hold it back. “Don’t fucking say that.”
“It’s true.”
“It’s not!”
“It’s true to me! I was perfectly content to burn in that house, and you didn’t let that happen. You’re a hero, and every other good thing I’ve said about you. I mean it.”
Amber can’t stand it, suddenly. Can’t stand to hear it. She shakes her head. “Stop!”
“Why? Why won’t you let me-”
“Because I’m not a good person!” Amber explodes, pushing up off the bed to stand and only realizing how much weight she had put on Tara’s broken leg when she winces in her hospital bed, shifting away. “I’m sorry, Tara, but I’m not. I’m selfish. And I always think I know what’s best, but really I’m just fucking clueless. You only look up to me like this because all your role models were so fucking shitty!”
Tara’s eyes fill with tears immediately. “You can’t tell me how I feel. What does it matter why I feel that way?”
“Because you got your ticket out! And, yeah, you got it in an awful way, but it’s yours! You’re going to leave this shitty town, and you’re going to meet so many better people, and I don’t want you to be… stuck to me like this! I don’t deserve it!”
“You mean you don’t want it?” Tara says, sounding devastated. “Or because you don’t think you’re worthy of it?”
“No one could ever be worthy of you. Be so fucking serious!” Amber says, and Tara’s face scrunches up in confusion, barely able to distinguish between the angry delivery of the words and their flattering content. “I’m not an angel. Okay? You are. You’re so… sweet. And kind, and forgiving, and trusting, and naive, but in this cute fucking way that who could ever fault you for it? You’re smart and you’re going to get the fuck out of here and live a better life than any of the other dickheads at school! You’re probably going to fucking—I don’t know—paint pretty murals that uplift communities or, like, offer free counseling sessions for struggling teens, or be in charge of graphic design for some amazing fucking nonprofit because you’re an amazing fucking person! I’m not. Okay? I’m selfish. I want things because I want to beat other people. I want to be better than them. I’m a good friend to you because I want to be the best friend you’ve ever had. I want you to love me more than you love anyone else. I want to make movies so I can show these asshole idiot fucking directors that their hard work means nothing because they don’t fucking compare to me! I’m not empathetic. I’m not nice. I’m not good!”
“You’re good to me! You treat me with more compassion than anyone else ever has. Even before all of this!” Tara says, gesturing wildly to the hospital room. “You… you came to my debate competition. And—yeah, the others did too, but I’m not stupid. I know you’re the one who reminded them. And you always get me the most thoughtful presents, and, and you help me figure out all of this stupid adult stuff—you wrote my mom’s literal obituary. Do you know how insane that is? I don’t care how you treat other people. I don’t care if you hate all of them, if they hate you. I will always, always be on your side.”
Amber rubs her hands over her face, exasperated. “Do you hear how fucking crazy you sound?”
“I don’t sound crazy-”
“You do! You do because I just told you that I don’t give a fuck about anything in the world except you loving me and you’re still acting all cute with me!”
“Because that’s all I care about, too!”
“No it’s fucking not.”
“Oh my god! Stop: I’m telling you my feelings; you can’t not agree with them! This isn’t English class. It’s not up for interpretation.” Tara is nearly leaning across the bed now, clearly wanting to touch Amber in some way, but Amber won’t give in. All of this is completely fucking crazy. “You need to cut this out, and you need to stop putting me on a pedestal!”
“You’re not on a pedestal! You’re just—you’re just generally good, but I’m so fucking far below that you seem like a fucking saint!” Amber feels almost out of control, like she wants to confess, like she can’t hold it back anymore.
“That’s not true!” Tara’s face is red, defiant. She looks like she’s on the brink of tears. “You’re not a bad person. You’re good! You don’t have to be the most, I don’t know, considerate person on the planet to be a good person!”
“I don't care about people! That's what I'm trying to tell you! I don't care about people. I only care about you. I didn't love a single fucking person until I met you!” Amber exclaims. “Not at all. Not my mom or my dad or any of my fucking childhood friends. They could've died and I wouldn't have given a fuck. Not one. Not until you."
Tara pulls back a little bit, surprised. “You don’t mean that.”
“I mean it,” Amber says. She takes a step closer to Tara’s bed, Tara’s face, meeting her teary eyes with wide ones, dead serious. “I’m a terrible person. I’m not misunderstood. You are the only thing that makes me even slightly redeemable.”
“You saved my life.”
“Because I’m selfish,” Amber tells her. “Because without you, I wouldn’t feel anything anymore.”
“It’s not selfish to love me,” Tara replies immediately. “That’s what that is. Love. You’re not a bad person for saving me because you love me. It’s not selfish to want what’s best for me.”
To want what’s best for her. Tara doesn’t know what she’s saying, allowing, forgiving. She doesn’t know, and Amber doesn’t want to tell her, but she wants her to understand. She kneels down a little, eye-level with Tara. “You have no idea the terrible things I would do for you. Really terrible things.”
Tara just stares at her for a minute, eyes gleaming with frustration and filled with unshed tears. She bites her lip hard between her teeth, clearly upset that she’s not getting through to Amber with her absolutely insane points. She stares before she reaches for Amber and pulls her in by the back of the neck and presses their lips together.
Amber is too shell-shocked to move, to respond. She sits there, unable to describe how it feels. It’s not-quite loving, romantic, she thinks. It’s loving in the same way CPR is; like, yeah, you’re trying to save someone’s life, but it’s more about fear than it is about love. But Tara’s bandaged hands slip around Amber’s head, brushing roughly against her neck as Tara uses her wrists to pull her closer. Amber lets the force move her, unable to fight it, unsure whether or not she wants to.
Looking at it logically: her heart is racing. Pounding. Amber doesn’t think she’s felt this frightened, this much adrenaline pumping through her, since—well, since she was running around a burning house trying to save her best friend. Yeah, she ran into a burning house to save this girl. Tara’s lips are soft, even if she kisses like she’s desperate, like there’s smoke in her lungs and Amber is her only breath of fresh air. She thinks she might like it. She thinks the blood is rushing to her face and to her hips and definitely away from her fingers and her lips, which are tingling with pressure, and does cheating count when it’s with another girl who happens to be your best friend who almost died in a fire? Oh fuck. Cheating.
She pulls away from Tara, who looks at her with wide, petrified eyes, clearly afraid that she’s messed everything up. No, no, she definitely didn’t mess anything up. Amber did. By listening to her dumb-fuck boyfriend—no, revise—her dumb-fuck, soon-to-be-ex boyfriend, next time she picks up her phone. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good decision. She can start to make up for all of this. Is this repenting? Amber wants to repent. She can get on her knees and pray. She can give some Hail Marys and kiss up Tara’s thighs, kiss the cast of her broken leg, the bandages on her fingers, the burns on her nose, everything, all of it, and maybe everything will magically be better. She wants to do it. She desperately wants to, suddenly. What the hell?
Amber exhales shakily before throwing herself forward to kiss Tara again, and, with another start, she realizes that this is actually her first kiss and this is a lot harder than she thought it was going to be: an awkward mash of lips and and tongue and—fuck, maybe there definitely should not be tongue this early—but it’s Tara. And the awkwardness doesn’t even feel awkward. She just feels a bit shy, like a schoolgirl with a crush, like she’s going to pull away from this and bite her lip and brush her hair behind her ear like Debby fucking Ryan. If she ever pulls away. She might never pull away, actually. She reaches to cup Tara’s face, brushing her thumb gently over the bandage on her nose before pulling her closer. Tara goes with it, pliant.
Amber throws herself into the physicality of the kiss, the warm press of Tara’s lips against hers, the warm wet of her saliva, the sweet dampness of her cheeks, her tears, the saltiness of it all, tears overpowering everything else. It makes her want to cry. It feels right, somehow; everything feels right.
[A secret: Tara broke her arm in 9th grade, and, while waiting out in the lobby, Amber had gotten a call from an unknown number. She hesitates before answering it, already having seen Stab by that point. No need to be unnecessarily risky. The voice is familiar. Amber nearly gasps at the sound.
“Is this… Amber? ” Sam asks, tentative. “Don’t hang up.”
Amber doesn’t. Amber doesn’t do much of anything but sit there imagining Tara on that day, Sam’s 18th birthday, crying, inconsolable, bags half-unpacked on the bedroom floor.
“I got a call from the hospital. I just—is she okay? ”
“Is she okay?” Amber repeats, ashamed to find that her voice is shaking. “Is she fucking okay? You don’t get to ask that. You don’t—why the fuck should you get to know?”
Sam exhales, heavy. “I know. I know you hate me, and you’re… right. It’s fair, but, I know it’s hard to believe, but I love her, and I did this because it was what was best for her, and I’m not—I won’t come… throw myself back in her life. I just need to know she’s alright.”
“You’re full of yourself,” Amber spits. “You know this is going to give her hope. She’s going to go right back to sending you those huge DMs from burner accounts on Instagram every day. She’s going to try and find you online, try and make us take another road trip to visit you. Is that what you want, Sam? If not, then you’re cruel.”
“It won’t. She’s not going to do any of those things because you’re not going to tell her I called,” Sam says, much to Amber’s surprise. “It’ll be our secret. Just tell me she’s alright.”
“...What?”
“Tell me she’s alright, and you’ll never hear from me again.”
“It’s… I don’t want to be in this position. I don’t wanna lie to Tara. I don’t lie to Tara.”
“I know. Maybe it is a little selfish, but if I called the hospital, they would have to alert her. Please, Amber. You know what she’s like. She’s so… small. Fragile. I keep imagining it…”
Amber hesitates. Tara is small, delicate. Like a little doll with yarn for hair and felt for skin and cotton for muscle. “...Her arm is broken. She has to wear a cast for six weeks, but everything is fine otherwise. I’ll help her. I’m just going to be on cooking duty more often.”
Sam hangs up the phone, just like that, but Amber keeps the phone to her ear, listening to the dial tone.]
reidvintxge on Chapter 1 Thu 18 Jan 2024 03:48PM UTC
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Akidreader (Guest) on Chapter 1 Thu 18 Jan 2024 04:45PM UTC
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flawlessdamie on Chapter 1 Thu 18 Jan 2024 07:48PM UTC
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Supercorpforendgame on Chapter 1 Thu 18 Jan 2024 09:40PM UTC
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Taylor (Guest) on Chapter 2 Mon 22 Jan 2024 02:03AM UTC
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Hi there (Guest) on Chapter 2 Mon 22 Jan 2024 02:06AM UTC
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Really_Good_Name on Chapter 2 Mon 22 Jan 2024 03:57AM UTC
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Supercorpforendgame on Chapter 2 Thu 25 Jan 2024 06:10AM UTC
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fudgeroach on Chapter 2 Tue 26 Mar 2024 09:13PM UTC
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Wooooolymamoth on Chapter 2 Sun 10 Nov 2024 05:37PM UTC
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Lamparcik (Guest) on Chapter 2 Sat 28 Dec 2024 11:04AM UTC
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antm on Chapter 2 Sat 01 Mar 2025 09:41AM UTC
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steponmeleonhart on Chapter 2 Fri 25 Apr 2025 10:34PM UTC
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f0rgetmen0t on Chapter 3 Mon 05 May 2025 09:46PM UTC
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Amélie (Guest) on Chapter 3 Thu 08 May 2025 10:53AM UTC
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skullgamerscy on Chapter 3 Tue 05 Aug 2025 06:22PM UTC
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