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 Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 7:44 am
Mr. Darrow was now napping. He had been so happy to see Yvette, even if Yvette was being an absolutely giant baby about particular things. It was a little embarrassing then, and even more embarrassing now.
Next on Yvette's mental list of who to visit was Tara. Fondly she remembered the fact that Tara had been calling Yvette her Padawan. Sure, her friend had explained what it meant before, but it really wasn't sticking. All the girl knew was she was glad to be Tara's Padawan.
Eagerly like a puppy who was ready to explore someplace new, the girl seemed to trot through the hallways of the hospital with her bunches of wildflowers. It wasn't a hospital trip if she didn't bring those flowers with her. She wandered down to the familiar room, but this time she made certain she knocked. She wasn't going to accidentally march in like she owned the place again like she had with Mr. Darrow.
"Um... can I come in... I'm here to visit Tara..."
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 11:32 pm
There was a slight buzz of conversation coming from inside the room. As Yvette knocked, the voices died down. It was silent for several long seconds, until a tired-looking woman opened the door a fraction. When she was satisfied that it wasn't a doctor, she relaxed and opened it up a bit further. "Is there something I can help you with, young lady?" Apparently she hadn't heard anything other than the knock. "The nurse's station is further down."
The inside of the room was visible behind the woman, looking much neater than it had in days previous. The curtain between the beds was drawn again. Tara was lying back, a scarf draped over her eyes. "Am I allowed to look now?" she asked loudly, plainly annoyed with the situation. "I'm old enough to be able to talk to doctors, Mom."
"You're supposed to be resting, baby." Tara's mother frowned, then turned back to the visitor and smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, did you say something?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 8:12 am
The girl almost whimpered when the door opened. The woman would see a short girl who had two bundles of wildflowers separated by two different clumps of aluminum foil. Her eyes had rather quickly darted to the floor, catching upon two pairs of shoes. Her own and the woman's.
When she tried to voice her purpose again, she seemed to waffle for a moment. "Um... uh..." was all she managed to get out when the woman called back into the room. So when she rather quickly got prompted with a simple "did you say something," Yvette's face turned quite pink in embarrassment.
Gulping down a lump of air in her throat, she once more attempted to let her purpose be known. However, her voice was still just as quiet as usual. "I'm here to visit Tara..."
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Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 10:46 pm
"What?" Melanie pushed her hair back, bent down slightly, and frowned a little. "Speak up, dear. I can't hear a word you're saying." In contrast to Yvette's quiet tone, she spoke loud enough to be heard halfway down the hall, and enunciated every word.
It made it very easy for Kent, who was heading that way with a tray of food, to grasp the situation. "Are you sure you're listening, Mother?" he asked as he approached. Inside the room, Tara giggled, while Melanie's expression went stiff. Kent gave her an apologetic glance, but his focus was on the visitor. "Yvette, so nice to see you. I take if you're here to see Tara?" he asked, gently pulling his mother out of her way.
"Yvette?" Tara repeated, sitting bolt upright in bed and ripping the scarf off her head. Suddenly, being stuck in the hospital (again) didn't seem so bad. And she even brought flowers! "Are those for me? You really didn't have to do anything, you know, but thanks!"
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Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 7:46 am
If the girl's cheeks glowed any brighter from all of the blushing she was doing, one might have thought Yvette Weaver was radioactive. This woman really knew how to make the young adult feel absolutely horrible about her already naturally quiet voice. This was never any sort of task that required talent.
If it weren't for Kent appearing when he did, the poor girl would have concluded she was doomed to remain standing outside in the hallway for all eternity. She was thankful, but she couldn't help but feel absolutely hopeless as well. Since talking seemed to be doing her little to no good, she instead replied to her friend's brother with a nod of the head that almost came across like a bobble-head doll's manner of bobbing its head up and down.
It took her a moment or two to look up from the floor. It took another few moments for her purple eyes to take note of the fact she was given passage into the room. Even with the permission, she seemed to step into the room like a cat in unfamiliar territory. Yvette stopped just short of her friend's bed.
"Um... uh... actually..." Her small fingers crinkled some of the aluminum foil about the base of one of the bundles of flowers. "Only some of them are for you...I... I still need to visit Topher's Mommy..."
The young adult now felt as if she had taken her foot and shoved it in her mouth.
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Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 6:59 pm
Yvette was so uncomfortable that it was painful to watch. Tara sighed, glanced at her mother, and then gave Kent a pleading look.
It was easy to pick up on a hint that obvious. "I think Dad was looking for you," Kent interjected. "He wanted you to talk to one of the doctors about release papers."
"Really?" Alarmed, Melanie looked out the door, as if the doctor was there waiting for her. "It's much too soon," she clucked, bustling out of the room. A moment later, she poked her head back in. "Kent, show me where he was."
Flashing the two girls a thumbs up, Kent followed her out. "By the nurses station, I think..."
Tara waited for their voices to fade before speaking again. "I'm sorry about my mother. If it helps at all, she's like that with everyone." Shrugging it off, she tried a smile. It was an awkward fit, but better than the grimace she had before. "If she has her way, I'll be stuck here for the rest of time. That way I can't go missing or comatose on her again."
That train of thought was just depressing, so Tara switched tracks. "Is Topher's mom okay?" she asked, concerned for her teammate. Then, a more pressing question occurred to her. "Are you okay?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 9:47 pm
If she had been a braver soul, she might have dared to nod to Kent in gratitude. However, she remained in place, almost frozen like a fair maiden statue. It took Tara's voice to signal that everything had calmed down. "I-it's okay... I... I just talk too quiet... th-that's all..." Yvette was not ignorant. Shy, yes. Willing to blame herself for nearly anything. Yes. However, she knew that her voice didn't carry very well, if at all.
"...but... um... c-can you thank Kent for me... please?"
Carefully, she then began to approach the vase where she had been consistently placing her flowers. It showed how frequently the small adult had come to visit while her friend was asleep. Setting one batch of flowers to the side, she began to work on getting them in the vase. The question about the various stats of different people caused Yvette's delicate fingers to pause with her work for a moment. "Eva was asleep like you were... she didn't get into an accident... but..." No matter how she wanted to forget it, she couldn't push the images of Eva, Lucas, and Topher during that horrible time. There was so much sadness. For a moment, her purple eyes almost seemed to quiver due to the tears that were starting to build up.
"She was sorely missed..." Perhaps she was taking her time getting to the second question, or maybe Yvette was merely ignoring it, but it seemed as if her own status was being skipped over for now.
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Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 7:02 pm
"You're quiet, sure, but she's too loud." Clearly Tara had mommy issues. "Kent and I are used to covering each other. She's just not good with stress. Ever." She paused. "I'd say that you can thank him yourself the next time you come over, but I'm not sure when that'll be."
That was a hint, but not one that Tara was willing to expand on yet. She let out a breath when she heard that Topher's mom was okay. While she had never met her captain's mother, it was sure to be brutal on him to have her be a victim. Then, when Yvette brought it back to her, she laughed dismissively. "Accident shmaccident. No bus is going to get rid of me that easily."
But her voice trembled as she spoke. Even though Tara was trying to act confident- somebody had to, and it wasn't going to be Yvette- the incident had broken more than just her leg. Something inside had fractured, and was having a hard time healing.
"So what's been going on in the waking world?" she asked, trying to change the subject. "I heard they closed the schools for a while. Guess I won't be that much more behind than I was before, huh?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 04, 2010 11:19 am
Slowly, her thin fingers began to pick up their pace with the flowers. She was nearly done when Tara's voice seemed to reassure her that things were okay. In comparison to herself, Tara was so strong. It made Yvette jealous. Why couldn't she ever be so resilient? Either way, a small, reassured smile did manage to find its way onto her lips.
"There!" Her fingers pulled away from the vase. "It looks much better than before!" Yvette had a strange sense of "looking better" apparently, for it seemed more bizarre than "better."
The girl backed away from the vase and literally bumped into a chair. The vague scraping sound of chair leg against tile floor kinda hurt her ears, and the young adult winced slightly. "S-sorry!" A bit more carefully, she seated herself in that chair.
"Um... l-let's see... um... I've been trying to keep up with the school work... I kn-know that the schools were closed, but I'm still pretty far behind and I really want to graduate... and then there's been work... and then in my free time I was visiting the hospital..." Her voice seemed to dry up, as if she really couldn't think of anything else to say. Her eyes looked up to Tara's as if asking her to say something now.
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Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 12:21 am
Tara nodded her thanks as Yvette presented her with the vase, which was arranged in a definite style (if not a style Tara was familiar with),. "It does," she agreed. "But then, I don't know much about flowers. I think my parents moved them to another room for a while." While she was under a ghetto suicide watch. Yet another reason Tara was annoyed at her parents.
School was an easy topic, work less so, because of the fact that Tara had never had to. "I want to graduate too, but I'm starting to wonder if I can do it before I'm old and gray. With all that's happened, I'm almost wondering if maybe I'm not meant to graduate." Which would make pursuing a career in the sciences hard. "I'll try to help, if you like, but I'm pretty bad at anything that isn't science or math. Or gym, but they don't usually give homework for that one, lucky for us."
It wasn't until Yvette's comments that Tara realized how often she must have come. "You really came while I was under," she said aloud, her voice indicating surprise and... awe? "To... make sure I was okay?" She was unsure, not wanting to assume anything about their friendship. Tara would have come had Yvette been the one in the coma, but only now was she sure that she would have come a lot, and not just because it was convenient. Yvette wasn't just her movie buddy or her fellow organ ring survivor, and she wasn't just a replacement for Laney. She was her friend, and even though Tara was never one for being mushy, she was one of the best friends Tara had ever had.
"I..." It was hard to express what she was feeling, but Tara tried. "Thank you. It means... you have no idea, but thank you, Yvette."
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Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 10:42 pm
Yvette's feet swiveled clockwise, then counterclockwise, repeating this gesture for a moment as she seemed to shuffle slightly. She didn't want to turn her mouth off quite yet, which was a rarity for the girl in a sense. "I... I also visited Laney too... because... um... you know..." Her shoe managed to squeak a bit against the tile, causing the girl to squeak slightly in surprise.
It took her about 3 seconds to recover. "...um... you were sleeping... I figured Laney would want to know..." She eventually switched to her other foot. "A-and I didn't want her to get lonely or to miss you... Tara..."
Her foot stopped prematurely with its swiveling as her friend thanked her. As shy as ever, her purple eyes dared to crawl up to Tara's eyes, as if uncertain as to what the other dark haired girl was trying to say. Yvette was silently asking what do you mean but her mouth eventually managed to get out a simple "uh... um... y-you don't need to thank me..."
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Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 9:57 pm
Tears were not really Tara's thing. Her mother used them often, when she was unhappy about something Tara or Kent did. Sometimes she even used them on her husband, who could usually see past them, but still didn't know how to handle them. Melanie Kavanaugh liked things just so, and when people weren't living up to her expectations, she cried, much to the chagrin of everyone around her.
So Tara didn't cry when she could avoid it. When she was in pain, she screamed and wailed and whined, but she didn't cry. When she was sad, she screamed and wailed and hit things. She had cried for her grandfather, she had cried for Laney Sutton and for Hero Barrett, but otherwise, she dealt with her feelings, her sadness and her pain, in other ways. They were no more constructive than crying, and she knew that, but it still comforted her somewhat to be the sort of person who was not easily moved to tears.
She was still sad, and still in pain. But Yvette coming, saying what she said, doing what she did, somehow made everything better. Just being the person she was, the person who would come to visit regularly, who would even visit people she barely knew just because it would be so deeply appreciated, took some of the burden that Tara had been carrying off of her heart. She had taught herself not to cry when she was upset, but she'd never thought she was the sort of person to cry when she was happy.
As soon as she felt the dampness on her cheeks, Tara buried her head in the sheets. She knew that Yvette would think this was somehow her fault, and while that wasn't really untrue, it also wasn't a bad thing. But there was no snappy comment, no dismissive rebuttal, that could get things back to the way they were. Her voice was a bit strained, but she managed to force out the first words that she could think of:
"Did you know Laney, back at Barren Pines?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 7:36 am
Yvette lived with herself long enough to know her own tactics. So when Tara went into hiding rather suddenly as if she had just gained a shy streak, two purple eyes blinked curiously at the situation. Tara looked like a Halloween sheet ghost. She just needed two eyes cut out of the cloth and TADA! First class Halloween sheet ghost!
As Tara knew by now, Yvette was able to draw the conclusion that she had been at fault. A tiny frown managed to find its way to her tiny lips and she let out a nearly invisible sigh. Which was followed by another sigh the moment the question seemed to drift out from the sheets.
"Mommy says I am very good with faces. I may not have been Laney's friend back... then... but I knew her. I knew everyone in all honesty. I just..." Her voice hushed out, as if she was ashamed of admitting the fact she just never got the chance to talk to too many people because they were too involved in their own things. Who had time to talk to the quiet girl? Not many people were willing to strain their ears to hear someone like Yvette. Why bother when they could listen to someone much louder and prouder go on about whatever their hearts desired?
"I might have known Laney, but she didn't know me probably..."
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Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 7:08 pm
"Laney knows everyone," Tara said simply. Her face was still buried in the sheet, and her voice, already quavery, was muffled by the cloth. But she was loud, as usual, and trying to be louder still as a diversion while she composed herself. "She's always really good about remembering people, even people who weren't good at being remembered. Or good at remembering other people." Yvette probably fell into the first category. Tara herself practically championed the second.
Wiping her eyes with the bedsheet, Tara looked up again. Her face was blotchy, but the tears had stopped, and her voice was mostly normal again. "I'm not good at remembering people," she said simply. "Or anything I'm not working on, really. Math plays by the rules, so that's easy enough. English isn't too bad if it's grammar, but ask me who wrote something and I can't tell you. History's impossible; I gave up on it years ago.
"But I promise, I won't forget this," she said firmly. "Not ever."
For a moment it looked like she would cry again. Her eyes were watering, at least, but after a few deep breaths she was talking again. "So even if I might not remember other things... is that okay with you?"
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Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 7:40 am
Yvette honestly looked as if she didn't know what to do with herself. She had made Tara cry. Yvette had been guilty of crying so many times that she could tell when someone had been crying. Look at the random patches or redness underneath her friend's eyes! It felt like guilt was trying to eat up her lungs, for it was getting a little difficult to breathe. Yet, even then, the words that the other dark haired girl was offering seemed to almost soothe that discomfort. Was Yvette someone that Tara would remember? Was Yvette really important enough or memorable enough for someone to treasure her friendship? The indigo haired girl had always been the quiet and shy one. Someone people remembered for standing by herself and shying away from people.
Yet someone as absentminded as Tara was here, telling the chronically shy girl that she wouldn't be forgotten.
"Uh... y-yes... it... it's okay, Tara..." Typical Yvette would have then usually rushed into a long-winded giant one word sentence about how her friend really didn't have to feel obligated to keeping such a promise if she didn't want to, but instead she kept her lips buttoned shut. Buttoned with a quiet quivering smile upon her lips.
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