Noah: Present "Shall I drop you off at the restaurant, or would you like to go straight home?" Tatum turns to answer my question."Drop me off at the restaurant. I need to wrap things up with Dotty and go over what I discussed with Sophie.""Did you guys finalize the menu?"She shakes her head. "No, not yet. But that's why we'll meet up again.""Hmm." I pull up at the restaurant about five minutes later, and Tatum steps out with a goodbye. I wait for about a minute, then restart the engine, and as I'm about to pull out, I see Tatum hurriedly stepping out of the double doors. There's a panicked look on her face, and without thinking too much, I step out of the car just in time for her to basically fly into me."Dot-Dotty is...," she rushes out frantically but chokes on the words."Tatum, calm down," I say, and she does. I take her hand to lead her back inside, already knowing that something is wrong, and it probably has to do with Dorothy. Sure enough, Dorothy is slumped over on one o
Tatum: Four years agoNigel leads me into his room and closes the door behind us, locking it. He rests his forehead against the door, breathing heavily. When he turns to face me, anger and pain fill his eyes."You should've listened to me, Tate. If you had, I would've taken care of her and none of this would've happened.""Your mother threw a 1kg glass frame at me, barely missing my head by an inch, Nigel! This happened because she's crazy, not because I spoke up.""Mother has anger issues," he defensively states, infuriating me."Anger issues?" I incredulously ask. "Don’t pretend like you didn’t see her try to kill me, you even called her out on it so don’t fucking pretend, Nigel!""For fucks sake, Tate. You know she would never approve of our relationship, and you only made it worse by insulting her."I scoff in disbelief, speechless. How dare he defend her?"Let me check if you're hurt," he says, moving closer, his gaze fixed on my shoulder."Get away from me." I push him aside and
Present NoahI take Tatum to my apartment after we leave the supermarket. She doesn’t complain which makes me realize that she always intended to cook here anyways.When I put in my code, I open the door for her and she waltzes in, her confidence captivating. Stepping in and locking the door behind me, I see her reach into one of her jacket pockets and grabbing a chocolate bar.How did she get it? She walks to the kitchen counter and prepares a pot of boiling water. When I get to the kitchen, she barely looks up at me when she instructs me to place the groceries on the counter, chewing on her chocolate bar.“How can I help?”, I ask and she shakes her head.“Just go get changed. You must be tired. I’m good here”I don’t bother arguing even if I actually want to help because if there’s one thing I’ve learned with Tatum so far, it’s that she does things on her own terms and hardly gives space for arguments. So I go into my room, change and pull out my laptop, working for a few minutes
Four years agoTate:I wake from my slumber, stretching and slowly opening my eyes only to see dads eyes already on me. He’s leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed. I sit up, throwing suspicious glances his way.“Being creepy doesn’t suit you, dad”, I say, if not for anything, then to avert his strong gaze from me. He doesn’t.“There’s Tylenol on the nightstand”, he says instead, pointing towards the glass of water and card of drugs beside me. I’m confused at first, but I recall that I cried myself to sleep the night before and judging from the raging headache I’m suffering, dad was really nice to bring me the pills. I stick one pill in my mouth, swallowing it down with the water. Dad uncrosses his arms and makes his way towards me, sitting on the edge of my bed and staring at me.“We need to talk”, he says and I groan.“Too early daddy. I’m exhausted”. I’m honestly not, but I’m not ready for heavy talk. “Sleep later. We talk now”. His tone leaves no room for argument.
Four years agoTatumIt’s been two weeks since the day I tried to break up with Nigel. I couldn’t do it that day and still haven’t been able to do it. He’s been busy, more than before. Going on trips to and from San Francisco, trying to speed up the process of opening his own firm. I hardly see him these days, we hardly communicate except for the few calls and messages, keeping me updated on his whereabouts and activities. I appreciate it, all of them. Dad has been busy as well. He hasn’t asked me if I broke up with Nigel, he hasn’t asked anything about my relationship and I don’t know how long he’ll hold off the conversation, how much longer I’d have that freedom. Either way, I’m definitely not prepared to answer the question. I just hope he remains occupied and doesn’t ask. Bridget has been quiet. She hasn’t called me to her office again, I haven’t seen her around either. Carrito started college recently so she’s been at school for the past few weeks and Kate, Nigel and I haven’t t
Four years agoTate There’s a picture frame in my hand. It’s my moms smiling face in the picture encased in the frame. Looking at her now, I realize how much the similarities between us are. A beautiful smile that displays neat white rows of teeth and that little chip at the bottom of the second incisor. I have one too. It isn’t hereditary though. My mom had hers from an accident when she was little and i got mine at 10 when I jumped too high on the bed and ended up face first in the headboard. Our chips are similar though. It’s uncanny how the creator decided to make sure we looked almost like twins. Her light, almost transparent brown eyes are another thing we have in common; the most similar thing actually. She was a very beautiful lady that had heads turn at every turn. “Was” because she died. Horrible twist of fate. I thought I’d have her till she meets my kids and that’s the problem. I had way too many happy wishes for us that it made it all harder to accept her death. I have
Four years agoNoahHeidi and I used to run every morning before I left for college but now, she’s in bad shape. That’s mostly due to the fact that she probably stopped running the moment I wasn’t around to push her again. She’s the last of all my siblings and also the sweetest. Heidi couldn’t hurt a fly but that doesn’t mean people won’t want to hurt her. Sadly, they’d most likely take her sweetness for naïveté and try to hurt her in unimaginable ways. I have two sisters, Heidi and Gwen. Gwen is the feisty one and as much as I also take her on runs like this, she can pretty much hold her own so I focus a lot more on Heidi. I won’t let anyone hurt her“Can we stop already?”, she asks, bending over her knees to get more air into her lungs“Come on, just ten more blocks” She groans“Let’s just take a break please”“No.. Now take five more breaths and let’s move on”. I continue jogging ahead without really waiting for her. She catches up and stays a few paces behind me. We reach a tur
Four years ago: Tate Carrito is fuming. She doesn’t like me. No that’s the understatement of the year, she actually hates me but unfortunately, I can’t pluck out her eyes and feed it to her since she’s Bridget’s only daughter and Nigel’s only sister. I sometimes wonder how they are siblings when they act nothing alike but then again, Nigel is adopted so that explains it. However, she’s Bridget’s copy. Both are bitches. “Oh, miss, Tatum is just helping me out here”, Nana replies sweetly. It’s a farce, she also hates the whiny bitch.“Well, I don’t see how she’s helping. What if she poisons the food!”Wonderful!“But miss-“. Nana actually looks affronted so I cut her off unless she might actually deck the little shite across the head. “It’s okay Nana, Carrito is just being paranoid… or is she”, I add the last part with a wicked glance in Carrito’s direction. She pales and stills then just as rapidly reddens“Did you just threaten to poison the food??”“No I didn’t, sweet girl”. I ste