Nine days, elven hours, and a handful of minutes without Ava. No physical contact, no video chat, no phone calls… a pair of cryptic texts were all Tara had to survive off. Shawn had called in sick the morning after Tara got left outside alone and had yet to reappear, except to send dramatic claims of his vomit prowess (apparently his projectile record was now six feet). She may be human, but she was no fool. Tara didn’t think for a moment that his sick leave wasn’t connected to Ava’s silent treatment.

She had only been mulling over her dire love life every waking moment since their parting. It was only consuming all her spare thoughts. She was okay. She was a grown-up, and she could handle heartache. The limbo was frustrating though, the nothingness, the silence. But she could make it through. It would all make sense soon. She just had to wait. Then her obsessive phone-checking could stop, and her brain would let her focus on something else, anything but the absence of Ava.

Their newest team member tapped the counter beside her, bringing her back to the present, standing at the till of an almost-empty Jessi’s Java.

“Your shift ended a few minutes ago, Tara,” she said.

Tara sighed. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Dawdling on her walk back home, Tara was not paying a great deal of attention to her surroundings. This was a walk she took twice a day, five days a week. And perhaps her brain had once again returned to the last few moments she spent with Ava, breaking down every scrap of information she could remember to piece together even a hint as to what was going on. She had so far deduced a big fat nothing. So when a hand snatched her by the knee-length pastel purple sweater dress she was swamped in, her body was yanked along with it, feet a few inches from the floor. Her back hit the grimy brick wall of the alleyway she had landed in. Ava’s face leant over her with a stern expression.

“We need to talk,” she said, her tone dark.

“Y-yes, we do!” Tara agreed breathlessly.

It was surreal seeing her face again when she wasn’t expecting it. Partly shrouded under a grey hoodie, it didn’t quite match the version in her head that Tara had been aching for, the one that smirked at her like she always held a secret on the tip of her tongue.

“But I don’t have much time.”

Tara could almost laugh with incredulity at her girlfriend’s words, if she weren’t so furious. “You’re too busy for me?”

“Not busy. Cautious.” Every word she spoke was blunt, bludgeoning Tara between her eyes.

“Well, I have a lot to say!” she yelped, although despite her best effort, she could not match Ava’s firm tone, could not take control of the conversation. She felt like an audience member in the interaction, as though she were not included in the discussion.

“And I would love to listen, but I don’t have time. I’m sorry.”

“Are you serious?!”

“Deadly.”

Tara’s face burned with a combination of anger and embarrassment at being shut down so simply. “How…” her mouth fumbled for a moment and her cold fingers clenched and unclenched. “How dare you!” she snapped. “How bloody rude-”

“We need to end this. Now.”

Tara spluttered, but could not form a single solid word.

“I am not trying to hurt you and I know this is terrible timing.” Ava huffed to herself, blowing a strand of hair that had escaped the hoodie from her face in the process. “This is not how I would want to do this if I had the choice, but I genuinely don’t have one.”

“I… I don’t understand this at all. Things were going better than ever. I thought you wanted to be with me!”

“That is what I wanted- I mean, what I want. Tara, please trust that I do want to be with you. I just can’t right now.”

“Why? You can’t just leave me without a reason!”

“I have to, it’s for your own good.”

“I’m a grown woman! I can decide what is best for me, now tell me!”

“You are a human woman!” Ava snarled, her nose brushing Tara’s. “You cannot fathom the depths of horror and pain that there is to experience. Nothing in your plane of existence can compare to the evil that breeds in the outer realms! Do you understand that I couldn’t bear to see you with a cold, let alone-” she cut herself off with a ragged exhale of breath. She pulled back, her eyes wild and searching for something across Tara’s face, behind her head, out into the distance.

“Ava,” Tara whispered.

“Please, trust me, Tara.”

“But you don’t trust me.”

“I don’t trust anyone or any thing.”

Tara stammered, “What do I do now?” Searching Ava’s eyes for help, a lifeline of some kind as she felt herself being cast adrift.

“You keep your routine, you go to work, you go home, you spend time with your friends, you avoid being left alone and avoid anyone unfamiliar.”

“I meant about my broken heart, you emotionless bitch!”

Ava raised her dark brows at the expletive, gripped Tara’s forearms tightly and pulled her onto her tip-toes so that she could murmur into her ear, “I’m sorry to hurt you. That’s not my intention but this is for your own good. I do love you.”

“If you loved me you wouldn’t treat me like a child,” Tara seethed, her eyes prickling with hot tears. She jerked away and Ava released her hold without hesitation.

“Don’t contact me,” Ava ordered. She left briskly and without looking back. But Tara looked, and Ava’s face was smooth and blank, not a hint of feeling to be garnered from it.

Once every part of her was out of view, Tara leant back against the damp bricks and felt the skin around her eyes throb. Crying in an alleyway was not on her list of fun and exciting things to do in town, but despite her violent sniffs, the first tear fell. She was unsure if she was more hurt by the impending loneliness or the humiliation of being tossed aside so quickly and efficiently. People donated their old clothes to charity shops with more sentimentality and fanfare than she had just been dumped. She barely remembered the journey home, but she would never forget Daisy’s reaction when she relayed the events of the afternoon in stomach-squeezing detail. It was a miracle that Tara was physically capable of keeping her best friend from attempting murder. If they hadn’t had a fresh bottle of wine in the kitchen, she may not have stood a chance.

Tara called in ‘sick’ the following day, although did not advise her colleagues that she was suffering from a cocktail of hangover and heartbreak. Shawn mysteriously recovered enough to work her shift but was instantly back to being bedridden afterwards. She did not bother to question him; she doubted these demons deemed her deserving of a genuine answer anyway. She was a silly little human. With a silly little life and a silly little routine that she had been ordered to follow by a demon she had stupidly thought had loved her.

Keeping her routine. Was she succeeding at that? She accomplished nothing during the day and slept in short unsatisfying bursts at night. It had been a week and she had loped from home to work and back again in a zombie-like state every day. Often forgetting to put her headphones on as she walked now, allowing her empty head to be filled only with the sound of the light rain pattering over her hair and face.

On one such grey journey, a sugary, syrup-like voice called out to her.

“Hey, honey, what’s your name?”

Tara paused in the centre of the pavement and turned to look beside her where a woman had appeared at her side. Wide caramel-brown eyes were watching her through thickly curled lashes.

“Sorry?” Tara mumbled, desperately clawing through her brain for some semblance of recognition. Perhaps she was a customer or an old work colleague… Tara highly doubted they attended any schools together.

“I’m a friend of Ava’s.” Every word she spoke seemed to drip from her slightly pointed tongue at its own, sweet, slow pace. “My name’s Bee.” A small part of Tara was unnerved at just how mesmerised she felt listening to her voice.

“Oh, hi, it’s nice to meet you,” Tara croaked out, her mouth seemingly dried out all of a sudden. Hearing Ava’s name had hit her like a needle to the neck, a poison dart slowly paralysing her. Bee’s smooth tone was not helping her stay alert, either.

“You, too,” Bee cooed. She waited, watching Tara with a soft smile.

Tara blinked slowly.

My name, she thought. She wanted to know my name.

“My name’s Tara.”

With an exaggerated blink of her intense lashes, Bee smiled serenely. “How pretty,” she said gently. “It matches your face.”

“Th-thank you.”

“I can see why Ava became so attached to you.”

“Well, not anymore, I guess,” Tara said with an attempt to appear buoyant, that she could poke fun at her own sad love life and not cry. She really was doing her best to stay upbeat.

“Oh?” Sympathy slid like a thick sludge from her mouth. Tara could feel herself being buried in it.

“We broke up recently,” she offered, unsure why she was being so open and forthcoming. The words simply slipped from her lips. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you, she might have wanted to let you know herself…”

“Don’t you worry, honey, I won’t say anything to her.” Bee stretched an arm around her waist and pulled her into a tender hug. They were a similar height, although Bee much slimmer and very fragile looking. She was a dainty little doll, every movement and word was lovely. “That’s so disappointing though, I had never seen her so happy!”

“Really?”

“Of course! Why don’t you let me buy you a hot drink and you can tell me what happened. I’m sure it’s all a silly mistake.”

“Um, I don’t know about that…”

“Come now, you work in a cafe, don’t you? I’m sure you know your comfort coffee - where is good to go round here?”

“I don’t mean to sound rude or ungrateful,” Tara began quietly. “But how do you know where I work?”

“Ava mentioned it, of course!”

“But she didn’t tell you my name…” Tara whispered, more to herself than Bee.

“I probably forgot, it’s hard to keep up with your friends and their lovers. Don’t take it personally, my sweet.”

“Sure,” Tara responded blandly, her brain hard at work trying to process this conversation while a sweet, cloying fog filled her head.

“Let’s get cozy and have a chat, darling,” Bee cooed, dragging her smoothly towards the front door of a nearby coffee house competitor. Tara allowed herself to be corralled, her limbs clouding with a numbness that threatened to drop her to the concrete at any moment. Perhaps a seat and a shot of caffeine was what she needed.