Chapter 25 Tara

Chapter 25

Tara

B lood was rushing in Tara's ears, but from the other side of the swinging door she heard Miriam's voice cry out, "You can't talk to my friend that way. You need to get out of my house."

Holly volleyed back, "Oh, you can treat her like shit, and her family can destroy her every day, but I can't tell her the truth?"

Tara couldn't hear what Noelle said after, just the rumble of her voice. Then they all tumbled through the door, Hannah and Miriam and Cole all pushing each other out of the way to get to each other.

"What are you all doing here?" she said, looking between them, confused.

Noelle snuck to her side and snagged a pfeffernuss off the counter. "We heard there were cookies so we came to get some before the reception starts and everyone eats them all. The Rosensteins are serious about their desserts."

Of course they hadn't come looking for her. That had been a ridiculous hope. Why would they go looking for the bride's ex-girlfriend, all of them in a pack?

Levi snorted. "We came looking for you, you dork. Elijah said you were in here."

"Why, though?" she asked, her voice so much smaller than she was used to.

"Because you're Team Carrigan's? And we need the whole team at the party?" Miriam sounded confused.

Not as confused as Tara felt. "But you'll be late."

"I don't think they can start without us," Noelle said. "Here. Have a cookie."

The last thing Tara wanted was a cookie, but she dutifully took one, robotically eating it, and it did make her feel better, or at least more grounded.

"You didn't have to kick her out. I mean, I appreciate the gesture, but…" Tara trailed off at the look on Miriam's face. "What?"

"Of course we're going to kick someone out who's mean to you! Why don't you believe we love you enough to choose you?" Miriam said, her fists on her hips, looking even more than usual like Peter Pan.

To her abject, undying horror, Tara started to cry.

"Did you hear everything we said?" She hiccupped, trying to save her mascara.

They all nodded.

"So you know we were pretending to date?"

They all nodded, but then Hannah said, "We kind of already knew. We were hoping you'd trust us enough to tell us the truth."

"And why you thought you needed a buffer for us," Levi added. "Although honestly I understand that one."

"What if she was right about everything?" Tara whispered. "I guess… I don't believe you love me because why would anyone?"

"Tara," Cole said, taking her face in his hands so she had no choice but to meet his eyes. They blazed the same blue as hers, and it was like looking in a mirror, except that she'd looked at Cole's face so much more than she had her own, so it was much more familiar and beloved. "I need you to hear something right now. Like, really hear it. Because I've been trying to tell you all our lives and apparently you still don't believe it."

She nodded, to tell him she was listening, though she certainly wasn't ready for whatever he was about to say.

"You are the other half of me. Miriam might be my kindred spirit, but you are me. I can't exist without you. I can't , Tara. We are the other sides of each other's coins, and if I don't know you're on the other end of the phone or a plane ride away, if I don't believe that I can be hugging you or hearing your voice as soon as I need to, I wither. When you left me to go to school, and I didn't hear from you for almost a year, I went feral. And when you came back a ghost of yourself, I thought we were both going to die."

Tara tried to tear her eyes away, to wrench her body out of his hands, but he held her steady.

She couldn't believe that what he was saying was true. If it was, the reckless way she'd been treating her life was the same as playing with his life, and she would never do that. The only comfort she'd had, all this time, was that no one truly loved her so if she finally burned all the way out, no one would miss her.

"Please listen to me. You need to hear this. You can be brave enough to hear this. You're the bravest person I know," he said, and she breathed in, deep.

She wasn't, but she could pretend for him.

She wouldn't do it for her, but for Cole? She would do anything.

"Maybe you don't want to let Holly love you. Maybe you don't want to let yourself be turned inside out by falling in love with her, although I think it might be too late. But, Tara, you need to hear what she said about you working yourself to nothing. It doesn't help the cause if you abandon the work because you burned your soul to a crisp. Our soul. Your half of our soul. Because even if you don't want to belong to Holly, you belong to me , and me to you, and I need you to stop being so damn flippant about that. I need you. For my survival. On this earth."

It was unfair of him, and hypocritical, to accuse her of being careless with his life, when he lived a life that could, if he were caught, have him in prison for life. It was unfair of him to ask her to be careful for him, because he knew she couldn't say no.

"You don't need me," she whispered, her own eyes pleading. "You have Miriam, and Sawyer, and Carrigan's. I'm an old friend you used to get into trouble with."

He shook his head. "Hannah," he said, "who do you need most in the world? To survive?"

"Noelle," she said without pausing.

"Levi, you?" Cole asked, his eyes still on Tara's.

"Miriam," Levi said. "No question."

"Mimi?"

"You and Blue," Miriam said.

He raised his eyebrows, as if to say, See? But she didn't see.

"Exactly," she said. "You all have this spiderweb of connections and emotional commitments. I'm not part of that. I was invited for politeness and nostalgia. No one needs me." Her voice broke on this last word.

"I need you," Hannah said. "You're the person I call when I need a perspective outside of this tiny bubble we live in."

"I need you," Miriam told her. "Other than Cole, you're the only friend I had from before who still loves me. You're one of two people in the world who knew me through my worst time, and now. You always know the thing to say that gets at the hard truth."

"My wife needs you, so I do," Levi told her.

"I don't need you," Noelle said, "but I like you a hell of a lot. You're pretty extraordinary, and anyway, we don't have to need you to make space for you here. We do it because we love you, not because we need you."

Kringle yowled.

"I need you. Most of all the things. Ever on this planet. I need you more than oxygen or water. Do you hear me?" Cole asked.

She nodded.

"Do you believe me?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know how to."

He shook his head. "When have I ever lied to you, Tara Sloane?"

"You lie to everyone, Cole. Yourself, us. It's who you are." She didn't want to keep arguing with him, because she could see the pain written across his face and she didn't want to keep causing it, but she didn't know how to accept this. He hadn't even known he was gay until he was thirty-five. What if he suddenly woke up one day and decided he'd been wrong about her, too, when she'd already turned herself inside out, let herself believe in him?

His eyes filled up with tears, and her heart crumbled to dust. He never cried. "Ask me anything. I'll tell you every detail of my job. I'll tell you every bank I've ever illegally accessed. I'll tell you any damn thing I've ever thought, or felt, or hoped, or dreamed."

He was completely serious. Maybe the most serious he'd ever been, about anything.

"I love you more than I love my own secrets. I don't need privacy from you. We aren't separate. You can have anything I have, know anything I know."

Nothing had ever mattered more to Cole than his secrets, but when he said that he would give her all of them, she knew he meant it. This, more than anything that had happened today, broke her.

And she did break. Finally, she broke open and fell into Cole's arms, weeping.

"Okay," he whispered gently. "I didn't think this would result in you becoming a melted puddle."

"You love me," she sobbed, and he rocked her.

"I want you to have this cry," he told her through her hair, because he had gathered her completely into his lap like a baby, which would have mortified her at any other time but right now felt safe and perfect, "and we're going to have a much longer conversation about what you thought was happening the past twenty years and also why you're trying to work yourself to death, but I do think we should get to the reception. And if you cry during it, people are going to think you're absolutely devastated about your breakup."

"I am devastated about my breakup," Tara blubbered.

"I meant your breakup with Miriam," he clarified.

This sobered her. She did need to cry, a great deal, but she was neither willing to miss the reception nor make a scene for the gossips. Not on account of her pride, but because she didn't want people to remember Miriam and Noelle's wedding as "the one where the ex cried the whole time."

Levi pulled a makeup wipe out of his pocket. He held Tara's face gently and wiped the mascara off her cheeks. "I cry a lot and I wear a lot of eyeliner," he said in answer to the unasked question of why he was carrying around makeup wipes in his pocket.

Once he was done, he and Hannah stood on either side of her, their arms around her waist. Cole walked in front of her, effectively blocking her from prying eyes. She felt like a celebrity being hidden from the press, and it was ridiculous.

"We're putting you at the Matthewses' table so people don't keep asking you all night where Holly is," Noelle told her.

"Oh my God, y'all. Everyone go be in the wedding party. I'll hang out with Esther."

"It's true." Esther nodded. "Mom and Dad and I will protect her. Go. Do whatever you have to."

Dinner was served, and the food was delicious, of course—it was Levi's menu, and the man was a force of nature in the kitchen. Because Noelle's parents were gone and Miriam hadn't trusted Ziva with a microphone, the couple had opted to forgo the traditional speeches. Instead, Hannah had made a video with well-wishes from loved ones around the country. For several minutes at a time, Tara was able to focus on celebrating. Every time she started to slide back into misery, somehow, Mr. and Mrs. Matthews knew and put an arm around her or squeezed her hand or drew her into conversation.

"I'm sorry I ruined your wedding day," she said to Miriam and Noelle when they came by the table to do their rounds.

Noelle waved her off. "Please. What's a Carrigan's event without us getting overly involved with each other's drama? You basically saved our wedding day, when you think about it."

Behind them, Ziva appeared in a cloud of perfume and jangles. "What on earth could you do to ruin this day, Tara? You didn't even object!" She tittered at her own joke, not noticing that no one else was joining her.

Panic rose in Tara's throat, and she flipped through lies she could tell Ziva.

Levi, who'd been sitting at the other side of the table talking to his dad and wife, caught her eye, put one finger up to his lips, and winked.

He elbowed Hannah, and she whispered, "What, right now?" with the sort of long-suffering exasperation that Tara was learning people often used when talking to, or about, Levi Blue Matthews.

Levi grinned the most cat-among-the-pigeons, self-satisfied smile she'd ever seen. She wondered, idly, how the man didn't get punched more often.

Hannah turned in Ziva's direction and loudly announced, "I'm pregnant!"

The entire room exploded in noise.

Mr. Matthews started to cry, Mrs. Matthews started to dance, Miriam did a cartwheel in the jumpsuit she'd claimed she couldn't bend over in. Cole jumped so high in the air, she was grateful the room had such high ceilings.

Mrs. Matthews and Hannah's mom, Rachel, immediately started arguing about Ashkenazi versus Sephardic baby naming traditions. No one paid any attention at all to Tara or asked her what she was going to do next about Holly.

Levi leaned across the table toward her and smirked. "You're welcome."

That sweet little weasel had planned this whole thing.