Beautiful Damage

Tabby to the Rescue

Ashlyn didn’t drive home after leaving the park.

Her hands stayed tight on the steering wheel long after Toby’s truck disappeared from the rearview mirror. The road ahead was empty, and the quiet inside the car felt heavier than the argument had. Streetlights passed in slow intervals across the windshield while the last thing he’d said kept replaying in her head.

Call me tomorrow.

It hadn’t sounded angry. It had sounded finished.

She drove without turning the radio on and eventually pulled into Tabby’s street. The houses were small and close together, porch lights glowing softly in the warm summer night. Wind chimes knocked against each other somewhere nearby.

Tabby’s house was easy to recognize. Toys sat scattered in the yard and the front window glowed with warm kitchen light. Ashlyn knocked once.

The door opened almost immediately.

Tabby looked at her for half a second before exhaling slowly. “You look like someone emotionally ran you over.”

Ashlyn let out a breath she’d been holding, like a balloon about to pop. Tabby stepped aside and pulled her inside without waiting for an explanation.

The house smelled like cumin, lime, and something frying in oil. Spanish music played softly from a radio on the counter while Tabby’s mom moved around the kitchen with relaxed familiarity, turning something in a pan without needing to look at it.

She glanced over and smiled. “Ashlyn. You eat?”

“Not really.”

“Good. Sit.”

Ashlyn slid into a chair at the small kitchen table while a plate appeared in front of her within seconds—two tacos, rice, beans, lime wedges. Steam lifted off the tortillas. The fork beside the plate was still warm from the dish rack.

Tabby sat across from her, dragged the hot sauce bottle closer to the center of the table, and leaned forward. “Alright. What happened?”

Ashlyn blinked. “You don’t even know what happened.”

“I don’t need to.” Tabby stole one of the lime wedges off Ashlyn’s plate and squeezed it over her own hand absently before dropping it back down. “Your face says relationship problem.”

Ashlyn stared down at the taco. “That obvious?”

“Yes.”

She took a bite before answering anything else. The food was warm and grounding in a way she hadn’t expected. For a moment she focused on chewing instead of talking while Tabby waited, elbow on the table, chin in her palm.

Finally Ashlyn sighed like she had lost an argument with herself. “Toby and I fought.”

Tabby leaned back in her chair until it tipped on two legs. “Big fight or normal fight?”

“I don’t know anymore.”

“That’s usually not a great sign.”

Ashlyn rubbed her forehead, then reached for a lime wedge she didn’t use. “He does this thing where everything becomes proof that I’m leaving.”

Tabby’s chair legs came back down with a soft thunk. Her expression shifted. She had heard versions of this before. The concert. The restaurant. The nights where one wrong move seemed to turn into evidence.

Ashlyn saw the recognition land and sank lower in her chair. “That’s not a great pattern for boys, is it?”

“No,” Tabby said gently. She pushed the basket of chips a little closer. “But it does sound like him being scared.”

Ashlyn picked at the edge of a tortilla until it tore. “I know.”

Tabby let the silence sit for a second, tracing a circle in spilled condensation with one finger, then asked what had actually happened tonight.

So Ashlyn told her. Not every line. Just the shape of it. The truck. The door handle. The way Toby had seen the motion before she even understood she was making it. The way his anger had collapsed into something quieter and heavier.

By the time she finished, the tacos were half gone. One of the lime wedges had dried at the edge of the plate.

Tabby nodded slowly. “Yeah. He thought he was losing you.”

“I wasn’t leaving.”

“I know that.” Tabby reached across the table and nudged Ashlyn’s plate back toward her when she noticed it drifting away. “But that’s not what he saw.”

Ashlyn leaned back in the chair and looked toward the dark window over the sink. “He makes it feel like every conversation is a test.”

Tabby thought about that, thumb rubbing once over the chipped edge of her mug. “That’s what fear does when someone doesn’t know how to carry it.”

Ashlyn sighed. “I’m not trying to replace him.”

Tabby reached across the table and squeezed her wrist briefly. “I know. But you came after something bad, and he probably still doesn’t know how to make sense of that without comparing himself to it.”

Ashlyn looked down and pushed a grain of rice into the beans with the side of her fork. “I hate this feeling.”

“What feeling?”

“Like I’m hurting him all the time just by reacting normally.”

Tabby shook her head. “You’re not hurting him by existing.” She sat back and hooked one foot around the leg of her chair. “You’re just with someone who doesn’t know how to sit still when he’s afraid.”

“That’s not very comforting.”

“I know.”

Ashlyn sat there a moment longer, then folded the napkin once, then again, and pushed her chair back. “I should go home.”

Tabby raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Tabby walked her to the door, rubbing her hands on the back pockets of her shorts. Before Ashlyn stepped outside, she said quietly, “He’ll call you tomorrow.”

Ashlyn paused with one hand on the screen door. “You sound confident.”

Tabby shrugged. “People who care that much usually don’t disappear after one fight.”

Ashlyn nodded slowly, then stepped into the night.

The house was quiet when she got home. Ashlyn slipped inside carefully, closing the door without letting it click too loudly. The kitchen lights were off and the hallway glowed faintly from a lamp somewhere deeper in the house.

She started toward the stairs.

“Ash?”

Ashlyn stopped.

Nadja stood in the hallway in oversized pajamas, hair messy from sleep, one sock twisted halfway off her heel.

“What are you doing up?” Ashlyn asked softly.

“I heard the door.”

Ashlyn crouched slightly and rested one hand on her own knee. “You should be asleep.”

Nadja studied her face. Children noticed things adults tried to hide.

“You sad?”

Ashlyn blinked. “A little.”

Nadja walked over and wrapped her arms around Ashlyn’s neck. The hug was quick but firm, all sleepy commitment and no hesitation.

Ashlyn laughed softly despite herself. “You’re supposed to be the kid.”

Nadja pulled back and studied her seriously. “You gonna be okay?”

Ashlyn nodded. “Yeah.”

Nadja seemed satisfied with that. “Okay.” She shuffled back toward her room, dinosaur pajama tail swaying behind her.

Ashlyn stayed there in the hallway a moment longer, listening to the quiet house. Her phone sat in her pocket, still silent.

She didn’t take it out.

Not yet.

But the tight knot in her chest had loosened just enough to breathe around.