On the table, the glass of apple juice just sits there untouched.
Just another unstirred melted blocks of ice infused into what's probably tap water spiked with a dark-brownish colouring and the artificial taste of an apple.
It's listed at the very top of the drink menu – easy to spot and get if you're looking for a reason to stay around at the café without spending more than necessary.
Drinking it now though comes last in Tifa's mind. She hasn't been able to process what she needs to do with it ever since her mama walked out of the café.
Footsteps tapping against the floor. People's talking voices. Plates knocking onto tables. Steel spoons and forks clashing. These noises enter her ears from the left and exit from the right like they don't exist. Like whatever is happening inside a tunnel when a train rides through it – the temporary blackout and the following silence.
Her eyes can't even tell what's happening around her as she continues to stare down onto her open palms. Anything else that isn't those palms are just blurry pictures with no outlines.
"Ma'am, we're closing in 15 minutes."
A waitress finally manages to get through to her with a brief touch on her back.
"Oh… sorry…" she mumbles, pushing past the soreness of her throat to let her voice out.
She wants to leave. She has to leave. But her limbs feel like they're made of jelly and she doesn't think that she can even make it past two steps without stumbling down.
She needs help.
At times like this, she can only think of one person who can – the person who has known her and has been with her for more than a decade of her life: Cloud.
She fumbles with her phone, working her trembling fingers to write him a text message.
Compose. Erase. Compose. Erase. Compose. Erase.
She lost count of the number of times she's done this back and forth. She just can't write.
Because all that she needs to think about is the box and her fingers would just go motionless, and her brain just shuts down on her.
The box must be his, right? Who else would it be? She found it in his part of the closet. He's hiding it from her, which means he has secrets that he doesn't want to tell her. The worst part is those secrets seem like something he's sharing with someone else – something far more intimate than she ever had (or still has) with him.
He has someone who knows the part of him that uses whatever's in the box, when she doesn't.
What if he's with that someone right now? Why would he care if she calls or texts him, begging for help?
Did he ever really care about her?
She shoves her phone back into her purse, and just numbly sits on her seat with the heels of her palms pressed against her forehead.
She doesn't know what else to do and she has given up on thinking.
She's just… sick of everything.
Tifa… Tifa…
"Tifa!"
A touch on her forearm and the calling of her name startled her. She turns to find Aerith's beautiful green eyes staring down at her.
"You weren't answering my calls and texts, so I came to check since you're always stopping over here lately," Aerith explains. "Didn't think you would still be here…"
When she doesn't say anything in return, Aerith stoops down and cradles her face with one hand. "You okay?"
She holds the hand in one of hers, shuts her eyes and slowly shakes her head.
Words won't be enough to tell how she really feels.
It's probably close to 2am and Tifa's just laying on the bed, staring at the bubble blobs as they move inside the blue lava lamp.
The blanket remains at the edge of the bed, near her feet. She hasn't bothered to cover herself up with it. She can barely feel the temperature in the room anyway.
At some point, she hears the entrance door to the apartment unlock. It must be Cloud, coming home late again… like he usually does.
She hears him talking with Aerith but can't really make out what they're saying most of the time.
"Why… here?"
"…for Tifa."
"….she okay?"
"…not a good… for you… here…"
"But-"
"…waiting for you, isn't he?"
There's a momentary silence after they've finished talking, and then the entrance door opens and slams shut once again.
Aerith comes into the bedroom, bringing her phone that wouldn't stop ringing.
Tifa doesn't know if Aerith rejects the calls, or shuts down her phone, or leaves it on silent, but the ringing stops and she crams the phone into her sling bag that she hangs at the back of the bedroom door.
The blanket is soon unfolded by Aerith who places it onto her first before climbing into the bed to join her side.
"What happened?" Aerith asks, caressing her hair.
"I met… mama," she starts, still watching the bubble blobs. "I've asked her… why she left. I never understood why. Of course, I wasn't expecting much from her. There's just no reasonable excuse for someone to leave their fucking 8 year old kid behind… but-"
When her mama left, she cried for days. Her dad would hit her every time she did, all the while calling her a 'dumb little fuck' for believing that her mama would return home someday.
None of his mockery ever got to her. She buried her head in the sand and waited every day at the door for her to walk in.
Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, months turned into years… and her mama never came back.
She must have been 10 when she decided to stop hoping, and to stop crying over her mama.
But right now, the ball that's stuck in her chest just keeps on expanding and climbing up to her throat, and no matter how many times she tries to swallow it down, it carries on forcing its way out of her.
Until tears are stinging her eyes, and her lips are quaking.
"She never cared about me. She never loved me. She… she never wanted me. She left because nothing could make her stay. I wasn't enough for her to stay."
Tears are spilling out of her eyes, gushing down her cheeks and wetting her pillow.
But she's still gazing at the lava lamp, feeding the hollowness that she feels inside her.
"No one cares about me."
No sooner after she said those words, Aerith wraps an arm around her waist and leans closer.
"That's not true," Aerith says, sounding like she's about to cry herself. "I care about you."
She rolls around to face Aerith and sees that the other woman's indeed crying too.
She stretches her hands out and wipes away the tears on Aerith's cheeks with her thumbs.
"I love you," Aerith murmurs, all of a sudden.
She's hearing it for the first time from Aerith. But to respond to it? She doesn't know how.
There's just too much to take within one night.
Aerith seems to understand her silence and pulls her into a hug instead, sparing her the trouble of explaining herself.
Enveloped in Aerith's warmth and smell, she quickly drifts into sleep.
She thinks she hears Aerith mumbling an apology.
Whether Aerith really said it to her, or if it's just something she dreamed… she decides to set it aside and sleep away.