Everything comes back to you -J.MARIANO

[1.16]

ꪻaryn walked into the diner, books in hand, and found herself glad that her usual seat was not covered in a thick layer of fallen plaster as it had been a few days previously. Despite the fact that the diner was pretty much a construction zone, the diner itself had never been busier on a random Tuesday afterschool. She supposed that was due to the fact that she was an hour later than usual as she had been distracted by one Lane Kim on the walk out of school and ended up standing outside her home talking until ten minutes ago. The second she sat down and went to pull out a book from her bag, Jess appeared in front of her. He wore a blue hard hat and held an umbrella out towards her. She frowned instantly, refusing to take the umbrella, as she asked, "Do you know how much bad luck that is?"

"Tee we have this discussion every time you come in here," he sighed deeply. "Do you want to be hit on the head?"

Taryn simply just looked at him and that was enough to tell an entire story. She did not want any sort of bad luck to attach itself to her in the slightest. "You open it," she pressed as she always did.

He sighed once more then quickly opened the umbrella, holding it over her head just in time to prevent a rather large piece of ceiling from falling onto her. She smiled her thanks then took the umbrella, holding it in her left hand as she needed her right to write. "What are you doing later?" he asked before she could delve too deeply into her work. He didn't like to interrupt her focus as, on more than one occasion, doing so often gained him a look of annoyance that he would rather avoid.

"Tas and his girlfriend are coming over, my dads are out for their anniversary," she paused as another hunk of plaster fell on the top of the umbrella then scattered onto the floor. "We're going to get takeout probably, you want to join?"

He hesitated, clearly deliberating for a few seconds before he responded, "I don't think Tassilo is too keen on me."

"We'll be in it together. His girlfriend is not too fond of me," she shrugged, already regretting making plans with such a person. It was Tas' attempt to try and get the two of them to get along somewhat but she could tell it wasn't going to have that effect, there was no way that his girlfriend would ever accept their friendship or general closeness. And it wasn't as if they hadn't been through this before so, to her, the warning signs were obvious.

He frowned, generally wondering how she couldn't be liked by someone else. It wasn't as if she made the general effort to have hatred fall onto her, in fact it was quite the opposite. "Why?"

"She thinks I have a fat crush on him and always have," she laughed as if the idea was completely absurd, it was after all.

"Jess, food!" Luke yelled from the kitchen before Jess could form any sort of response, his voice full of such vexation.

Quickly, wanting to acquire an answer before he disappeared to customers again, she asked, "So are you going to join us?"

He hesitated but couldn't say no to the hopeful look within her eyes. "I'll come over when I finish here."

Luke's voice almost stilled the construction upstairs as he bellowed, "Jess!"

-

The evening plans had started not five minutes ago and she was already bored beyond belief. From the moment the couple had arrived, Taryn had been forced out of the conversation. She remained entirely in conversation with her boyfriend and whenever Tas would attempt to include Taryn she would simply throw out the conversation topic and replace it with a new one. She could tell that Tas was beginning to get annoyed with it too, the love struck rose tinted glasses began to slip ever so slightly. Thirty minutes passed and just as their food arrived, a knock came at the door and Taryn practically jumped to answer it. "Thank god," she sighed as the furrow of annoyance between her brows began to dissipate. Jess, with a smile of amusement, walked through the threshold and didn't waste a second before heading towards the kitchen with her walking behind him.

Jess helped somewhat with the lack of conversation involvement but Tas' girlfriend still made many attempts to monopolize the discussion. The conversion flowed between the four of them eventually and they went through multiple topics randomly whilst digging into the various dishes that Taryn and Tas had ordered from Al's. "What's that?" Tas' girlfriend asked as Taryn handed Tas her ceramic pot.

"Salt and pepper dip," Jess replied as Taryn dipped a fry into the pot he had made for himself but he did not protest.

"Fast food gospel," Tas added whilst sliding the pot towards her. They all watched as she dipped and tried the fry, all collectively laughing at the look of distaste that followed as they all thought it was a joke. Upon realizing that she wasn't joking, Jess and Taryn shared a look before continuing to eat their share of the fries.

As Tas and his girlfriend began a discussion that could quite easily lead to an argument, Taryn jolted as a beep sounded in both ears. When another followed, she quickly pulled both of the pieces of equipment out of her ears and flung herself into silence to avoid the severely annoying beeping. "Batteries dead, be back in a minute," she announced to the table, despite not being able to hear herself speak, before turning to Tas as he was the only one who knew how to communicate in situations like these.

^Okay. Hurry back, might kill him.^ Tas signed quickly, ignoring his girlfriend to do so.

Taryn laughed to herself whilst she walked out of the kitchen and towards the staircase. She sighed upon entering her bedroom, now remembering the mess of dress designing that she had left for her future self to clean up. She manoeuvred through the piles upon the floor and towards her nightstand, which she pulled upon. Taryn grabbed the first pair of batteries she saw but couldn't help but notice the distinct lack of a set of batteries from her collection. She checked through her drawer and did a quick scan of her bedroom and frowned when she found herself unable to see either of them. She changed the batteries as she walked down the stairs, having already left them alone for too long. ^All good?^ Tas signed as she walked into the kitchen, not wanting to vocalize his question just in case something had happened.

"Yeah I'm missing some batteries though, did I leave them at yours?"

"I haven't seen them," his girlfriend answered for him with a deeply sour look etched on her face.

Taryn smiled politely at her before returning her attention to the person she had asked in the first place, "Tas?"

"I'll ask Mom when I get back, see if she's seen them," he replied as Taryn sat back down in her seat. She thanked him quickly in sign before the previous conversation was struck up once again. But this time it wasn't so easy, the tension was thick and immovable. The couple ended up leaving early, not wanting to argue in front of people and her house was cast into silence.

Jess cleared his throat as Taryn returned to the kitchen, "She's uh-"

"Not a good fit for him, I know," she sighed and began to pick up discarded plates as a way of distracting herself. She placed them in the sink, along with various cutlery items, before working on the empty food containers and few plastic bags."He won't listen to reason, wants to see if he can convince her first cause otherwise he really likes her."

"That is not going to work."

"Tell me about it," she sighed yet again and closed the lid of the bin a little too forcefully. When she turned back towards the table, she noticed Jess stood with his hands in the sink and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. She hadn't heard the water run nor that he had even moved from the table. "Oh you don't have to do that."

He turned towards her, still holding a now clean plate, whilst replying, "I know."