#when the emo hits for NO reason adfjlkasjdflksd

[tylergparker]

{ self para; 001 }

There was a certain instinct that had kicked in several years ago, Tyler realized...

Evidently being pregnant and taking care of herself and her unborn child all those years ago - even just a child herself - had given her some motherly instinct that she hadn’t fully expected. It hurt her a lot of the time, feeling that way, thinking certain ways. Between the way her own mother had dropped the ball enough that it set an example of what not to be like - to be what she wanted - and her own momentary fantasies of raising a child while she had been pregnant, Tyler had a fairly solid idea of how to react to certain situations when they involved kids.

Like when one was sitting alone outside the boogie board rental shack sniffling.

The girl had had every intention of renting a board herself, hitting the water, burning off some energy, but that shifted quickly. A look of concern creased her brow, twitched her lips down in a subtle frown as she stepped around the corner of the small building where the child sat by herself.

“Hey, honey, you okay?” Tyler asked gently.

The little girl looked up at, one hand lifting to rub at a damp eye. “My brother went to play with the bigger kids and left me.”

Teeth chewing at the inside of her lower lip, Tyler slowly squatted down to the child’s level. It was out of her presented character, and she realized that if anyone who recognized her happened to witness what was going on, there were bound to be questions. She didn’t care, though, that wasn’t important. This was where her focus was.

“Where’s your mom?” Tyler asked.

“At the grown ups pool with my daddy.” The little girl whined.

Tyler nodded sympathetically. “Do you want me to take you there to find them?”

Unsurprisingly, the child looked apprehensive through the budding tears in her eyes. Tyler had to give it to her; at least she knew about stranger danger, even in a moment of distress.

“My name is Tyler,” She tried, offering her a small smile. “What’s your name?”

“L-Lily..” Was a wobbled answer as the child began crying a little more notable.

“Lily, that’s a very pretty name, did you know that? It’s so nice to meet you.” Tyler murmured, settling fully onto her knees in front of the girl instead of simply squatting.

She wasn’t sure how long she was going to be here for, given the distress the child was under. Realistically, Tyler should have found a member of resort staff, informed them of the situation. She shouldn’t have taken it upon herself to help the little girl. Some part of her couldn’t help it, however. And it was definitely a part of her that would hurt later, she knew it. Her consciousness was warring in her brain - knowing that helping this little girl, bonding with her, was going to make her feel things and think about things that she worked so hard to keep behind a tightly shut door, but also feeling completely unable to trust anyone else to take care of the little girl who needed her help. That was all she was doing, after all, helping.

Knowing enough about kids from various church events - a whole other damn life ago - she knew how to speak to them well enough, how to soothe them if needed.

“How old are you, Lily? Do you think I could guess?” Tyler asked, a barely there edge of playfulness creeping into her tone.

Lily sniffled but otherwise shook her head. Bingo, she was engaging. That was going to be key to helping her calm down and get where she needed to be.

“You don’t think I can guess?” Tyler clarified, lifting her brows and smiling a little wider. “I don’t know, I think I could probably guess. Are you... four?”

Lily’s brow creased downward as she frowned and sharply shook her head. Tyler breathed out a light laugh.

“You’re not four? Oh no, I thought I really had it. How aboooout,” She made a purposeful show of tilting her head one way and then the next. “Three years old?”

She was playing with the girl on purpose, hoping to get the little bit of crying Lily was still doing to fully subside. It was hard not being able to soothe the little girl by way of a hug, admittedly, it was an instinct for Tyler - one that most more than likely didn’t expect. Once again the older of the two girls found herself letting out a gentle laugh at the displeased scrunch of Lily’s features.

“No, bigger.” She specified.

“Oh, bigger, okay, I’m so sorry.” Tyler apologized and brought her hand up to her chin as if she were thinking for a long moment. “Are youuuu.... six years old?”

Lily’s eyes blew a little wider and the beginnings of a smile appeared as she nodded her head a couple quick times.

Something about the knowledge of the girl’s age turned in Tyler’s stomach, tightened in her chest. She knew even in approaching the child that there was no way she was older than eight, but the irony of her being the exact age of her own daughter was a painful one. Still, she managed to stick with her intentions, to not to crumble in on herself just yet.

That could wait until later.

“Six, wow, you’re right, that’s so big. You’re almost as old as I am.” Tyler grinned faintly.

Lily wiped at one of her eyes and let out a gentle laugh. “No it’s not, ‘cause you’re a grown up.”

An instinctive ‘debatable’ echoed in the back of Tyler’s mind, lingered on the tip of her tongue. It would have been a common retort to any one of her friends, an expected one even on a normal occurrence. This wasn’t exactly one of those, however.

“You know what, you’re right, I am a grown up, which means I can definitely get into the grown ups pool, huh?” Tyler lifted a brow. “Do you want to come with me and see if we see your mommy and daddy?”

Once again Lily seemed to be a little apprehensive at first, sniffling one more time as she blinked wet lashes at the older girl. Finally the little girl gave a nod of her blonde haired head. Tyler gave a nod and a reassuring smile back to her before standing up from the sand and holding her hand out.

Some other, opposite instinct very nearly had her jerking her hand back once again from the small hand that fell against her own palm. Fight or flight, maybe? Her subconscious trying to give her one last out of this ‘no good, very bad, super terrible idea’ that had a whole lot of potential to leave her in a not great position later on? She managed not to greatly confuse the child, however, keeping her hold on her hand and beginning to lead the way around the back of the board rental shack to head back from the private beach to the hotel’s pool areas.

It was ten minutes. Ten minutes tops that she walked hand in hand with Lily, going to the adult pool to find her parents. Ten minutes of talking about first grade. Ten minutes of hearing about a ‘mean big brother.’ Ten minutes of playfully guessing each other’s favorite colors - both red. Ten minutes of Tyler realizing she was going to be absolutely fucked later.

Lily’s parents were confused by the appearance of a random twenty-three year old coming into the adult area with their six year old daughter. However, after getting the story about what happened, the woman thanked Tyler, even went so far as to apologize to her for having to take time out of her vacation. Tyler reassured that it was no problem. She was happy to help. She’d kind of checked out a little at that point, though.

Somewhere between a goodbye to Lily where the six year old flung herself in a hug around Tyler’s legs for ‘being nice to her’ and going back down to the beach to fetch her shorts again, Tyler had lost track of what she was doing. How else had she ended up locked in a bathroom with her back pressed against the door, head tilted backward, eyes squeezed shut? How else had she gotten to a point of counting down from one hundred, taking careful, slow breaths, because her heart was suddenly beating so fast?

She managed to calm down enough to fish her phone out of the back pocket of the shorts she hadn’t actually put back on yet. Her teeth had a firm pinch on her lower lip as she opened up her text messages, scrolling down far enough to one from nearly a month ago.

Texting with Dylan wasn’t frequent. It wasn’t casual or friendly - nothing like it ever was years ago. They were kind of a go-between at this point. If Rick and Shannon sent either or the other of them any pictures of Sophia, they had the decency to check with one another to make sure that they both got them. Most times Tyler made it a habit of just sending them without asking - if he’d already gotten them anyway what did it matter, he’d just have them a second time? Dylan, however, had a habit of asking her if she wanted them. It had taken her a while to realize what his reasoning for that was. But it was because even after all the time and all the distance in between, he still fucking knew her well enough to know how emotional she could get. He was looking out for her.

A month ago Rick and Shannon had taken Sophia to the Grand Canyon over Spring Break. At the time, when Dylan had asked her just like he always did if she wanted the pictures that they had sent to him from their trip, Tyler hadn’t answered. That was always answer enough for Dylan. He never asked a second time, he never called her to check and see if she had gotten his message. He asked once, and Tyler didn’t answer, that was the end of it. She tapped into that message now, though, blinking a quick few, hard times.

Can you send me one of those pictures?

Her thumb hovered over the little blue arrow that would send her message. She wasn’t sure what stopped her still. The echoing pulse in her ears, maybe? The lump lodged in her throat? The ever-present reminder that she didn’t need to do this to herself all the time? Rolling her lips tightly together, she erased the typed out messaged and closed her messages entirely. Instead she thumbed into her phone. It wasn’t a surprise to find her two most recent calls were to her two best friends - they were living together for the week, and she liked to drag them out to do things, so she called them enough to know what they were up to, sue her.

Ry, Jay, Ry, Jay, Ry, Jay.

Her gaze flicked back and forth between the two recent calls, reciting the contact names in her head on a loop. God, she was certifiably crazy. This was why kids needed more than a school counselor to talk to after emotional trauma thanks mom. Tyler opted out of calling either of the boys. She was sure that if they realized she was having an unprecedented meltdown over something that they would drop what they were doing to come talk her down, there was no doubt about that. It was more that she realized this wasn’t the time or the place. They were in fucking Hawaii, they were on a fucking vacation. This was the opportunity of a lifetime and she wasn’t going to be the asshole to soil that for anyone else, especially not them. If she didn’t get it the fuck together, she was going to wreck the rest of it for herself.

Taking in a slow deep breath through her nose, Tyler closed her phone app, bringing up her home screen. The picture of Sophia with her face painted with a butterfly mask - from when Shannon and Rick had taken her to the Orange County Fair over the past summer - looked back at her. For a moment, several pictures of herself when she was little crossed her mind. The one and only time Dylan had ever said more than asking if she wanted the pictures was when he had mentioned how much Sophia looked like her. She was missing one of her front teeth in the picture, smiling wide all the same, so proud of the pretty pinks and purples and shimmery white and silver glitters that made a butterfly on her perfect, perfect little face.

“Fuck.” Tyler huffed out to herself, squeezing her eyes shut tightly for a brief moment.

Blindly locking her phone, the girl stuffed it back into her shorts and then finally yanked them back up her legs. Then she approached the bathroom mirror, looking pointedly at her reflection as her hands held at either side of the cool sink edge.

“Look, T. Let’s get it the fuck together, alright?” She was alone in the bathroom so it wasn’t like anyone could see or hear how crazy she was, talking to her own reflection. “Be sad later, on your own time, not on Hawaii time. When we get back to Chicago? Cry all you fucking want, but not right now. Take a deep breath, go get another maitai or six,” She jerked her shoulder up then down in a sharp shrug. “Find a nice looking stranger to fuck, go get a massage, jump in the ocean, I don’t fucking know, but you don’t get to do this right now.”

Crazy as she seemed, Tyler was unfortunately all too familiar with the backwards pep talks that she had to give herself. The verbal way she had to push down her own thoughts and feelings to keep them buried like always. It was something she had perfected several years ago, burying and burying. It had gotten her this far.

Hopefully it continued to get her farther.