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After the killings, Sidney takes a two-week road trip out of Woodsboro.
She’s going to college in the fall, she knows that, and she doesn’t like taking even more time away from her dad. But seeing some of your best friends murdered and then having your boyfriend hold a knife to your throat really fucks with a girl’s mind, it turns out. And all she can think about is getting the hell out of town for a little while.
She just needs to clear her head. Two weeks, and she’ll be able to go home for the rest of the summer. It’ll be fine.
And it is, for the first couple of days. She drives north out of Woodsboro, heading for the mountains. She’s on the road a lot, stopping for food at little towns along the interstate and to use the occasional rest stop. The landscape is beautiful - lush green forests and trees, an occasional look out at the ocean as she drives. And the people she meets are nice, friendly; northern Californians always are, she’s learned. But she doesn’t stop to talk to anyone for very long. It seems betrayal has made her want everyone to stay a stranger.
It’s the morning of the third day when she sees her for the first time.
Sidney’s at a rest stop off the SR1, a little south of San Jose. She’s parked under some trees and sitting on the hood of her car, eating a little cup of fruit and yogurt and watching some children play next to an RV. It’s mundane and normal, the sun shining overhead - nothing that would feel spooky at all. But then a little movement off to her right catches her eye, and she turns her head to see Tatum disappearing behind a row of vending machines.
She sits up straight, staring at the spot where she’d vanished. She blinks, half-convinced she’d accidentally taken a little power nap and is having one hell of a dream-induced trip. And when she doesn’t see anything else, she’s able to convince herself that’s all it was. A little moment where she’d nodded off, and her brain was playing a little trick on her.
After all, ghosts aren’t real.
At least, that’s what she tells herself until she sees Tatum again.
And again.
And again.
Tatum is everywhere, it seems. Sitting on a bench along the PCH, looking out over the cliffs and down into the water. In Sausalito, wandering among some planters full of gardenias. Outside a food truck on the edge of Calistoga, leaning against a picnic table. Everywhere Sidney goes, wherever she stops, Tatum is there - always in the distance, always with her eyes turned away, and never staying for more than a moment.
Sidney thinks she’s going crazy.
Sidney knows she’s crazy when she stops to sleep on the ninth night, at a little motel in Half Moon Bay, and finds Tatum leaning against the door outside room 16.
This time, Tatum doesn’t vanish. Sidney freezes, a handful of steps away from her, and Tatum lifts her head to look her straight in the eyes.
“Holy shit,” Sidney whispers. She feels frozen in place.
“I come back from the dead to find your ass, and all you can say to me is ‘Holy shit’?! Come on, Sid, not even a hug?”
Sidney’s pretty sure she’s going to pass out.
“You’re talking to me,” she says quietly, incredulously. She shakes her head. “You’re outside my motel room and you’re talking to me. What the fuck?”
“Yeah, that’s kind of how the whole ‘ghost’ thing works,” Tatum says. She pushes off the door and takes a step towards Sidney, and snorts when Sidney instinctively steps backwards in reaction. “Oh my god, you don’t think I’m going to hurt you or something, do you? Billy and Stu were the psychopaths in our high school class, not me.”
Sidney blinks, almost wanting to rub her eyes like a cartoon character to see if Tatum will still be standing in front of her afterwards. “Is this actually happening? Are you real?”
Tatum shrugs. “Well, I’m not exactly flesh and blood anymore, thanks to my asshole ex.” She rolls her eyes. “But you’re not, like, hallucinating or anything. You’re not that crazy, Sid.” The little smile on Tatum’s lips makes Sidney relax a little. It’s the exact same smile she’d always give Sidney when they were hanging out together - one that said you’re ridiculous, but I love you anyway. It was one of her favorite things about Tatum.
So her dead best friend was outside her hotel room. So what? At this point, she’d seen just about every other crazy thing she could possibly imagine. Why not just go with it?
“Are you…” Sidney isn’t even sure how to ask what she wants to ask. “I’m so sorry, Tatum. I’m so sorry they did that to you.”
“Eh, they’re the assholes here, not you.” Tatum crosses her arms. “How are you doing?”
“Me?” Sidney raises her eyebrows in surprise. “I’m fine.”
“That’s some bullshit, Sidney Prescott.”
Sidney can’t help but laugh. If anyone was going to call her out for anything, it was Tatum. “I’m trying to be fine,” she amended. “Not being in Woodsboro helps.”
“Good,” Tatum says. “Because I’ve been watching you, ever since… well. You know. And I’ve been worried about you.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Sidney says immediately. “I’m going to be okay. Really, I am.”
Tatum smiles again. “I know. But that’s my job, you know? That’s what the best friend does.”
Sidney desperately wants to reach out for her, to hug her. To hold her. To feel like she really has her back again, just for a moment. “I miss you,” she says quietly.
Tatum sighs. “I know.”
“I wish…” Sidney takes a step forward, hands coming up to grab Tatum’s shoulders. But they pass through her easily, and that, more than anything, makes tears well up in Sidney’s eyes. “I wish they’d let you live.”
“I hate that they did this to you.” Tatum’s voice is quiet. “I hate that you’re going to live your whole life with this scar on your heart. I’m so sorry.”
The tears spill over, and Sidney reaches up to brush them away hastily. “God, this fucking sucks.”
“Don’t cry, Sid,” Tatum says softly. “Please.”
“I just hate that I have to go through the rest of my life without my best friend.”
The two stand inches apart from one another, completely unable to touch. It makes Sidney’s heart ache.
“I love you. You know that, right?” Tatum asks quietly. “You might not be able to see me, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to be there.”
Sidney swallows hard and nods. “I know. I love you.”
“And you gotta go kick ass at college, okay?” Tatum says with a little smile, tilting her head. “Meet some insanely hot frat guy and marry him and have the shit out of his babies. For me?”
“I don’t think I’m ever going to date another guy,” Sidney says with a hollow laugh. “When you’ve got one murderer ex-boyfriend, there’s no real urge to go out and get another one.”
“Then find a really hot sorority girl and adopt a fuckton of little babies together,” Tatum says softly. “Promise?”
Sidney laughs. “I promise. Anything for you, Tatum.”
“Love you, Sidney.”
Her voice is quiet. “Love you, too.”
That night, when Sidney lies down in the musty motel room bed all alone, those words echo in her head. They repeat on a loop, over and over as she falls asleep, and she wonders if maybe, if they’d had the chance, they could have said that to each other in person some day.
For real.