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It wasn’t as if Tabatha hated Stella – in fact, it was far from it. Back before Perlanne died, when she still had a little freedom, Stella was the one who made her life less miserable, a bright spot with how dark her life was. It didn’t matter how bad it was at the manor since she knew she would see Stella again the next day.
Tabitha always knew in the back of her mind it couldn’t last, that someday the responsibilities Perlanne had made very sure to drill into her would come to a head; yet at the time she had been simply content to bask in the warmth that was Stella.
And come to a head it did; her days sprinkled with happiness were no longer, buried in responsibilities, expectations, and duties to perform. If she had any hope at all things would get better after Perlanne died, they were snuffed out now. EVERYTHING from the biggest, to the smallest detail, fell on her shoulders. She HAD to keep the mine going, had to keep some sort of income, of business flowing through the town to keep it from drying up. Without the mine, the businesses would leave, and then the people would leave and Scarlett Hollow would be nothing more than a ghost town and it would be All. Her. Fault.
She couldn’t take that.
And so she threw herself into her work, convincing herself it didn’t matter what people thought of her, she would do whatever necessary to keep the mine afloat. She didn’t have time for anything but; Stella didn’t understand. She kept trying, kept pushing to get Tabitha to take a break and do something fun like they used to, but she couldn’t. If she took even a minute out of her time to do something unproductive, she would fail.
Instead of trying to explain, to get Stella to understand, it was simply easier to make Stella hate her, to drive her away then leave her hanging, waiting for a time they could be together that would simply never come. Not that it was really working, anyways… Stella simply seemed to refuse to give up – time after time sneaking into the mines, even after being banned.
While Tabitha was truly worried about her cousin’s safety, there was also that smaller, bitter voice in the back of her head that kept saying 'It should have been me with Stella. I should have been with her on that mountain hike. I should have been with her going after those kids in the mine.’ And while she had told them the reason she agreed to join them on the incursion to the haunted house was to keep an eye on her cousin, in reality she wanted an excuse to do something with Stella again.
Her skepticism about there actually being a real ghost had been real; she never had believed in the supernatural, even back when she was younger. Stella knew this – and yet somehow, never seemed to mind. When they did eventually come face to face with a ghost and its possession, Tabitha had been absolutely terrified both for herself and Stella. She wasn’t sure what annoyed her more; the fact the ghost had the nerve to take someone so important or that the voice of jealousy had stopped. In the end her cousin had managed to talk the ghost out of its plans, saving everyone, something Tabitha would be forever grateful for but would never admit.
That night, laying in bed, she had looked at her phone several times, even going so far as to open Stella’s contact once. There was a tight knot in her stomach that hadn’t left her since she saw Stella possessed; she looked in so much pain, and had talked so uncharacteristically little at the end before going home it set Tabitha on edge. She wanted nothing more than to reach out and repay the kindness Stella had given her, but had no idea where to start. After all Tabitha had done, how was she supposed to just jump on as if nothing had happened between them? She couldn’t let Stella get the wrong idea, either, but she also didn’t want to leave her alone.
A frustrated groan escaped her as her phone lay mockingly next to her. Clearly she wasn’t getting any sleep tonight.