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For Van growing up, Christmas wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world. She loved it, still, loved the Christmas season from the decorations to the music to the movies. Van loved Christmas movies. Christmas day, though, symbolized the end of all that – only a few days after, the string lights would start coming down, the display cases in the stores turn drab once again, and it wouldn’t be until March that decent movies would start showing in theaters as the studios pushed whatever projects they weren’t certain about into the dead months of January and February. In Van’s house, Christmas day meant mom home for work, sleeping on the couch and Van sneaking around trying not to wake her up, not presents under the tree or a special home-cooked meal.
Christmas, now, though, since being rescued from the Wilderness? Christmas now was spent with the Turners, in their warm, cozy house with their Christmas decorations that they had had since Tai was born. Christmas was Mrs. Turner showing off their Christmas ornaments and pointing out where she placed the ones that symbolized Van over the years.
The glass picture frame ornament with a picture of Tai and Van from their first year on the Yellowjackets with 1996 printed on the back (“We were never going to forget you. Either of our girls,” Mrs. Turner had said quietly when she noticed Van reading the date. She pretended not to notice Van furiously swiping at her eyes).
The VHS tape that Van picked out the first Christmas she spent with them under Mr. Turner’s careful tutelage, after their rescue, in 1999 (1998’s Christmas spent in a hospital in Canada, the Turner family having all but moved into the hospital room Tai and Van shared).
The Lincoln Memorial ornament Van picked out the next year as a tribute to her moving to Washington DC and Mrs. Turner’s suspicious smile (“You make my daughter happy,” Mrs. Turner whispered that first Thanksgiving after Tai’s phone call, those few years after that initial move to DC. “You’ve made my daughter happy all these years and you brought her home to me. How can God say anything about that?”).
Christmas was Mr. Turner trying (and failing) to teach Van chess and then turning around for bitter matches with Tai. It was fighting over which movies to watch with Tai’s brother, Mateo, and which radio played the best Christmas music. Christmas was hot chocolate and colorful wrapping paper under a warm tree and everything Van never thought she would ever have.
Van would admit, though, that staying at the Turners house was stressful, before. Mrs. Turner always gushed about how she washed the sheets with the detergent scent Van liked and cleared out drawers and hanger space and to please make herself at home in the guest room. Always so welcoming and excited that Van felt guilty about how much she grew to despise the room, because it meant sleeping alone. That room meant sleeping in a cold bed with the knowledge that her girlfriend slept right across the hall. Van never could get a good night’s rest, waking up at every little sound, worried that she might miss an Issa visit with Tai sleeping so far away, worried that Issa might come find her and reveal their secret that Issa didn’t understand in the first place (trying to explain that it wasn’t safe had not gone over well, a dark and familiar look taking over Issa and Van having to hurriedly change her wording before Issa decided that not safe was unacceptable).
Now, Mr. Turner grabbed Van’s bags alongside Tai’s and tossed them into Tai’s bedroom while prattling on about the new vegetarian recipe he made for lunch. He did it so casually, the same way he did at Thanksgiving, but it nearly made Van’s heart burst.
“Can you believe how many years we stressed about this?” Tai whispered that first night during their Thanksgiving visit, in the dark of her childhood bedroom.
Van just nodded, because even months after that first phone call, with this being their first real visit…it still didn’t feel real. People like them didn’t get endings like this, family like this, who knew and loved them anyway.
“Do you think it’s because of what happened?” Tai asked and Van didn’t need clarification.
Did the Turners accept them because they already knew what it was like to lose them? Maybe. Maybe those nineteen months had made them think about their daughter and her best friend, turning over each memory that they thought was all they would get. Maybe that was when they realized. Or maybe they realized when Tai refused the offer for a private room, that brief moment where Van saw Issa surface – still Other, at the time, but after that first night, that first meal of good food that Van offered – but only long enough for Van to shake her head and Issa got the hint to let Tai take care of it. Maybe it was later, still, when Van moved to DC or when she followed Tai to New York.
“Does it matter?” Van asked, because she knew what her mom would say if she ever found out. It had been years since the last time Van had seen her mom and over a year since they had even spoken on the phone, Van calling to give her the address and phone number of the apartment in New York that Vicky had yet to use.
“No,” Tai said after a moment. “No, I don’t think it does.”
So that first Christmas, Van settled down into the almost-too-small bed, curled into Tai and wondered how in the world she got this lucky. She woke up a few hours later, her nose brushing the tip of another nose with too-awake eyes. Van did not startle.
“Hi, Issa,” Van whispered softly.
“Hi,” Issa said. Then, “Van, I’m hungry.”
Usually, Van would nod. Ask what Issa was hungry for (meat, the answer was always meat, Issa was not picky, but she was consistent) and get up to make her a plate. Some nights they would chat, others they would not, Issa often following on her toes and wanting to hold her hand, other nights seeming to try to crawl into Van’s skin. That happened in their apartment, though, the safety of their home and the Turners might know the truth about Tai and Van’s relationship, but they still knew nothing about Issa.
Though that wasn’t actually Van’s first concern at Issa’s words. “Tai ate a lot more than usual tonight. Are you sure you’re hungry?”
As in, ate so much that Van watched her for a good two minutes trying to determine if Issa somehow slipped in unnoticed, but, no, it was Tai. Who then complained about why Van let her eat so much while they got ready for bed, that Tai was so full she felt like she was going to explode, then complained when Van “laughed at her misery.”
Still, Issa nodded. “I’m hungry. Really hungry.”
“I don’t want you to make yourself sick,” Van cautioned, but already found herself rolling onto her back. Glancing at the clock: 2:00 AM. Grabbing for her slippers. “How about we start with something small? I don’t think we finished those meatballs.”
Turkey meatballs, a recipe Mr. Turner tried out for Van, because she couldn’t stomach beef anymore, but had loved his meatballs as a teenager. The first time he made them, not even a full year after they came home, Van cried into her plate, sitting at their island under Mr. Turner’s excited gaze. She still remembered how tightly he held her after, the way he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“Meatballs,” Issa said the word almost like a prayer.
“Meatballs,” Van agreed, taking Issa’s hand when she held it out and helping her out of the bed. “We need to be quiet, everyone else is sleeping.”
Issa smiled cheekily, putting a finger to her lips, “Shhh.”
“Yeah, shhh,” Van mimicked the movement, pecking her on the cheek. “C’mon, Hungry One.”
They tiptoed into the hallway, Van feeling like a teenager all over again as they snuck down the stairs, skipping the creaky third step. Once in the kitchen, Van flicked on the lights tucked under the cabinets, casting the room in a soft glow further lit by the multicolor tree lights sneaking into the kitchen from the living room.
“Sit down,” Van whispered, gesturing to the stools at the island. Issa obeyed with a slight grumble while Van opened the fridge, pleased to find a Tupperware of meatballs sitting on one of the shelves with a little note labeled Van. She pulled it out, spooning three of them into a little bowl and popping them in the microwave. She watched the timer carefully, opening the door with just a second left and carefully pressing the ‘Cancel’ button to prevent the machine from screaming. Turning around, Van stuck a fork into one of the meatballs and gently slid the bowl across the granite countertop towards Issa, who accepted it excitedly. “Eat up.”
Hopefully, three meatballs would be more than enough, Van still not convinced that Tai and Issa’s shared stomach could handle much more food than that. In that way, Issa reminded Van of herself, after their rescue. The months where Van never felt satisfied and found herself constantly watching the clock for the next appropriate mealtime, having to track each bite meticulously because she kept making herself sick overeating. It freaked Tai out, how Van never seemed full, because Tai never got that lovely symptom of nineteen months of constant near-starvation.
“If you’re hungry, you should eat,” Tai said, once, that first month out of the hospital. It was during the time when the Turners fully moved Van into their guest room without a second thought, after it became clear that Van’s mother wouldn’t be able to help with the medications and doctor’s appointments and all the extra care Van still required. Or, at first, Van thought it was Tai, sitting with her on the Turners balcony. “You need to eat.”
It was the second sentence that made Van realize that she wasn’t talking to Tai, because, while Tai always asked the doctors if they were sure Van’s meal plan was enough, she never outright told Van to disobey them. Tai never said things like need, never phrased things in a way that revealed how little control any one really had over their bodies, because Tai pretended to live in a world of careful control and Van let her.
“I am eating,” Van said, her words measured as she watched the Not-Tai, as Van took to calling her in her head, out of the corner of her eye. “It’s- It’s a side effect, of everything. It should go away.”
Should being the operative word, but Natalie said the only thing that dulled it for her was drugs and the last time Van saw Melissa, she looked still so painfully thin and said the only thing that helped her was not eating.
“Hm,” the Not-Tai did not seem convinced, either.
“Do you have a name?” Van asked, wanting to move on from this conversation, wanting to ignore the gnawing in her stomach that wouldn’t be answered until morning.
Not-Tai straightened slightly, but didn’t say anything for a moment. “…Taissa Turner?”
“Hm,” Van said as she looked out over the balcony. “How about Issa?”
“Issa?”
Van nodded, glancing over at Not-Tai, who was now staring straight at her. Van looked forward once again. “Yeah. Tai is short for Taissa. Issa could be short for it, too, though.”
“Issa,” Not-Tai said, but sounding more like she was testing the name on her tongue. “I like it.”
“I’m glad,” Van said, because there wasn’t anything else to say.
“Do you like the meatballs?” Van asked as Issa barely chewed the first and moved onto the second.
Issa nodded vigorously, stopping just long enough to say, “Delicious.”
Van snorted at the word, Issa not even caring to look up at her.
“Girls?” Van’s heart stopped at the same time the larger kitchen light flicked on. Mrs. Turner stood in the kitchen doorway, robe wrapped around her, Mr. Turner right behind her rubbing tiredly at his face. “Is everything all right?”
Fuck.
“Sorry, Mrs. Turner, Mr. Turner” Van apologized, trying for calm, collected. “We didn’t mean to wake you guys up. Is- Tai was just hungry.”
Van glanced over, hoping to see Tai, but Issa sat there, staring wide-eyed and with a mouth of meatball. Okay. They could do this. This would be fine.
“No, it’s fine, we just heard rummaging down here,” Mr. Turner said. “We’re old. Old people don’t sleep through the night.”
And here would be where Tai would roll her eyes and tell her dad to shut up, that he wasn’t old. He would joke back that she would be searching for nursing homes for her parents soon enough and Tai would crack back that she would have more than enough money for in-home care when the time eventually came, years from now.
But this wasn’t Tai. This was Issa. So she said nothing and Van watched as Mr. Turner’s brow furrowed in concern.
“Tai, are you eating the meatballs?” Mrs. Turner asked suddenly and Van closed her eyes for just a moment, as if this was a bad movie she could ignore, fast-forward, anything for this not to be happening. When she opened them, though, the scene continued to play. “I didn’t know you started eating meat again, sweetheart.”
“It’s pretty sporadic,” Van tried as Issa looked to her with wide-eyed panic, even as she swallowed her mouth of food. “She’s not really comfortable eating it around many people.”
Van was saying too much. Van was saying way too much. Tai not eating meat was not an approved subject to talk about with her parents. Tai simply said she wanted to be a vegetarian when they came home and the Turners accepted it without much push back, then never mentioned it again. When Van started to eat certain meats and not others, they never asked why. This, though? Fuck, if this wasn’t way too much information, way too close to the truth.
“Oh,” Mrs. Turner said, her eyes flitting between Issa and Van.
An awkward silence settled over the kitchen, the four of them staring at each other, no one knowing what to do.
Van tried to break it, looking to the Turners with a smile. “We’re almost done here, anyway. Do you-”
“I’m not Tai.”
Oh, Issa. Again, Van closed her eyes, but not quickly enough to not see both their faces morph into expressions of shock. Confusion.
“All right!” Van turned to Issa, still with a big smile that felt way too fake, but was possibly the only thing managing her sanity. “How about you head on up to bed-?”
“What does that mean?” Mr. Turner asked. Van didn’t know what to say. “What’s going on?”
“Van calls me Issa,” Issa said. And that was her helpful voice. That was her I’m trying so hard voice. Van couldn’t be mad when Issa was using that voice.
“Wha- Taissa Turner, what is going on?” Mr. Turner’s voice raised in his confusion. Issa’s eyes flicked back to Van as she suddenly looked a lot less sure of herself than she did thirty seconds ago. When Issa said nothing, “Vanessa?”
Before Van could say anything to that, Issa’s eyes narrowed as she all but hissed, “Don’t call her that.”
“Okay! Nope!” Van moved around the island, grabbing at Issa’s arms to pull her out of the chair. “Bed. You need to go back to bed.”
“No,” Issa said, planting her feet. Tai always had been so much stronger than Van, but Issa was the one who always saw fit to remind Van of that fact.
“One of you needs to start talking,” and that was Mr. Turner, again. Agitated, now, angry in his fear and concern.
Issa didn’t like it, Van could feel her tensing under Van’s hands on her shoulders. “You need to start-”
“Enough,” Mrs. Turner said, suddenly in between Mr. Turner and Issa once again, everyone piled into the kitchen and Van really just wanted to go back to bed. “Everyone needs to take a deep breath. We will talk about this in the living room.”
“Mrs. Turner,” Van tried, but Mrs. Turner fixed her with that Mom stare and a raised eyebrow that shut Van up instantly.
Which was how Van found herself sitting next to Issa on one couch, the Turners on the other, the coffee table separating them.
“Girls,” Mrs. Turner said, her voice even and authoritative. “Is there something you want to tell us about Taissa?”
“Not really,” Van said. Honesty is the best policy and all that, right?
Mr. Turner rubbed at his face, elbows on his knees as he hunched forward.
“Listen, we have never pushed you about things you don’t want to talk about. You know that. We’ve never asked about what happened…out there. We let you guys tell us on your own time that you were together. But- C’mon, this is- I mean, Taissa, you told us you weren’t Tai. What does that mean? You can’t just-” Mr. Turner sat back up with a sigh, looking at them, lost and sad and Van never thought about how much Tai looked like her father until that moment. Or rather, how much Issa looked like her father. “You gotta give us something. She was eating meat!”
“I’m sorry,” Issa said, so soft her words would not have been heard if the room wasn’t so silent. At first, Van thought she was talking to her parents. Then, a hand took hers and she realized Issa was looking only at her, with another pair of big, brown, lost, sad eyes. “I didn’t- I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Van said, because there wasn’t anything else to say. She looked to the Turners. Took a deep breath.
“We thought Tai was sleepwalking, at first.”
At her heart, Van was a storyteller. It had been a while since she had an audience as enraptured as the Turners were as she weaved Issa’s story together. Not all of it, not even most of it. She talked about the wandering away from the group, but nothing about weird symbols. She talked about times of stress and the wolf attack, but nothing about climbing trees or stealing a talisman. She mentioned tying themselves together so that she would know when Issa left, but nothing about snow on the ground and a body they failed to cremate.
“It’s some psychological thing, probably,” Van said towards the end, trailing off because this story didn’t have an ending. “But she isn’t- She doesn’t impede Tai’s life, really, and- I don’t know.”
Because how do you tell your girlfriend’s parents that you love the part of her born out of pain and suffering and fear and violence? The part of her that acted on instinct and emotion, somehow torn from the rest of her, but also still intrinsicallyher? How do you even begin to explain that?
“Well,” Mrs. Turner swallowed and her eyes glistened, but she tried to smile anyways. “I have been worried about Taissa getting enough protein in her diet.”
“Hm. Yeah, she doesn’t,” Issa said.
“Tai eats just fine,” Van assured Mrs. Turner, lightly pinching Issa’s leg and earning a tiny glare in response.
“Why didn’t you just tell us this was going on?” Mr. Turner asked, his voice soft once again. “We just want to help you.”
That’s all they ever wanted. Van wasn’t supposed to know about those arguments they had had with Tai, in the early days. The ones that happened behind closed doors, but loud enough that Van heard every word. When Tai started driving her and Van to their doctors’ appointments, insisting her parents didn’t need to. When Tai refused to let them join her and Van during the settlements with the charter plane company. When Tai insisted on going to Howard and refusing to allow them to rent her an apartment her freshman year, because all freshman lived on campus, even if Howard gave her an exemption. Tai’s inability to accept that she needed help from anyone, even Van sometimes, made her relationship with her parents…difficult, at times.
“She didn’t want you to know we’re broken,” Issa said, all matter of fact.
“You aren’t broken,” was Van’s immediate response. Then, as the Turners stared at her, with a sigh, “She’s just- It’s just a different way of living.”
“So Tai wouldn’t have told us,” Mrs. Turner said. “Issa told us.”
“Yes,” Issa nodded.
Mrs. Turner nodded as well, slowly. Contemplatively. Then, “This isn’t the first time we’ve met you, is it?”
Issa shook her head. “I was around more, earlier. When Tai was stressed.”
“Yes, I suppose that makes sense,” Mrs. Turner said, more to herself than anyone else. “Usually, such splits occur as a way to shield one side from extreme stress.”
…what?
“I was a psych major in college,” Mrs. Turner continued, almost bemused as Van looked at her in shock. “I suppose Taissa never brought that up.”
Van knew that Mrs. Turner went to college. That she worked a little afterwards, but as a secretary and quit as soon as Tai was born.
“I’m not a psychologist or anything, but I remember some things,” Mrs. Turner finished, looking to Issa with a small, tragic smile.
“So this is…normal, then?” Van asked, haltingly.
“I think this is one of many possible results from what you girls went through,” Mrs. Turner said in lieu of a real answer.
Mr. Turner huffed out a breath. “I guess it would make sense, you two keeping this from us. Considering what happened with Lottie and all.”
Mental health issues since early childhood. Travis and a spike pit. Switzerland. Van tried not to think about Lottie Matthews much nowadays. It hurt too much.
“We didn’t,” Van cut herself off. Swallowed. Took Issa’s hand in hers more firmly. “It wasn’t about trust. We just didn’t know how to tell you.”
“We aren’t angry,” Mrs. Turner said. Soft and gentle and always so understanding. All the little things that made Van’s heart ache when she was a kid visiting Tai’s house. Then, a bit firmer, looking to her husband, “Right, Gerald?”
“Of course not,” Mr. Turner said, as if the question offended him. Then, directly to Van and Issa, “No. Of course we’re not angry. We just worry about you.”
“Tai didn’t want you to worry more,” Issa tried to explain. Tai was going to love this in the morning.
“That girl,” Mr. Turner shook his head as he muttered to himself, before speaking to Issa. “I’ve told Tai time and time again. It’s a parent’s job to worry. It is not the kid’s job to protect. Can I at least get you to understand that?”
It was slow, hesitant, but Issa nodded. “I thought you would want to know.”
“Good. Now, we just need to get all of you on board with that,” Mr. Turner smiled, the words said almost like a joke.
“Good luck with that. We’re pretty stubborn,” Issa tried to joke back, inciting a surprised bark of a laugh out of Mr. Turner.
“At least this one can admit that,” Mr. Turner said.
It was about then that Mrs. Turner called it a night, ushering them all back up the stairs and into their beds. With final goodnights, Van closed the door, Issa perched on the bed, looking at her.
Van leaned back against the door.
“Tai won’t be happy, will she?” Issa asked.
“Probably not.”
Issa bit her lip, “Should I write her a letter?”
“That sounds like a great idea.”
In a strange role reversal, Van found herself hovering over Issa’s shoulder while she wrote her letter. Peeking over at the words, filled with “I’m sorry”s right next to “You should have done this years ago, anyway”s, though Issa kept moving the paper out of her sight and not letting Van read portions. It was always interesting, the opinions Issa had about how Tai lived her life.
“There,” Issa said as she finished the letter with her name, Issa Turner. She looked up at Van, “Time for bed.”
Van nodded and Issa took Van’s hand, leading her back to the bed. Pushing her down onto it and spooning her from behind, an arm tight around Van’s waist. Van held Issa more often than not, but Van wouldn’t fight it, would never turn down the offer to be held. Especially after tonight and the way her stomach twisted at what Tai’s reaction would be in the morning.
When Van woke up, an arm was still around her waist. She tensed, still, staring at the clock that read 8:11 AM, not wanting to disturb sleep.
“I know you’re awake.” Tai.
Van swallowed, tongue feeling thick, trying to force herself to sound normal even as her heart hammered away in her chest, “Good morning.”
“I read the letter.”
“Oh,” Van squeaked, not expecting that. So much for her being a light sleeper.
“She was very insistent that I couldn’t be mad at you,” Tai said, almost bemused. Van felt gentle lips press against the back of her head. “She’s very protective of you. It’s sweet.”
“I’m-”
“Don’t apologize,” Tai interrupted, the arm around Van’s waist squeezing, just slightly. “It’s not…I should have told them.” Then, “I think I wanted them to know.”
Van turned in Tai’s arms to look at Tai, resting her head on Tai’s outstretched bicep. “You never said anything.”
Tai shrugged, as well as she could while laying down. Her free hand went to Van’s cheek, cupping it. Stroking it. “It was more of a subconscious want. We keep so much from them. Secrets are exhausting.” Tai rolled her lips, “I’m sorry you had to tell them, though. Issa is, too, she thought she would be able to explain and then couldn’t figure out how to do that without…”
Tai trailed off. Without telling them everything. Without telling them about hunting and trials and bad food.
“Always happy to help,” Van tried for a cheery, jokey voice. It fell a bit flat.
“You’re too good for me,” Tai all but whispered, before pressing a firm kiss to Van’s forehead.
“Nah, we’re perfect matches,” Van said, curling herself into Tai’s chest, arms wrapping around Tai.
“Mm,” Van could feel Tai’s hum reverberating through her body. “I like the sound of that.”