If she thought about it, Tessa realized, she had spent a little over half her life provoking reactions from Patrick Milligan. Drawings in the corners of his notebooks had begun emitting realistic noises in the middle of a silent classroom, his curtains had nearly gone up in flames at 2am when she’d gotten bored and popped in for a visit, and the cats in his parents’ neighborhood had suddenly found themselves with the ability to glide a few feet off the ground, even when they didn’t seem to entirely want to. In return she’d gotten frantic whispers (”Tessa, no, come on. Seriously?”), flailing alarm, sighs, and lectures that she’d mostly tolerated (twelve years old and sitting cross-legged on the foot of his bed, grinning insolently as he explained for the hundredth time that people sometimes liked it when you knocked before you teleported into their bedroom at 2am) and sometimes even listened to. Usually at some point during the escapade he’d draw one corner of his mouth up slightly without really looking at her, clearly more amused than he was entirely comfortable letting on, and it was a greater spur to her plans than James’ most enthusiastic participation and showboating. She was well-studied in her best friend’s reactions partially because they were more subtle than most people’s, more of a challenge to draw out, and therefore more of a reward.
This one, however, the flinch-and-refuse-to-focus, wasn’t usually directed at her. He made an attempt with the smile, but Tessa answered it with raised eyebrows, really? Not convincing, as plain as written on her face. She rocked back on her heels and hooked her thumbs into her pockets, fanned her fingers downwards, and narrowed her eyes slightly, considering him. Then he was apologizing confused and miserable and probably with no idea what he was apologizing for, but completely sincere nonetheless, and Tessa felt herself deflate slightly. Asshole, how am I supposed to be mad at you for mixing everything up when your face does that?
“Yeah, not yet, but you might still be,” she informed him, choosing the apology’s most obvious meaning to answer, “I decided that since this garden has been so traumatized the past couple days it deserved a…” she trailed off and made a show of choosing her words carefully, “fighting chance in terms of continued survival.” She patted some dirt around a seed-bed with her toe, gently compressing the soil in a way somehow reminiscent of someone patting the head of their attack dog named Baby. She snuck a look sideways at Patrick through her hair and curled her upper lip into one of her more feral grins. For a moment it was almost business as usual, like if she just played everything right she could nudge this thing back onto the tracks and they could go on as they always had. She could tell him to put the guitar away and grab his arm and tug them off somewhere, that mall in Singapore just to see his face when he thought she was really going to strand him on a foreign continent with no way to escape watching her shop, then she’d laugh and tug them on somewhere else, that garden in Italy maybe, the one she’d visited with her father, she could show him…