The phone picked up on the second ring.

“Tali. Sweetheart! I’m so glad you called.” At the sound of Cassia’s voice, relief coursed through Tali at once. “I was on the verge of doing it myself but I didn’t want to add to your stress.”

“Hi, Cass,” Tali returned, full of bone-deep exhaustion.

“Oh, babe. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you left. I wish more than anything I could be there with you. How are you holding up?”

Tali sighed heavily.

“I wish you were here too. This is hard. This is so much harder than I ever could have imagined,” she admitted, her voice sounding small and meek. “But...you know. I’m surviving. Um...how’s Sushi?”

“Sushi?” Cass asked, almost laughing with incredulousness. “You want to talk about your dumb, needy cat right now? He’s fine. Demanding as always. He hasn’t starved yet, though you wouldn’t know it from all the whining.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“Don’t even, Tals. He’s a tedious creature, but I would look after a thousand fat cats if it could ease your burden even a little.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Tali said quietly. She hesitated before continuing. God, she was about to do it. To say it out loud. To make it real, this thing she’d spent the entire night mulling over sleeplessly. “Because…” she started, faltered, then started again: “Because I’m going to need you to look after him longer than a few days. Or...or at least find him somewhere else to live with someone who’ll love him. Because I’m not coming back. Not right away. I have to stay. For Ella.”

There was a moment of silence before she heard Cass sigh on the other side. “Oh, honey. Don’t even worry about the dumb cat. I kinda figured this was coming.”

“What?” Tali snapped, interrupting. “You did? Because I sure as hell didn’t! Not until it was already on me.”

“Yeah. I didn’t even want to bring it up on the drive to the airport, because I knew you already a mess but…I did wonder. You were all he had, right? Ella’s mom’s never been in the picture. And he clearly adored you so much. I just--I figured he’d want you to be the one to look after her, if he couldn’t.”

Wow. How big of an idiot was she that she hadn’t even thought about the guardianship thing until she got the message from the lawyer? Cass had only met Matty once, and she’d figured it out right away.

“Well, yeah. Apparently, he does. Which is insane, given my utter lack of ability. But I talked about it with the lawyer yesterday and that’s what he wanted. I wish he’d...talked about it with me, but…well, I hated hearing about his stupid, dangerous job and maybe I made him afraid to bring it up. But he named me guardian, Cass. At first, I had every intention of bringing her back to L.A. with me and making it work somehow. But the kid was not having any of that. We had this fucking awful, terrible fight about it and then goddamn Hudson sauntered in, completely up-in-arms about it, and made me feel like the most vile human being to ever walk the Earth and--”

“What now?” Cass interrupted. “Hudson? Who’s Hudson?”  

“Ugh,” she said, feeling ill at even hearing the name repeated back to her. “Matty’s best friend. He’s probably the most beautiful human being I’ve ever stood next to in real life. And a total asshole. You’d want to climb him like a tree, probably, but I regret to inform you that he’d be unwilling to get off his moral high horse long enough to do the deed.”

“Tal! As if I’d go near any man whose made you feel like shit!” her friend admonished. “You know I’d shank Chris Hemsworth if he said one bad word about my favorite girl.”

“Stop it,” Tali said, feeling a pang of agony at her best friend’s kindness and humor. “Stop being nice and cute and funny. Don’t remind me of how far away you are, and how long it’s going to be before I can see you again.”

“How long are you thinking?”

“Uh. However long it takes for her to get used to the idea of leaving? Maybe a month? Maybe I let her finish out the school year? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, at this point. I already talked to Caroline. She was… sympathetic, but blunt. She would have held my job for me until Tuesday, like we agreed, but that’s where her charitable nature runs out. ‘Regrettably, my dear girl, whilst your talents in the kitchen have proven superior, I cannot keep the position for you indefinitely,’” she said, imitating her boss’s British accent poorly.

“That bitch!” Cass cried indignantly.

Tali laughed, “Thank you, babe, for your loyalty, but she’s not really. She runs one of the best restaurants in a cutthroat city. You know how quick the tide turns in L.A. She can’t afford to let the quality fall.”

“I guess,” Cass grumbled. “That’s still painfully unfair, honey. After how much you’ve busted your butt to get where you are. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Tali sighed. Caroline was a shrewd businesswoman, but definitely the best owner Tali had worked for in years. “Me too. But there’s no use whining about it. I’ll figure it out when I escape this hellhole. She’s a competitive person but I think she’d be fair enough to give me a good reference for a new place.”

“She better,” Cass said, “or I’ll release a hundred rats into her kitchen in the dead of the night.”

Tali laughed, and her chest ached.

“Seriously though,” Cass said. “You’ll be fine. When I taste your food, I literally hear a chorus of angels singing with every bite. My guess is Caroline throws whatever poor sap she got to hold your place out the second you set foot on L.A. soil again.”

Tali smiled, then groaned. “Cass. You’re the best. I miss you already.”

“I miss you, too. But you’re seriously a hero for doing this. Ella is so lucky to have you.”

She snorted loudly at that. “She doesn’t see it that way. Even after I told her I was willing to give her more time, all she did was grunt at me. I’m pretty sure she and Hudson are starting a ‘Talia Tuesday is a Vile Garbage Human’ club as we speak.”

She could almost picture her protective friend’s frown on the other end of the line. “You’ve got to tell me more about this Hudson jerk. He sounds like a piece of work.”

Tali sighed heavily, “Some day, I’ll tell you all about what was the worst conversation I’ve ever had in my life, short of getting that phone call about Matty. But honestly, I was up all night replaying it over and over...and I just lack the energy. The short version is he pretty much raised Ella alongside Matty. He got wind of my plan to take her back to L.A. with me and barged in to give me a piece of his mind. Made me feel about two inches tall. Said I’m the most selfish person he’s ever met, that despite whatever Matt said about me, I haven’t grown up at all...basically that I’m a monster. He’s the rudest, most obnoxious man I’ve ever met.”

She stopped her own rant at last, but she’d gotten herself worked up about it all over again, the rage and guilt and hurt rising up in her anew. Cass let out a low whistle, “Wow. That was super uncalled for. What an ass.”

“Yeah. Well. I’m sure Ella’s glad, since it worked. He wasn’t really wrong. I am selfish. I’ve made the choice to stay, but I’ve never hated anything more. I don’t want to be here, Cass, in this messed up hick town where it’s already freezing cold and it’s not even October. I am selfish. I can’t stop thinking about how my life just got ruined, when my amazing brother lost his and his daughter is going through hell, but I can’t--”

“Hey. Hey now. It’s not selfish. It’s human. You’d just started a job in one of the best restaurants in the city. You have friends and a life here. It’s totally normal not to want to give it all up to live among strangers. But you’re making this insane sacrifice for the love of your brother. You’re not selfish, Tali. You’re brave.”

“Thanks, Cass,” she said, trying not to sound as hollow as she felt. There wasn’t much point in being morose.

She’d committed to it.

For an indeterminate amount of time, she’d have to live in a town with nothing in it, where she didn’t know anyone, where she might never be able to wear a sundress again. Hearing her beautifully optimistic friend trying to cheer her up was having the opposite effect at the moment, though her heart was clearly in the right place.

“Listen, Cass, I’ve got to get going but, um. Do you think you might be able to send me some of my stuff? And maybe keep Sushi alive for a bit?”

“Your spoiled cat will remain fat and spoiled until the day you return. I would never say this to his face, but he’s actually kind of cute sometimes. When he’s not yowling for food at five a.m. As for your stuff, just text me the address and a list. I got you.”

Tali smiled. “Thanks, girl. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Tali ended the call and threw herself back on the mattress in Matt’s guest room. Well. All the relevant calls were made. The plan was set. Maybe now she could actually catch more than forty minutes of sleep for the first time since she’d gotten the news of her brother’s death.