Snippet from Taylor/Amy/Jean Scene. (Work in Progress. Likely to Be Changed in Next Draft)

She then placed down the tablet and stylus, “Have you talked to Amy?”

“Excuse me,” I asked, not quite believing what I just heard. Was she really serious? She had just asked me yesterday and she was pressing me now?!

“Asked me what,” the other person in the room asked, and I glanced towards her. Honestly, I wanted to scream at Jean. Part of Amy’s issues with her home life was the fact that they were telling her what to do and taking advantage of her gift. And Jean was here basically repeating the same fucking mistakes.

“No,” I said warningly, and all pretension of being pleasant was gone. I could feel that familiar coiled anger that seemed to be ever-present as of late slowly raising its head, “and I don’t think that now is the time to discuss this with her either.”

“If not now, then when Taylor. We only have four-”

“Get out,” my tenuous grasp slipped, and I could feel it now, bubbling underneath my skin as it slowly uncoiled like a snake. I clenched my hands so tight that the scars stretched uncomfortably even as my joints protested the pressure.  

Jean stopped to stare at me, even as I glared at her. It was the final straw.

I don’t have the time for this. I don’t have the time for you. I want you to leave me alone. I want you to-

“Get. Out,” the hiss escaping my lips was more like an animal making a threat display than any human. But my control was so fraught now, that if I said or did anything more, I wasn’t sure I would be able to hold myself back.

What happened to me was my business! How I chose to handle it was mine! How dare she not only try and manipulate me. But now she was going to try and manipulate Amy, too?!

“Alright then,” Jean said, thankfully getting the hint, “I’ll talk to you later.”

With her parting words said, she promptly got to her feet, crisply spun around, and headed back out of my workshop. It was only as the door slid shut behind her that the tension finally left my body and I slumped back in my chair.  

Why couldn’t people just leave it alone, I thought to myself, looking down to my open hands through my Focus. It was the only thing that I could ‘see’ of my disfiguration, the Focus providing precise detail of the scar tissue that looked like an angry painter had sloppily tossed a can of paint on a canvas. It was the only ready reminder of what they had done to me that I had.

“Taylor,” Amy’s voice ripped me from my thoughts as I looked up from my hands, “What was that?”

“It’s-,” my words failed me. I really didn’t want to voice it. Because I didn’t want to feel like I was taking advantage of Amy. She didn’t owe me and I would be damned before I took advantage of her. I was not going to be like her family.