The lights were off in the apartment and Tiffany had the feeling it was already too late to go knocking all willy-nilly on the door, asking to be let in like some stray dog.

Tiffany was usually brusque, even at the best of times. To be perfectly honest, her provoking nature stemmed from the fact that she felt better and more at ease when she was in full control of the situation, and that included the emotions of those around her.

Shrinks would say it was because she probably had a traumatic past, something she couldn’t control, which now made her into the control-freak that she is. Shrinkspeak. Psychobabble. Irritating…but not necessarily untrue. Which made it even more damn galling.

Tiffany liked to think her life wasn’t psych-text-predictable, something all psych students would point and nod knowingly at. But then again, her life was quite simply a series of unfortunate events, so forgive her for being so tragically psycho-normal.

Really though, she didn’t take some sadistic pleasure in being rude and seeing the reactions that resulted. She wasn’t some psychopath. She was never that way to those she loved. Though they were few, Tiffany was always a different person when it came to them. It was only with people she knew who had a possibility of wanting to hurt her, people who would turn their backs on her just as soon as blink, people who had not shown her she could trust them, people who cared more about 'us' than 'them'. That’s when the control-freak monster would rear its ugly fudgin’ head.

Plus, Tiffany just felt it often made things easier if people said what they meant and meant what they said. She was also not comfortable being all 'in-tune with one’s feelings' and broadcasting it to the world; regardless of whether they were her own or someone else’s.

People who attributed everything they did solely on how they were 'feeling' were never the smartest peas in the pod and they often ended up getting hurt. Best to limit those counterproductive elements only to those that deserved it.

But Tiffany found that she had developed a soft spot for Nayeong, she felt herself wanting to be nice to darn the woman. Something she usually saw as a waste of time, a useless burden of hollow social expectation. Something Tiffany had previously only allowed herself to feel exclusively towards those few she cared for. People that wouldn’t make her want to beat herself over the head with a two-by-four if they ever hurt her. People she would irrationally and willing get hurt for. People she loved…them…her family…

Silently cursing her newfound sense of social decency and source of vulnerability, Tiffany slouched sullenly by the door of the apartment. The apartment corridors were more than sufficiently heated and it was a relatively warm night. She had slept in worse places before. This wouldn’t be so bad. Squirming restlessly to find a comfortable position, Tiffany leaned against the doorframe, using the hood of her sweater as a pillow. She fell asleep.

Sometime during the n