Chapter Text
“TJ! We’re going to be late!” Amber is already stepping out the door, coffee mug and jangling keys in hand and JanSport bag tossed over her shoulder.
“One second!” TJ calls back, then proceeds to make a ruckus searching for something in the living room. Their mother takes the opportunity to head to the door and give Amber an uncalled for kiss on the forehead and accidentally bop her on the cheek with the mug containing her breakfast.
“Oh, and guys, your dad and I are leaving Friday night to go up and visit Caden and Marissa—we’ll be back Sunday night or early Monday morning depending on which flight we can get. Are you guys okay with that?”
Amber is used to her parents being gone—when they’re fighting, when her dad takes way-too-long business trips, when either or both of them disappear without warning for a few days. But now that they’re on some kind of weird getting-along-hiatus, the fact that they’re going to Maine together as a husband-wife trip is a bit off-putting.
“Okay,” TJ responds uncaringly, pushing past their mother and Amber and then practically falling out the doorframe. Amber shrugs and follows him, the heels of her shoes clicking against the stone.
TJ jumps into the passenger seat, already typing something away on his phone—to Cyrus, no doubt. Amber throws her bag into the back seat, and in one smooth motion turns on the ignition, checks her mirrors, buckles her seatbelt, and grasps the wheel with one hand.
“Ugh.”
“About sums it up,” TJ says, without looking up from his phone.
“One week of exams, though, and then we’re free.”
TJ blinks twice, then drops his phone. “Shit. I did not finish studying my Spanish vocab.” He scrambles around in his backpack and pulls out a thick multicolored packet of notes.
“Yeah, good luck with that.” Amber drops a piece of spearmint gum in her mouth and backs down the driveway, glancing at the rearview mirror. Once they’re into the road and headed towards school, she pops the gum once and settles back into the light traffic.
“Uh, lemon. Oh wait, it’s just, uh, limón? Okay. Um, grapefruit. La toronja.”
“Hey Teej, are you going to Reed’s thing on Saturday night?”
TJ licks his lip and raises his eyebrows so all fourteen forehead lines are visible. “If I must.”
“Honestly it’s just going to be Reed trying to get everyone drunk and hook up with the nearest available guy. Or girl. And he has poor music taste.”
“You think everyone has poor music taste if they don’t stan Billie Eilish and King Princess.”
“Valid. But seriously, we should just throw our own party. Mom and Dad’ll be gone anyway.”
“You want to throw a party. And have to clean up people’s drunken messes. And protect the at least eighteen breakable objects in every room.”
“No…” Amber hard turns the steering wheel right toward the road their high school is on. “Actually. I don’t want to hang out with Reed and I certainly don’t want to hook up with him. He’s already got half of the duo down—“
“Hey. Hey Amber. How much can I pay you never to bring that up again?”
“Not all the money in the world. Okay. Well. What if we invited just a few people over? What if we—oh my god, what if we had like a group sleepover?” Amber grips the wheel and grins at the idea.
“With like…Andi?”
“With everyone! Oh! You should invite Cyrus!”
TJ’s face goes one shade darker than normal, and he flips over his phone in his hands. Amber still hasn’t officially been formally informed of TJ’s (massive) crush on Cyrus Goodman, but all of the evidence is there. She hasn’t started prodding him yet, but if he doesn’t tell her soon, she might have to. Then again, if she does try and pry the information from him, he may start asking about her crush, which was a bit of a sore subject.
“Um. Sure? Sure. Who else?”
“Buffy, Andi, Jonah? Just the six of us?”
“A sleepover?” TJ gulps.
“Yup.”
“Um.”
It’s all he says, but Amber just smacks her gum and turns into the school, secure in the knowledge that her plans for this weekend are set.
—
After the exam, Cyrus spots TJ at his locker, fumbling with the lock. It’s a daily occurrence: TJ fails to get it open during lunch period, Cyrus helps, they talk. Sometimes TJ throws his arm around Cyrus’s shoulder as they walk off to lunch, because he’s brave. Cyrus just smiles and listens to his heartbeat speed up when that happens.
“Need some help with that?” Cyrus asks, striding up beside him.
“A little,” TJ admits, and Cyrus takes the lock in his hands. He counts fourteen to the right, then swings it back left, then finally hears the click.
“I guess hanging out with Jonah pays off. I should really teach you—“
“You should really teach me.“ TJ agrees, then grabs his books and shoves them in his backpack, already reaching an arm out to Cyrus. He drops his hand on Cyrus’s shoulder, giving an affectionate shove, and then the two of them step in stride to lunch. TJ doesn’t say much, but he keeps working his jaw like he’s got something to tell Cyrus. Finally, they reach the cafeteria, and TJ is still narrowing his eyes at the wall, as they sit down as if it will tell him what to do.
“Earth to TJ? Still up there?”
TJ snaps to attention. “Listen, I’ve got to ask you something. Amber is inviting a few friends over on Saturday for a holiday gathering thing instead of Reed’s big party. And me. I mean—I’m also having friends over. So, do you want to come?”
A grin takes over Cyrus’s features immediately. “You’re inviting me over?”
“Of course,” TJ says, unable to hold back a nervous smile.
“Who else is coming? And what are we going to do? I don’t mean to interrogate—well, actually, I do—but I’ve just never really gone to anyone’s house before, besides Buffy’s and Andi’s. And Jonah’s that one time, huh. But you’ve been to my house—“
“Hey, Underdog.” Cyrus pauses at the nickname, always and forever a weak spot for him. “It’ll be alright. We’re going to watch movies, make cookies, you know, have fun. And you can sleepover if you want,” TJ finishes. Cyrus doesn’t know how TJ manages to say the word sleepover without blushing, because his own face warms when TJ says it.
“I’m in. Only if the cookies happen to be double chocolate chunk, though.”
“You got it, Underdog. And while you’re at it, can you invite Buffy and Andi?”
Cyrus pauses. “You want me to invite them?”
“Uh—yeah. I’ll invite Jonah, then, and that’s everybody.”
Two years ago, Buffy and Andi would have rather sunken several more canoes than spend a holiday weekend with the Kippens. But a lot has changed since middle school. Once TJ got his act together and apologized to Buffy, things started to fall into place. It was a rocky start, for sure, especially after an incident with TJ’s friend Reed and a gun. But slowly the girls started to accept TJ and even understand why Cyrus liked him so much. He was a much kinder person after a particularly bad episode of drama with his parents ended in the spring of their eighth grade year. And Amber came around too, apologizing for a couple months of mistakes. Buffy and Andi started hanging out with TJ and Amber more, and even Jonah got over his dislike of TJ to form a mostly sports-based friendship. Now the tentative bond between the six of them had grown into something unspoken—now three sophomores and three juniors, one set of twins, a best friend trio of three, and an always-changing scheme of couples. If the six of them hung out over break, the event would be a good chance to solidify the friendship—finally put the drama of the past behind them.
“Yeah, I’ll invite them,” Cyrus responds. As if on cue, Buffy and Andi arrive at the table, chattering away about their exam. TJ takes his milk carton and heads out to the parking lot, probably to find Jonah at his car.
“Cyrus!” Buffy slides in next to him, dropping her Spanish textbook on the table. “Can you help us figure out what the short answer for seven was supposed to be?”
“Whoa, Buffy. You know I can only handle one school related activity per day, and that was the exam. Besides, I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Me too?” Andi asks, and Cyrus nods.
“Amber and TJ invited us to hang out on Saturday night. A… sleepover,” he says the word with a dramatic emphasis, then glances at his plate of sloppy Joes, wishing for taters with which to perform theater.
“A sleepover?” Andi yelps, pressing her palms against the bench. “At the Kippens’?”
“Yup,” Cyrus says proudly. “Us, the twins, and Jonah.”
“Jonah,” Buffy repeats, tugging at the scrunchy in her hair.
“The twins,” Andi says. “Amber.”
Cyrus mouths the word obvious, but Andi and Buffy aren’t paying attention to him. After all, isn’t he just as obvious? A sleepover, with TJ. A sleepover, with TJ.
He’s going to die of shock on Saturday. His crush. It doesn’t feel good to say that on the inside, like his stomach is going to squeeze itself out of him. If TJ were here, he would put a hand on Cyrus’s shoulder and Cyrus would be able to breathe, besides the gentle butterflies in his stomach. But the idea of a sleepover—
“We’re going to lose our minds,” Buffy says, and Andi nods in agreement. Cyrus supposes that Andi has gotten used to the idea that Jonah is Buffy’s now, because she doesn’t even seem phased at Buffy’s reaction. What a strange world he’s living in, where Andi loses her mind over her ex-mortal enemy Amber Kippen while her best friend Buffy panics about her ex. Where TJ Kippen invites him, Cyrus Goodman, to have a sleepover.
And make cookies and listen to Christmas songs and watch holiday movies—romantic holidays movies, where they might lean against each other, one’s head on the other’s shoulder, and then fall asleep and wake up in the morning, still next to each other, hands nearly touching—
“Earth to Cyrus—“ The daydream ends with Andi grinning over him, waving her study materials for the history exam tomorrow. “You can think about TJ once you’re done thinking about Napoleon. Come on.”
Rolling his eyes, Cyrus follows Buffy and Andi to the library, still turning over the invitation in his mind and letting it sink in.
—a sleepover—
—
While Buffy drives Cyrus and then herself home, Andi bikes to her apartment alone, digging her wrists into the handlebars. Her head is full of mindless history terms, of European names and dates she’ll forget within twenty-four hours. But none of those words—manorialism, Medici, Columbian Exchange, or diaspora—are sticking to the forefront of her thoughts. No, those are occupied by Cyrus’s words from earlier. Amber had invited her—
Andi cut off her thinking right there. The proper line of thought was definitely that TJ had invited Cyrus and asked his friends to tag along. But still, the idea of Amber thinking of her to invite, of Amber going through her contacts and smiling when she got to Andi’s name: that thought made Andi smile uncontrollably while the wind blew in her face and eyes.
To quote ninth grade Cyrus: “—very gay, very smitten—“ That was exactly what she was.
One and a half years ago, in the June before freshman year, Andi had received a handwritten letter in the mail. It was five pages long, in sincere cursive with crossed i’s and dotted t’s. And it was from Amber: an apology. For the ferris wheel, the bracelet, the anger, the party, the everything. At the end she had written “I know I can’t make up for everything that I’ve done. But I hope you can start to forgive me, knowing that I want to make it better.” Andi had read it, and reread it, and tried to think of words to say in response. But there was nothing to say, only a relationship to rebuild. And so after Amber extended that olive branch, so had Andi. She had offered to hang out with Amber, just like they had months prior after her falling-out with Buffy, but this time Buffy came along to some of them, and they didn’t go to any more parties. Amber always seemed a little nervous when they went out, as if she was afraid of messing up again. It was strange to see that side of Amber, who wasn’t perfectly composed and certain. But both of them gradually opened up, and this time the friendship didn’t encroach on Andi and Buffy’s mended relationship, but prospered next to it.
December of ninth grade year—so, one year ago—Andi invited Amber over for a sleepover. And around two in the morning, as they were sprawled out on Andi’s bedroom floor, Andi had told Amber, finally, everything that happened with her family in seventh and eighth grade and how all of it felt as it was happening: finding out who were mom was, meeting her dad, Pops disappearing, Cece’s breakdown, her mom and Cece fighting, her parents’ marriage, and too many other situations to count. Amber had listened, and halfway through the story of her parents’ reuniting, had reached out a hand and taken Andi’s in her own. Sorry, the gesture seemed to say, for the things I said at that party two years ago. Sorry for not being there for you. Sorry that the world has never been on your side.
Once Andi finished, Amber had kept holding her hand and then had begun to tell a story of her own: a story of her and TJ, inseparable since birth, of parents who constantly fought in the kitchen, in the living room, in the car, everywhere. It was a story of pain and tears and therapy and late nights working and the twins holding onto each other. Every time Andi thinks about this story, she remembers the way Amber and TJ had lashed out at everyone around them for those years in their life. The story didn’t excuse their actions—and Amber knew that—but it qualified them. And it was still something they were going through, the nerve-wracking feeling of never knowing how able your family would be to cook dinner, when your dad was going to return from another continent, how you were supposed to survive with a variable number of parents.
That night, Andi and Amber had held hands for almost an hour, silent in the dark. It was just something unspoken.
And then, months later—in June of this year—Andi had come to a realization. A heart-stopping, eye-popping realization. It started with her approaching Cyrus hesitantly, and asking him: how did you know you liked Jonah? The real meaning of the question felt implied to her—not Jonah, but boys—but Andi now thinks Cyrus must have missed the point. He thought she was asking about Jonah again, about dimples and frisbee. So Andi didn’t mention it again. She kept it rattling around in her mind until September, when Buffy told her, with a small, shaky voice, that she was bisexual.
Andi knew what it meant to be bisexual. To like girls and boys both. And the idea had seemed so freeing at first, but unreachable for her. But when Buffy shaped the word with her mouth, Andi felt something inside of her click. Bisexual. She thought about Jonah and Amber. She thought about Walker and Libby. She thought about the teen magazines she used to hide when Cece wasn’t looking and thumb through, looking for pictures of Miley Cyrus.
And then she thought: I am two hundred percent fucked.
She and Amber went ice skating; they watched movies together and had sleepovers and went shopping and people watched outside Shadyside College. They held hands in the dark, once.
But it wasn’t until September of tenth grade year that the feeling sunk in: more than a friendship, something unspoken. For Andi, at least.
And now—a sleepover! Not just an ordinary one. A sleepover with boys and food and movies and time to themselves. What if Amber liked one of the guys she had invited? That only left Jonah, which seemed unlikely. But there was no way Amber would ever like Andi back, because she was too perfect and way too heterosexual; she would never date Andi—
Those were the type of thoughts Cyrus always told her to keep out of her head. After her realization in September, she told both Cyrus and Buffy by the end of October. Cyrus tried to petition to change the ‘G’ in Good Hair Crew to ‘Gay,’ but Buffy said that Gay Hair Crew just sounded like a bad fanfic trope.
It was so nice to have them to rant to, because otherwise there would be no one to tell about Amber’s perfect outfits, her cuffed jeans and half-up hair, her demanding eyes and her phone calls. What if Amber admitted she liked someone else at the party? Would their close relationship end? Or would Amber just never see the things they did—hold hands, text for hours, compliment and blush and flirt—as romantic? Her mind kept going back and forth, pulling her in directions she didn’t want to go in. She loves me not, she loves me not even more, she hates me, she likes Jonah.
Still, Andi is excited. As she turns into the driveway, Ms. Mosby from the suite next door waves before returning to watering her plants in the windowsill. Cyrus will be happy too, she knows, because of TJ. And that leaves Buffy and Jonah, who are eternally friends, even through drama between Jonah and Andi, or Buffy and Walker, or anyone else. Andi and Amber… it had a nice ring to it. Maybe they could watch To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and bake heart shaped cookies. With the bisexual flag.
Well. She’s daydreaming again.
The point was: the sleepover should be fun, if she can manage to get through it without staring at Amber for too long.
“Andi! You're home!" Her mom's voice wakes her from her daydream, crisp and clear.
“Coming, Mom!” she calls back. Bisexual Andi can be left behind with her bike and hopeless crush and her overflowing excitement for the weekend.
—
“Hey, Jonah! Wait up!” Buffy calls, trying to pick up speed on her skateboard. It’s the morning of their second final, and Buffy has been left to fend for herself while Cyrus and Andi jointly finish last-minute Euro studying. Meanwhile, Jonah Beck is skating into school with just a pencil in his hand, strangely calm for a kid who called her at 10 the night before begging to review history.
“Buffy! How’s it going? How is Tuesday treating you?” Jonah skates to a stop and so does Buffy, a couple feet from the entrance to the school.
“Like shit,” Buffy admits, reaching into the back of her backpack. “History is just wrecking me.”
“I am absolutely sure you will do fine,” Jonah says. “When was the French Revolution?”
“I’m not answering that because it’s an embarrassment to my recently-in-the-past-24-hours acquired knowledge of everything that happened in Europe from 800 to 2000.”
“Fair enough,” Jonah responds, grinning with dimples. Buffy can’t help but smile back—because it’s Jonah, and he makes everyone smile. He made Andi smile when they dated and me made Cyrus smile and swoon at the same time. And Amber. And Libby. And Natalie. It hurts a little to know she’s not special, but Buffy knows Jonah has her back.
“Speaking of… um, I actually don’t have a good segue. But are you going to Amber’s on Saturday?”
“What?” Buffy says, shocked. “You’re coming?”
“Yeah?” Jonah says, looking a little offended. “Amber invited me.”
“Oh. TJ invited Cyrus who told us—um, when did Amber invite you?”
“Sometime yesterday in the morning. Then TJ invited me too, at lunch.” He brushes a lock of hair out of his bright eyes, eyebrows drawn together.
“Cool. Um. Do you and Amber talk a lot, then?” Buffy asks. She can feel her heartbeat pounding a little faster than normal—weird.
“Not really. I mean we didn’t talk at all after I broke up with her, but that was a long time ago and we talk a lot more now than back then,” Jonah says. His eyebrows have settled but he still looks confused, the dimples gone.
“So you’re not together, or anything?” God, she is so stupid. Obvious. She’s denied it to herself for so long, but it’s coming out in her words right now: she likes Jonah. She must.
Stupid Jonah.
“What? No!” Jonah flips up his skateboard and gives a head tilt. “Amber would never, ever date me again. And I wouldn’t date her again either. We’re just awkward exes who are now in the same friend group. And we have the same French class, so she came up to ask a question before the exam and then asked me about the party.” All the words come out in a big hurry, as if he’s justifying something. And Buffy feels her chest fill with relief—annoying, unwanted relief—but relief all the same.
“Okay. I was just wondering—so can you come?”
“Of course! I can’t wait. And you?”
“I’ll be there, Jonah Beck,” Buffy responds, her mouth full of a smile. Jonah claps an arm around her shoulder and the two walk off towards the gym floor and the final, both smiling stupidly as they go.
Two hours later, when they finish the exam, Cyrus and Andi are still nowhere to be found. Buffy doesn’t mind, though; she and Jonah just wander aimlessly, in the general direction of the shops, discussing the test and the party and random other things. Eventually, Jonah seems to realize they should pick a destination and asks her: “Want to study for the math final?”
“Not at all, no,” Buffy says, popping gum between her teeth.
“It must be done,” Jonah admits, as he dips down from the skateboard to skim the ground.
“Whyyyy,” Buffy whines. She tucks a pesky piece of hair behind her ears. “Let’s just go to the Spoon and get food.”
It surprises even Buffy when she says it. The Spoon is somewhat of a sacred thing. It’s the Good Hair Crew’s place. It’s Jonah’s place too, but never as much as it has always been the Good Hair Crew’s. This feels like a date. It must be a date—is it?
“Sounds good, Slayer!” Jonahs sounds a little too much like middle school Jonah when he whips about the nickname, but Buffy doesn’t mind it. The name seems affectionate, like a secret between just the two of them.
“Baby taters and milkshakes it is,” Buffy declares, hopping back on her skateboard. “Race ya!” Jonah laughs an indignant laugh and then follows her on down the sidewalk, towards the blinking lights of the shops.
“You won’t beat me, Driscoll!” Jonah shouts, as the two speed into the distance, laughing and fading under the winter Shadyside light.
—
It’s been rough, but the Good Hair Crew and company has made it through four-about-to-be-five exams. Cyrus is tired out of his mind, especially from the exhaustion of the English exam on Thursday. Now they’ve just got a chemistry final, and they’re home free. Just one day until the group sleepover at TJ’s—Cyrus’s heart starts beating every time he starts to think about it. He’s asked his mother and stepfather seven times, just to make sure they approve. And—this may be the worst part—he didn’t exactly tell them girls would be sleeping over. Obviously, it wouldn’t make any difference for him. He sleeps over with Buffy and Andi all the time. But sometimes the idea of spending the night with someone of the opposite gender draws angry parents like flies to honey.
Cyrus can’t even imagine the panic if he told them that he liked TJ and was sleeping over at his house.
Then, stupidly, he starts to wonder if TJ cares that Buffy and Andi—girls—are sleeping over. It was a rough time back in 8th grade when he was hard-line convinced that TJ liked Buffy, that the apology and the uniforms and the kindness, especially to Cyrus, were all to win back Buffy after treating her like crap. Now, though, that seemed like a foolish assumption.
Almost as foolish as thinking that TJ’s crush could ever be Cyrus.
“Hey!” Andi’s shout interrupts his spiral of daydreaming. “What’s up, Cyrus? How are you?”
“Theoretically good, because that’s the standard answer. But also utterly and completely devoid of energy.”
“Mood,” Andi replies, leaning back over the chair she’s sitting in. “I just want to take this now and be done. Go home.”
“Sleep!” Even Buffy’s voice is scratchy and tired, attesting to the level of stress and exhaustion needed to finally take her energy.
All three let out a collective groan as the bell goes off, informing them to head to the gym floor. “I wanted to take the test,” Andi mumbles, “until I realized I actually had to take it.”
They stumble to the floor and press pencils to paper, each still thinking about the sleepover in one way or another, wishing for something to come true.
After the exam, Cyrus’s writing hand is too in pain and his brain too delirious to celebrate. But he does find TJ, who is struggling with his locker for the last time this semester.
“TJ!” he calls out, already happy just to be around him. “We’re done!”
“We’re done, Underdog!” TJ cries out, tugging on his hoodie string and biting his lip. “No more homework!”
“Thank God,” Cyrus says, reaching out to input TJ’s combination.
“Muffin to celebrate?”
“Chocolate chocolate chip?”
“Are there any other kinds?”
Cyrus laughs, amused by the string of questions. Then, he asks, “Where’s everyone else?”
“Is everyone else getting a muffin? No, sir. Let’s go.” Again, TJ practically drags Cyrus, but this time to the cafeteria. Cyrus latches on, feeling rather like a barnacle, and attempts not to be run over by the increasingly flow of traffic down the hallway.
“Try not to get stampeded,” TJ advises, and Cyrus rolls his eyes. They end up in the lunchroom wearing matching grins: they seem to always congregate here—it is, after all, the first place they technically met.
TJ buys the muffin, and while he does, Cyrus stands beside him, lost in thought. Thinking about TJ, which has become the norm both when they are together and when they are not. Cyrus doesn’t know when it became this much of a problem, but his smile… his eyes… his laugh…the way he shapes the word Cyrus in his mouth, like it’s alive with emotion and meaning.
He’s so far gone. It hurts even to walk close to him, their arms swinging ever closer, shoulder’s brushing. To have TJ throw his arm around him like it’s nothing. Because it is—to him. Cyrus knows with absolute certainty that TJ is the straightest human in history. Because that’s how the story goes. Why he wants to be friends with poor, sad, gay Cyrus is beyond anyone’s comprehension. It doesn’t add up, but Cyrus doesn’t care. Without his friendship with TJ, he would just be hopelessly pining over the possibly still jerky basketball team captain, which sounds like a bad high school movie.
And now this sleepover—because it’s not like he’s been thinking about it every moment between when TJ told him and now, and will continue to right up until he rings the Kippens’ front doorbell. It’s not as if they’ll probably have to share beds, and sit on couches, and be close in a proximity they never get at school. TJ has been to Cyrus’s house a few times, but this is different, Cyrus already knows. But then he can pair the other four people off in his mind, leaving just him and TJ—too far. Now he keeps replaying an image in his mind, where TJ sneaks one hand into Cyrus’s and squeezes it.
Too far—abort mission, abort—
“Let’s go!” TJ sing-songs, grabbing Cyrus’s arm and pulling him towards the parking lot. They reach the small lawn beside the school and sit down, watching the hoards of students finished with their exams exit and head to tired cars. TJ falls onto his stomach and props his head up in his hands, while Cyrus slowly peels the wrapper off the muffin and begins to favor each delicious bite.
“Mmm. Mhm. This is sooo good,” Cyrus proclaims, with a mouth full of chocolate. TJ grins and sticks a hand out: a request. Cyrus considers it, considers the muffin in his hand, then goes back to eating it himself.
“Por favor señor, tengo mucha hambre,” TJ implores, giving that pouty face Cyrus can never say no to: lips puckered, puppy-dog eyes, head tilt. Plus, there’s the Spanish…
While Cyrus breaks off a piece of the muffin, he desperately tries to shut down whatever part of his brain is generating these thoughts, but nothing works. It’s hopeless.
“So. TJ. Thoughts on when snow will show up? This weekend or later?”
“My money’s on later. Shadyside is never on time, especially not with these things. It’ll be sometime mid-January, with a light dusting followed by a couple storms.”
“Interesting forecast: I guess we’ll see. Now, is Christmas at your house or grandparents?” This is a game Cyrus and TJ like to play, sometimes called: interrogation. They want to know things about the other’s lives but lack the tact to achieve this in a normal way. So rapid-fire questioning sometimes it must be.
“Grandparents. Always. But we did decorate really well this year—you’ll love it on Friday. I think my mom is trying to win the spot of best Christmas house from her mother-in-law.”
“And do you think she won?”
“If I told you the answer to that question, I would have to secretly commit a murder. Against you. That’s classified.”
Cyrus rolls onto his back beside TJ, the grass itching through his shirt. “Whatever you say, Kippen.”
“Last name?” TJ asks, glancing down, surprised.
“Last name,” Cyrus asserts. TJ bites his lips and grins, glancing off towards the school. He reaches out and breaks off another chunk of the muffin, then swallows it down.
“Goodman,” he mumbles, his mouth still stuffed with muffin crumbs. Cyrus rolls his eyes and gives TJ a little shove so he roles onto his side. Indignant, TJ rolls over and onto his knees more quickly than should be humanly possible, arms extended like he’s ready to fight. Then he returns Cyrus the favor with a shove that seems right out of some wrestling match. Scrambling to his feet, Cyrus reaches out and grabs TJ’s arm, pulling him in a wide circle. TJ stops the motion and takes Cyrus by both shoulders, fake accosting him. “Goodman,” he repeats, grinning this time.
Cyrus shakes free by dropping from under TJ’s grip. “Kippen!” he teases, reaching down to snatch the muffin and then hightail it for the parking lot, towards Buffy’s car and the Kippen-mobile.
“Take that back!” TJ calls, chasing after him. “And get away from the Kippen-mobile!”
“Fine, I’ll just take Charlotte.” Cyrus slides into the passenger seat of Buffy’s unlocked and previously named Toyota. He places the muffin remains on the console, locks the door, and crosses his arms.
“Cyrus,” TJ mouths, pouting again. Then he holds up his phone and purposely wipes through to Netflix, pointing to Degrassi High: Next Class and the next episode button.
Their show.
Cyrus unlocks the door as quickly as his fumbling hands will allow, and TJ slips into the passenger seat with his phone and earbuds. By the time Buffy finds her way back to the car, saying goodbye to Andi and Amber, TJ and Cyrus are leaning almost against each other across the console, the phone propped up between them and the episode playing on full volume. She just shakes her head and unlocks the car, startling Cyrus into slamming on the horn and then looking up to catch a knowing look from Buffy.
He just shakes his head in return, smiles at TJ as he leaves the car to go join Amber, and settles back in the passenger seat. And the moment that Buffy enters the car—
“Cyrus! That was so cute! Tell me EVERYTHING that happened. Go.”
—
Saturday morning, Andi rolls over in bed with a knot of nervousness in her stomach and a chill in her bones. The first thing has been constant since the moment when she found out about Amber’s sleepover. When she makes it to the window to glance out at the morning, the second thing gains its own explanation:
Snow.
Lots and lots of snow.
“Mom!”
Ten minutes later, Bowie, Bex, and Andi are all ankle deep in snow and breathless. The side yard of the apartment is glistening with powdery snow and frost, as a few brave cars squeak by on probably iced out streets. Andi’s pink knitted scarf scratches around her neck as she carefully shapes a snowball to toss at her dad. She eats ice when her mom hits her back in revenge and she tumbles onto the pavement, where she stays, making a snow angel.
“Andi! Invite your friends!” Bowie calls from across the yard
“I’m seeing them tonight!” she yells back, still making a snow angel.
“Doesn’t matter,” Bex responds, kneeling down next to her. “It’s a snow day! Tell them we’ll have pizza. Homemade pizza, since you couldn’t pay me to drive on the roads right now. Oh, tell them to walk! And be safe.”
Bex offers Andi a hand and then pulls her from the ground. They look at each other, in anticipation for a moment, before Andi’s smile catches on her face.
“Snow Cece?” they say at the exact same time. Bex bursts out laughing, then quickly straightens her face, mouths sorry and runs over the corner to begin gathering snow.
“What in the world?” Bowie asks, shaking his head.
“It’s a Mack girls thing,” Andi proclaims, as Bex roles snow into a base. “Watch it and weep.”
By the time they’re done, Andi’s sides hurt from laughing and her mouth is red with cold. A solemn, stoic snow figurine of Cece Mack stands in the front yard, and a perplexed yet impressed Bowie stands by. Bex offers Andi a gloved high five as they admire their handiwork.
“Hot chocolate?” Bowie asks, smiling.
“Is that even a question?”
—
Cyrus has seen a lot of snow in his life. In Shadyside, at his grandparents’, in documentaries—but somehow, the first snow of the season always manages to transfix him. This year is no exception, and when Cyrus presses his chin to the window to see the tiny white flakes drifting to the ground, he can’t contain a smile. A wild, joyous smile—snow!
Moments later the phone is in his hand and he’s dialing the first and only person he can think of right now.
—
TJ wakes groggily, to the phone ringing. It’s only seven, but he rubs his eyes and sits up, glaring over at the phone. He’s gotten maybe—five hours of sleep? Crap. Not his intention. He supposes that the day after the last exam he has kind of an excuse to sleep in, which had been the plan. But apparently not, because of the evil phone. He reaches to pick it up, and sees—Cyrus!
Clearing his throat and trying to wake himself up, TJ leans back against the wall behind hid bed as he answers the call:
“TJ! TJ TJ TJ TJ!”
He pulls the phone from his ear and stares at it, not in shock, but with a strange smile. Then he slowly pushes it back between his shoulder and ear, trying to restrain a grin.
“Cyrus? Cyrus Cyrus Cyrus Cyrus?”
“Did you see it?” TJ can picture Cyrus through the phone, his dark eyes open wide with glee and excitement.
“See what?”
“SNOW.”
On that, TJ nearly drops the phone and sprints to the window, ripping wide the curtain. And there it is, from rooftop to rooftop, doorstep to doorstep, on every car and stoop and front yard: glimmering white snow.
“Whoa.” is all he can whisper into the receiver.
“I know,” Cyrus whispers back. Then, a quick pause, and—“You should—come over? Yeah, do you want to come play in the snow?”
TJ can physically feel his heart squeeze at that. His parents are gone, so Amber and he are co-in charge. And the sleepover is tonight… TJ is grinning at the snow, one hand squeezing the fabric of his pajama shirt, right above his heart.
“Let me consult the one in charge… he says yes. I’ll be there in twenty.”
“See you then,” Cyrus responds, excitedly.
“Bye,” TJ says, and it’s a whisper of a word. Across the line, the phone disconnects.
TJ just sits there for a second, phone resting on his shoulder, before pulling it against his chest and falling back onto his bed, smiling endlessly at the ceiling.
—
A couple streets away, Cyrus grins down at the phone as if it is the source of his luck. His cheeks are red and his ears shining from nervousness—did he just invite a boy to his house? But it doesn’t matter. He holds the phone tight in his hand, and only twenty minutes later does he put it down, still smiling the same smile.
—
Buffy falls asleep the night after exams around one in the morning, having just finished texting with Jonah. Her eyes are burned out and her brain fried, from exams and texting and stress, so she sleeps endlessly until the natural light wakes her up around ten.
The natural light and the stark reflection of something else on the outside of the window, glowing through the reflection.
Buffy doesn’t call Jonah when she sees the snow, but she texts him the snowflake emoji: it’s the language he speaks. Then she calls Cyrus and screams about it for a while with him. Then he rants about TJ, and Buffy listens and gives advice and praises him for inviting the boy of his dreams over for a casual snow day. And she keeps glancing over at Jonah’s returned smiley faces, wondering.
Andi calls her around eleven and asks her to come over. Obliging, Buffy slips on her winter coat and trudges to Andi’s in the brisk air. Once she gets there, Amber is already helping Andi make more snow angels in her front yard. Buffy feels a pang of something—jealousy? She doesn’t know, but she ignores it and lays down next to them. Amber grabs hands with both her and Andi and they trace out an interlocking chain of three girl paper snow dolls on the ground. Once they stand, Amber nods in approval.
“I can’t wait for tonight,’ Buffy expresses, and Amber grins warmly. It’s nothing like middle school Amber, nothing like the Amber Buffy had to protect Andi from. No, this Amber keeps giving Andi knowing looks, deep smiles, and kind eyes.
It’s strange, maybe, to see Amber like this. But who is she to judge?
The three of the eat pizza and drink hot cocoa until Buffy and Amber each have to go home, saying goodbyes and promises to see the others in a couple hours. Buffy can’t stop thinking about Jonah, about how much he must be loving the snow with his younger siblings. She almost calls him several times, but stops herself before she picks up the phone. She sits in the living room with her mom instead, in silence. Shuffling and dealing out the solitaire cards, Buffy keeps glancing over at where her mom is flipping through the same magazine pages. She knows her mother is stressed out, and she knows she’s been hanging around her friends more than her mom lately. But Buffy doesn’t know how to fix their relationship that isn’t broken—just skewed. She keeps shuffling the deck. Her mother’s silence is a story for another time.
—
TJ’s heart finally stops racing when he and Cyrus collapse in front of the fireplace, panting. Their snow things are hung to dry along the grate, soaked from snowball fights and snow angels. TJ’s hair is sticky against his forehead—they’ve been out in the sun and snow for a couple hours, playing and talking and laughing. Cyrus too, looks worn out, but happy.
“I’ve never done so much exercise in my life,” Cyrus breathes out.
“Next time, I’ll take you downhill skiing in Colorado—“
“That’s enough,” Cyrus cuts in, grinning. “Moving metal torpedoes are way past my limitations.”
“Metal torpe—Cyrus, do you know what skis are?”
“Let me just stop you there,” Cyrus says. “Have you seen the skiers in the Olympics?”
“Oh, they’re so awesome! Lindsey Vonn, am I right? Oh—oh my god, he’s not a skier, but Shaun White! He kind of looks like Bowie, or he did before he cut his hair.” TJ stops, seeming to realize the beginnings of a rant coming from his mouth. Cyrus just smiles on at him, encouragingly.
“I just love the Olympics,” TJ admits, embarrassed. He’s looking at Cyrus for approval, but he can’t see anything in Cyrus’s eyes, so he shuts up.
“Hey,” Cyrus says, “I want to know more about the Olympics.” He reaches a hand across and places it next to TJ’s on the armrest. TJ doesn’t miss the quick glance towards the kitchen, to see if his parents are there and watching. His heart skips a beat as Cyrus smiles at him. “Tell me about it.”
“Well,” TJ inhales, flipping through several skiers in his mind before finally settling on one. “There’s Ted Ligety, and he’s really good—“
—
The moments are ticking away until six—the designated time for everyone to arrive at the Kippens’. Amber sits down in the kitchen, scrolling through instagram, always seeming to find her way back to Andi’s page. She glances down at the photos: of Buffy and Cyrus sitting on a counter, legs swinging, of Bex and Bowie joining hands and spinning in circles, of Andi with her arms around Jonah at the Spoon, a year and a half ago. The most recent addition is a picture of Amber in a flower crown, at the canoe lake where they hung out a couple times in the fall. She flips to the second photo, which is of Andi smiling at her. The caption reads: first time for everything.
Amber locks the phone and squeezes it against her chest, hoping.
TJ came home from Cyrus’s around twelve, and the two had shared a solemn lunch, TJ still high off going to Cyrus’s house and Amber nervously thinking about the night.
She doesn’t know why she’s nervous. She’s slept over at Andi’s before; she saw Andi this morning. She hangs out with all of these people all the time.
And yet.
At six, the doorbell rings, and it begins.
First, Jonah. He’s dragging a massive pillowcase stuffed with pajamas and clothes, and he looks very pleased with himself. TJ shows him downstairs while Amber opens the door to Cyrus, who greets her with a hug. Next is Buffy, who stares in poorly hidden wonder at the Kippens’ foyer as she swings her keys around her thumb, and then Andi, riding her scooter—a scooter!—up the driveway.
“Hey Amber,” she says, smirking. Amber could faint.
“I hope you’re ready to help me bake.”
“Cookies!?” Andi nearly shouts, scrambling in the door. Amber nods decisively, and Andi follows her downstairs to where everyone else sits. Cyrus is telling Buffy an animated story with her hands, and TJ and Jonah are playing a reluctant game of ping-pong.
“Children! Announcement!” Amber calls. “Your mother and I are setting up things for making dinner. If you want food, come up in twenty minutes.”
“Booo! Andi’s not our mother!” Buffy shouts back, then gives Cyrus a high five. Amber just rolls her eyes, then drags Andi back upstairs.
“Hooligans,” Andi says.
“Hooligans,” Amber agrees. She thinks: we’re their gay mothers. And then she slaps herself mentally for thinking it.
While the slap of the ping-pong ball continues below, Amber and Andi gather up a hodge podge of things for dinner: first, there’s peanut butter and jelly, with some bread. Amber pulls out a fruit salad her mother made a few days ago and drops it on the counter. Andi offers a bottle of mustard, for the sandwiches, but Amber stares her down until she puts it back.
“Hot chocolate?” Andi asks, and Amber nods vigorously. She pulls the Swiss Miss packets down from the cabinet and hands then to Andi, who scatters them across the counter. Then the two of them both quickly gather the ingredients needed for the cookies.
“Hmm. We need Starbucks,” Amber decides, considering their provisions.
“Let me go ask Buffy,” Andi says. Moments later, Buffy appears at the top of the stairs, dragging TJ with her.
“We’re going to Starbucks! Text TJ what you want,” Buffy calls and then disappears out the door.
“If any one of them ordered a pink drink, I swear,” Amber says to Andi.
“Cyrus. Cyrus did.”
“I have no response.” Amber holds out a hand for the spoon, which Andi hands over. Their knuckles brush over the wooden handle and Amber tries to keep a small sigh from escaping her mouth. Being around Andi—her creativity, her witty remarks, her bright, amazing presence—it’s all too much. Touching her is beyond the limit.
Amber wonders, vaguely, how she managed to survive the time they held hands for an entire night.
“Hey.” It’s Andi, glancing down at the batter. “You know what we should do?”
Amber stops stirring. “What?”
“Pink cookies. Or purple ones? Do you have icing?”
“Does TJ like to play basketball? Yes.” Amber returns to stirring the mixture, turning over Andi’s words in her mind. She imagines painting a bisexual flag onto a cookie. And then eating it. Just a little strange. And then another idea comes into her head.
“No eggs—do you want to try some?” Amber lifts a small spoonful of batter from the bowl and offers it to Andi.
Andi stops. “Cece would never let me. Mom would join in. Where do I fall?”
“Oh, come on. It’s gooooood…’
“Fine, you got me.” Andi snatches the spoon and licks the dough straight from it, then sighs in delight. “Almost as good as Mom’s wedding cake.”
“Almost?” Amber seizes the spoon back and thrusts it into the bowl. “I assure you, these cookies will blow Rebecca’s out of the water.”
“Rebecca?!” Glancing around, Andi grabs and second wooden spoon and holds it in front of her like a fencing sword. “I must defend my mom’s honor. And the name Bex.”
“If that is how it must be, then so be it,” Amber counters, licking the rest of the batter from the spoon and then raising it to meet Andi’s. Her insides are swelling with happiness, just: all of it. Andi’s flushed cheeks, her parted bangs and wide smile. She’s so beautiful, Amber has time to think, before Andi violently cuts into her thoughts with a swing of the spoon. A warrior princess—oh, fuck—Amber evades her second strike and then wildly swings her weapon to meet Andi’s.
“You’ll never defeat me!” Andi brandishes the spoon and a grin, circling around so Amber is trapped against the counter
“Wanna bet?” Amber smacks Andi’s spoon from her hand and drops to a kneel to catch it, spin on her heel and switch places with Andi. Now Amber has the high ground, gripping the two spoons, while Andi places her wrists against the counter. Andi gulps.
“Um.”
“Smooth move, right?” Amber asks softly. Her heartbeat is hammering in her chest, but she keeps her eyes on Andi.
Andi’s dark eyes lock on Amber’s. “Very.” And Amber can hear Andi’s breathing, syncing with her own.
“Andi—“ she starts to say, because she can, and Andi is right there, in her house, with cookie dough smeared at the corner of her lips and a softness in her eyes.
And then the basement door opens.
“Hey Amber, Cyrus and I are—“
Jonah cuts short, and Amber swears in her mind, then swings around. “Yes?”
“We’re. Um. We’re going to set up the sleeping bags and all. Where are the blankets and pillow?”
“Downstairs, in the closet next to the storage room. Bottom shelf.” Amber flips the spoon in her right hand around several times, while Jonah scrambles back downstairs. When she turns back around, Andi has turned away, back to the batter. “Right,” she says. “On with it.” Andi nods.
They finish the dough and put the cookies in the oven, then call Jonah and Cyrus up for dinner. A couple minutes later Buffy and TJ burst in the door, balancing six Starbucks cups precariously between them. Dinner is fun, and delicious, and Amber loves every second of it, but the whole time her brain keeps flashing back. What if? What if Jonah hadn’t walked in? What would Amber had said? She knows what she wanted to say. But she has no idea if those words would have actually come out.
It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not like Andi wants to hear them.
—
Dinner, Cyrus would say—is a disaster.
Not that Amber and Andi didn’t put every scrap of effort they had into it. They did. But there’s the issue of where to sit. First, it’s just him and Jonah: across from each other. But when Buffy and TJ return, Buffy and TJ both go to sit by Cyrus. They pause, and Andi, who is finally sitting down takes the seat instead. So Buffy goes to sit across from Amber, and TJ sits next to Jonah, across from Andi. A little too far away.
“Cyrus,” Amber addresses him, “could you pass the fruit salad?”
“Please,” Jonah reprimands, and everyone looks up to glare at him.
“Please,” Amber amends, and then throws a napkin at Jonah.
Cyrus passes the bowl, then glances over at TJ, who does the thing where he looks away from Cyrus as quickly as possible. Whenever it happens, Cyrus loses a little breath, because it makes him think TJ is looking at him. Makes him think TJ wants to be looking at him—and that is an ecstatic feeling to have.
“What movie are we watching?” Cyrus asks, mostly to TJ. But Jonah responds, all too soon:
“Home Alone.” At least he’s chosen a good movie. In fact, that movie happens to be—
“Home Alone??” Buffy shrieks, standing up from her seat. “Only the best holiday movie ever made? Jonah, you like Home Alone?!”
“Of course,” he responds, looking up at her with a sort of awe. TJ makes eye contact with Cyrus across the table and gives a little eye roll, but it’s kind. Cyrus imagines he’s giving a sort of fond “those heteros” remark. That sentiment, of course, would require TJ to be not hetero himself, a fact which Cyrus knows cannot be true.
Once, Buffy pointed out to him that TJ had never dated anybody. Not like the rest of the boys basketball team, who all seemed to have “forever girls” they always came back to. Not even like Cyrus, who had technically dated (and kissed!) a girl in middle school.
But Cyrus knew TJ must be straight, because that was the type of person he was. Never mind the glances when he thought Cyrus couldn’t see, the deep talks, the almost-brushing hands every time they walked close together.
See, this is why wishful thinking belongs in the trash can.
Buffy and Jonah keep talking, basically over the rest of the table, and Cyrus carries on a silent conversation across the table with TJ, mainly with his eyes: You like the dinner? How could I not like PB and J? Just checking. What about the Starbucks? What about your Starbucks? Was it worth the twelve dollars you paid for it? Are you done with dinner? I can’t wait to watch the movie. I’m still so tired from this morning. Me too. Can’t wait to get no sleep tonight.
And then Andi cuts in, and the conversation ends.
“The cookies are, ahem, ready.”
“Cookies!?” TJ stands up and stares at the oven, then glances rapidly over at Amber. “Sugar cookies?”
“With cinnamon,” Amber and TJ say at the exact same time.
“Grandma.” TJ melts into the word and stares longingly at the oven, then down to Cyrus and Amber. “Amber, you shouldn’t have.”
“TJ, it’s her birthday in a week.”
“Remind me—we have to get flowers on Thursday.”
“Do you think—“ Amber hesitates. “Do you think we should bring her some of the cookies too?”
Cyrus knows they’re talking about their grandma on their mom’s side, who passed away several years ago. He keep quiet, watching they’re tear-free but emotion-filled exchange.
“I think she’d want us to eat them all, don’t you?”
“I hate that you’re right. Oh well, let’s do this.” Andi runs to the oven, turns it off, and removes the cookies, which smoke and curl with heat. TJ scrambles over and takes one from the tray, and Andi attempts to smack his hand. “Cooling rack!”
“It’s fine,” TJ says, and his mouth is full of crisp, burning cookie. He takes a second bite and stops. And that’s when Cyrus sees the tears starting to form in his eyes.
“TJ,” Cyrus says. TJ meets his eyes, and comes to take Andi’s seat beside him. Talking ensues as everyone else runs over to grab cookies, but Cyrus keeps his eyes on TJ. “TJ, do you want to talk about it?” What Cyrus really wants to do is to take TJ’s hand in his own, to rub circles in TJ’s palm with his hand. But he doesn’t, he just looks on. And tries to help.
“I’m okay,” TJ says, then sniffles. “Really, The cookies just took me by surprise. But I’m really excited for Home Alone.”
“Duh! Me too,” Cyrus says. TJ wipes his eye and grins back.
“Maybe this time the burglars will get away.”
“Yeah, and maybe you’ll go to sleep before 2am. Nope. Not happening.”
“Heyyy,” TJ protests. “I went to bed at 11 before exams. Progress.”
Cyrus just shakes his head, the happiness permanent on his face.
—
They’re all sipping on Starbucks orders and sitting on the couch downstairs, with the plate of still-warm cookies resting on the table between them. Jonah clicks on the movie, and a chorus of gasps goes around the rooms; there’s just something about Home Alone. Something about the movie’s inherent magic.
Jonah is sitting next to Buffy, with an inch or two of space between them. There’s a tiny voice in his head saying: close the gap. Put your arm around her. But the voice that is winning out says: this never works out. Girls like you superficially, and that’s it.
That’s all it ever seems to be. And here’s the thing: Jonah falls. Hard. Middle school him was veritably in love with Andi, and there was nothing he could do about it. Before that was Amber, Libby for a bit in between, then Kira last year—Buffy had always been there, but Jonah had been too busy being head over heels to notice.
He regrets that, and he doesn’t.
Kira, though. Kira had been a whirlwind. She was strong and took no shit from anyone and it drove Buffy insane when they were together. Halloween last year, at Andi’s house, had been a certified disaster. Kira and Buffy nipping at each other, Jonah still uncomfortable around Andi, and Cyrus just trying to mitigate the drama while simultaneously texting TJ the whole time.
He misses Kira. He does, but Buffy is the one he wants to put his arm around, not anyone else. Buffy, with the skateboard and the curly hair and kindness and attitude and towering intelligence and recklessness.
“Jonah,” Buffy says to the left of him. Her voice is nearly in his ear—that close!
“Yeah?” he whispers back.
“I think we might be fifth and sixth wheeling.” Buffy nods in the direction of Andi, who is leaning her head on Amber’s shoulder, and Cyrus and TJ, who are sitting so close they might as well be on top of each other.
“You know,” Jonah says, turning his head so he’s looking directly at Buffy. “I kind of hate that term, anyway. If we’re the fifth and sixth wheels, then aren’t we just as valid as the other ones? Keeping the bus from running off the road.”
“You nerd,” Buffy says, but she’s smiling. “But seriously—do you see it? With all of them?”
Jonah hasn’t considered Amber and Andi before, but then again he hadn’t considered TJ and Cyrus until Andi and Buffy slapped down a typed list of evidence they had compiled for what they called “Tyrus.”
“I see it,” he says, after a pause. Across the room, TJ laughs at something and gives Cyrus a little shove, who smiles back at him.
“Watch the movie, fools!” Buffy whisper-yells across the room. The four of them look up like deer caught in headlights, and Jonah grins.
“I think we may be right.”
“Thanks, Detective Beck.”
“Always a pleasure to serve.” Jonah leans his head against the couch back. “Can I try some of your coffee?”
“Not unless you want to get seriously ill,” Buffy states, eyebrows sharp.
Jonah snaps his neck up and leans to the right about five feet. “You’re seriously ill?”
“Merely a test. But seriously. Drink sharing is gross.” Buffy shoves her coffee cup away from Jonah, giving him a pointed look.
“No, you’re gross. Please???” Buffy looks offended, and turns around to grab the pillow from behind her. She swings it in his general direction, and Jonah catches it, affronted.
“Pillow fight? That is so not docious magocious.”
“Aha!” Buffy cries out, scrambling to stand up on the couch. “Endangering situations make you revert back to your middle school self. Hypothesis, confirmed! Theory, proven!”
“What the fuck?” TJ had the nerve to call out. Buffy shushes him and kicks a pillow over at him and Cyrus.
“Come down, fair maiden,” Jonah entreats from the couch below. “The film is not yet finished.”
Buffy rolls her eyes and jumps back down to the couch. “Good sir,” she responds, with an odd emphasis, “thou has distracted me from my favorite film of all eternity.”
“I reciprocate that sentiment,” Jonah says, and turns to eye the movie.
“Settle down, Romeo and Juliet!” Andi yells. Amber grins, and Cyrus leans across TJ to give Andi a fist bump.
“Wherefore out thou, another pillow-shaped projectile?” Buffy growls.
“Actually, wherefore means why…” Jonah cuts in. And when Buffy grabs a pillow from the ground and chucks it at him, he catches it, grinning stupidly.
Because Buffy really is the one. Not just a silly crush, or a middle school infatuation.
Veritably, truly, with one hundred percent certainty. The one.
—
TJ spends the movie with his breath held inside his throat. After Jonah and Buffy settle down, and Amber and Andi snuggle into each other, he leans back, shoulder pressed against Cyrus’s. And he stops breathing.
“Best part,” Cyrus whispers, when Kevin starts to weaponize his house. And TJ nods in agreement, keeping his eyes on the tv, because if he looks over at Cyrus, he’ll lose his mind.
Their legs and sides are touching underneath the blanket, and TJ’s left hand is thrown awkwardly across his lap; if it were laying naturally, it would be in Cyrus’s. So it goes. TJ is still a little shaken from the cookies—the cinnamon cookies which are, currently, sitting two feet away from him on the coffee table. But Cyrus made it better—Cyrus, who TJ tells everything, about his grandma and his family situation and how uncomfortable it makes him to cry, Cyrus, who always listens, when TJ’s brain felt broken or when he tore his ACL in ninth grade and couldn’t play basketball for months. Cyrus, who is now sitting less than an inch away from him. Less than a centimeter.
God, he’s so far gone.
When Cyrus smiles, TJ’s composure flies out the window. Because—Cyrus! “An angel,” Andi once described him as. Cyrus saved TJ, and he does again and again every day. Cyrus makes him want to be better. What’s that quote? You make yourself better because of your soulmate, and the person you want to be for them? Soulmate. It’s a strong word, but it’s a weak word, because Cyrus means everything to TJ. Cyrus is worth a poetic rant—he’s worth all of them. Cyrus is the sun and the stars and the sky.
Cyrus is grinning softly at the tv, while Kevin McAllister prepares to give two grown men exactly what’s coming for them, while bells and Christmas music ring in the background.
Before TJ can stop himself, he picks up his left hand. And he inches it, breath by breath, toward Cyrus’s hand. His brain says stop. His brain says keep going.
TJ inhales, and he slowly, delicately, as if the weight of the world rests on this moment, brushes his pinky finger against Cyrus’s.
Cyrus’s breath hitches, just for one split second. TJ feels every doubt, every fear and frustration and scary thought, rush into his head. He half-closes his eyes.
And then Cyrus’s pinky finger pushes back against TJ’s.
Their hands are underneath the blanket, but TJ still feels like everyone in the room can see it. His face is flushed red, and so is Cyrus’s. But it’s dark, and the other four people in the room aren’t paying any attention to them, just each other.
TJ hooks his finger around Cyrus’s. And it’s Cyrus who pushes his palm against TJ’s, with caution and care and a trembling hand. Their hands meet under the blanket, and TJ locks his fingers with Cyrus’s.
On screen, Kevin’s paint cans inflict permanent brain damage on Harry and Marv. Cyrus’s palm is warm. And their hands fit together.
Only then does TJ start to breathe.
—
“Lights up, ladies and gents! We’re decorating!” Amber’s voice cuts into the silence and darkness the movie has devolved into. TJ and Cyrus split apart, and Buffy rubs her half-asleep eyes.
“Decorating?” TJ mumbles, stumbling to his feet.
“Garlands, people. Lights. Snowflakes.” Amber runs to the light switch and aggressively turns it on. “TJ?!”
“Reporting for duty,” TJ says, still sounding like he’s just woken up.
“This is what happens when you go to bed at 2 am, people,” Amber announces. Cyrus giggles, then glances over at TJ.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get a rush of energy sometime past eleven. Be prepared,” TJ supplies. “Where are the decorations?”
“Mom’s closet. The bin behind her old knitting stuff.”
“Right. Jonah, want to come help?” TJ asks, surprising everyone in the room, including himself.
“‘Course,” Jonah says, after only a small hesitation. He follows Jonah upstairs, and Andi stares after them, amazed.
“Imagine that happening two years ago,” Andi says.
“It never would have,” Cyrus decides.
“Hey Amber, can we get some music in this basement?” Buffy’s tired voice drawls from over in the kitchenette area, and Amber runs over to join her.
“Yes. Yes yes and yes.” She connects her phone to the bluetooth, scrolling frantically through endless Spotify playlists, then settles on one. First static, then clear lyrics come from the speakers.
The first song: Youth by Troye Sivan.
Cyrus nudges Andi, who nudges him right back, while Buffy takes it upon herself to distract Amber. Andi, who is staring at Amber in wonder and disbelief, grabs Cyrus’s hand slowly, then starts to jump up and down, and dance.
“Yes Andi! Get it!” Amber runs around from inside the corner and takes Andi’s other hand, so they make a hazy half circle. Then Buffy runs to her sleepover bag, unzips it, and removes a silvery hairbrush.
“What if, what if we lost our minds? What if we let them fall behind and they're never found?” Buffy sings into the hairbrush, gesturing with her hands.
Jonah and TJ, jogging down the stairs with a bin of decorations, join in with the singing, and TJ’s loud and clear voice cuts across the room: “And when the lights start flashing like a photo booth, and the stars exploding, we’ll be fireproof…”
“MY YOUTH!” Andi shouts, “My youth is yours, trippin’ on skies, sipping waterfalls. My youth.” And now she’s looking over at Buffy and Cyrus, the Good Hair Crew, the people who have mattered since the beginning and always will.
“My youth is yours,” Cyrus calls back, running over to Buffy and sharing the microphone-hairbrush with her.
“Runaway now and forevermore,” Jonah finishes, his voice clear and beautiful. Buffy wrenches the hairbrush from Cyrus to look over at Jonah: longing, longing, longing.
“My youth, my youth, my youth,” Cyrus and TJ harmonize, and then everyone shouts the ending to the chorus, jumping and vibrating with energy. The walls are shaking, and it’s nothing like Reed’s party but it’s more. It’s better.
Amber grabs Andi’s hand and they dance together through the next verse, smiling like the world is new. TJ offers a hand to Buffy, who accepts, only to be spun around in a circle. She takes her hand away, smirking at TJ.
“Didn’t see that coming, did you, Driscoll?” TJ asks, a challenge. Buffy just looks past him to Cyrus and mouths: control your man. Cyrus laughs, and, boldly, grabs TJ’s hand.
“And when the lights start flashing like a photo booth, and the stars exploding, we’ll be fireproof,” they all sing again.
“MY YOUTH!” Jonah explodes this time, playing an imaginary guitar and jumping up and down like he’s at a concert.
“…Is yours,” Andi finishes, looking directly at Amber. And they’re all spinning, screaming, alive, through that chorus and the next.
It’s Amber who remembers the box of decorations, and, as the song is fading out, reaches in to grab a strand of garland.
“Time to make this place a winter wonderland,” she says, as Troye’s voice fades out.
“You’re on,” TJ, responds, as if it’s a challenge.
“Decorating teams!” Amber declares. “Andi and me, TJ and Cyrus, Jonah and Buffy. GO!”
Before any of that can register, the first notes of the next song click across the radio, and Andi recognizes it immediately, again: Molecules, Hayley Kiyoko.
Dang. It’s really just gay Friday today. Andi nearly slaps herself for thinking those words, but: they’re valid.
“Pillars of my heart, everything got shattered in the dark. Tried to be evolved. Does it really matter at all?” Andi sings, softly, as she takes the other end of the garland and strings it up with Amber’s help.
The guys don’t seem to know the words, but all three girls certainly do, and they sing them loud. When Buffy sings, “So what should I do? All that’s left is molecules of you,” Jonah glances over, understanding. Buffy is singing about someone else, a person who used to matter and always will but is left to the wind and dust. A person who can’t always have a place in her heart because now they’re someone new.
And Jonah understands.
“I’ve lost you…” Amber croons. Cyrus runs to the decorations box and pulls out several glittery stars, which he tosses to TJ. Meanwhile, Buffy and Jonah tag team on a string of snowflakes, which they hang from the ceiling, bouncing to the beat of the song.
“Na, na, na, na, na ,na,” TJ mumbles under his breath, taping stars to the walls.
The song goes on, and decorations go up: stars and glitter and garlands and snow.
“Does it really matter at all?” Andi sings as she strings up another garland. She thinks: should I just be numb? Just enjoy all of this, and ignore the fact that I like Amber? Or should that always be what’s on my mind? Do I even have a choice?
The song finishes, and the room is full of glowing winter energy. Amber nods in satisfaction, but then seems to remember something. Just as she does, Cyrus lets out a shriek, recognizing the next song on the playlist.
“Back to the streets where we began, feeling as good as lovers can, you know…” the speaker announces.
“Well, now we’re feeling so good!” Buffy and Cyrus finish at the same time.
“Guys,” Amber whispers, as the next stanza plays. And she throws a pile of fairy lights into the center of the room. Cyrus shrieks again.
“Into a place where thoughts can bloom, into a room where it’s nine in the afternoon,” TJ sings along, dragging a strand of lights to the outlet and placing them up along the wall.
The rest of them hang up the lights, filling the whole room with dull pinpoints in the stark basement light, until Amber scrambles to the wall and flips the switch.
As the lights go out, leaving just glowing fairy bulbs lighting the room, the lyrics continue to play, matching up: “Your eyes are the size of the moon. You could ‘cause you can, so you do. We’re feeling so good, just the way that we do, when it’s nine in the afternoon.”
It’s only fairy lights, and it’s only the harmonizing voices of the six of them and Brendon Urie. Amber leans on Andi, and they gaze around at their handiwork. TJ and Cyrus nearly hold hands: once, twice, but, as usual they nearly miss every time. And Buffy is riding piggyback on Jonah’s back, arms extended, attempting to tape a glowing star to the ceiling.
It’s just them, as the snow dusts down outside the Kippen basement.
It’s perfect.
Two minutes later, when the song ends, and the lights are still off, Amber takes a knife to the suspended perfection, blue eyes pointed and purposeful as she glances around the room and says to her audience of five:
“Time for spin the bottle?”