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Cyrus is a methodical person, someone who likes to be organized and prepared, have things planned and categorized. TJ knows that.
That is why Cyrus loves lists, he reasons. When he looks around Cyrus’ desk on his mother’s house, he can see a multitude of post-its and pages torn from notebooks. There are to-do lists, ideas for new scripts, color-coded notes for different subjects, and sheets of paper full of bullet points and arrows pointing to conclusions he barely understands.
TJ still keeps the list of easy things Cyrus can’t do on a note on his phone.
But he doesn’t understand this need to classify his life and thoughts, put everything on a box. TJ has grown comfortable around the chaos and confusion of his mind, he is the type of person who writes on his hand that he has to remember to buy salt and then gets so used to the inked words being there that he doesn’t remember to stop by the store. And he is fine with it.
But Cyrus writes his lists. He picks his thoughts apart, makes them into bullet points and analyzes them. He looks at everything that worries him, or excites him, or fascinates him, and goes over every single thing until he comes up with a logical conclusion.
Maybe it’s a child-of-four-therapists thing. Maybe it’s a Cyrus thing.
The door squeaks behind him. When he turns around, he finds Cyrus balancing two glasses and a bowl of popcorn on his arms, trying his best to open the door with his foot.
“My mom made lemonade” Cyrus gives him one of the glasses when TJ goes up to him to help him “What were you looking at?”
With someone else, TJ would feel self-conscious. Like he had just been caught snooping or being nosy. But when Cyrus asks, it doesn’t feel like he is accusing of anything, it doesn’t make him want to act all defensive, it just feels normal.
“You write a lot of lists” TJ says. He sits on Cyrus’ bed, pointing at his desk with his chin.
“Yeah,” Cyrus gives the popcorn to TJ and searches on his bag before sitting at his side, laptop on his lap “They are really useful. At least for me”
TJ hums while Cyrus scrolls through Netflix on his laptop, trying to find the movie he was talking about earlier. According to Cyrus is one of the best movies of all times.
Their hands brush when Cyrus settles on the bed at his side and TJ can feel an electric current going up his arm. He puts his hand away, but there is a part of him that really wants to leave it there, linger on the touch. Cyrus, completely oblivious to everything going on in TJ’s mind, lets out a small “Aha” when he finds the movie that TJ can’t help but smile at.
“We don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to” Cyrus looks at him, but TJ can see that he keeps the cursor ready to hit play.
TJ smirks, trying to hide his amusement by stuffing popcorn on his mouth “I already told you, I’m fine with watching anything you want, Underdog”
Cyrus smiles at him, wide and luminous like a sun-filled window, and hits play happily. TJ’s heart starts pounding on his chest, he is not exactly sure why.
Cyrus smile is the brightest thing in the universe, TJ thinks. It warms him up, starting on his stomach and lighting up the rest of his body, making the tips of his fingers vibrate.
It’s a smile that makes him want to do something stupid, maybe something heroic, something important. Something that will make Cyrus continue to smile at him like that for the rest of his life.
Which is stupid and doesn’t make sense, TJ tells himself, because Cyrus is his friend and these are not the type of feelings people have towards their friends.
He had never wanted Reed to smile at him for the rest of his life, that’s for sure.
TJ doesn’t realize that Cyrus has stopped the movie ten minutes in until he nudges him with his elbow.
“You are not watching the movie, are you?”
TJ shakes his head, in a vain attempt to make his thoughts stop. He thinks about lying for a second, but when he looks at his right, Cyrus is looking back at him, and TJ knows that the question was a formality because he already knows the answer.
Cyrus should stop being so damn observant.
“Not really, sorry” TJ says. He looks at the screen, which has gone black and reflects his face and Cyrus’, still looking at him “I was just- thinking about stuff”
“Want to talk about it?”
And there it is. TJ is pretty sure that Cyrus doesn’t have a list of the steps to follow to get him to open up, because he never follows the same route, but he always manages to sneak up on him, make him feel comfortable enough to talk.
But this time TJ doesn’t really know how to put into words what he is thinking. How to explain what he is thinking or what he is feeling, or everything in between.
The line between the visible and the invisible –between what his hands do and what they really want to do– is thinner every day, and there are a lot of thoughts on TJ’s mind that he is incapable to express, not even to himself.
“It’s nothing” he says, shrugging. His shoulder brushes with Cyrus’, and when he turns his head to look at him, there is something in his brain that urges him to speak. Maybe it’s because Cyrus is smiling at him, that soft, confident smile that makes him look grown-up, more like a teacher than a teenager.
TJ has never been someone to talk about himself a lot, he is not like Cyrus and his friends that share pretty much everything between them, he is always kept things for himself, safe inside his brain.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to” Cyrus says before he makes up his mind, eyes soft “Whenever you are ready”
TJ just shrugs again, fighting against the urge to just say the first thing he comes up with, so Cyrus hits play again without saying anything, and the movie that TJ doesn’t even know what’s about starts again. He tries to follow the plot for a few minutes, but his mind seems to wander around.
“Do you think Jonah likes Amber?” TJ says suddenly, the words falling from his mouth without him being able to stop them.
It’s actually something that has been on the back of his mind for a while, a voice humming under his ear since Amber told him that they were back together.
Cyrus stops the movie again and looks at him with doubt, as if he wasn’t really sure what the hell he is talking about.
“Well,” Cyrus is using his therapist voice, which TJ doesn’t hate, but doesn’t love either. It makes him feel like Cyrus is removing himself from the conversation, in a way. “They are dating again, so I assume that he likes her”
TJ sighs. It’s not the answer he was looking for, but he also doesn’t know exactly what his question is.
“Are you-“Cyrus looks for the right word “worried for your sister?”
TJ thinks about it for a minute. He is not worried exactly; he knows how strong Amber actually is. She has never needed protection and she has never wanted it, especially from TJ.
“It’s not that” he says, slow, trying to make sense of his thoughts “It’s just- It’s weird”
He doesn’t know if Cyrus will understand. It’s weird that they are dating again when their relationship was a mess; it’s weird that Jonah, who is in his grade, is dating his older sister. It’s especially weird now that he is friends with Cyrus, because at least before he didn’t see Jonah that much.
“It’s weird” TJ repeats, knowing he is not making any sense “I thought Amber didn’t like him anymore. They broke up, and he dated Andi, and I think Amber dated another guy… And I thought he didn’t like Jonah”
Cyrus nods, like the babbling of words he just spew made any sense.
“I think she likes him, too” Cyrus says. He stops for a few seconds, brows furrowed “In some way”
“But how do you know?” TJ asks, and he realizes he just sounded a little bit too intense.
How does he know Amber likes Jonah? How do you know if someone likes you? How do you know if you like someone?
“I don’t know” Cyrus says easily “I don’t think anyone can know for sure, except her”
And then Cyrus looks at him in that way –intense, with an eyebrow raised and the shadow of a smile, no, a smirk on his lips–. It’s the way he looks before he says something that he has known for a long time and TJ is just about to discover. He is pretty sure Cyrus doesn’t realize it’s a thing he does.
“You can’t know what other people are feeling” Cyrus puts his laptop aside and looks at the ceiling for a second before looking back at TJ “You can guess and sometimes even be pretty sure of what other people feel, but at the end you always have to ask”
TJ breathes deeply and nods. He is not sure why he started talking about Amber of all people –as a general rule, he tries to talk as little as possible with or about his sister– but he is glad it was with Cyrus.
Because that’s the thing with Cyrus. He knows what TJ is talking about even when he doesn’t make any sense, he listens like no one else does. Sometimes he feels like he isn’t truly being understood until he is being heard by Cyrus.
Cyrus chuckles lightly, closing the lid of his laptop and getting up. He looks at TJ, who is still sitting on the bed deep in thought.
“Let’s leave the movie for another day,” he says with a knowing smile “Do you want to go to The Spoon?”
“I’m pretty sure Amber is not working, so yeah, let’s go”
Cyrus smiles mischievously, like TJ had never seen him smile before, and he realizes what Cyrus is about to say one second before he opens his mouth.
“Yeah, I think she is on a date with Jonah”
“Oh my God, Cyrus” TJ groans, hiding his face in his hands “Why would you say that?”
Cyrus laughs, bright and easy, the same way he does when something unexpected happens –when Amber gets him free baby taters or that time TJ made a joke that caused Buffy to get milkshake up her nose–.
And that is when it hits him. Maybe Cyrus is the one with all the pieces of paper on his desk, but TJ has been writing a list on his head all this time. Categorizing Cyrus smiles and laughs, cataloguing his likes and dislikes, listing his quirks and habits. All to try to make sense of the flutter in his stomach every time their hands brush when they walk a little too close.
He follows Cyrus outside, a warm feeling deep in his stomach. And then, the nervous stammering of his heart when he bumps their shoulders together while they walk down the street. He teases him about his love for baby taters and Cyrus pretends to be offended by his jokes, crossing his arms in front of his chest, but TJ can see the smile growing on his lips.
TJ knows that for something to exist, you have to name it first. And he is starting to realize that for something to actually become real, you have to leave all your fears behind and call it by its real name.
There is a word on his mind while he looks at Cyrus, but he knows that he is not ready to say it and Cyrus is not ready to hear it. Not yet, at least.
Someday they will be, and TJ hopes he will be brave enough to ask then. Because everything that you don’t put into words ends up trapped in uncertainty, that place between what is real and what is not.
And if TJ is sure of one thing is that he doesn’t want that to happen to Cyrus and him.