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"Victor? Are you even listening to me?"
"Huh?" Victor responded, tearing his gaze away from something behind Ava to look at her, "Um yeah. Totally."
Ava raised her eyebrows at him, then turned to see what he'd been staring at. She saw Noah leaving the lunch line with his tray and heading outside.
Ava rolled her eyes as she faced forwards again, "Why don't you just go talk to him? Watching you pine like this has to be bad for my eyes or something."
"I haven't talked to him since the funeral, Ava."
Jane's funeral.
Victor's memories of it came in flashes. Jane and Noah's mother draped over the closed casket in hysterics. Noah stood frozen beside her, tears streaming down his cheeks. Victor remembered his father's hand on his shoulder as he walked him up to the casket to say goodbye. He remembered reaching for Noah, hugging him without reciprocation and saying over and over again that he was sorry until his father ushered him away.
Victor would never forgive himself for listening to his parents when they told him to give Noah time afterwards. Days turned into weeks, to months, until it felt too late to face him again. There was a fine line between giving someone time to heal, and abandoning them with their grief–and at ten years old Victor hadn't known how to walk it. He didn't know how to live with the fact that when he lost Jane, he lost Noah too; and both were his fault.
"Exactly." Ava said, "It's been almost eight years. You don't even know him anymore."
"Don't I, though? After what we went through?"
Ava tensed, a memory flashing in her mind of a dark cave and a children's game gone wrong. She shook it off just as quickly as it came and straightened up in her seat.
"Eight. Years." Ava repeated, reaching over to steal some fries off Victor's tray, "Time to move on, Tori."
"Why should I? You never moved on from that nickname for me."
"My excellent and endearing nickname isn't a crush on a guy who wants nothing to do with you. You could do better."
"Yeah? Like who?"
She did a quick sweep of the cafeteria until she saw someone she knew, "What about Andy?"
Victor scoffed, and doing his best impression of Ava said, "No, Tori, don't pine after that guy you haven't talked to in years, pine after this guy you also haven't talked to in years."
Ava shrugged, "I don't know, dating in high school is overrated anyway."
"What're you guys talking about?" Lily said as she sat down with her tray next to Victor.
"Not much, just that Victor wuuhuuvs Noah."
"Ava!" Victor said between his teeth, "God, I regret ever telling you."
"Well, you're not exactly subtle about it," Ava countered, taking yet another of Victor's fries.
"Hey, stop that. If you want fries why don't you ever get them?"
"Cos they taste better when they're stolen. Duh."
"Don't let your dad hear you say that."
Ava snorted, "He's grounded me for less."
The rest of lunch passed in conversation about a new game Lily had picked up over the weekend, her summer plans to go to coding camp and lengthier plans to someday make games like the one she was playing now. This was followed by Ava and Victor's mutual decision to waste their summer before senior year by any means necessary. ("No offense, Lily.")
When the bell rang, Ava said a quick bye and headed off to her next class, opposite the side of the building where the one Victor and Lily shared next was. They fell into a comfortable pace, neither of them particularly eager to reach Economics.
"Hey," Lily said, suddenly but gently bumping her shoulder with Victor's as they walked, "Don't let Ava get to you, it's alright that you like Noah, Victor."
He gave her a soft smile, "Thanks, Lil. Ava just likes to tease me. I know she means well but she'd never say it outright."
"She does have a point though. You should at least try to talk to him. You never know, right?"
"I'll think about it."
The rest of the day passed in its usual, uneventful haze, until Victor was late getting out of his final class and found Cody and Jocelyn loitering in the hall where his locker was.
He noticed them too late to retreat, opting to try to walk past them and hope they had somewhere more important to be for once. He got as far as inputting his combination and opening his bag.
"What? Not even gonna say hello?" Cody called out to him. "Isn't that rude of him, Joss?"
"Like, so rude, Cody."
"Look-" Victor started as he turned to face them, only to find the two of them firmly in his personal space.
Cody grabbed one of the chains on Victor's shirt and held it tight so he couldn't move, "Y'know Halloween is over, right?"
"Yeah cos it's May and Halloween is in October." Jocelyn added.
Victor rolled his eyes, "That's really special, Cody, I've never heard that one before. Thanks for your insightful commentary. Now let me go."
"You think you're funny but you're not, freak."
"Funny? No, I genuinely forgot that Halloween was over. Let me go so I can go to Hollister to update my wardrobe and hopefully suffocate on the smell of cheap cologne."
Cody's face darkened with a scowl and he shoved Victor against the lockers. Victor dropped his open backpack as he collided with the wall, spilling everything in it as he slid to the floor. When he looked up Jocelyn was laughing, and Cody was gearing back his right arm for a punch. Victor was blocked by the two of them and could do nothing but close his eyes, shield his face and brace himself for the hit.
But it never came, interrupted by a shout from up the hall.
"Hey!"
Victor opened his eyes and the three of them looked to the source of the voice.
Noah stood about ten feet away, pulling a pair of duct-taped headphones down around his neck.
"Yeah? What do you want?" Cody demanded.
Noah shrugged, "Me? I don't want anything but Principal Flores might if she sees this going on. She was heading this way."
"Shit," Cody muttered and he and Jocelyn took off.
Victor sighed in relief that he wasn't going to have to explain another bruised lip or black eye to his parents, relaxing against the wall for a moment until he could see a pair of beat up Converse in front of him.
He looked up to see Noah offering his hand, "C'mon."
"Thanks," Victor said, allowing Noah to help him to his feet. "You didn't have to do that. I take it Principal Flores wasn't right behind you?"
Victor could've sworn he saw a slight curl to the corner of Noah's mouth as he noncommittally replied, "She could've been."
"Thank you, really. Most people would've kept walking."
"Yeah, well, most people are assholes. No one deserves to be treated like that…I fucking hate bullies."
"Well, um…" Victor looked around at all his things scattered on the cheap linoleum, "I should clean this up. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, thank you."
Victor knelt down, grabbing his bag first then beginning to haphazardly shove everything back into it.
Wordlessly, Noah knelt beside him and started gathering up the mess, passing handfuls to Victor, neither of them looking at each other.
Then Noah stopped and spoke, "You still have this?"
"What?" Victor looked over to see Noah holding his house key, cradling part of a homemade "best friends forever" keychain in his other hand. The kind meant to be split three ways. Jane had given one to Noah, one to Victor, and kept the other for herself, despite none of them having any keys of their own at ten years old.
It was a little worse for wear, the colors faded, the edges frayed and the word "forever" on the charm was completely illegible, but it was still unmistakably the same one.
"Oh, that," was all Victor could manage to say, silence filling the space between them once more. Victor waited for Noah to say something, several minutes spent with both of them focused on the trinket.
"She gave me the 'best' part cos I was the 'best twin brother.'" Noah finally said, a faraway look in his eyes. Then, seeming to remember where he was and who he was with, he sighed, standing up and holding the old memory out for Victor to take, "I need to go."
Noah's hand brushed Victor's as the key and its chain were dropped in his hand, and then Noah walked away.
Victor stood and started to go after him, "Noah, wait."
He stopped, but didn't turn around, "I can't, Victor. I'm sorry. I'm glad you're okay, but I just can't."
And then he put his headphones back on and before Victor could blink, he had hurried out of sight. Victor stared down the empty hallway in his wake, before cursing and kicking up a flurry of papers, Jane's promise of forever still clutched tightly in his hand.