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Soft, hazy afternoon light shone through the bus windows, illuminating a million little specks of dust and painting half of the few remaining passengers in pale oranges. A pop star’s lilting voice crackled through the speakers, crooning a slow, tender pop song, accompanied by the hum of an engine. And Zoey Parker and Derek Suarez were holding hands.
Zoey wasn’t really sure who had reached for who first. She just suddenly became vaguely aware of fingers intertwined in her own, and looked down, eyes wide, to find that they had been those of her neighbor. Maybe it had been an involuntary reflex, and she’d reached for him, or maybe he was still trying to help her not be sad that she couldn’t see her dad on Father’s Day. She didn’t dare look at Derek, even if doing so would give her some kind of clue.
Derek had popped into Zoey’s life at a time when she felt things would never be okay again. When she finally worked up the nerve to tell her parents what was going on in her head, that it was her head and not his, she was terrified that they wouldn’t love her anymore. Her dad had reassured her that they would always love her, but when he sent her to her room so they could talk about it, she could still hear parts of their conversation as hissing whispers turned into angry yelling. Her mom wanted to send her somewhere, to fix her, like she was a toaster that needed repairs. Zoey cried herself to sleep that night, but the next day her dad took her out to get ice cream and bought her a few new outfits, and she was thinking maybe things wouldn’t be that bad.
Later, Erik came into her room and told her that it wasn’t fair. She asked what wasn’t fair, and he told her that it wasn’t fair that he would be stuck with Mom while she got to move out with Dad. The shock hit her like a gut punch. Her parents were getting a divorce. Her parents were getting a divorce and it was her fault. When the tears came, Erik reassured her, but it didn’t help her feel any better. A few weeks later, she and her dad hopped in the big moving van they had rented and headed to their new apartment in the city. Zoey cried again on the way there, but Dad insisted it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t believe him. She would miss Erik a lot, and their house, and she would even miss her mom.
She and her dad trudged back and forth, carrying boxes into to the little two bedroom apartment. He tried to cheer her up by pointing out the little balcony behind the sliding door in the living room, and the pool, and how they could order so many different types of food. But what did any of that matter? Her life was going to be different forever now, and not just in the ways she thought it would. And then she bumped into Derek Suarez.
“Oh, sorry! I probably should have made some noise or something.” He scratched the back of his neck and grinned goofily. She noticed he had green eyes, lighter than hers but sparkly. His light brown hair was spiked artfully, and he was wearing a purple jersey and jeans. Zoey was at least an inch taller than him. “I just saw that you were moving in, and I thought you looked my age, so I wanted to say hi. I thought maybe we could be friends.” He held out his hand. “I’m Derek.”
Zoey bit her lip, hesitating, but she ultimately shifted the box she was holding to her hip and shook the boy’s hand. “I’m, uh, Zoey.” It was the first time she’d introduced herself to anyone with her new name.
“Oh, man, what am I thinking? You gotta let me help you with that!” Derek held out his arms, gesturing to the box she was holding.
“Oh, it’s not like, heavy or anything,” she insisted.
“Still, I would love to help you-“
“DEREK!” A loud, shrieking voice called the new kid’s name, and a little ball of hair streaked past and barreled into him.
“Hey, Nico. Come to meet the new neighbor?” The little boy, Nico, hesitated, hiding behind his brother’s legs.
“Nico!” another voice called, and another boy trotted up. Unlike Nico, this kid looked like he was related to Derek. They had the same hair, the same eyes, and they had similar features. Zoey felt a twinge of homesickness as she thought of her own brother.
“Jorge, meet the new neighbor, Zoey,” Derek said, gesturing to her like she was a new car on some daytime game show. Jorge looked over, and a slight blush tinged his cheeks. He was shy, it seemed.
“Uh, hi…” he said, waving limply in her general direction. She waved back, not really sure what to say.
“So, Zoey, these are my brothers, Nico and Jorge. Do you have any brothers? Oh, or sisters or anything?” Derek asked her.
“I have a brother but, um…,”she trailed off. “He stayed with my mom.”
Derek’s face fell. He caught on to what she was saying; her parents had split up.
“Oh… I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s fine, I guess,” Zoey said. “I’ll still see him and stuff. My parents just didn’t want him to have to move high schools as a senior.”
“Oh wow, he’s older?” Derek asked. She responded with a simple nod. “I have younger brothers only, which is cool. But I always wondered what it was like.”
“He’s kind of a jerk sometimes,” she said. “But I will miss him. A lot.”
For a moment, they stood in awkward silence. She didn’t dare risk a glance at him, because she could already feel a mild blush creeping up into her cheeks. She thought he was very cute. Finally, gratefully, he broke the silence.
“Zoey, do you wanna come over for dinner? You can meet my parents and we can play some games!”
For a moment, she was tempted to say no. She was tempted to stew, to keep being sad and hopeless and angry at herself for causing this. But something about Derek made her feel a little more like the world wasn’t ending around her. So she bit her lip and formed her next sentence carefully.
“Uh, yes. But I need to ask my dad first.”
“Let’s gooo!” he shouted, throwing his arms up in celebration.
“Let’s gooo!” Nico repeated, mimicking Derek’s gesture near-perfectly. At that, Zoey found herself laughing. She didn’t think she would ever laugh again, but she was overcome by giggles at the little copycat, and soon the others were laughing too.
And that was how she and Derek had met. And that night, she met his parents and had dinner at his house, and they quickly began to hang out a lot. When Derek went to meet his dad’s new business partner, Zoey was allowed to go to, and she met the guy and his son, Cove, who seemed kinda shy, and Cove’s best friend Soleil, who he was definitely in love with. Sometimes the four of them would hang out, sometimes just three, but almost always Zoey and Derek. And yes, Zoey had gotten a massive crush on him.
The thing about Derek Suarez was, he was always there. He always cared, he was always interested. When Zoey explained her whole gender thing to him, he asked a million questions, his face screwed in concentration. He wanted to know everything, to get everything right so he wouldn’t make a mistake. And it made Zoey feel normal. It made her feel, for the first time, that the way things had gone had been her mom’s fault, and not hers. And he never treated her even slightly differently when she told him.
And when she learned that her dad would be on a work trip for all of Father’s Day, and they wouldn’t be together for it for the first time ever, he invited her right over. They had a living room camp out, eating marshmallows and telling silly stories (long love Baby Castle!). And in the morning, when she’d panicked thinking about how Erik hardly ever got to see their dad at all, let alone on Father’s Day, Derek had found a way to get them back to that familiar house that Zoey missed so much. She had been able to see Erik, to spend time with him in their childhood home, and it made her happier than she’d been in a while.
She was grateful to Derek for giving her back some of what she had lost, and for giving her a few new things, too. So after a moment of sheer, heart-pounding nerves, she gave his hand a gentle squeeze. She finally looked up, and saw how red his face was. But he grinned at her, that blindingly bright Derek Suarez grin, and squeezed right back. She nestled closer, laying her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes.
“Thank you, Derek.”