Chapter 20 Saylor
Saylor
We head straight to Michaels and do a little shopping. We grab a party tie-dye kit and a bunch of T-shirts, because what’s the point of just tie-dyeing one shirt? Then we wander around a little more, looking at the Fourth of July decorations before we head to the checkout.
“Did you have fun?” Heaven asks as we join the short line.
“Yeah.” I smile back at her. “I liked how quiet it was in there.”
“Don’t get much quiet at your house?” she teases.
“More like my life. I haven’t been alone with my last two brain cells in the last twenty years,” I reply.
“Things were loud when you were still an egg?”
“Yes! It’s nice having some space away from the twins, especially where they aren’t going through my things and stealing my clothes, but Cristine Ford leads a very exciting life. It’s nonstop noise and excitement. I’m sure she’s plotting the next exciting bit of content right now.”
“Well, you can hide at my house as long as you want,” Heaven says, and I feel my cheeks heat because it sounds like she means it.
We move up the line and I bite my tongue again, because I don’t want to blurt out just how much I want to know more about her.
I watch Heaven as she grabs one of those big-eyed multicolored stuffed animals off the rack, and I grab a pack of gummy bears to add to our pile.
When we get back in the car, she hands me the little rainbow glitter plushie. “Here.”
“This is for me?” I turn the unicorn with its enormous eyes over in my hands.
“Yeah, you got me that cool postcard from the museum.”
“Yeah, but you got me cake,” I remind her.
“Yeah, but that was before we were friends, remember?”
“Right,” I say, feeling the smile fade from my face.
“You don’t like it? We can go back and get the glitter cat.”
“No, I really like it.” I’m just wishing I’d never said that friend thing. I wish I was brave enough to shoot my shot with Heaven. I turn and smile at her. “I love it. Thank you. And look, it’s already kind of tie-dyed.”
“You can make a matching shirt,” Heaven replies, and it feels a little unfair that I can’t kiss her right now, but I’ll just have to deal.
We start heading back to her house, and she puts on a K-pop song I haven’t heard before, but it’s good.
I brave a look at my phone and see my mom is on LIVE.
I immediately switch over to Heaven’s new account.
She has thirty followers now. It’s not a lot, but I know it’s enough to freak her out.
I’m about to ask her what else I can do to help when she glances over at me.
“Hey, can I ask you a weird question? As a friend,” she says.
“Sure.”
“How did Rhys tell you he liked you?” I kind of jerk back in shock because that was the last thing I was expecting her to say. From the look on her face, I’m not sure she really thought that question through before she asked it, but it’s too late now. “I mean—”
“I’m not sure he ever said it like that. He asked me to homecoming and then we just kinda decided to be together. But I didn’t feel—” I almost say I didn’t like him the way I like her. “I didn’t fully know I was gay then.”
“Ah, okay.”
“Why’d you ask?” I say, trying to keep my tone nice and light. I really want to know what she’s thinking.
“Oh. I don’t—I was just thinking about us being friends.
I think you were right about Jake and Axel, being boys, I mean.
I—they are obviously boys. I just don’t have many girlfriends, so I haven’t talked about that kind of stuff.
They talk about Bethany and Valentina, but they don’t, like, talk about their feelings.
I’ve never dated anyone, and you have, so I was just wondering.
But I guess, you’re right, it is different ’cause you weren’t sure you were gay at the time.
I guess that matters.” Heaven’s rambling.
I want to save her, but for once in my life I don’t know what to say.
I want to tell her how I feel. I want to tell her I didn’t mean the whole friend zone thing.
I want to tell her I like her, that it’s getting harder to breathe when I’m around her, in the best possible way, but I can’t see how it doesn’t go horribly wrong.
“Are you going to let anyone sign your cast?” she says, changing the subject, saving us both.
“I haven’t thought about it. Do you want to sign it?”
“I’ll write Heaven all huge right down the middle.”
“I’d love that.”
She glances at my arm again. “That would be almost as bad as getting my name tattooed on your arm. I can decorate it, though.”
“Do you want to know about my favorite couples from previous seasons of Love Island?” I ask, another subject change just to be safe.
If I’m talking about randoms from TV, I won’t blurt out the true depth of my crush and the ways it’s multiplied in the last few hours.
And she doesn’t have to come up with more awkward ways to talk about herself and the general complexities around gay feelings.
“Sure.” Heaven laughs. I smile, letting out a deep breath, and then it’s my turn to ramble. I don’t shut up the whole way to Taco Bell.