46
Lillian
Sasha’s coat is hanging on the back of my bedroom door. It’s long, pale pink, clearly out of place in my room. They wore it at Initialism on the karaoke evening. They find it colder in this city than I do, and our table was in a bit of a draft from the door. Before they went onstage, they took it off and handed it to me. It smells like a mixture of new clothing and the very unobtrusive perfume Sasha sometimes wears.
That scent has been soft in my room for a few days.
Underneath, they wore a white sleeveless dress with a V-neck. It ended just above their knees, pretty and full enough for them to sway in, to feel it moving around them. I’ve always hated that sensation, but I could see them loving it onstage.
There’s a lot of talk about gender and body dysphoria, feeling like your skin isn’t a place you belong in. There’s not enough about the opposite, about ecstatic belonging. I see the euphoria on Sasha or Quinn most days. They’ll look at themselves in a window we’re walking past, and they’ll walk a little slower, turn at a certain angle, watching themselves.
That’s not always good, but sometimes it is. More and more for each of them, I think.
Sometimes, Quinn says he looks in a mirror and he actually sees himself looking back. He can’t even find the words for it.
“Hyped to the max,”
he said once.
“Stoked, pumped, high on life. I could write an eighties hit about it.”
Seeing my friends feel like that may be my favorite thing to witness in the entire world.
At the end of the karaoke night, Quinn draped Sasha’s jacket over my shoulders because I hate wearing pink and Sasha pulled my leather jacket on. No spikes on this one. It’s plain, a bit big on me — perfect on Sasha’s shoulders.
They were laughing and spinning every chance they got because their dress spun with them. I felt like a cupcake at a wedding photo shoot, but Sasha was still wearing my coat when we dropped them off.
I liked that, so I didn’t trade back.
Now it’s Sunday. I’ve accomplished every step of my list. We’ve skipped two band practices, watched a concert video together (very distracted by Sasha next to me, did not cuddle, haven’t told Cyprus about that because reasons blegh I don’t know). Found new bands, except for Sasha, who said they tried but we’re just such nerds. We did our karaoke.
Cyprus got us into this triple-header local band scenario that’s happening in a few weeks at a little venue called the Pilgrim. She saw a link between our acquaintances and Quinn’s dad’s music scene connections, did the follow-up, sent about a thousand messages.
“accidentally”
ran into the organizer at his work, and now Wavelength is on the bill. Together, the three bands can fill this place up. It’ll be a great time, and we’re playing second, which is ideal.
Tonight, the band meeting is starting any minute. I’ve got a bonfire blazing in my small backyard and chocolate chip cookies, which I’d love to claim credit for. In truth, Jasper stress-baked them and then got all athletey and said he shouldn’t eat three dozen cookies on his own, so now there’s cookies for me and my friends.
I take one last look in the mirror. I can’t get my beanie to flop just so, but I hear a pebble hit my window (which Quinn finds an endlessly amusing alternative to doorbells) and I know my friends are here.
Time to make my case.
“No, absolutely not,”
says Cyprus.
“This is your worst idea.”
The three of us are sitting close to the fire. I’m going to bring out the cookies later and use them to make s’mores. Clearly, I should have used them earlier as a bribe.
Quinn moves his shoes off the edge of the firepit. It was starting to smell like burnt rubber.
“Strictly speaking, it was my idea. Credit where credit’s due.”
Cyprus turns to Quinn.
“Quinn, this is your worst idea. Sasha can’t join the band. Lillian’s obsessed with Sasha.”
That gets me to cut in.
“I like Sasha, okay? I’m attracted to them. I’m attracted to lots of people. Or at least a few. Sasha’s not the only one. Have a little faith in me.”
It’s good I didn’t mention the whole snuggling with Sasha thing. When Cyprus asked, I said nothing happened at our movie night. Did I consciously define “nothing”
differently than her? Yes, absolutely.
Some sparks jump from the firepit and Quinn stamps them out when they land in the leaves beside his lawn chair.
“I have so much faith in you, Lillian,”
says Cyprus.
“Sappy amounts of faith. But our band’s literally in trouble right now because Emelia broke up with you.”
“We broke up,”
I mutter instinctively.
I’ve been doing the gestures of moving on, though. I dropped her things off yesterday and only wrote two horrible, unreadable songs about it in the twenty-four hours since. I didn’t ring the doorbell or anything. She didn’t meet me at the trees, and I haven’t texted her again.
Sometimes, when I have the compulsion to, I send a message to Sasha instead. They send me pictures of outfits they look beautiful in, and I can’t tell what it means.
Cyprus is looking into the fire.
“Emelia said she’d rather have friends than a band,”
says Cyprus.
“And I feel the same. People who really know you and care about you are so rare. But also this band has been with me for a long time. And what if they’re the same? What if the band keeps us together and if there’s no band we graduate and we become people who run into each other at concerts and are like, ‘Hey,’ awkward pause, nothing to say.”
Quinn takes several moments to hop his chair over until he’s beside Cyprus. He slings his arm around her shoulder.
“There will never, ever be an awkward pause. I’ll fill it with inane chatter no matter how disconnected we are.”
“You’re stuck with me,”
I say.
“First dance, last dance, with or without the band. Ride or die and all that.”
Cyprus is a little teary, laughing a little.
“I’m serious.”
“Me too,”
I say, but I’m thinking of us sitting on the hood of her car and how she didn’t answer about whether she wanted Emelia and me back together and wondering if the breakup started us drifting apart too. Wondering if she’s right, that the band is what ties us together now.
I leave that thought be. I pretend there’s no way that could be the reality.
“Bands don’t last forever,”
I say.
“I know it. Notes fade out.”
“You should write that down,”
says Quinn.
“Shut up, I’m trying to make a point.”
I should write it down though.
“And that point is that Wavelength is already in trouble. We’re not, just the band. So there’s no risk to adding Sasha. Emelia could still come back if she wants, since Sasha doesn’t play bass. Maybe it revives Wavelength. Maybe we crash out.”
I gesture to Quinn and Cyprus.
“Us, we’ll be fine.”
“With Emelia though —”
starts Cyprus.
“We’ll be fine,”
I repeat. I try to say it hard enough to make it true.
“So that’s a yes, right? You know Sasha and I are going to sound heaven-sent together.”
“Yes,”
sighs Cyprus.
“But only because I want to hear it and you said nice things and I know you’re withholding cookies.”
I check the clock on my phone.
“Good, good. It would have been super awkward if you’d stood by your initial reaction.”
Quinn and Cyprus both give me quizzical looks that are so very satisfying.
“I may have invited Sasha here and told them our meeting wouldn’t be long, with a plan to actually make them a part of the meeting?”
Cyprus rolls her eyes at me.
“Oh my god, that is so needlessly risky.”
“It’s called confidence ba-by.”
Sasha rides up the back lane a minute later.
“Sorry I’m late,”
they say. I was counting on that too. They lean their bike against the fence and grab a lawn chair.
“How was your band meeting?”
“The council has come to a consensus,”
I say.
“Sasha Weaver, do you want to join Wavelength?”