58
Lillian
A few days later, it snows heavily in the way that builds up on the picnic tables in mounds.
Snow that will last all winter.
We finally have to give up eating outside, but we survived November and were the last ones left.
Sasha was keeping a blanket in their locker to wrap around their legs just to stay warm.
In fairness, it’s worth going to lengths to spend as little time in this building as we can.
There’s nowhere good to have a breath of space.
We’ve taken up residency at the far end of the second-floor hallway, sitting on the floor.
There’s a stairwell closed fo.
“safety reasons,”
creating a forgotten space nobody moves through. That’s what we’ve claimed as our own.
In the inside pocket of my jacket, I can feel my present for Sasha.
I asked when their birthday was, and they said it was a secret, which makes me think it happened on a night we were doing something else and they didn’t say anything.
So I’ve got a present for them now.
“Listen, my parents are out of town this weekend,”
says Cyprus.
We just finished eating Falafel ’Til Dawn leftovers I brought from home and Cyprus is scraping out a hummus container with a spoon and eating it straight.
Clearly, she has no one to kiss right now.
None of us do, though if Quinn ever calls Sef he might.
“Empty house,”
Quinn says.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Say it on three,”
says Cyprus.
“One, two, three —”
We get a disjointed combination o.
“dance battle”
(Quinn).
“baking show”
(Sasha).
“house concert”
(me, and it’s a great idea), and something Cyprus says that I have to ask her to repeat to hear properly.
“Swimming pool.”
She eats a spoonful of hummus.
“My parents are still keeping it heated, but they usually close it by mid-December. This is last call to use it while they’re not around being you know, themselves.”
“Bland and befuddled?”
suggests Quinn.
“Watch your mouth, boy,”
says Cyprus.
“That’s my family you’re talking about. I prefer the words awkward and clueless.”
It pains me to give up a house concert, but to say public swimming pools are not the most queer-friendly locations is an understatement. I’ll take what I can get.
I throw a loose fry at Sasha, missing.
“Why aren’t your parents ever out of town at the same time?”
“The real question,”
says Sasha.
“is why don’t they have a pool that’s still heated in December?”
I can see them considering.
“I’m going to have to get something to swim in.”
Cyprus is quick to add that it’s not like we have to swim if people don’t want to or don’t feel comfortable.
“I just love having you guys over, whatever we do.”
“I think I want to swim.”
Sasha adjusts their skirt.
“It’s fun picking outfits to be around you three. You give me all the space to be experimental, playful, catastrophic, whoever I am.”
Quinn, possibly to ward off things getting too sincere, declares that in the spirit of being experimental, playful and catastrophic, he’s going to call Sef for real this time.
We all want to be on speakerphone, but Quinn takes just Sasha with him into an empty classroom. Since Sasha won’t give away that they’re listening in. Unlike some of us, apparently. I can see Sasha and Quinn sitting on desks through the narrow window beside the classroom door.
I pull out my wallet and wave a bill in front of Cyprus.
“Five dollars he doesn’t actually call Sef? No, five dollars he doesn’t contact him in any way.”
Cyprus is looking at me evenly, like she’s waiting for me to run myself out of energy. Mixed patient and impatient. She’s got something she has to say, and it’s not for Sasha and Quinn to hear. These are the things you learn from knowing someone your entire life.
“Yes?” I say.
She exhales.
“You’re not going to love this.”
Her face already has that please-forgive-me vibe.
“I invited Emelia tonight too.”
“You were there at the Pilgrim, right?”
I’m still holding out the bill.
“Standing beside me? I’m quite certain you were there.”
Emelia must not have told Cyprus about the note I left her, how she wasn’t ready to be anywhere near me yet.
“You two weren’t altogether hostile. I said she can bring a friend or something. Margot, maybe?”
“I hate Margot.”
I used to like her just fine actually, before I thought about her comforting Emelia and Emelia spilling all of my secrets and mistakes to her.
I manage to keep my voice down, but what I say is.
“What the actual fuck were you thinking? There were buffer people at the Pilgrim too.”
“I’m thinking it’s been shit trying to be friends with both of you without making one of you feel abandoned, and I hate it, and I need you two to grow up because me and Quinn don’t care and I’m pretty sure Sasha doesn’t either. It’s going to be awkward, and we’re going to be okay.”
“No,”
I say.
“That’s not fair. You don’t talk to Gabriel at all. I’m not here calling you childish and inviting him to things behind your back.”
“You once told me you ‘loathe his very aura,’ so not really a fair comparison, is it? He wasn’t friends with any of you. He wasn’t in the band.”
“But with Emelia the situation’s somehow better?”
“It’s more nuanced.”
“It’s a dumpster fire.”
The present for Sasha suddenly feels less like it’s waiting to jump out of my pocket, ready to be given, and more like it’s digging into my side. It feels too bulky, all angles and errors.
“I thought maybe you’d be happy,”
says Cyprus.
“Why in god’s name —”
“I thought you’d be happy because you’re still in love with her.”
In the classroom, Sasha turns their head at the initial outburst of my reaction. I try to stay quiet when I continue.
“That is the single most ridiculous idea you’ve ever had.”
Cyprus looks me dead in the eyes.
“That you’d be happy or that you’re still in love?”
I get so quiet I can’t say anything at all.
A part of me is choking. Realizing there may not be an end to this, no surface to break through. I may be underneath the cold water from here to the end, snatching at light cutting through from above, cradling any tendril of warmth that reaches me.
Cyprus is backtracking, sort of. Saying Emelia will probably say no anyway. Saying it’s a start to ask. Especially if she can tell Emelia I’m fine with her being around.
I am, I think. Or I want to be. Yet there’s how things were at the Pilgrim and that message I put in her locker and the one she sent back.
There’s Sasha.
But I don’t say any of this.
And Cyprus already asked Emelia. I’m cornered.
Cyprus is an absurd, foolish optimist, and I want to yell at her and tell her that she has nothing to apologize for all at the same time. There are simply too many moving hearts to avoid some collisions. It’s a mosh pit out here.
Sasha and Quinn emerge from the classroom. Sasha has their arm around his shoulders.
“Your boy Quinn’s going on a proper date, and he’s probably going to wear a goddamn suit, and he’s definitely going to be the handsomest bastard you’ve ever seen.”
“You owe me five dollars,”
says Cyprus.
Transitions are the parts of it all I’m the worst at.
When the song’s over, I can’t let the echo die.
At home, I find the book of Emelia’s I’ve been keeping.
I gave it to her freely. It isn’t mine to take back or to choose which endings she sees.
I use a pen to put words on the inside of the soft cover where it feels like cardboard instead of paper, where there’s nothing else to see and no one else’s dedication in my way. I write the truth, or the echo of it. I’ll bring the book along on the weekend. I’ll hand it back to her and if she doesn’t say anything, I can imagine she continued reading from where she was or gave it back to goodwill.
I put the book in my bag.
Even if she never sees what I wrote, it was still written. Sent up to the surface to float where it may.