I could lie, and tell you everything was fine and lovely and normal after all that…drama. I could. But this isn't the space where I do that.

This is the real space. Where I say, outright, that Adrian was two floors below me that night, just like every night, but now it was torture. Since I'd had that dream.

God.

I just…liked being with him.

I thought about him a lot, now, and I wondered if there were any way things would ever be different.

I felt like he was what I…lacked? It sounds cliché and overdone. Like, I know. But…where he was spiny and bitter, I was…softer. I dulled him. But where I was insecure and a hot mess, he was confident. He strengthened me. We were like…an oyster. Two halves of a whole. But when you opened us up, there was just gross grey gunk inside, because we were both so screwed up.

I just wished I could stop feeling so weird.

As the days progressed, it helped that Magda started asking about Thanksgiving almost daily. She seemed excited to cook for us, and asked what we wanted to have. And it sparked interesting conversation.

I was most excited for the stuffing, and Adrian was talking about "real" mashed potatoes. Will said that Pilot liked the turkey giblets, if we were willing to sacrifice them, and made everyone groan when he asked about Cranberries.

"With rolls, they're delightful," Will insisted.

We talked about everything and anything Thanksgiving-related, and every so often, Magda would jump in with a question for us about food. She seemed to be set on the idea of cooking without help, and refused to let us see the list she was always adding to and speaking rapid-fire Spanish to.

"Football?" Adrian asked, once, and I wrinkled my nose at him. I would love baseball until I died, but football? Not so much.

"Not…really?" I said hesitantly, like a question, and both Will and Adrian groaned.

What is it with guys and football?

Will started trying to explain a concept to me with such grand gestures that Pilot, who never misbehaved, barked wildly at him until he calmed his hands. Adrian was talking my ear off about games he'd seen, and I let him go, and just smiled.

It was the least I could do; he let me go off like this all the time for tutoring. School was my geeking out. Football, it seemed, was his.

"And when they didn't go for the field goal! It was insane! The crowd was going nuts, and then when they actually got the touchdown with five seconds left! Oh, my God! It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen in my life! People actually rushed the field. They jumped down from the stands, almost killing themselves, and it was just, this mob of red and white, people everywhere, cheering, hugging complete strangers. Like, thousands of people. It was so insane. Like, what a rush!"

"Country Gravy? Turkey Gravy? Or Brown?" Magda cut in smoothly. She had reappeared with a pen hovering over her Thanksgiving list.

"Country," I said, at the same time as Will, who said, "Turkey."

"I make both," she muttered, starting to talk to herself in quick Spanish, making notes on the list and retreating back to the other room. Adrian said he thought she was loading a virtual shopping cart so that she could just go pick it up a few days before the holiday, and not be trapped in a store with crazed Thanksgiving shoppers.

And the days were so cozy, now that it was colder. It was all sweaters and real fire in a real fireplace, living out some of my very favorite clichés; making hot chocolate with nutmeg and cinnamon, or with pumpkin spice and whipped cream. Asking for eggnog. Having Magda teach us baking, instead of just cooking Mexican dishes. (But I maintain my rellenos were better than Adrian's, he just can't handle his dishes spicy.)

We made sugar cookies and then made the frosting to go on them. (Frosting may or may not have found its way into Adrian's ear. And in retaliation he may or may not have tried to put frosting up my nose.)

(In a follow-up note, it's hard to scrub frosting out of your hair. And ears. And nose.)

On the day, Magda declared us ready to make pumpkin pie, and Will came solemnly into the kitchen, having appropriated a can of cranberries.

(Cranberries are easier to scrub out of your hair than frosting. )

Will also said cranberries stain, and didn't trust us when we said he'd escaped the encounter without staining his shirt. (He really had!) And he grumbled at us that he'd be able to tell. That stained fabrics felt different.

Adrian called bullshit, and then we argued about it, and Magda ended up kicking us all out of the kitchen.

And it was the most perfect Thanksgiving I could have hoped for.

We talked about what we were thankful for, and we reminisced about past Thanksgivings—they told me I won 'Worst Thanksgiving' because my mom died the day after Thanksgiving, when I was little. But Will was a contender for a minute, when he said Thanksgiving was the day he'd been declared legally blind.

Until Adrian called bullshit, and we argued about it. And Magda told us if we couldn't sit nicely without arguing that she'd eat all the pie herself.

(And Will admitted he'd lied.)

We had done it right, too. We'd dressed up: business casual, for the men (Will wore a tie, but Adrian didn't) and pearls for the ladies. (Adrian was insistent, when he slid Magda the skinny box, and she finally accepted them, and they looked gorgeous on her.) I found something nice in my mini-Bloomie's closet, and wore my hair down.

Adrian told me I looked beautiful, and I flushed at the compliment, but secretly felt self-conscious, because the top was a little loose on me, and the collar kind of plunged.

Will also told me I looked beautiful, then, and we laughed, and I felt a little better.

We finished the meal around 5:00, and banished Magda from the dishes, because she'd cooked the whole meal. After Adrian, Will and I finished the dishes, Will excused himself for what he called his annual "turkey nap."

So then it was us.

We decided to sit in the study. Adrian had opened the shutters, and it was so nice. The late afternoon painted everything, making it cozy and warm. My hair looked gold, when the sun hit it.

"I wish we could go to school together," I found myself saying. "I mean that you could go to my school," I corrected, feeling stupid. "My old school."

Adrian didn't laugh at me, though. "Would I like it?" he asked seriously. He had this gentle smile. It was really subtle, around his face. His snout. But I liked it.

"Probably not," I considered, frowning. "The kids there, they're all rich and snotty. I didn't fit in."

Adrian's smile got bigger, then. Like…he thought it was funny. I didn't get what went through his mind, sometimes. "What would your friends say if they saw someone like me there?" he said, and I had a feeling it wasn't what had made him smile.

I scoffed. "I didn't have any friends. But I'm sure some of the parents in the PTA would have problems with you." I would know. They had problems with me. Well, with the scholarship kids. It wasn't that I was poor. Not necessarily. It's that I wasn't good enough, because I didn't come from money. I was riffraff.

"'I don't want any beasts in school with my child!'" Adrian said, adopting a falsetto. "That's what they'd say at the PTA meeting. 'I pay good money for this school. You can't let in riffraff.'"

I laughed, probably harder than necessary, simply because he'd used the word I'd been thinking. "Exactly."

We sat in comfortable silence for a bit, and then Adrian stood, and offered me his arm. I accepted it, and we walked into the greenhouse. I liked how warm it was, and Adrian had been giving me more roses. And I loved that he gave them to me.

"Hey, we could start studying in here now that it's cool," Adrian said. Because Will had declared school was out, and we were still dorks who did our studying.

"I'd like that," I said honestly.

"Do you need any flowers?" He asked, holding up his cutters. Because he kept cutters in his suit pocket. What a dork.

"Yes, please," I said automatically. "If you won't miss them." We moved closer to the tea roses.

"I'll miss them," he said, in a faux grudging way. Then he looked at me, and that gentle smile was back. "But it makes me happy to give them to you, Lindy. To have someone to give them to," he said a little softer.

I melted. "I understand, Adrian." I smiled. "And I know what it is to be lonely," I continued. "I've been lonely all my life, until…" I stopped. God. Shut up, Lindy. He doesn't want to hear about this. I was so pathetic. I was about to tell him about how I was lonely until I got a crush on Kyle Kingsbury, and then I felt better, pretending he gave a damn about me.

Until I came here, and had people who actually cared about me.

Until I realized I had a kindred spirit, in Adrian, and that I was in love with him.

"Until what?" he asked, and I blushed.

"Nothing. I forgot what I was going to say," I said quickly. The trouble with loving Adrian? And still being friends? Was that I felt like I could tell him everything.

"All right," he said easily. "What color do you want this time? I think you had red last time, but the red ones don't last, do they?"

I paused, looking at the white tea roses, thinking of Kyle Kingsbury. "You know, I had a huge crush on this guy at my school once," I said absently, fingering a tiny bloom.

"Really?" Did I dare hope he sounded jealous? "What was he like?"

I laughed. "Perfect. The typical guy you'd have a crush on, I guess. Beautiful, popular. I thought he was smart, too, but maybe I just wanted him to be smart." It felt better than I thought it would to admit some of the childish things I'd held on to, when I'd thought I was in love with Kyle Kingsbury. "It bothered me that I could like someone just for his looks. You know how that is." I cut myself off. Shit. How insensitive was I being?

I glanced at Adrian, and he was turned away. God. Had I hurt his feelings? Made him feel ugly?

"It's strange, though," I powered forward, trying to salvage the idea of what I'd…meant to say. "People make such a big deal about looks, but after a while, when you know someone, you don't even notice anymore, do you. It's just…the way you look."

"You think?" Adrian asked, and he shuffled his feet, edging slightly closer to me. I wanted to blush. "So what was this guy's name?" he asked casually, and I let out a shaky breath in a laugh.

"Kyle. Kyle Kingsbury. Isn't that…" I shook my head. "An incredible name? His father's this big network anchor. I watch him sometimes and remember Kyle. They look just alike."

Adrian crossed his arms, like he was contemplating something. I looked at his face. At the whorls of fur closest to the bridge of his nose. Snout. "So…you liked this Kyle guy because he was so great-looking and had a rich father and an incredible name?" he said carefully, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

I laughed. I knew he wouldn't let that slide. It sounded incredibly shallow, and it was! "Well, not just that," I said seriously. "He was…he was so confident, fearless, like I'm not. He spoke his mind." Like you, I thought, looking at Adrian's blue eyes. "He didn't know I existed, of course, except this one time…" I trailed off. Oh. We were getting back to me being stupid. "It was silly," I said softly.

"No. Tell me," Adrian looked back at me, and I smiled.

"I was helping out at a dance. I hated helping at dances. I felt stupid and poor, but it was…encouraged? If you were on scholarship." I grimaced, remembering the way those snobs all sneered at me. With each ticket I took, I got the same telepathic message through those sneers. Loser, loser, loser. "Anyway," I shook my head, "he was there with his girlfriend – this completely evil girl named Sloane Hagen," I couldn't help but add. "I remember he'd gotten her a corsage –a glorious white rose." My fingers kept stroking the tiny petals of the white tea roses in front of me. "Sloane was having a hissy because it wasn't an orchid, wasn't expensive enough, I guess." I rolled my eyes. It still made me so mad, thinking about her. So stuck-up, so entitled. She probably never had to work for anything in her life. Neither did Kyle. That's probably why he was on drugs. He thought it was fun.

"But," I continued, scoffing, "I remember thinking that if I could have a rose like that from a guy like Kyle Kingsbury, I'd…be happy forever. And just as I was thinking that…he…walked over. And gave it to me." I hadn't realized it, but I'd gotten tears in my eyes. God. Stupid tears. Over stupid Kyle.

I looked at Adrian, and he was so engrossed in my story. "Yeah?"

I nodded. "I…I could tell he thought it was no big deal, but in my entire life, no one had ever given me a flower. Ever." I laughed, and a few of the tears escaped, and I wiped them away, imagining my room, and the vases and vases of roses. It had meant so much, then. And…he probably…wouldn't have even remembered. "I spent the whole night looking at it," I admitted, and it just…felt so lonely. I still felt that ache I'd felt, then, just recalling it. "The way its calyx cradled it like a tiny hand. It…it even had a little vial of water to keep it alive longer. And the scent—I took it home on the subway, smelling it the whole time, and pressed it in the pages of a book so I could remember it forever." I shook my head. God. More tears dripped down my nose, and I wiped them away.

"Do you still have it?" Adrian asked—almost reverently. I smiled, and nodded.

"In a book upstairs. I brought it with me. That Monday, I wanted to find Kyle, to thank him again for it, but he wasn't in school," I said, and shrugged. "He'd gotten sick over the weekend and missed the rest of the year. Then…" I stopped, swallowing the next part. I didn't know he'd gotten into drugs. There were just rumors I'd heard. And even though he was a stupid, pretty boy, who was actually probably scum, I didn't want to tarnish this. My recounting of this memory. Because it had been something I cherished, once.

"Then he went to boarding school," I finished instead. "I never saw him again."

There was a pause, and it was kind of awkward, to sit there, kind of crying, so I cleared my throat, wiping the rest of my tears, and apologizing. Adrian had a look on his face for a moment that I didn't understand. He seemed…grateful? Maybe? Or relieved? But then he smiled, and it was gone. "Should we pick some now?" he asked, indicating the white tea roses we'd been standing at all this time.

"I love the roses you give me, Adrian," I said.

I love you, Adrian.

"Do you?" Adrian asked, and I was taken aback for a moment. Confused as to which statement he was answering. The one I'd said aloud? Or the one I hadn't?

I nodded, anyway. "I've never had beautiful things. It makes me sad to see them die, though. The yellow roses last the longest, but it's still too short."

I was removing the weight. Or trying to. I just let things get so…dramatic. Why did I keep doing that?

"That's why I built this greenhouse," Adrian said, smiling. "So I could have them all year long. It's never winter. Even though there will soon be snow on the ground."

"But I like winter," I interjected. "It's almost Christmas. I miss being able to go outside and touch the snow." I said the last bit without thinking, and Adrian frowned.

"I'm sorry, Lindy. I wish I could give you everything you want," he muttered, and I could have kicked myself.

He started examining the roses, and he clipped me a little white one. It was perfect.

AUTHORS NOTE

I'm getting there. It was hard because there was more filler than I expected. (Lindy didn't write for two months!) But this chapter officially started back into canon.

You and me, BelleSkellington403. We're the ones who need this written. Probably no one else. XD

~Angeladex