Cyrus

I woke to the warm sensation of the morning's first rays of sunlight peeking out from behind the clouds, streaming through my bedroom window. Feeling groggy and disoriented, I went to pull myself out of bed and immediately felt the painful tug of my headphones being ripped out of my ears as I moved. I almost let out a chuckle when I realised what had happened.

My headphones, freshly torn from my ears, were now dangling from my right arm which the cord had somehow wrapped itself around during the night. My phone, still connected to my headphones, was hanging precariously over the side of the mattress. As I reached down to pull my phone back up onto my bed, memories of the previous night came flooding back to me.

I had been waiting for TJ to call me for what felt like hours. I would put my phone down only to check it again ten seconds later, growing more and more impatient to hear back from him. I distinctly remembered checking the time to find that it was after midnight.

I quickly realised that I must have fallen asleep like that, holding onto my phone desperately waiting for any form of contact. Untangling myself from my headphones, I clambered out of bed and stretched my arms out in front of me.

I've never been one to waste the morning away, lying around in bed. Andi seems to think of me as some kind of maniac just for not wanting to spend hours in bed in the morning like she does. But I've always preferred to spend as much of my day as possible in a productive way.

I glanced over to the wooden desk in the corner of my cramped bedroom and as my eyes fell on my bright green notebook, it occurred to me that I had never written out my journal entry for last night.

I've been keeping a daily journal for quite a while now. It had been Buffy's idea; after I came out to her, she quickly picked up on the fact that I was suppressing my feelings for the sake of my friendship with Andi. I've never been someone who's very good at speaking openly about my feelings, which is why Buffy suggested that I write my feelings down every day to 'get it off my chest', as she put it. I was sceptical at first but I quickly found that it helped more than I ever thought possible. What started as a couple of sentences after each day grew over time into multiple paragraphs per day, even entire pages on particularly bad days.

I sat in my old office chair and pulled myself up to the desk, grabbing my pen from where I had left it after last night's study session and opening up the journal. Every time I open my journal, I find myself greeted by my cringe-inducing first entry in which every other word seemed to be 'JONAH', with the paragraph surrounded by nonsensical doodles, some romantic, mostly meaningless. As badly as I want to rip the page out and throw it in the trash, I could never bring myself to just throw away such an important memory. It would feel like throwing away my old feelings; like hiding them out of sight and pretending they never existed.

So as always, I quickly flicked through the pages and pages of Jonah-related angst before finally arriving at the next blank page, and I began thinking back on what to write about from yesterday.

Now I just had to think of something other than TJ-related angst.

"I'm still not getting it." Buffy sighed.

"Yeah, you've lost me completely." I nodded in agreement, turning to Andi with a confused look.

Andi let out a brief chuckle. "It's really simple, guys. We wanted to just be friends, right? But neither of us wanted to break up, so we're in a relationship but just as friends! We're in a… 'frielationship'!" She smiled as though she expected us to understand.

Buffy and I seemed to share the same dumbfounded expression but chose not to push the topic any further. We were walking to school together that morning, the beaming sunlight glistening off of the rain-soaked ground from the night before, threatening to blind me whenever I looked down at it.

"So," Buffy spoke up in an attempt to break the silence, "are you guys ready for the math test today?"

Of course she'd choose that, of all things to talk about.

"You know, I actually feel really good about it." Andi grinned. "You?"

Buffy smirked. "Pffft. Please. I got this thing down." She then turned to me expectantly. "How are you feeling?"

"That's a… loaded question." I joked, trying to avoid the inevitable subject that was about to come up.

Buffy furrowed her eyebrows at me, sharing a bemused glance with Andi. "What does that mean?"

I felt my body tense up, just as it always does when I can feel an awkward conversation approaching like a speeding train.

"Uh, nothing." I laughed half-heartedly, "I'm fine, I mean that's what studying is for, right?" I joked, and the moment the word 'studying' passed my lips, my eyes widened as I realised the conversation segue I had just invited.

"Oh yeah, how did it go with TJ?" Buffy asked.

Cyrus Goodman, you idiot.

"Uh, h-… uh, he's, uh, he's fine." I eventually got out amidst my nervous stammering.

Both girls tilted their heads to one side almost in sync as they looked at me in concern. Buffy stopped dead in her tracks and grabbed onto my arm, prompting Andi and I to stop as well.

"Cyrus." Buffy said sternly. She didn't need to say another word, we all knew exactly what she meant.

I sighed helplessly, my shoulders dropping. "I don't know." I admitted quietly. Suddenly, the glistening sunlight seemed like the least of my issues as I looked down shamefully. "He kind of freaked out on me last night and left home, and I haven't heard from him since."

Andi rubbed my arm out of support. "But I thought he was doing better now? You helped him get a C before summer break."

"He was doing well, but right now he just seems so distracted." I nodded, looking forward as I slowly began walking again, the girls following suit. "He still wants me to help him, I think. But every night when I talk to him, it's more like I'm talking at him lately, you know?" I crossed my arms, purposefully avoiding eye contact with either of them.

"I mean, I'm just surprised you managed to get him a C in the first place." Buffy remarked. "Back when I was tutoring him, as soon as he found out about his, uh…" she suddenly trailed off, briefly glancing sideways at Andi, "Well, it's like he just stopped wanting to learn."

I squinted as I looked up at the bright October sky, gently shaking my head. "No, I definitely think he wants to learn, but… I don't know. He's just being really weird."

"Sounds like you're made for each other, then." Andi joked, eliciting a laugh from Buffy.

I did my best to let out a laugh to mask the involuntary wince that immediately escaped me. Instead, the weird combination of the two made my throat catch which caused me to start coughing violently. I could feel my face flush as the girls laughed even harder at my reaction to the comment.

I hate that I always do this to myself. I never seem to know when to speak, or when not to speak; I never seem to be able to act like a normal human being. My brain always find some way to make things awkward and I can never stop myself from just blurting out whatever comes to mind without thinking it through.

It feels like every day I manage to find new ways to embarrass myself in front of other people. There's nothing worse than the feeling of eyes on me; the feeling of people laughing at my expense. It makes me want to hide under my bed and never come out again.

It never used to be all that bad. Obviously I got bullied from time to time growing up, that's just the fate of any guy who doesn't want to be a hyper-masculine meathead. But back then, I was young enough to not take it seriously, and young Buffy's insistence to run over and kick any bullies in their nether-regions meant that I never had too hard of a time.

But as we got older, the words that once went completely over my head began to find their way in. I started listening; I started caring.

Girly-boy. Loser. Nerd. Weirdo.

Freak.

Pretty soon it felt like the name-calling that I used to be able to ignore, I now couldn't escape from. Even when I didn't hear it, I could still hear it in my mind. Freak. Freak. Freak. The same words constantly buzzing around my mind like an angry swarm of bees.

Nowadays, I do my best to ignore it and save it for my journal. Andi and Buffy have their own drama to deal with right now, and the last thing they need is to deal with me getting worked up and paranoid over basically nothing.

And in that moment, as I was coughing away on the sidewalk outside school, face bright-red, I could feel those eyes again. It's probably nothing, I told myself. You're being paranoid again. But as usual, I couldn't help myself. The second Andi makes a joke like that, and I instantly react by coughing my guts up? That's totally not suspicious at all. I might as well be walking around holding a huge neon sign saying 'HEY, I HAVE A BIG OLE' CRUSH ON TJ KIPPEN'. Even though it was only Andi and Buffy and I knew that they'd never seriously make fun of me or bully me, I still felt that urge to hide myself away awakening deep inside my brain.

"Are you okay, Cyrus?" Buffy laughed, patting me on the back.

I took a deep breath once the coughing fit subsided. "Yeah." I smiled.

Buffy's gaze lingered on me a second too long, and I knew all too well what that meant.

She was figuring things out.

"Hey! Jonah!" Andi called out to her not-quite-boyfriend, running over to greet him as he got off the school bus just ahead of us.

I went to follow her, but was once again held in place by Buffy. I couldn't bring myself to look her in the eyes. I already knew the question she was about to ask.

"Cyrus." She whispered gently, looking around for any eavesdroppers before continuing, "Do you-"

"Hey guys!" Jonah greeted us cheerfully, having been dragged over to us by Andi, and in that moment I could have sworn I appreciated Jonah's existence even more than I did when I used to like him.

Buffy glanced over at me, with a look on her face that read 'we're totally talking about this later'.

My reluctance to return her gaze said all it needed to.

Three minutes before the end of a lunch break spent desperately avoiding Buffy, and I was already stood outside my math class tapping my foot nervously. I'm pretty good at math but the idea of a test always makes me nervous.

I reached into my pocket to check my phone. Several memes had been spammed in the Good Hair Crew group chat, but still nothing from TJ. I looked back over the slew of messages I had sent him today.

Cyrus: Hey (7:56 a.m.)

Cyrus: You doing okay? (7:57 a.m.)

Cyrus: Remember you totally owe me a call from last night! (8:05 a.m.)

Cyrus: Wakey wakeyyyy (8:38 a.m.)

Cyrus: Okay I'm starting to get offended (8:56 a.m.)

Cyrus: Where are youuuuuuu (10:02 a.m.)

Cyrus: Not sure if you're even at school today, but if you wanna talk I'm saving you a seat at lunch (11:30 a.m.)

Cyrus: …so that's a 'no' on the lunch front I guess (1:50 p.m.)

There was nothing, not even a 'read' notification. So either TJ was ghosting me hard, or he had lost his phone.

I sighed sadly and put my phone back in my pocket. My foot-tapping grew more and more frantic as the bell sounded and other people started making their way to class. I looked down the hallway one final time, trying to pick out TJ's overly-gelled hair amidst the sea of students, but I couldn't spot him. I gave up and entered the classroom, taking my usual seat and immediately glancing at TJ's empty seat beside me.

Once we had chosen our seats at the start of the 7th grade, we weren't allowed to change them, so for the longest time, TJ and I were in opposite corners of the class. When our first math class rolled around this year, TJ literally shoved people out of the way to make sure he got the seat next to me so that I could help him out during class. I played it cool at the time but the thought of spending every math class next to him for an entire year almost made my heart burst out of my chest.

As more and more students that weren't TJ poured into the room, I grew more and more worried. I risked another peek at my phone, but there was still no sign of life. Buffy entered the room and immediately began glaring at me. I kept my eyes firmly on my desk as she took her seat at the desk directly behind me.

It wasn't until the tests were being placed on our desks in front of us that TJ finally ran into the classroom, looking like a mess.

"Sorry I'm late!" he apologized to Mrs. Sweetman, making his way over to his desk. He vigorously sat down in his chair and immediately turned to me. "Hey."

"Hey?" I whispered back, bewildered. "'Hey' is, like, six hours ago, now we're approaching 'what the heck happened to you?'."

TJ gave a short laugh. "I promise I'll explain later." After a short pause, he had clearly taken note of my unimpressed face. "Sorry." He whispered, his eyes falling to his own desk, his lips forming into a small frown.

Dang it.

"It's okay." I smiled back. I couldn't stay annoyed at him; it just went against every instinct in my body.

Looking down at the test in front of me, I mentally prepared myself for the questions that were likely to come up. I glanced over at TJ again, who seemed strangely calm and collected given the circumstances.

As Mrs. Sweetman began addressing the class, my attention was drawn to her, so I failed to notice Buffy's stare shifting between TJ and I, or the small, knowing smile that began to form on her face.

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter! So far I definitely find it easier to write TJ than Cyrus, but we'll see how that changes over time!

Next chapter will be up tomorrow, after that I'm making no promises because full-time work and stuff. Hopefully it will be within the next couple of days after Chapter 3 goes up.