ready for it? • t. zegras

fourteen

Life, when you have feelings for someone, seems a little brighter. Sometimes it feels like that brightness is harsh like a police officer's flashlight in your face when you are way too drunk. Sometimes it feels like the first sunny day after a storm. If you were in a very long, dark storm -- let's say almost two years -- it kind of feels wrong to have that extra brightness around.

Or that's me talking out of my ass, who knows?

Tilly interrupts the silence of our living room with a groan. I turn to look over the back of the couch to where she sits at our dining table. All I'm met with is an accusatory finger pointing toward me. "You. It's been five days. Are we going to get this over with?"

"It'll happen when she's ready," Mira says, not even bothering to look up from her book.

"That'll be another decade!"

"What exactly are we getting over with?" I ask. I totally know. It's fun getting Tills worked up though.

"Oh, I don't know! Maybe the fact that you left Trevor in your bed and drove seven hours to San Francisco?!"

"More like eight or so hours. Traffic."

She groans again, her hands covering her face. "You practically ran away, Ten."

"Since when is it a crime to go home for the weekend?"

A twist. Mira groans this time, slamming her book closed and tossing it onto the coffee table. "You are unbelievable."

"Thank you!" Tilly says. "You don't up and leave before six in the morning out of nowhere. Especially when there is a guy in your bed. For one thing, so fucked to leave him here for me to be terrified when he randomly walks out on me and P— I just couldn't believe it."

"Oh my god, as if anything Z does could be terrifying." I frown. "Wait. That was a save."

"No." Mira frowns too. "No! He saw Mystery Guy before us?"

"I went and checked the garage to see if Teag's car was still here or not and it wasn't and I didn't think to check for any other familiar cars around. I was in the bathroom and Mystery Guy in the kitchen and I came out to them chatting."

"No!" I yell it. This is the most upsetting thing. "That makes him real. That makes me curious."

Tilly shrugs in her perfected 'Too bad, so sad' way. "Sorry. Z is sworn to secrecy already."

"That explains why I didn't already hear about it."

"Interesting," Mira comments.

"Is it?"

"You expect Trevor to tell you things," she states.

I make a show of looking from one of them to the other. "Yeah? Friends tend to tell each other things they'd find important."

"Like you're telling us about running away?" Tilly doesn't miss a beat.

"You know, you got me there."

They both stare at me. I decide to stare into the kitchen because it's what's in the space between them. Whenever this happens, I try to stare between them because I'd feel bad if I gave one more of my stare off than the other. It's also great for resisting this specific interrogation technique.

Although now my spacing out tends to lead to thinking about Trevor. The way he smiles when I show up. The way he celebrates after a goal, whether it's that determined mix of anger and hype or the excited, giddy smile that happens. My head on his chest. His head on my shoulder with my mom on the phone. God! Him saying love you back to Mom.