Corin found Tommi crying in the toilets as someone had purposefully disrespected their pronouns, so she made them a beautifully decorated badge displaying, "Hi, I'm Tommi. I take they/them pronouns" and offered to personally fight anyone that ignored it.
"I don't know, Jayden Daniels," I responded after being questioned as to how long Fern and Tommi would be an item, "I really don't, I'm sorry, bud."
"But she doesn't really love them like I do, Corin Winslow," he whined, "she really doesn't, it's okay though, pal."I pulled him back into one of his much needed 'huggle snugs', as we so embarrassingly named them aged ten, allowing him to cry into my shoulder once again. This wonderful boy with a beautiful soul had cried into my shoulder too many times for me to be okay with and since I'd always had such a protective love for him, the thought of Fern and Tommi riled my insides.
Unfortunately, i allowed this to show during my conversation with Fern subsequent to Jay's library melt-down. "I'm seeing them again tonight!" Fern beamed at me.
"Okay?" I responded, evidently not caring.
"I just wanted to let you know I wouldn't be riding with Denver. Sorry if it was a bad time?" She shot back, eyes wide with shock and voice dripping with sarcasm. I just gave her a sigh, an 'okay, have fun' and a half-hearted kiss on the cheek which she never leant in to receive as she'd always done before. I asked Denver to stop the car a few streets before my house in order to get to Jay's with ease. Thanking her with huffs and puffs, I hastily grabbed my bags (well, I left my handbag, but, that's besides the point.) and got out the rickety old car as fast as I could, having to make a conscious decision not to walk out into traffic before at least seeing Jay first.
Bringing my hand up to knock on the door of 31 Stone Pond was entirely pointless; Sasha would always be right at the door waiting for my arrival every time she heard news of it being soon. The letterbox flips open as expected and a well loved, youthful, giddy voice requested a password. A series of well-learnt clicks, winks and claps later and sacha was satisfied it was indeed me. The door flew open and a pair of frail, young arms latched around my mid-thighs.
"He's upstairs doing boring stuff so you can come play with me instead if you like?"
"You see," I began, lifting the young girl until she was rested on my hip and pressing my finger lightly to the tip of her nose as I continued, "I'd love that, little one, but me and smellyhead have a lot of important things to talk about, okay? I'll be back up to see you before bedtime." I promised, squeezing her lovingly one last time before gently letting her to the floor. Sad, slightly rounder replicas of Jay's eyes made contact with mine before Sasha was gone in a twirl of pink tutu and white-blonde hair.
Descending the stairs two at a time, I noticed Jay's bedroom door was open, which is more than extremely unusual for Jayden. My fingertips gently pushed the surprisingly light wooden door around it's hinges to reveal a room full of breath-taking wonders that were so undeniably Jay, apart from the sunshine-smiled wonder himself. Picking up the furthest away of a set of marbles, representing the solar system, from what was supposedly the Sun, I looked around the room with eyes full of desperate desire and incurable curiosity. I rolled pluto between my fingers before placing it down gently next to Neptune and began walking over to his slanted 'wall'. Half of the ceiling was slanted from midway down the wall into the midway point of the top of the room and was also covered in the most beautiful of artwork. Intricate swirls and patterns and items of nature in their utmost beauty had been permanently recorded onto the plaster by the hand of none other than Jay Daniels himself. I traced the lashes of a beautifully embellished eye with the tip of my pointed, matte black fingernail before plonking myself down onto his double mattress to once again ponder at the room, an incredible marvel of the universe.
I walked over to his mirror that I'd seen his 'my hair looks tragic' face pulled at countless times and gently touched my fingertips to the cold glass until they found their way to the old polaroids he had stuck around the edges. One of him and Sacha, her on his back giggling and him smiling his pretty little head off. One of his 9th birthday party, Frisk in the background, covered in cake. One of me and Jay with his dog, Fern behind the camera. Finally, the last picture Fire Four had together, Blackhyde, with the august sun settling gently on Frisk's long lost, greatly missed eyes that saw beauty in everything but life itself. Each one had a brief note written on the bottom of the paper, the latter saying "don't think for one second you weren't loved and aren't missed.", at which i teared up a little. The multiple shelves of his room were lined with collections of Lush, Harry Potter, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen, pressed flowers from Blackhyde's meadow, sketches and doodles, guitar picks and poems.
One of the walls has been covered top to bottom in pictures of the stars Jay himself had taken whilst lain in bed, collaged together to build a galaxy on his bedroom wall. Not that he needed it. One of the biggest, most fascinating parts of Jay's room was the part you'd see if you were to lay on the crime scene esque outline of a body he'd so creatively drawn on the wooden flooring and look directly above you. The ceiling of this breath-taking room was even harder to catch your breath when looking at. It was purely and entirely glass.
