Like To Be You ✓

sixteen

look at this cute pic I found of Neil^^^

°°°

"Hey handsome," I say, leaning against the doorframe. Tyler looks confused, like me during every Shakespeare play ever.

"Hi." He says slowly and awkwardly brings up a hand to wave it. I smile at him. He puts his hands in his pockets and leans forward. "How are you?"

"Good, good." I say. Mom appears behind me and smiles and says, "Come in, sweetheart." But Tyler refuses politely, even says no to the invitation of hot chocolate and cookies, which is a big mistake, because I know that tomorrow I'm going to be standing at his door with a box of cookies my mom sent.

My mother leaves the two of us alone, but I know she's hovering in the foyer. Curiosity, to mildly put it, runs in the Graham bloodline, and I'm not any better than my relatives. The only exception was my father, the chillest person ever. The only three things he cared about was happiness, his family, and the business. He really knew how to handle life.

Now, back to Tyler standing at my door at 9:24 pm.

"I got you tickets to our game tomorrow." He pulls out two passes and holds them out. "You can come if you want to. I mean, you're not obliged to, but... I would really like it."

I take the tickets from him and look at them.

"Those are the best seats my privilege could get me." He cracks a smile. Then his eyebrows raise and his mouth parts as he remembers something. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a leather wallet. He fishes around and removes a roll of what looks like coupons. "I got you some coupons too for the food stalls." He unrolls it and tears six of them. "I think this should be enough."

"Thanks, Ty," I say, which is weird, because we're not thirteen years old and we're definitely not best friends. Even he looks surprised. "You should get some sleep." I gesture a hand at his tired face.

"Okay." He takes a step down the porch, his hands back in his pockets. "Good night, Neil."

I watch him walk down the steps and say, "'Night, Ty."

x

"Okay, so I wrote down some shit, wanna go over it?"

Zayne scoots over and tilts the screen of my MacBook towards me. I rub my hands and bring them close to the keyboard, and in the most serious voice I can muster, say, "Let's do this."

x

I knew this would happen. Every fibre of my being says, I told you so, and my brain responds with, Yeah, duh, I'm the one who manoeuvred that thought.

My mother puts a pastel blue box of cookies in my hand and takes me by the shoulders and turns me towards the door. "You will be a good boy and go to the Becketts's and give Tyler this box, okay? Do not eat it on the way, Neil. I see everything."

"Yeah, yeah." I grumble and angrily scrape my fingernails on the box. My mother swats my fingers.

First, I say bye to Zayne, but not before giving him a ticket and three coupons. Then I head over to the City Centre to collect Tyler's and my painting. I put mine in the back without a glance at it. And then I stare at Tyler's and marvel at it. The colours, the brightness, the cuteness.

For Maisie is written in neat cursive letters at the bottom right, and below it is his signature, a carefully messy arrangements of letters.

In middle school, he used to sign his name as TB and make a circle starting from the end of the B and all around the two alphabets. Tuberculosis, I would say every time he drew it.

Now, his signature is his full name painted in a boyish scrawl, with the loopy 'l' and 'k'. It makes me think of how much we've changed; how we aren't Neil and Ty, the pair of friends that could never be separated from each other no matter what, and how we're Tyler Beckett, soccer star and overall perfect guy, and Neil Graham, that one dude whose dad was murdered.

The only one thing common between Tyler and me is that we're both walking abacuses, but both factors stem from different roots. He has born talent; numbers bow down to him and math problems beg his gifted brain to solve their issues.

Me? I study. I study hard to get shit done, because I have nothing else to do. I run and I play with numbers and I cry when I feel like it. It isn't as easy as they say. I work my ass off to score well, I give my best, and then I get what I fucking deserve. That's it.

I reach Tyler's home when the sun is high in the sky. It's Friday today, but school is off because of the preparations for the opening season. I spot his Honda Civic in the driveway, which means he's at home and Coach is actually being human for once and letting the players rest before the big game.

I ring the doorbell and wait. A soft voice comes from the other side, then a distant shout. I ring the bell again, and then I hear hurried footsteps, and when the door finally opens, Tyler's arm is halfway through a shirt.

"Sorry, sorry," he says, pulling the shirt over his wet chest. A tiny head of dark curls peeks out from behind his leg.

"Hey, Maisie," I say. She ducks away.

"Hey, it's just Neil, remember?" Tyler says and pats her head, then looks at me and says, "Come in."

"It's alright." I say and hold out a bag towards him. "Got you your tile painting and uh, some cookies my mom sent."

Tyler smiles. "Thank you." He hands Maisie the box of cookies and whispers, "Don't finish them all." She looks up at me with wide eyes, which look larger because of the thick glasses perched on her nose, and nods.

Tyler straightens up and carefully pulls out the tile and examines it. Maisie stretches her neck to get a look at it, so he quickly puts it back inside.

"You sure you don't wanna come in? I made some orange juice." Tyler looks at me expectantly, which makes it harder for me to deny his offer, but I say no anyway.

"Get some rest before the game." I wave at him, just the way he does. "I'll see you later."

x

Our team wins with a score of 3-2 against Brookland Academy's Silver Knights. The last goal was scored at 89 minutes and 23 seconds by Jasper Moore, the Captain, and it was a shot Tyler had passed him. But of course he doesn't care about that. He lets the team hoist him on his shoulders. Everybody cheers and takes a hold of his legs, except for Tyler and Ryan Webber, who walk separately from the group. Ryan has an arm slung around Tyler's neck and is whispering something while Tyler has a bitter smirk on his face. Tobias breaks away from the group and claps Tyler on the back, probably congratulating him again on the first two goals he scored.

Then the players disappear into the changing rooms and everybody begins to disperse. But the excitement in the air hasn't changed; its only gotten more charged with the promise of the afterparty.

"Come on." Zayne takes a hold of my shoulder as we walk towards the parking lot. He takes a large bite of his free candy apple, courtesy of Tyler, something he's chosen to ignore. "Let's get drunk."

o-o-o

a/n 

The next update will be on Friday xx