Against All Odds | Tyrus

12. Astoundment

❝He was proud of himself for what he accomplished. And he was overjoyed that TJ was the one who pushed him to do it.❞

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People continued to get off the zip-line platform — all of them strangers to Cyrus. He was still waiting for his friends on a bench, but TJ had left to get pretzels for the both of them. More than twenty minutes had passed. Cyrus expected his friends to take a while due to the long lineup, but he hadn't thought it'd take so long for TJ to get food. He heard the sound of Andi screaming and knew it was her turn on the zip-line. Soon, she was walking towards him.

“Cyrus, hey,” she called. “Why're you by yourself?”

“Oh, TJ went to get us food,” he said.

Andi sat down next to him, “And when you say ‘us’, do you mean everyone? Or just you two?”

“He didn't clarify.”

“Uh huh,” she said sarcastically. “I'm sure he didn't.”

“Do you take me for a liar, Andi Mack?”

“No, but I take TJ for the kind of guy who wouldn't go out of his way to buy everyone food.”

“Well, you're wrong about him then.”

They continued to talk until Jonah walked towards them with a goofy grin, “That was awesome!”

“I both agree and disagree,” Cyrus said, moving over to give Jonah room to sit.

“I'm surprised you even went on the zip-line, Cy-guy. Especially after what happened on the merry-go-round. And the skateboard.” He sat down between Andi and Cyrus, “I'm proud of you though! You totally rocked it!”

Cyrus smiled sheepishly, “All I did was scream while the harness held me.”

“Yeah, but you did something that scared you. That's great!”

“He's right, Cyrus,” Andi agreed. “And I'm proud of you too.”

Buffy came jogging towards them, a dull expression on her face. She sat down next to Andi, forcing everyone to move over. Cyrus nearly fell off of the bench but he gripped onto the sides.

“That was so boring,” Buffy faked a yawn. “Where was the challenge?”

“Where was the challenge?!” Cyrus repeated. “That whole thing was the challenge! I felt like I was dying. And that was before I even got on the zip-line.”

Buffy chuckled, “A challenge for you isn't a challenge for me.”

Before Cyrus could respond, he heard a familiar voice approaching. He turned away from Buffy to get a better look.

“Hey, Cyrus,” TJ greeted, his eyes trained on the soft pretzels he had in either hand. He had a firm grip on them inside their napkins, but he still worried he might drop one.

“TJ! You're back!” Cyrus grinned.

“I asked to make sure it was kosher, like you told me.” He handed Cyrus one of the pretzels and finally looked up, “Oh. You're all here. Uh... I would've gotten you something but you hadn't gotten off the zip-line yet.”

Cyrus's eyes gleamed as he cocked his head at Andi. She rolled her eyes at him and gave TJ a lacklustre smile.

“It's fine,” she said.

TJ nodded his head and turned his attention back to Cyrus, “Sorry I took so long, by the way. The line was moving slow.”

Cyrus waved his hand dismissively, “Forget about it. No big deal.”