Against All Odds | Tyrus

17. Melancholy

❝It allowed Cyrus to get away with keeping secrets, but it also caused him to fall for TJ even more. And that scared Cyrus.❞

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Three days. Three days was all Cyrus had left to spend with his best friend, Buffy Driscoll. Everything seemed normal. They went to school, went to The Spoon, ate some taters, and then went home. It wasn't until Tuesday came around that the mood grew desolate. The GHC tried their best to remain in high spirits, but as the day progressed, things got bleaker. And on Wednesday, Buffy was gone.

TJ was concerned. None of his messages and phone calls to Cyrus were going through. He wished he had Andi's number so he could ask her where to find him, but he was on his own for this. He decided to visit all the possible places Cyrus could be and found him in The Spoon with Andi. They were staring at the seat across from them, ignoring their basket of baby taters.

TJ sat down and shot them both a sympathetic smile, “Hey... How're you holding up?”

“Better than I expected,” Cyrus smiled back only for it to falter, “but not that great.”

“I really miss her,” Andi sighed.

“I'm sure she misses you guys, too,” said TJ. “But it's probably harder for her. You still have each other while she's on her own.”

That only seemed to make them sulk more. Wanting to cheer them up, TJ tried his best to change the subject and take their minds off Buffy.

“Your baby taters are getting cold,” he said.

“They taste bad without Buffy,” Andi replied.

“I'm sure they taste fine,” he said before popping a tater into his mouth and grimacing. “Never mind. Why do they actually taste bad? Did they change the recipe?”

Cyrus let his forehead hit the table, “Yeah, they took away the Buffy.”

“I'm just going to pretend that makes sense.” He knew Cyrus and Andi needed a distraction, and he had just the thing, “The zoo! Let's go to the zoo. We can check out whatever animals you two want.”

“I don't know...” Cyrus said, hesitant. “I'm not in the best mood for socialising and stuff.”

“That's totally fine. We don't have to talk or anything. But you like reptiles, right? Maybe visiting the reptile exhibit will lift your spirits.”

“Well...”

“Sure, let's go. I'm in,” said Andi.

“Wait—”

“Okay, great! Let's go right now!” TJ got up, walked to the diner's door, and held it open.

Cyrus scrunched up his nose, “Right right now?”

“Unless you already have plans...?”

“We don't,” Andi said as she stood, bringing Cyrus with her by his arm. “We're coming.”

“Fine,” Cyrus said with a huff.

He allowed himself to be dragged by his friends all the way to a bus stop. No matter how passionately he expressed his concerns with the hygiene and safety of public transit, Cyrus's friends refused to listen. When the bus arrived, TJ threw Cyrus over his shoulder and used his free arm to hand Andi money. They climbed onto the bus and Andi paid the fare. The bus was practically empty so it was easy to find seats. TJ put Cyrus down and they sat at the front, behind the driver, because according to Cyrus, that was ‘most likely to be the least dangerous section.’