Chapter 16 - I'll Be a Home for You

Chapter 16

aang gets on his knees

(hot)

(very very hot)

(i have no opinions on the attractiveness of aang kneeling)

JJ

Aang studies the jersey. “I must have created terrible karma in my past lifetimes that I’m still paying for.”

“You’re so dramatic.”

He doesn’t respond. Instead, he drops the jersey on the floor and unbuttons his dirty shirt.

My cheeks heat up, and I look the other way. Have I ever seen him without his shirt on?

No. I would remember.

I focus on Remy’s room. A (hopefully) fake shotgun hangs above a vanity table overflowing with eyeshadow palettes and makeup brushes. A rack stacked with paints, canvases, and fabric scraps is draped with an Alabama Crimson Tide flag on one side and a rainbow flag on the other. On top of a wooden chest of drawers, next to a plush panda, sits a framed photo. Remy, his parents, and Aang at the Pride Parade in Boston. Delight bounces around in my chest at the glitter and gemstones sparkling on Aang’s frowning face. He’s been letting Remy outfit him for Pride every year since they met in middle school, and I don’t understand why, in photos, he always looks like he’s been blackmailed into it.

A heavy sigh draws my gaze back to Aang, and my giggle is involuntary. “Pretty dress.” The jersey, made for a six-foot-two, two-hundred-and-twenty-pound Remy, swallows Aang whole.

“That’s not civil.”

My smile falls. “I was just making a joke.”

“I know, it’s just …” He takes off his glasses and rubs his face. “The problem is you making jokes, laughing. It makes it so easy to want you back in my life. And I can’t want that. Not after I barely survived what happened last year.”

A knife-twisting pain hits my gut. “What about me? You think you didn’t hurt me?” I blink furiously.

“You were always going to be fine without me. You were right, I wasn’t your type. Even for friendship.” He looks like someone’s carving his skin away. He looks like he actually believes what he’s saying.

The dam finally breaks, and my tears come pouring out. “Przepraszam—I mean, I’m sorry for what I said to Bryn and Monique.” I shake my head, and tears go everywhere. “I shouldn’t have said those things—I didn’t mean them, and I’ve regretted them ever since. The best thing about moving to this country was meeting you, and I fucked it up so badly. And even when you’re being a dick to me, I can’t help wanting you back, and I’m such a massive idiot for that.”

I sit down on Remy’s bed. I’m sobbing, and my hands are shaking so hard that even clenching them together doesn’t stop the trembling.

“I was …” Aang’s voice is so weak it seems he’s about to faint. “… the best thing about moving here?”

“And a massive dick.” I hiccup.

“JJ …” He takes a step toward me.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but tears still leak and drip from my jaw onto my hands.

Muffled shouts filter in from downstairs. Probably a foul. Freshman year, I watched half the game. At that point, I had been in the US for only three months, so the Smiths’ Southern accent and all the conversation topics I didn’t understand overstimulated me. Aang just hated watching the game, so we ended up playing Categories in the quiet of this room. How on Earth did we get from there to here?

“I’m sorry,” he says.

My eyes snap open in time to see him drop to his left knee in front of me.

The weight of his hands on mine finally stops the shaking. “I’m so, so, so sorry.” His gaze falls to our joined hands. “Our whole first year, I couldn’t believe you were actually hanging out with me. You were too pretty, too smart, too funny, too outgoing. I was scared you were biding your time until you met cooler people. And then you joined cheerleading, and I overreacted. I felt so bad about changing the schedule, and I knew I had to apologize, but what I overheard in the hallway … it was like all my worst fears came true.

“I hated you. And I hated myself for hating you. But …” His head drops even further, the strands of his hair tickling my hands. “What I did was cruel. And I was such a shitty friend to you even before that. I spent our entire friendship waiting for it to end.”

A roar comes from downstairs. Definitely a touchdown.

He looks up, and his eyes find mine. “But I’d like to try again. Be a better friend. If you let me. If you forgive me. Because I’m forgiving you.”

Tears stop pooling in my eyes.

He sighs. “Oh, thank god, the crying was killing me. Please, don’t do that again.”

“You’d like to be my friend again?”

“I would. But I have a question for you first. If you let me ask it.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“Why did you come up to me on that first day of high school? I mean, there were so many free seats. Why me?”

I disentangle my hands from his. “And you’ll still be my friend?”

He inspects his hands like he’s not quite sure what to do with them now. “I don’t think I have a choice.”

I dry my cheeks with my sweater. “You know what they say. Forced friendships are the best friendships.”

He grins, and it’s been so long since he directed his smile at me, I get lightheaded. I missed the way his face cannot decide whether to smile with his lips closed or show his teeth, ending up halfway between the two.

“So, what’s the answer?” he asks.

“Because I knew you’d get how it feels to stand out without wanting to.”

His eyes fill with understanding that travels through the air and envelops me like a warm blanket.

There’s a knock on the door. Aang scrambles to his feet, and I fight the urge to jerk him back down.

I choke on my own saliva. I shouldn’t want him kneeling in front of me.

“I brought you pumpkin pie.” Remy enters the room, holding two plates. He puts them on the chest of drawers and shuts the door on his way out.

“Want some?” I dash for the plates, my voice coming out squeakier than intended.

Aang shakes his head, but his stomach rumbles.

“You sure? It has sugar and reeks of America.” I sit on the floor and take a bite. “Two of your favorite things.”

He groans. “Just hand me the plate.” He joins me on the floor, and I hand him the plate. There’s a fork stabbed into each slice.

We spend a couple of minutes in silence, stuffing our faces with pumpkin pie.

“So what was your grade on the math final last year?” I ask.

He bursts out laughing, throwing his head back. His smile stayed the same, but his laugh has changed. It’s hoarse now, the sound scratching my skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

“You know, I expected nothing else from this conversation.” He takes a bite of his pie. “I got ninety-nine percent.”

“Same.”

We lock eyes. The steps to our dance return like we didn’t take a year off from practice.

“Physics?” he asks.

“Ninety-five.”

“Ninety-eight. One point for me.” He puts a finger up. “Biology? I got ninety-six.”

“Ninety-nine. One–one.” I put a finger up. “World History?”

“Ninety-three,” he responds.

“Eighty-nine.”

He gasps, his fork dropping onto the plate. “You got a B?”

“My content is impeccable. The teacher takes my points away for missing a’s and an’s!”12

“Still, two–one.” He wiggles two fingers. “GPA?”

“It’s 4.83,” I say.

“Mine’s 4.834.”

“You know it to three decimal places?” I poke his shoulder with my fork. “Is that why I had the second-highest GPA instead of joint first?”

He shrugs. “You snooze, you lose.”

“Well, I passed my driving test.” My second finger goes up.

“Well, I don’t want to pass it, so that can’t count toward the tally.”

I’m convinced Aang doesn’t want to drive because we all know he’ll be terrible at it. Once, he got confused about why the horn still works with the engine off.

I stand up and put our empty plates back on the chest of drawers. “How about you count it, and I’ll drive you and Remy to school from now on?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not getting into a car with you.”

I grab the plush panda off the dresser. Before I throw it, I give him a chance. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to die.”

I hurl the panda at him, but he catches it with one hand.

I scowl. “It’s no longer fun now that you can catch things.”

“You shouldn’t have made me a backspot, then.” He throws the plushie back at me and walks to Remy’s desk to take out some paper and two pens. “Categories?”

“Aww, but then you’ll miss the rest of the game downstairs and be sad!”

He holds my gaze. “I couldn’t be sad right now if I tried.”

My heart flutters. “Give me the pen.”

It takes ten minutes of arguing for us to decide on the categories, and five more to decide on the scoring system, but once we start playing, I lose track of time.

At some point, Aang’s phone pings. He reads the message. “Remy says my parents are ready to go home.”

We stand up, ending up in front of each other. I open my mouth to say something inconsequential, like See you on Monday, when he envelops me in a hug with such impact that I stumble backward. But he doesn’t let me fall, keeping me upright. My arms close around his waist.

“I missed you so much.” His mouth moves against my braids.

“I missed you, too.” His jersey muffles my voice, but I know he heard me, because he squeezes me even tighter. So tight, the little shattered pieces in my chest that have been broken since last year press back together.

I don’t know how long we hug each other. Ten seconds? Ten minutes? It’s too short. We peel apart when Remy knocks on the door. “Am I about to walk into a murder scene? Is that why no one is answering my texts?”

“We’re alive,” Aang shouts, smiling at me.

“Better than alive.” A wicked grin spreads across my face. “I’m driving you guys to school on Monday.”

12 Polish language doesn’t have articles – a, an, the. Not knowing when to put them in front of nouns is one of biggest hurdles for Polish speakers learning English. I still can’t do that most of time.