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"No."
"No?"
Aideen rolled her eyes as she crossed her short arms over her chest. "You heard me, Kavi."
The boy pouted at her and mimicked her stance. For a second, they simply stared at each other. However, space shared with Kavi wasn't usually quiet for long, and he almost immediately began to speak.
"So I know that you've said that after the whole election-thing you've no longer got any use of favours, except probably ones of sexual nature from Meabh exclusively-"
Aideen choked on her own saliva at that and began to cough as if she'd actually become infected with one of the many illnesses she'd claimed to be in possession of to Ms Davis over the years. Kavi began to clap her back to help with the coughs but otherwise didn't interrupt his speech.
"-but the thing is that Daniel came to see me this morning, well, I say 'see me' but it was more like he ran up to me right before my geography class began and he was panting as if he had been running for quite a while which I suppose that he had given that he's not in our grade and probably has most of his classes in one of the other buildings, you know." He stopped for barely the tenth of a millisecond to draw in a breath before trudging on, as per usual. "So I asked him 'what is so important that you need to see me right at this second rather than to casually walk here after class has ended' and he said that his classmate has a serious issue that he's not comfortable talking about with anyone but that really needs to be fixed, and Daniel, the considerate boy, really wants to help this guy so that he won't pick at his fingers anymore since he's actually bleeding almost constantly due to what Daniel supposes must be stress."
Aideen nodded slowly as she filtered to pick out the relevant parts of Kavi's story. She was about to reply when she was suddenly tackled from behind. It wasn't a very hard shove, but she was a very small girl, so she immediately lost her balance and fell straight into Kavi's chest with the culprit still straddling her from behind.
"Fuck, I bit my tongue", Aideen complained once Kavi had stabilised her enough to let her go. She turned around, still in the grasp of her attacker, and glared half-heartedly into the eyes of Meabh who turned from excited to slightly bashful.
"Sorry", she said sheepishly, and rubbed circles on Aideen's lower back. It felt amazing, but Aideen was still a little unused to showing public displays of affection, so she clasped Meabh's firm arms in front of her to kiss before she let them fall to the girl's sides. "What did I miss?"
"Oh, I was just telling Aideen here of how Daniel came to see me this morning, well, I say 'see me' but-"
"Daniel's classmate is picking at his fingernails to handle the stress of something he doesn't want to discuss with anyone." Aideen interrupted Kavi to tell the most important bits, but he smiled broadly and didn't seem to mind in the least.
"I thought you didn't do favours anymore?" Meabh asked with a raised eyebrow, looking between her friends.
"Exactly", Aideen agreed with emphasis, and this time it was Kavi who received her half-hearted glare. "So I don't know what Daniel wants from us."
"Oh, come on, girls", Kavi said. "It's obvious that this guy is hurting from something, and Daniel is a good friend who wants to help him, even if he himself is not really allowed to. And we can be good friends to Daniel by helping them both!"
Aideen and Meabh shared a long look before Meabh shrugged, as if to say it's your choice to make. Kavi looked at her with honest-to-god puppy-dog-eyes. It was unreasonable how such a tall and jacked boy could manage to look so pathetically adorable. Aideen tried to look mad a little while longer, as if to really prove how much of a sacrifice this was to her so that she would not at all seem susceptible to the puppy-dog-eyes. But it was an act; of course she was affected by the puppy-dog-eyes.
"Fine", she relented with a big sigh, and even threw her hands in the air to really make a point of her selflessness. "But", she quickly added when her friends were too quick to celebrate her response, "only if Daniel offers to pay for a super-deluxe-ice-cream-explosion™ for each of us. I mean, we know for a fact that his parents have money to spare."
"Wow", Meabh said. "This is the first time you've decided on the returning favour in advance. That must be, like, personal development or something." She had a playful expression on her face and laughed when Aideen shoved her shoulder in retort.
"Awesome, so it's decided then." Kavi clapped his hands together. "As he ran to tell me before, it would only be kind to return the favour, you know." He winked at them and Aideen rolled her eyes while Meabh laughed. Then, he was taking off down the corridor, stealthily managing not to crash into any of the obnoxious teenagers that filled the space, and left behind only the scent of him that had a surprisingly calming effect on Aideen. But that smell was soon replaced by a coconut one, and Aideen sighed dreamily as she was enveloped in a soft hug from the side.
"It was a kind choice to help him", Meabh told her quietly, as if it was a secret that could only be whispered into the curly mess of Aideen's hair. "Maybe this doesn't have to be a part of the whole enterprise-business, no? Perhaps this is just a normal ole favour that anyone would've agreed to."
Aideen shrugged, and let her head lean against her girlfriend's strong shoulder, losing more and more of her ability to think critically with each breath of the wonderfully smelling shampoo she took.
"Being just a normal friend? I hardly know 'er."
Meabh giggled softly into her hair.
"If the starting player of each round moves to a green space, they must let the player currently in last place take one of their ability cards to use as their own. If any other player lands on green, they will instead grab a new ability card from the deck on the board. All yellow spaces…"
Aideen tried not to sigh or yawn as Meabh carefully read every single word of the rules to the board game they were about to play after insisting that it was entirely necessary so as not to incite board game-anarchy or something. She was bored and had zoned out about ten minutes ago, but didn't want to hurt her girlfriend who only wanted everything to go correctly. So she tried to discreetly observe Connor - Daniel's classmate - as he stared intently into the tabletop while bouncing his leg incessantly under the table and picking slightly at his nails.
It was Saturday, because Daniel's strict parents would never let him go anywhere but home on a weekday, and even now he was only allowed to stay at Meabh's house until six o'clock. It was outrageous, of course, but after that first time they'd helped him, Daniel managed to sneak out every now and then, which she thought was very reasonable.
Perhaps being proof that she'd lost her former glory, Aideen's plan basically consisted of making Connor feel comfortable enough that he'd tell at least one of them what was going on with him. It was Kavi's idea to play board games, though - Aideen was not a particularly die-hard fan of those. Still, she was a fan of the twinkle in Meabh's eyes as she got to explain something to the others, and the way she perked up every time she was able to answer a question about the rules that Kavi or Daniel asked.
Connor had been, perhaps reasonably, confused when she'd strode up to him in the hall the other day and invited him to hang out with her and her friends, and only accepted after she repeatedly lied about how Daniel was her absolutely best friend in the entire world and how he always spoke of this "super rad guy from my class named Connor." Although, thinking back on it, she thought that he might've relented only to get rid of the upperclassman harassing him in the school hall. Oh well.
"So, do you think that you all understand the rules?"
"Absolutely", Kavi said enthusiastically, obviously tired of waiting patiently to begin playing.
Aideen nodded, and gave a small thumbs up when everyone looked at Connor who was still lost in thought with his eyes set on the table to indicate that they should start anyway. Daniel carefully touched Connor's shoulder to make him look up.
The game was simple enough, Aideen thought, and even though it was not her ideal way to spend time, it was fun to hang out with her friends and taunt them whenever she took the lead.
"Hey, no fair!" Kavi complained when her piece raced past his, and she struck out her tongue at him. "You only win because you were placed last for so long - you have, like, a hundred ability cards by now."
"It's not my fault my carefully constructed plan worked better than yours."
"Carefully constructed, my ass", Meabh said, and pointedly ignored the eyebrows that Aideen wiggled.
"Yes, your ass is-"
"Not. A. Word."
Everyone burst out laughing, and Connor hesitantly chuckled after not being able to hold in a loud snort. Kavi nudged him playfully to let him know that it was fine to relax, and his chuckles turned into something a little more laugh-adjacent.
Aideen was definitely not a poet, if not being poetically crappy counted for something, but she imagined that someone who was poetic would describe Connor as a worm about to turn into a butterfly. Or was it a pupa? Oh, to hell with poetry. He was slowly becoming more and more relaxed, is what she meant.
"Hang on, how are you able to stand your ground against me?" Aideen narrowed her eyes in mock anger as Meabh's piece stopped just behind her own on the board.
They sized each other up across the table, and she imagined that the black frame that always outlined cowboys' eyes in western films slowly encircled her own eyes. Meabh seemed to get it, because she snickered and whispered:
"En garde." She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back smugly, obviously very proud to almost be winning. "Seriously though, I'm best at everything - this is no exception."
"Oh, it's a good thing you don't have a god complex", Kavi joked, but Meabh rolled her eyes at him.
"Has Laura taught you another expression that gets thrown around in the wrong way? One does not have a 'god complex'", she did actual air quotes with her fingers, "because one has high self-confidence. Just as last week when I told you that one isn't 'gaslit' because someone lies to one!"
"And one isn't the Queen of England because she only refers to people as 'one'." Daniel apparently dared to stick his toe into the argument, and Kavi chuckled while Meabh rolled her eyes and shook her head in disbelief.
Aideen chuckled, too, but not at Daniel's comeback, but at the way Meabh so openly showed her every emotion, completely unable to mask them at all. She was adorable. And as if she could read her mind, Meabh met her gaze and let her shoulders relax slightly as she got lost in Aideen's eyes in such an endearing way that they both began to blush.
Suddenly, Connor rose to his feet quickly enough that all of his joints cracked at the same time. The chair he'd been sitting on balanced on its hind legs for a long second before all of its legs found the floor again. Without a word but with clearly bleeding fingers, he stormed away. They heard his footsteps as he walked away before the front door slammed shut.
Then, there was a beeping.
"Is that a fire alarm?" Aideen asked, confused at the incessant but not very loud sound.
Daniel raised an eyebrow at her as if it were obvious. "It's the alarm to the door."
Right. Aideen blushed again, but this time out of embarrassment. Kavi placed a warm and calming hand on her upper shoulder, a quiet reassurance that she was not stupid or different because she'd never encountered one before.
Meabh - and by the loud sounds of the staircase - her dad, raced to the front door to turn it off. They mumbled something by the entrance that couldn't be heard from the living room the others sat in, and Aideen and Kavi exchanged a glance that said "is it worth it to sneak up to them and listen by the door?" But they didn't have to, because Meabh soon returned with a sympathetic expression on her face.
"He's on the porch. Someone should speak to him."
Then, everyone turned to look at Aideen. She shot Daniel a pointed look, but he cringed slightly.
"I mean, I care about him a lot, I really do, but… I'm about as good at speaking about, like, feelings and serious stuff as I am at playing football."
Aideen didn't know whether or not Daniel was good at football, but judged that it was not very based on how he stayed firmly put in his seat.
"I can go", Kavi offered kindly. "We can have a boy-talk, man to man."
"Never say boy-talk in my presence again", Aideen told him with mock disgust as she rose to her feet. "It's no worries, I'll knock three times if I manage to spook him too much or something, then you can come to save the day."
As she passed Meabh, she was hurled into a quick kiss on the mouth as she looked into eyes that told a million words that Aideen couldn't possibly name. She had to stop before the door to remove the giddy smile that had overtaken her lips.
"Oi", she said in what she hoped was a considerate voice as she opened the door.
Connor was pacing in front of her, his phone pressed to his ear as his free hand went off on his fingertips again. He looked worried, both manic and exhausted at once. Aideen wondered if that was how she had looked whenever she'd taken care of her mam.
"Still no fucking answer", he mumbled, before jumping when he finally spotted her. "Oh my god!" He exclaimed, and almost dropped his phone but managed to catch it at the last second. "Fucking hell. You could work as a ghost at the graveyard, lady."
She snorted. This was the first time he'd revealed some of his humour. "Thanks for the tip", she said. "I'm gonna tell my study counsellor that next year. 'What kind of job interests you?' he'll ask. 'Oh nothing much, just spooking teenagers to death. Can I do that with my GPA?' I'll reply."
Now it was Connor's turn to chuckle. When it died down it became quiet. It was a calm neighborhood, and there were few people outside as the winter hadn't fully released its hold of them just yet. Aideen shivered, remembering that she went out without a jacket, and sat down on the bench pressed against the wall in an attempt to gain a little warmth.
"It's pretty here", he noted, seemingly only now taking in his surroundings fully. The Kowalski household had a garden that was beautiful in the winter, and promised a truly magical experience during the summer. Aideen hummed in agreement.
"Prettier than my crappy neighborhood." She hadn't meant to say it out loud, but the breath of her words warmed her lips nonetheless. Thanks to Meabh and Kavi, she'd become slightly less embarrassed of where she came from, but it was not something to easily discard. Connor turned to look at her with an expression she couldn't decipher.
He wasn't really a conventionally attractive boy, with his lean body but fluffy cheeks, and a shaved head that would've been correlated to him being some tough guy, if it weren't for his constant fiddling of his fingers. His eyes shone despite the vague light outside.
"You're from a bad neighborhood?"
She bit her lip. She wanted this boy to be able to trust her, but he was still just some random guy who could go about telling everyone of her business for all she knew. After a while, it was the sight of his bleeding fingertips that made her spill.
"It's not exactly the Bronx, but it's not very good, no."
He narrowed his eyes. "What's the Bronx?"
"Never mind." She waved him off, and wondered briefly if she'd been watching too many American shows lately. Wondering how to best slide into the subject, she asked; "who're you tryna call?"
He opened and closed his mouth a few times, wondering, perhaps like her, if she was trustworthy enough to talk to. It seemed to dawn on them at the same time; how they were both last year's deer calf, pushed away by their mother as soon as the new fawn saw light. Aideen inwardly cringed - apparently she'd also watched too many nature documentaries as of late. What she tried to articulate in her mind as the two observed each other was that they both felt like outcasts, as if they had accidentally stumbled into a play that everyone else knew the lines to but them.
She patted the seat beside her. And almost as soon as he sat down, his eyes welled up with tears.
Daniel groaned as he returned to the living room where the other four were basically sprawled over each other after having eaten their own weights' worth of super-deluxe-ice-cream-explosion™ that Mr Kowalski had kindly driven to pick up for them.
"What did she say?" Kavi asked, since Daniel had left with an identical groan because he’d received a call from his controlling mother.
"She says that I can only stay for half an hour longer! That's literally nothing!" And when I told her that no other teenager ever has a curfew before midnight, let alone six in the bloody evening, she told me that I 'have to wake up early to take ole baby Michael to a bouncy castle land' or some crap." He contorted his voice to resemble that of a witch on telly, and as Aideen had had the displeasure of meeting the woman, she could safely say that it was spot on how she remembered her voice, too.
"I was in such a place once", Kavi said from where he lay on the sofa with his feet on Connor's back and the heads of two girls in his lap. "My mother was there with me and my brother, but only children were allowed to actually climb the structures so she had to sit in the café, which I don't think she minded very much now that I think about it, because that meant that she didn't have to watch as my brother tripped on some kid's leg at the top of a bouncy slide and fell backwards so that he did backwards somersaults down the entire thing, and since I was too small to think critically I just laughed and jumped after him so that I collided with his head where he lay at the bottom."
Daniel just watched him for a moment, unsure of how to reply.
"So long as you don't do any of that with ole baby Michael I'm sure you'll be fine", Meabh offered.
Connor looked up from his place on the floor where he lay on his stomach with Kavi's legs atop his back that he'd assured them only made him feel warmer. "I could… I mean…" He cleared his throat awkwardly a few times, as if waiting for everyone to ignore him or something. "I'm free tomorrow." He seemed stiff as he awaited a reply, perhaps preparing to get shot down, but visibly relaxed when Daniel nodded enthusiastically at the offer.
"You wanna join me? Fuck yeah! Then it'll be an awesome day, even though we'll be trapped in a germ-bonanza made for children."
They all hung out for a bit longer, until Daniel's mother came to pick him up ten minutes before the time they'd decided on, and to everyone's surprise she offered to give Connor a ride while glaring literal fire and acid coated daggers into the eyes of Aideen and Meabh.
Soon enough, the trio was alone, but none of them saw any point in changing their positions. Aideen and Meabh's bodies were thrown across either side of Kavi, whose lap fit both of their heads perfectly. The girls held hands atop his knees, and Kavi absently drew his fingers through their hair but always interrupted his motions to gesticulate when telling a story, much to Aideen's dismay.
"So what did Connor tell you?" Meabh finally asked. They could hear the faint sounds of a television upstairs as her parents were sitting in their - what was genuinely remarkable in Aideen's eyes - second living room. Otherwise, it was just the sound of their even breaths that was interrupting the quiet.
Aideen bit her lip, hesitant to reply. Connor had given his consent to tell her friends, but it still felt like a violation of his privacy. Still, she knew that her two best friends in the world had never told a soul of any secrets. Except for the times that they had, of course.
She decided to rip the bandaid off quickly.
"His dad's an alcoholic."
The slight shuffle of two nodding heads was heard, and although she couldn't see them, Aideen imagined the crooked smiles they both surely wore at that revelation.
"He said that it's mostly fine. The dad only drinks in the evenings, but it's always a lot and he's got the beer gut as proof, apparently."
"Is it fine, though?" Meabh asked in a small, considerate, voice.
Aideen sighed. "I don't know. Probably not. Thing is, when he's sober during the mornings and if they text during the day, the dad's alright. A lad type of lad, you know?" She observed the carves lining the planks of the ceiling. She wasn't sure if she'd seen a home with exposed wooden ceilings before.
"But he stormed out…"
Ceilings were not interesting in the least, but if she focused enough on those planks, then perhaps her eyes would understand that tears were not welcome. But alas - wood only interested her a moderate amount.
"We were, I don't know, being romantic or something?" Saying it out loud felt foreign on her tongue, but no one laughed at her. "During the mornings, the dad's all 'be yourself, I love you no matter what', and when he's six beers in, he's… not."
She barely knew Connor but it still hurt her to remember his pained expression as he cried on her shoulder on the cold porch. How he'd said; "I just can't… can't have what you two have. But I want it. I want it so fucking much." She didn't have to retell it word by word for them to understand.
There was a shift in the couch as a cloud of coconut enveloped her, and she received a few forehead kisses by Meabh and an encouraging nudge in her arm from Kavi.
"We'll help him", he promised, and Meabh agreed.
"But the favour", Aideen said. "It's already finished. What more is there to do?" She could practically feel the eye rolls she received at that.
"Those favours have corrupted you", Meabh said. "Perhaps an astounding new currency should be implemented instead."
"Like what?"
"Oh, I don't know. How about friendship?"
"Now you just sound like the lads from My Little Pony."
"Oh, shut your trap."
"I'm afraid you must help me with that, my lips are unshuttable unless you-"
She was, indeed, forced to stay quiet when Meabh began to kiss her upside-down, as if she were Spiderman in that one scene from the movie that everyone had seen. It was a wonderful kiss; filled with love and the taste of ice cream as she let her mouth be explored by her girlfriend’s soft but decisive tongue, feeling it roam across her teeth and playing with her own tongue. It was magical.
After a while though, Kavi cleared his throat. "Okay girls, I think that is quite enough now."
Meabh leaned back, and only then did Aideen's head clear enough to remember that they had made out, rather explicitly, in Kavi's lap. Oops.
"Kavi!" She yelled, as if it was his fault. "Why did you let us?"
"Well", he began and scratched at his chin a little awkwardly. "You see, at first it was not a problem at all as it seemed like you needed a kiss and I am not very comfortable giving you one and I think that it would not be appreciated regardless. And then I was thinking back to this video I saw of an old man yelling at two boys to stop kissing because it made him sick, and I really don't want to be seen as some kind of homophobe in your eyes because I really don't think that I am one, I promise you. But then it continued for quite some while and you began making some noises that made me a bit uncomfortable, so I told you to please stop and then I told you how I felt and now I am talking about the present."
Aideen and Meabh exchanged an upside-down glance before both of them burst out laughing, enveloping Kavi into a shaky hug as they laughed against his chest.
"Oh, Kavi", Meabh said. "Believe me, you are not a homophobe. If two people, irrespective of gender, were making out in my lap, I'd have thrown them to the floor before their mouths had even opened."
"We could try it out if you want. I invited Laura to sit with us at lunch on Monday, and you exercise a lot, Meabh, I am sure that both of us fit in your lap without issue."
"Kavi", she said in the dryest tone she possessed - which was pretty damn dry. "I love you, but shut your trap, and I will not shut it for you."
He grinned, and Aideen grinned, too. She nuzzled her head into Meabh’s and Kavi’s chests, and closed her eyes.