Alex

Elliot is an idiot.

I don’t care how good his grades are or that he knows the names and locations of every country in the world, and I don’t care that every time I so much as thinkabout Nancy it’s like I stuck my fingers in a plug like some kind of airhead baby, because he. Is. An. Idiot .

It’s been a week since I got the confirmation that Sasha likes him back, a week since I’ve told him as much, but the dumbass still hasn’t made a move. It’s painstakingly obvious that it’s the one thing he’s dying to do, but no. The boy. Is. Too. Stupid.

He’s ruined the formation three times last practice. He hadn’t ruined a formation since last year when he was still learning the ropes. And I don’t care that I almost elbowed Carla in the face last time because I was too busy keeping my brain out of the choreography, because this is not about me .

There is no practice tonight, and that means Elliot’s going to hang out with Sasha. They always do, whenever the both of them are free after class. As Gabi says: they already act like a fucking couple. No one is oblivious enough but the both of them to miss it. I’m so mad - and not because despite having spent an increasing amount of time with Nancy, I’m still so bad at deciphering the confusing signals she’s sending, but because all this unnecessary stalling is making my best friend fucking miserable . He knows Sasha likes him back, for Christ’s sake!

Which is why I’ve made a decision: as of today, I will not stay an exasperated bystander. I will take action. I will make things move. For the sole purpose of planning, Nancy and I have been exchanging a lot of texts in the past twenty-four hours.

I needed an associate, and she knows Sasha well. Plus she’s hella smart.

I’ve already re-read our thread five times today but who cares? We’re friends. I don’t have to justify myself to anyone.

I just want to help my friend get together with the boy of his dreams. It has nothing to do with me.

______________

[From: Me] target spotted, keep u updatd

[From: Nancy] Roger that, Captain! Target locked on my end as well.

[From: Nancy] Operation Fools In Love is a go!

For all I’m trying to be sneaky, that last text has me snorting. She is such a dork.

I pocket the phone after making sure it’s on vibrate, and call after Elliot. It doesn’t take him long to spot me, waving from a five-meter distance as I am.

“Wow, if this isn’t Lex! Got some time for your old friends today?”

“Hey, Billy Elliot. You know I always do. What’s up?”

“Not so much since you’ve been seeing this Nancy girl, you don’t,” he says with a sneaky grin, and I fight the urge to kick his shin. “Just headin’ to the library. Sash has a geography test on Monday so I’m going to help him study.”

“Of course you are.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” I say, grinning; he pretends to slap my shoulder. I pretend not to notice. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you.”

“Why?” he asks, eyebrows raised into suspicion. I huff.

“Don’t give me that look. It’s about practice.”

“Ah,” he says, and I can see he feels guilty. It’s not a good look on him.

“It’s nothing bad, I just wanna talk about it,” I say, trying to sound convincing. “Come with me? It won’t take long.”

He sighs, and nods. “Yeah, alright. Let me just text Sash to tell him I’m gonna be a little late.”

[From: Alex] phase 1 executed, target unsuspicious. movin 2ward lawn!

[From: Nancy] Roger. Target successfully secured here as well. Ready to engage phase 2.

[From: Alex] engagin phase 2 now! wait my txt be4 phase 3

[From: Nancy] Got it.

We make small talk until we get to the lawn behind the gym, and then we sit. Right next to the spot where students go to smoke during lunch break, where no one will be able to see or overhear unless they’re actually trying to - but not close enough that we’re sitting on dirty butts. On my left Elliot is rubbing his neck in tense silence, eye-rings visible even under the concealer he put on, fingers toying with the handle of his bag; his nerves are starting to get to me. He clears his throat.

“So, you wanted to talk.”

“Right, sorry - you screwed up three times during practice last time, six if I count the times you caught up before the whole formation could collapse. That’s more than you ever did in a year.”

“I know,” he sighs, and I swear I can see him deflate before my eyes. He leans back against the gym’s wall. “I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful next time.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” I say, giving a little squeeze to his shoulder. He doesn’t look convinced. I roll my eyes, not sure if I should be more irritated or amused. “I’m not the coach, Ellie, I didn’t bring you here to scold you. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

He smiles, but it’s a little thin. “I’m fine, Lex, just- got some stuff on my mind is all.”

I ruffle his hair. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

His smile is slightly more convincing this time. He still tries to dodge the question, though.

“Ellie, you got freakin’ suitcases hanging from your eyes. And you’ve been on edge for days.”

“So what? I just haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Ellie, I love you, but that’s bullshit.”

He says nothing, so I drop an arm across his shoulders and pull him closer. He’s not shorter than me by much but that way he almost feels like a kid, a younger brother playing stubborn. I wait until some of the tension’s gone, then:

“So? What’s the deal?”

“I don’t know,” he says, sighing again, then groaning. He can be so childish sometimes. “I guess I’ve just been a little on edge lately because I can’t figure out what to do about Sasha. He’s just so frustrating sometimes! I wish he’d stop making everything so - so complicated .” I open my mouth to say something but he immediately cuts me off, elbowing me jokingly in the ribs. “Don’t you dare make fun of me.”

“I would never.”

“You’d better not, unless you want me to start asking some questions myself - especially not about your new friend Nancy.”

I tense and immediately relax, trying not to let anything away, but I’m pretty sure Ellie’s not fooled. Somehow he never is.

Better reer the conversation back to its original topic.

“You do know that the kid likes you back, right?”

“I… Yeah. I wasn’t sure at first, after you told me, but I tried paying more attention, and - yeah. You were right.”

“You’re blushing,” I point out. “Cute.”

“Shut up,” he grunts, pushing away from me and trying very hard to look angry while fighting off a smile. “Point is, I still don’t know what to do.”

“Seems quite obvious to me -”

“But what if I rush him? He’s never dated anyone before, and I don’t want to make him uncomfortable. What if he doesn’t believe me, or doesn’t want to date me in the end?”

Excuse me?

“ That’s what’s been fucking you over this whole time?” I blurt, dumbfounded. It earns me a vexed glare, and I guess it’s fair, but still .

It’s so stupid.

“You don’t know him like I do.”

“True, but don’t you think this is all a bit stupid? I mean, how could you ever find out all this if you don’t ask him out first? There’s no point in wacking your head on this when you could just find out .”

It’s Elliot’s time not to believe his ears, and he stares at me for a good second before any sound starts coming out his lips. “That, uh. That kind of makes sense, actually.”

“Is that so surprising?” I tease him.

“Only a little bit,” he says, the little shit, and gets up. “Guess I’d better go ask him out then. He looks down to me then, tense smile stretching his lips. “Unless there was something else you wanted to discuss?”

I wave a hand at him. “Nah, dumbass. Go find your boy.”

“Thanks,” he says, and leaves, a nervous jump to his strides. I get up and watch him go, wiping the grass and cigarette ash off of my ass. When I’m sure my butt has been cleaned of any kind of dirt, I text Nancy.

[From: Me] phase 2 over, ellies on his way to u

I’m barely putting my phone back in my pocket that it’s already buzzing with Nancy’s answer.

[From: Nancy] Leaving Sasha now! Phase 3 is ready to begin.

Phase 3 of Operation Fools In Love does not involve any exterior influence. They’re all on their own now. Hopefully all goes well.

[From: Nancy] Meet you at the gates?

I type my answer and grab my bag, leaving the small patch of grass. Yeah, I really hope everything’ll go well for them.

[From: Me] omw!

Somehow though, I don’t doubt it will.

Nancy

Sasha startles when I tell him that I have to go.

“Now?” he blurts, and he kind of looks like a deer standing frozen in the light. Not the best survival tactic.

“Well… I doubt confessing your long-fostered love to Elliot should involve a bystander…?” He opens and closes his mouth, not unlike goldfish do, then slumps back on his chair and huffs. He looks like a small kid about to start sulking.

“I guess .”

Or one who doesn’t want to admit he’s still afraid of the dark.

I walk around the table and put a hand on his head. He half-drops his guard, and in his posture I see concern, nerves, anxiety... but also, maybe, a bit of hope. “Hey, you know he likes you back, right?”

“Do I really,” he sighs, and it is not a question.

I hear how tired he is, of pretending; pretending not to care, pretending not to want more, pretending not to crave more than the friendly touches - or perhaps it is simply my own interiority I am seeing, projected upon the frame of my friend’s. I do that.

“You won’t really know until you ask him, I’m pretty sure that’s the rule. Waiting won’t bring you any answer.”

He sighs again, more loudly this time. “I wish I were a telepath. Things would be so much simpler this way.”

I give his head another pat. “But incredibly more boring.”

“True.”

My phone buzzes, and I know who it is before I even look at the screen. I’m swinging my bag over my shoulder as I type an answer; when I look up, Sasha is gazing at me with odd eyes. “I have to go, but I’ll be at the other end of the line, alright? Although I doubt you will need me.”

“We’ll see about that.”

He still doesn’t sound convinced. I frown.

“Sasha. Elliot is your friend. Regardless of whether he likes you romantically, it doesn’t change the fact that he loves you. And I know you know that, but not every popular kid is rotten from the inside - you wouldn’t be friend with Elliot if he was. So stop looking for them in him.”

Although there is a second during which I regret bringing it up in the manner I did, when Sasha finally relaxes I know I said the right thing.

“Okay,” he says, then nods.

He gives me a little smile. I wish I could take all of his fear away, but I know it is not mine to do. I wish him good luck instead, and pat his head one last time. When I start telling him how brave I think he is and just how proud I am, though, he gratefully tells me to fuck off.

______________

When I get to the gates, Alex is already there waiting, propped against the wall and looking up, at the foliage of the poplar and the great skies beyond. Her beauty seems to increase every time I see her. Her hair, under the afternoon sun, sparkles like a second sun. She doesn’t usually let it loose, but for some reason today she did, and it draws way too much of my attention to the build of her shoulders and arms. I’m pretty sure she could carry me on her back all day without breaking a sweat if she wanted to.

“Hi,” I call out when I’m close enough, “sorry I made you wait.”

“Hey!” she beams at me, and I get the urge to kiss her. “It’s no problem, I just got here. Besides it’s really nice out today,” she adds, looking around. I remember thinking the same thing earlier in History.

“Isn’t it? I’m so glad neither of us has club today. It would have been a waste spending the whole day locked inside.”

“You don’t say! I’ve been dying to go outside the whole day.” She looks away for a second, but it’s so fast I barely register the movement at all. “By the way, do you have anything planned right now? ‘Cause I was thinkin’, we could grab some milkshakes or whatever, and go to the Redhill park... enjoy the sunlight?”

“That sounds lovely,” I answer with a grin, pleasantly surprised by the offer. I can feel my heartbeat speeding up from foolish expectations, but I push them back in the dream box where they belong. Despite this, I know I must be blushing.

Alex grins back and we set off, discussing milkshakes and other much too sweet beverages.

______________

Redhill park is a great place to jog, ride a bicycle, have a picnic, or otherwise just hang out. It got its name from the way it looks in the fall, I think, and is large enough that you can always find some quiet place away from all the kids. I take Alex to the big magnolia I have often used as a reading haven and we hold each other’s milkshake as we climb up, something that Alex is surprised I’m so good at. So I tell her about my grandmother’s plum tree and how I started climbing it at a young age, back when we visited her often in that small Korean town she has since been buried into.

There are several pictures of me as a little kid, beaming from the branches of this tree, through white blossoms or bright green leaves, red juice all over my face when summer came. My parents were never too fond of taking pictures, but my grandmother took enough for three. She had this big, fancy camera that we had all contributed to buy for her sixty-first birthday, even me with whatever pocket money I had managed to save. She cried when she opened the present, mom told me. They took a picture of her that day.

The day she died, we all sat down on the couch and went through the dozens of photos she had sent us, and every photo of her we had, and every photo that had been taken in her home. It was the only time I saw my mom really cry.

My mother is an only child, so we brought all the pictures home after the funeral. The camera still works; mom takes pictures with it sometimes. It’s her most precious possession, I think. She loved her mother more than she ever showed. Dad thinks she feels as if something of grandma remains, lingering in the old camera and in the mother tongue they shared, this tongue mom never cared to teach me until right after the funeral, when she realized we wouldn’t have any reason to come back here as often now. When she realized perhaps this tongue would become the only thing that would link me back to the country she grew in.

They were really beautiful, the pictures my grandmother took. I often thought they were like paintings. That they could be in a gallery, perhaps. That my grandmother was an artist. I wasn’t fully aware of what that word truly meant at the time, but to this day I remain certain that she was.

“I miss her,” I say after a time, more to the crown of the tree than to myself, because the breeze is soft and the sun is warm. “I keep forgetting small pieces of her, details, memories. Looking through the pictures helps, but it isn’t the same. I miss the plum tree, too.”

“What was she like?” Alex’s voice is quiet, subdued, gentle. Like the brushing of a leaf. I lean back against the trunk, legs dangling in the air. The sun is soft and the breeze is warm.

“She was always quiet. Whenever she moved or spoke, it was like she was always trying to do as little noise as possible. She was warm and smelled like freshly cut grass and sap, because she was always in the garden - taking pictures and giving care, always so quietly so she could hear the humming of nature. She wasn’t a hugger, but she loved holding my hand and talked to me like an adult, and helped me climb into the plum tree… It’s funny how much her house looked like her, so small and delicate, you could feel the age and life gently flowing within. She had wrinkles and calluses and scars that spoke more about her life than words ever could, though I always loved hearing about the things she’d lived. She wasn’t very good at baking, but whenever dad and I would set to make a cake or a batch of muffins or anything else, she always joined in and laughed, and while it baked we would play dusty old Korean jazz and we would dance, and mom would leave the office upstairs to dance with us in the warm smell of chocolate or plums or vanilla, or whatever it was that we’d put in the cake…”

I feel the floor creaking under our silly dance, I hear the sound of her laughter, I smell the cake baking in the oven, I see the face of my mom as she smiles and says “I swear I’m the only grown up here” .

It’s all here in my mind.

I don’t want to lose it.

“Sounds like a pretty great grandma,” Alex says from further up the branch.

I don’t answer right away.

I’ve got a wet lump in my throat.

A breath, two breaths, three; speech comes back to me.

“She was a beautiful person,” I say, sniffing a bit. Alex scoots closer on the branch.

“You okay?”

I take another deep breath, willing my voice to go back to steady. “Yes, sorry. She only died a little more than a year ago, I’m not really used to it yet.”

She says “okay”, and gives a small squeeze to my knee. I don’t know why it moves me like it does, but she leaves her hand there. It feels warm. Funny how easy it can get to talk to her, when it can be the most difficult thing in the world sometimes. Her other hand is on the branch, a firm support some centimeters behind her hip, and slightly to the right. Something in the triangle created by her upper body, her arm and the branch captures my attention - I’m pretty sure it’s a right triangle, but I don’t have a compass to check. Ms Dalon says she’s developed a mental one with time, but I’m pretty sure it’s a joke.

“You know,” Alex starts, and I move my eyes to her face instead. She’s looking at the sky again. “I never knew any of my grandparents - neither of my parents got along with them. But when the last one died - it was my dad’s father, and... he told my sister and me that he wished we’d at least met him once.”

I shift away from the trunk and closer to her; our shoulders bump. Neither of us moves away. I gingerly raise my arm to circle her shoulders, holding my breath. She inhales, rising, then exhales, deflating. Her right hand leaves the branch to go up and cover mine and my heart skips a beat.

“Do you wish you had?” I’m a little breathless, and it’s hearable. I don’t think Alex notices, though. There is a pause, heavy; and as together we rise and deflate like the tide, our fingers slowly begin to intertwine.

We watch, silent for a while. Then Alex speaks again.

“I don’t know. Maybe I wish I’d known him, even just a little. But on the other hand I know he was a dick, so... Maybe it’s best I didn’t.”

I hum, for lack of anything to say.

We steer away from heavy subjects after that, and it takes my dad calling me on my phone to make me notice just how much time we spent away from the ground. I treasure every second of it.