Buffy stopped suddenly. Her sneakers stopped creaking on the wet sidewalk chalk, and the headphones slipped from her ears, clanging against the pink jersey.
She couldn’t believe her eyes. Cyrus, who for a few days had been behaving in a rather strange way – all too strange, if it was Cyrus Goodman – was now quietly sitting on the swing. He would write something on the phone, and then, at some point, he would look around, maybe looking for someone.
When a blonde who Buffy didn’t recognize approached him, Cyrus stopped swinging, stood up, approached him with a smile, and threw himself into his open arms. Buffy was even more surprised when Cyrus raised his head and stood on his tip toes to kiss the boy.
“W-what?” she whispered to herself. By now the distance she had self-imposed to reach in that small training had totally lost importance. She decided to hide behind one of those flowerbeds on the side of the road, from which she could see the two very well, who continued to make out without shame, while a woman with a little girl a little further was looking at them quite badly.
So… Cyrus had a boyfriend? Buffy just couldn’t understand why he didn’t tell his best friends. They said everything to each other, didn’t they? Andi had told them about Jonah, Walker, and even Amber. And Buffy about Walker, who then refused badly. Anyway, Cyrus told them about his crush on Jonah, too. But this? This was totally another speech. Cyrus Goodman, who hadn’t even come-out to his own parents, was kissing a boy in public. It was like discovering that a civilization that had just invented the wheel was building a steam locomotive.
But what baffled her was not so much the fact that Cyrus had a boyfriend, but that he didn’t tell her. They had known each other for a long time – for ten years and ten months – and they said everything to each other, even the least relevant things. How could he hide this from her and Andi? After all they had gone through together, after all the laughter and sad moments. How could he? She felt betrayed, that’s all. Like Cyrus preferred someone else over the two of them. And maybe he did.
Buffy didn’t break down and tried to quell the tears that wanted to get out at all costs. Crying was a stupid thing, and it certainly wouldn’t fix anything at that time.
Now Cyrus and that mysterious guy were sitting on a bench not far from her flowerbed, and they were talking about who knows what. When the blonde looked in her direction, Buffy lowered her head and prayed she hadn’t been seen. When she looked up, the two had returned to speak quietly.
To avoid other inconsistencies like that, Buffy decided it was time to look for a new hiding place, and spotted the closed slide pipe, on which she went as a child and that it could be a good observation point.
She rose cautiously and fled there quickly, hoping not to be noticed by someone nearby. When she came to the shelter, she turned around and…
“Hey! You’re covering my view. Move over.”
Buffy blinked repeatedly, surprised and indignant. “What, sorry?” she said when she found the words. “You can’t give me orders, and even if you could I wouldn’t follow them.”
A boy her age was sitting cross-legged near one of the cracks in the game and looked at her quite annoyed. Buffy didn’t break down and turned her gaze back with challenge. He passed his hand between the tuft held together by a little gel and sighed, as if he knew full well that there was no hope that she would leave. “Listen, I don’t know you and I don’t want to know who you are. I just want you to move just a little bit to my right so that I can see,” he said in a calmer tone than before.
Buffy raised her eyebrows. “Why are you here?”
“I could ask you the same question, you know?” he replied, this time looking into her eyes and standing up.
“All right, it means I’ll answer it first. My best friend is here with a guy I don’t know, and I want to know who he is.”
“That I look like a stalker?”
“No, I mean… We’re here for exactly the same reason!”
Buffy sat cross-legged and he imitated her, returning to the same position as before. “So, I would propose an exchange of information. What’s the blonde’s name?”
“TJ.” Buffy raised her eyebrows, unconvinced. He put his hands forward as if to protect himself from her gaze that demanded an explanation. “Don’t make that face! His name is TJ Kippen. It’s short for something, but he won’t want to tell me what, so don’t make that face.”
She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “The moor with him is called Cyrus Goodman. Actually, Cyrus didn’t tell me about a boyfriend.”
He shrugged, frowning his forehead. “Neither did TJ to me. He didn’t even tell me about… yes, you know, him being gay.”
Buffy nodded. “Maybe he doesn’t feel ready to let you know yet.”
He gestured for a few moments, perhaps looking for the right words. He then pointed to an unspecified spot in the park. “It’s out there. Kissing a boy!” he exclaimed whispering, his brown eyes looking almost frightened.
She shrugged and peeked into the park through one of the many cracks. “Now not anymore.”
“What?! Are they gone?” he asked, surprised, approaching another crack near hers.
“It seems so. Maybe one day we will see them quietly entering the Spoon hand by hand as if nothing had happened,” she joked, chuckling softly.
He looked up. “You go to the Spoon?”
She nodded. “Very often. With Andi and Cyrus, and sometimes even with Amber.”
“Amber? The same Amber who works there? Blonde, not very tall, blue eyes, pretty smile, quite lesbian?”
“Do you know each other?” Buffy asked, frowning, this time, her forehead.
He nodded. “She’s TJ’s older sister. And she dated Jonah Beck for a while.”
“Oh yes, I know Jonah, though not very well.”
“We haven’t introduced ourselves yet,” he pointed out.
“I’m Buffy.” And she held out her hand towards him.
Soon after, he squeezed it. “Marty.”
