Supernova

The night continues with the new friend group in a park, sitting together in an open field. Jason and Nicholas rode together on Nick's bike while Cassidy drove Amber and Tyler in Jamie. Cassidy made fun of Jason’s helmet hair and Tyler kept looking away every time Cassidy’s eyes met his. It gave Cassidy butterflies every time she looked behind her and saw blue looking back at her. Amber seems to be the only person freezing cold, huddling toward Tyler’s immense body heat to stay warm in the fall cold. He offers her his varsity jacket which she takes without hesitation, her small body swallowed in the large garment. Cassidy giggles at the sight. She looks up at the night sky, the cloud part to a nearly full moon, the stars are speckled in the sky akin to the freckles on her own face. She soaks in the moonlight.

“Would’ve never guessed you two were from Indiana,” Nicholas says. “You guys don’t have accents.”

The siblings look to one another for a beat and then begin to laugh, being the only ones in the group in on the joke.

“What?” Cassidy asks before dawning a southern drawl. “are we supposed to talk like this?”

“Or like this?” Jason says with a stereotypical Midwestern accent.

“Yeah, yeah,” Nicholas says, rolling his eyes. Jason seems to notice something Cassidy didn’t and stops chuckling.

“We only laugh because we get it all the time,” Jason says in a less amused voice. “We’re not laughing at you, promise.” The two teen boys look at each other.

“Whatever,” Nicholas ends up saying and begins picking at the grass around him.

There’s an awkward silence that Tyler doesn’t hesitate to fill.

“Favorite band, go,” He says, pointing to Jay.

“Easy, Gorillaz,” Jason answers. “You?” He asks Nicholas.

Nicholas looks up to the sky, contemplating; twisting his mouth this way and that, rocking his leg back and forth and humming.

“Honestly, I’d have to say Paramore,” He says with an unapologetic shrug.

“No way, me too!” Amber chimes in. “Favorite song off Riot?”

With no hesitation Nick replies, “Hallelujah, hands down!” It’s the most energy they’ve seen out of him the whole night. He’s actually smiling, more than when he was talking with Jason about his bike.

“Nuh-uh, That’s What You Get is the only right answer.”

The two begin to debate about which song was better, reciting lyrics back and forth. Amber brings herself up to her knees in the grass to compete with Nicholas’ height with Tyler’s jacket still draped over her shoulders. They were arguing with smiles on their faces. The other three watch the two with a certain fondness and then Cassidy speaks up.

“I don’t know guys,” She says, cutting Nicholas off in the middle of one of his points. “Misery Business was pretty freakin’ good.”

In unison the two give an exacerbated “Ugh” at Cassidy’s words.

“She has no idea idea what she’s talking about,” Amy says.

“She’s clueless,” Nicholas says back.

Cassidy brings a hand to her chest in mocked offense. “Wow, I’m appalled.” Amber pushes her hand and they all laugh together.

“What about you, Tyler?” Jason asks. He’s reclined back in the grass, supporting himself with his elbows, legs crossed. He taps the tip of his shoe on one of Tyler’s. “Who’s your favorite band?”

Amber rolls her eyes before he answers.

He clears his throat, “Snow Patrol.”

Amber buries her face in her hands at the sheer embarrassment as Jason and Nicholas lay into him about being an emo bleeding heart. Cassidy can’t help but laugh at all the banter going around the group. Tyler doesn’t sit and take it, though, and gives just as good as he gets.

It’s so loud in the wide open space, the three boys yell and argue playfully before devolving into typical jock roughhousing while Amber and Cassidy watch on the sidelines. The moon shines in the open field as Tyler tackles both Jason and Nicholas to the ground and they all lay in the grass laughing and out of breath.

Cassidy is just happy no one asked her who her favorite band is.

Saturday morning is something every teenager looks forward to; getting to wake up at 10am., getting a good breakfast in before the day starts and not having to change out of your pajamas until noon. Tanya is making bacon, eggs and pancakes in the kitchen and Adam is playing on his PSP at the dining table when Cassidy comes downstairs. Her slippers scuff against the floor as she hasn’t decided to pick up her feet when she walks yet this morning. She stretches her arms above her head and yawns, taking it all in.

“You and your brother didn’t get home ‘til late last night,” Tanya says from where she’s flipping pancakes on the griddle. “Did you have fun?”

“Yeah, we had a really great time.” She sits down next to Adam. “But I don’t know, Adam wasn’t there, so it wasn’t as fun as it could’ve been.”

Her little brother makes a pleased face but doesn’t say anything, fingers mashing at buttons on his console.

“Did Jay come down yet?” She pours herself a glass of orange juice from the pitcher sitting in the middle of the table.

“Nope, I think he’s still asleep.”

Before she came down, Cassidy definitely heard something coming from Jason’s room, but she won’t say anything.

He doesn’t show up until breakfast is on the table. Tanya takes a plate upstairs, presumably to their Dad’s office.

Syrup and berries get passed around the table and forks and knives clatter on ceramic plates. It’s a calm Saturday morning and the siblings don’t really talk, too busy stuffing their mouths full with fluffy pancakes and greasy eggs.

Tanya comes back down and eats her own breakfast.

“So, who won last night?” She asks.

Cassidy victoriously raises her hand while Jason sinks into his chair in shame. He probably wouldn’t be so ashamed if he didn’t brag the whole week about how he was gonna beat the girls.

“Oh, you’ll get ‘em next time, sweetheart,” Tanya says, rubbing his arm.

Adam laughs out loud though, “You got beat by two girls.” He holds his gut and bellows a laugh.

“Hey, girls can do anything boys can do,” Tanya says. “I’m sure you’ll figure that out when soccer starts up next season. They have a co-ed team at his school,” she tells Cassidy and Jason.

“You’re totally gonna get your ass kicked by girls,” Jason says. Adam kicks him under the table, or at least tries to before Tanya intervenes.

“Alright, that’s enough. And just for that you’re both on kitchen duty.”

The two boys groan and gather empty plates before heading to the kitchen, pushing each other on the way.

“We should hang out today,” Tanya says when it was just her and Cassidy at the table. “Been scouting the area and there’s a painting class not too far from here that I think you’d love.”

Cassidy frowns. “Oh, mom, I’m sorry,” she says. “I promised Ty and Nick that we’d work on our project today. She looks at the clock on the stove. “Matter of fact, I should be getting ready right now.”

“Well, what about next weekend?”

“Can’t, Adam wants to hang out with us and I kinda promised on the light.” She gives a chuckle and begins to stand from the table.

“Don’t forget to make time for Mama, okay?” Tanya says. It seemed to have been said in a joking way, but it comes out more forlorn than anything.

“I promise, Mama.” Cassidy extends her pinky finger, conjuring light to it. Tanya smiles and hooks her own pinky around her daughter’s.

Nicholas and Tyler are already there when Cassidy arrives. The library is huge and intimidating and she tells them to meet her at the entrance because no way was she going to find their meetup spot on her own. The inside is just as scary as the outside, with the many people walking around and yet it still seems empty. There’s so much more than just books and computers, but there were whole rooms just for sitting,

The three of them head up a flight of stairs and sit among rows and rows of books. It’s isolated and quiet yet there were multiple people that walked back and forth, collecting books and putting them back. An older woman with a cart passes by them and gives them a certain look, but says nothing.

They spend a couple hours going over their assignment. Cassidy had been on reading duty, Nicholas was in charge of organizing the information and Tyler typed away everything Nicholas told him to. Tyler reads the entire report out loud and by 6:30pm the three of them had decided they were finished, but Cassidy wanted to hang around.

Nicholas checks his phone, “well, I’m outta here, see you losers on Monday.” And then he was gone.

Cassidy was left alone with Tyler. She tries not to look at him.

“I’m gonna go look at some books if you don’t mind.” She stands and begins to peruse the shelves. She looks for nothing in particular, walking slow in the nonfiction section and not really paying attention to the titles. When she passes one shelf, she’s not sure she sees it right until she gets to another shelf.

Someone is watching her.