Birdy Anders
Birdy rubbed at the circles under her eyes. She hadn’t been sleeping more than two hours a night the past week, and she was really relying on stealing some of her mom’s coffee in the mornings to keep her going through her life. Which probably wasn’t healthy, but whatever.
Why had she been staying up so damn late and not getting any rest whatsoever? Great question. It was because of Mr. Jenkins. He had handed her back her test that day with a big fat D+ written across the top of the paper. She wasn’t really surprised, though. She hadn’t understood any of the material that had been introduced to her, and she had been rushing to get it done in class while she was simultaneously fighting the losing battle of breathing.
He had told her that he was very disappointed in her and he expected her to be putting much more effort into his class from now on. Otherwise, he would be forced to contact her parents. Now that had gotten her to get to work. She didn’t want her parents to know how bad she was at one of the most important subjects. She didn’t want them to be disappointed.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t put in any effort for her Algebra II before because she had actually put in a lot of work. She knew that it was her worst subject so she had often spend nights in the past studying for hours on end and trying every single practice problem out so that she could try and get better, now she was just taking all of that up a notch.
She got out of school every day at three thirty, but most days, she stayed after school for either a club meeting or a swim practice. Swim practice every monday, wednesday, and friday from three forty-five to five thirty. Year book club every tuesday and thursday from three forty-five to five. Next, she would head over to Badger’s house to work on the project for two hours. Then, she would get home and spend an hour or two doing her homework from all her other classes first. Then she would eat dinner and shower, with skincare and haircare, that usually took about two hours. After that, she would end her day and night by studying math until four am. and going to sleep. Wake up at six am the next day and repeat all over again. It was a long day, she knew, but it was what it was.
She yawned heavily before raising up her hand to the creepy knocker and banging it loudly against the door. She had once been worried that if she hit it too hardly, then the whole house’s structural integrity would fail and completely collapse in on itself, but that had changed.
Over her time coming over to the Pasternack residence, which had admittedly only been a couple of days, she had very quickly learned that the home was much stronger than its appearance let on. This place could probably survive a tsunami, not that she was worried about that happening where she lived. Still, the point was that she was completely free to use their door for her anger management, which was a really good thing.
She didn’t have many outlets for her emotions, she never really had in her whole life, so if she hadn’t found something, she might’ve just started randomly hitting people. Which would not have gone over well with anyone, including herself. So she just banged the knocker.
Badger happily opened the door just before she was about to hit it again. He had a smile on his face like always. He was wearing his signature red hoodie along with some sweatpants. His hair was tousled around, and his face was all red, not to mention his breathing was hard. He had either been making out with someone or doing a very intense workout.
“Hey Birdy! Come on in. Do you wanna drink?” Badger asked her like he always did. If there was one good thing that she would say about him, it was that he knew how to be a host.
“No thank you.” She said curtly with a small grin that was dropped the second she turned away to take off her shoes and hang up her coat. Maybe he was growing on her just slightly.
Badger led her into the living room like he always did, and it looked like it always did. The same dark wood, creepy dead animals staring into her soul, and homey decorations. But there was a difference today. A difference that might explain Badgers appearance.
There, sitting on the couch, was a boy. He had fairly dark skin and curly and wavy hair that sat on top of his head. He had a pretty grey sweatervest over a white t-shirt that was paired with wide leg white jeans. He had on a small amount of makeup, not full glam, but still there. She could tell there was a small eyeliner wing, blush, highlighter, lip gloss, mascara, and maybe a skin tint. He looked pretty, but she wouldn’t tell him that. She knew who this was. This was the kid who her brother ‘jokingly’ called mijo. This was Julian Rodriguez.
She knew him from his continued coming over to her house to see Cyrus when he was there. He also was at any event at the Pasternack house, and she knew he hung out around Cyrus’s apartment a lot. Anytime she went over there, he was also there every single time.
She wondered for a second why he was there when there was nothing happening that day, to her knowledge, before she remembered that he was actually friends with Badger. That he was a part of that whole keeping secrets with her brother friends group. She didn’t like them.
But, as she sat down and began to rifle through her backpack to find everything she would need and her slight anger at seeing him there calmed down, she realized something. He was in similar appearance to Badger. Messy hair, heavy breath, red face, and even his makeup were a bit smudged across his face. She knew that he wasn’t one to just let smudged makeup slide. His appearance was super important to him, both clothes and looks. So, she knew that he hadn’t had the time to fix it before she came over, which meant that whatever had done it happened recently. The dots began to connect in her head.
Both of them looked like they had just done some very hard physical work. She knew that Julian was gay. She didn’t know what Bagder’s sexuality was, though. They both were trying to seem nonchalant, but it was obvious that they were both uncomfortable. They both had wide eyes, and Badger was continuously licking his lips. A gasp flew from her mouth before she could stop it.
“Holy shit! Were you two just!” She didn’t finish the sentence out of embarrassment, but she did continue to look between the two of them, back and forth, with an open mouth.
They both looked confused for a moment before they seemed to have caught on to what she was meaning, and Julian started laughing. Badger just sat there stunned that she thought that. It was a minute of awkwardness, with Julian’s laughter before he started talking.
“Really?! You think- oh fuck, this is hilarouis! You think I would willingly date Badger, let alone get with him, pfft. That’s just weird. I would pick a cow over him anyday.” He continued to laugh while Badger started to look more embarrassed than flabbergasted now.
Birdy slowly realized that that wasn’t what they were doing and felt heat come to her cheeks due to her assumption. She was probably more embarrassed than Badger at the moment, which was pretty hard to beat in her opinion. Maybe she should’ve just kept her mouth shut.
Julian’s laughter was finally diminishing and was instead just replaced with a bright big smile while he tried to catch his breathe to say the next sentence that his brain wanted to get out of his mouth.
“Thanks for that, I needed a good laugh.” He smiled over at her and she still felt a nice feeling in her chest that she had always gotten whenever people smiled at her, since she was very young.
Birdy just nodded and went back to staring at her computer screen that was opened to multiple tabs about mermaids and their mythology or lore. She tried to just go back to studying and putting down notes of what she found interesting or what could be used in the presentation, but she still couldn’t get the odd situation out of her head no matter what she did.
The awkward silence began to hang in the air after that as they all tried to act like they weren’t mulling over what had just happened in their heads. They all were well aware that the others were also thinking about it, but that didn’t mean they had to talk about it. They all knew that talking about it would just make things way more awkward for them all.
“So…if me and Badger were dating? What would you say?” Julian finally broke the silence.
“Oh, well, I wouldn’t really care. I mean, my brothers bi and my sister’s a lesbian so…I don’t know. I think Dora is pan too. It doesn’t bother me.” Birdy answered honestly.
“Ah…well…that’s good I guess.” Julian got up after that and went into the kitchen, saying over his back, “Do either of you want a drink or anything?” They both replied no.
Although, Badger also added on. “This is my house, why are asking me if I want a drink?”
“Oh Badgy, you know this is practically also my house at this point.” Julian yelled back from the kitchen.
He returned back with a water bottle and a soda in his arms, both of which he set down on the table, opening the soda first. Badger gave a glance at the water and Julian threw it over to him saying, “I knew you would want something Badgy.”, with a small grin.
If Birdy hadn’t just been given the confirmation that the two of them weren’t dating then she most definitely would’ve assumed that they were. They had this kinda fake flirting as a joke thing going on between them and she got that. She sometimes did that with Cora or Dora, but it still felt a bit weird. She just nodded along to it all while trying to anaylyze their behavoir.
“How did you two meet anyway?” Birdy asked because she wanted to know more about their friendship.
“We met through Cyrus.”
“We met at school.”
They both said the lines at the same time and Birdy looked between the two of them suspiciously. She knew they were hiding something, but she wasnt’t quite sure what it was.
“We had some classes togeth, but we really became close when Cyrus introduced us to each other.” Badger explained rushed before Birdy could ask any questions and changed the topic.
The trio continued to talk and do research for the next hour or so and Birdy tried hard to remind herself that she didn’t like these people. It would take much more than a pleasant afternoon to convince her that she should start to be really nice to these guys, much more.
Still she was content to listen to their jokes and occasionally chime in. The two of them had an easy going vibe between them that she wished she had with her friends. They seemed to just be able to flow with each other no matter what the other said without worry about saying the wrong things or making the other feel bad. It was nice, and fun to listen to.
Finally, Birdy realized when she checked the time that she had stayed there thirty minutes past when she was supposed to and she quickly picked up all of her things and said her goodbyes.
She got into her car and before leaving she made sure to put on the radio so that she could listen to whatever music was going on her drive home. She was very pleased by what was playing.
It seems like all our friends,
Abruptly fell in love,
And she was in the dust,
Darling, life was streaming past,
So she learnt to lie.
(Just so you guys know, Juli will be playing a much larger role in this book than in previous ones lol.
Hope you enjoyed! Bye!)