"oh my god, tucker!" i laughed. we had bought the same drinks. 

i brought him a chai latte and a french vanilla for myself.

he had bought a french vanilla for me and a chai latte for himself.

he shrugs and smiles the first genuine smile i see in years. "we can have one of each. but let's exchange drinks so it feels like we did something nice for each other. balance." 

"you're a kid, i swear."

"they call me peter pan!"

"no one calls you peter pan."

"i wish people called me peter pan," he corrects, rolling his eyes at me.  "bring these upstairs, we've got a long night ahead of us."

"yeah, closure and test cram tend to make that...happen." when did i become so awkward?

i follow him up the stairs to his room when i really didn't need to. i knew where things were.

"welcome to my bedroom," he says quietly. his mood from earlier was gone.

mine was too.

"okay tuck, i've been waiting four years. lay it on me. explain to me why you left me without a word to hang out with the people we hated the most. explain to me why you would bully me for an entire school year, even worse, my first. explain to me why you would pretend i don't exist for two years, only to text me all flirty and so YOU this year."

"remember when we were talking about my drawings?"

"mhm. i didn't know that you drew."

he pulls a sheet of paper out of a sketchbook. it's a picture of his parents grinning.

"i was working on this, that night." 

"although i don't see how that's relevant, that's amazing, tuck. you used to be so bad at art. this...wow."

"yeah, well, t-things change when your parents d-die." his voice cracks and he breaks eye contact.

he said it. just like that. suddenly, the floor feels like it doesn't exist anymore and i am forced to sit down. everything falls into place.

my head is light and my heart is heavy.

tuckers parents...my second parents...were DEAD? and no one TOLD ME? i couldn't support tucker when his parents were GONE??

"grade 8 plane," i manage to whisper.

"that's r-right. when our plane from winnipeg only had one seat left, they took the plane behind us so they could be t-together. they never made it h-home from that trip." his lips and chin tremble. tucker, always composed and never upest tucker, was on the verge of tears.

"for three years i was telling myself i should've been on that other plane. that it was my fault because it was my birthday celebration. blaming myself, whatever. that's why i never told you. i felt guilty and i thought you'd look at me different. i'd rather you hate me because i was mean than because you thought i was a murderer," he crouches then, so he can look me in the eye. "i'm sorry."

he doesn't need to be sorry anymore. i get it. i hope he can see that in my face because i'm having trouble saying it.

"that leads me to why i was mean to you. partly because i needed to distance you somehow and partly because i was in the 'anger' part of grief." he takes my face and wipes my tears. then, he wipes his own. "for hurting you like that, i'm so sorry. i'll never stop being sorry. 

when i realized i had gone way overboard in grade 10, i didn't know where to begin apologizing to you because i was still way too unstable in my period of grief. like, what would i tell you?

i texted you, from an anonymous number, because i'd be able to give us closure. i had accepted their deaths and i was ready to have you back in my life. but that's not how relationships work. it's not a call back thing. so, i had to...not be me for you to talk to me.

i missed you and it was the only way i could go about talking to you normally without stumbling all over my words or my tears. so that's that."

sensing his upset, sandy crawls into his lap. "this is sandy. she's my registered emotional support cat to help with...basically everything."

"she's a sweetie," is the first thing i'm able to say after his long and winding confession.

"she is." tucker laughs and hauls me up from the ground. holding sandy in one hand and sticking out the other, he offers,"friends?"

instead of shaking his hand, i pull him into a weepy hug.

"family hug," he grunts, struggling to hold sandy between us.

"family hug."