“This is … Whoa.”
I stare down at the tickets for Twenty-One Pilots in awe. I’ve mentioned maybe once or twice that I like them, months ago, and again, the fact that either of them noticed is what touches me the most.
Plus, it’s fucking Twenty-One Pilots and that’s amazing anyway.
Nova looks at the tickets in my hand and he
r jaw drops. “Seriously?” She knows how much I love them since I play their music in the apartment all the time. I think maybe I’ve got her slightly addicted.
“Wow, guys, I don’t even know what to say.” I’m not a crier, and I’ve never been one to get emotional easy, but this has gotten to me.
“We love you,” Thea says. “We might not tell you often enough, but we do. You’re more than a friend, you’re family. Both of you.”
I look at Nova and then them. “I think of you all as family too. You’re more of a real family than my father is.”
They’ve been there for me more than he ever has. And these gifts prove that they pay attention, that they know me. They didn’t give me a generic gift card to a store. This took thought and that’s what means the most.
I look down at Nova’s gifts in her lap and notice a framed picture of her, Thea, and Rae. It makes me smile.
Nova and I both thought we were outcasts.
Loners.
That we just didn’t belong.
But all along we already did, we just didn’t see it.
This is where we fit, one piece of a beautiful puzzle.
Nova
“Um … Jace?”
“Yeah?” he asks from the couch, scribbling in his new journal.
“Look.” I point out the window of Cade and Rae’s house.
“Well, fuck.” He closes his journal and comes to stand beside me to look out.
The street is blanketed in white. At least a foot, and it’s still coming down.
“Guys,” I call into the kitchen, where the four of them cook. They insisted on making dinner and didn’t want Jace and me to help.
“Yeah?” Rae says back.
“Please tell me you don’t mind if we crash here.”
“No, of course not. But why?” She appears in the doorway to the kitchen. “Oh,” she says, finding her answer when she sees what we see. “We have a blow-up mattress. It’ll be fine.”
Jace looks at me out of the corner of his eye, his lips twitching.
We both know a whole evening with our friends is bound to get interesting.
Dinner is ready soon after that and we all sit down to eat.
Cade and Thea’s mom, who’s been living there since her divorce, comes down and joins us all for dinner.
“How are you guys?” she asks, hugging Jace and then me.