“Yeah, so, Northern gardens just need hardier plants. Stuff like Daylilies, moonbeam, Phlox subulata. They still produce colorful flowers, they’re just a little tougher in the cold.”

“Is that so?” Aiden and I are talking in the hallway. He’s leaning against the wall, holding a Coca-Cola and smiling at me. I’m a little tipsy now, and I can’t tell if his grin is sarcastic or not, but that same tipsiness also makes it impossible for me to shut up. I have also noticed that he has very pretty blue eyes, so good for him, I guess.

“Whereas in a Southern garden you’d want more like Asiatic lilies or Dianthus. But of course when you’re picking what you want to plant, you have to think about a bunch of other factors.”

“Like what?” Aiden asks, taking a sip of his soda.

“You know, the quality of the soil, and the growing needs of the plants you chose, whether you want to do companion planting...”

“What’s companion planting?”

“That’s when you grow different kinds of plants close together, and they enhance each other’s growth. It’s sort of a way to reinforce the healthiness of the plant.”

“That sounds smart,” Aiden says.

“It’s also cute,” I tell him, and he laughs.

“It is cute.” He gives me a smile that touches his blue eyes, and suddenly I feel like I’ve come back to myself from the distracted tipsy excitement I was swimming around in before.

“I’m sorry. How long have I been rambling about plants?” I ask, clearing my throat.

“Not long enough.”

“I can’t tell when you’re being sarcastic and it’s very annoying.”

“Sounds like you have a very rough lot in life.”

“Yes, but a very well-gardened one,” I tell him, primly adjusting the cup in my hand. We’ve all switched to harder beverages in degrees as the night has gone on - that is, everyone except for Aiden. He and I have gotten split up over and over again at this party, but we keep drifting back together. This is like the fourth time that Aiden has found me in the crowd. I have officially stayed at this party way longer than I thought I would. “I feel like I should shut up,” I add.

“Why?”

“Because I’m just rambling on and on and you’ve barely said anything.”

“That’s because I like listening to you talk,” he answers.

And now I’m wondering if I’m mishearing him because of the music, or something.

“What?” I half-shout, leaning a little closer.

“I said-”

“Aiden, Jamie, there you are!” Ralph gleefully interrupts, appearing out of nowhere. “I’ve been looking for you two for ages, where have you been?”

“Right here,” Aiden answers, the smile dropping from his face. I may be tipsy, but Ralph is completely fucked up, his eyes unfocused and glinting in the low red light of Angie’s hall lamps. He’s talking way too loudly, even with the music factored in.

“Come on, we’ve got a private room upstairs,” he hiccups, looping his arm through Aiden’s. He sets off for the stairs, towing Aiden, who looks over his shoulder back at me.

I fall into step after them reluctantly, thinking vaguely that I hate Ralph and everything he stands for. We thread through the remaining guests towards Angie’s bedroom. The door is closed, but Ralph pushes through it without a second of hesitation. Inside, Grant is sprawled out on a couch with Angie perched at the far end and Noah in the armchair across from it. The only open sitting area is Angie’s bed, so Aiden and I claim it. Noah and Grant are engaged in some kind of shouty, spirited conversation, and Angie is watching them warily over the rim of her drink.

“So, you guys have been together all day, huh?” I murmur to Aiden, who winces.

“Yes. All. Day. It’s been a very long day.”

“Then why are you still here? You know you can go home whenever you want.” I hesitate, and then blurt out - “I’ll walk with you if you want to go.”

Aiden opens his mouth to answer, and is interrupted by Noah flinging himself down on the bed between us. There was plenty of space, but the bounce of Angie’s mattress sort of sends both of us flying. My drink tumbles out of my hand and splashes onto the ground.

“What is up with you two?” Noah drones, oblivious to the mess he’s just created. “Every time we leave you guys alone for two seconds it’s like you end up having these super-secret conversations. It’s rude, you know. There are other people around, it’s a fuckin’ party.”

I get quickly to my feet, trying not to openly scowl at Noah, and dart into the bathroom to grab a few tissues. When I return to mop up the remains of my drink, Aiden has also gotten up off the bed, and now only Noah is on it, yelling at Ralph.

“We should fucking invite over Justin and those guys!” Why is he shouting, like they’re having an argument?

“Can we all stop yelling, please?” cuts in Angie, who is no longer trying to hide her obvious annoyance. “I don’t want you guys bringing strangers over to my place, anyways. I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”

“Trust me, baby,” Grant says, dipping his head back to look at Angie, whose lips immediately purse at this new affront. “These guys will liven things up. They know how to start a fucking party.”

“Speaking of which,” calls Noah, springing up off the bed. He grabs the sticky bottle of vodka from the table between the couch and the armchair. He pours a stupid amount of it into a solo cup, then grabs the cranberry juice. “I think it’s about time we get our boy Aiden into party mode.”

“I told you guys I quit that shit,” protests Aiden, and Noah waves his hand like he’s swatting a fly.

“Trust me, when you taste this, you’re gonna be back on the party train, and the party train doesn’t stop for anything.”

“Your drinks fucking taste like ass, Noah,” puts in Ralph.

Without warning, Noah whips around and hurls the glass bottle at Ralph, who dodges it easily. It smacks into the wall with a loud crash. Angie lets out a little gasp, and I throw my hands up over my mouth. The bottle didn’t break, but the sound was jarring as hell, and now there’s juice all over the floor. Ralph doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest; he bursts into drunken laughter and sinks down the wall, clutching at his sides.

Aiden looks a little shell-shocked. Angie unfolds from the couch stiffly and gets to her feet.

“Okay. I’m going to get my phone, and then I’m going to get you guys an Uber, and then I’m going to mark the destination as fucking Antarctica, and then you guys are going to Venmo me for the ride.”

“Sounds good,” Noah calls, as she stomps out of the room. People out in the hallway peer in at us curiously. “While you do that I’ll finish making Aiden’s drink. Where’d the bottle go?”

“You’re making a drink for yourself right now, because I’m not gonna have that,” Aiden informs him. He’s backed up against the wall and has his arms crossed so tightly that he looks like he’s hugging himself.

“Trust me, this recipe is fuckin’ foolproof, it’ll get you-”

“Noah, seriously, I’m not going to have it, and that’s it.”

“Laaaaaaaaaame,” mumbles Grant, whose eyes are only half-open. I’m just now realizing how fucked up the three of them are. The pleasant buzz in my brain all but disappeared the moment the bottle was thrown, and prickles of discomfort are spreading up the back of my neck. I make quick work of cleaning up Angie’s floor as Ralph rejoins the conversation.

“Come on, Aiden, what kind of friends are we if we let you leave a party sober?” he drawls, plucking the drink out of Noah’s hand. He shoves it into Aiden’s face. “I’m just not gonna let you leave until you take a sip, so take a sip.”

Aiden is now openly glaring at Ralph, who seems to realize this venture isn’t going to work.

“You’re bringing down the vibe, man,” he complains. “I can’t believe you got so fucking boring.”

“Oh my god, Ralph, shut the fuck up!” I shout, before I realize what I’m doing.

Everyone in the room swivels to look at me.

“I’m sorry?” Ralph looks stunned: frankly, I’m shocked at myself, but I can’t listen to one more minute of this.

“I said shut up!” Powered by some kind of fearless anger, I march over to him and slap the soaking tissues into his hands. “You can finish cleaning the floor. Aiden, we’re leaving.”

Aiden immediately darts around the table to join me. Without thinking I seize his hand in mine, and then we’re marching over to the door. The three idiots watch us, apparently too surprised to say anything. I pause in the doorway to glare at them.

“You’re supposed to be his friends!” I snap. That’s the only coherent sentence I can form right now, so I just spin on my heel and keep walking.

I don’t let go of Aiden’s hand until we step outside and leave the party behind.

~~~~

We walk for a block in silence. The cool night air feels incredible after the clamorous, close confines of the party. Aiden is taking deep, gulping breaths like he was drowning inside. When the last trace of the music from Angie’s house fades away, Aiden stops abruptly and slumps against the fence of the nearest house. He runs the back of his hand over his forehead. His fingers are shaking. I’m not sure what to do, so I just stand there trying not to stare at him, until he opens his mouth and says the last thing I expected to hear:

“Are you okay?”

“Me?” I’m a little flabbergasted. “Am I okay?”

“Yeah, you’ve been quiet for like five minutes, which is probably the longest I’ve ever heard you go without saying anything.”

“I just didn’t know - I thought you might need it to be quiet for a moment. I don’t know. What do you need?”

He presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose, then breathes out a deep sigh.

“I never should have gone to see them.” He sounds miserable. “I guess I remembered them being a lot more fun than they are. Should we have left them there with Angie? I feel like maybe we should have stayed until they left.”

“Angie has a blackbelt,” I inform him. “And she definitely wasn’t joking about calling them an Uber. I bet she already did.”

“Why does a veterinarian need a blackbelt?” Aiden grumbles.

“Um, there was some talk of an old lady named Ethel who needs an ass-kicking, but I think Noah, Grant, and Ralph may have just moved to the front of the queue.”

Aiden lets out a half-laugh through his nose and pushes up off of the fence.

“C’mon, let’s go.” He gives my shoulder a nudge with his own, and we set off down the sidewalk again. I feel a strange kind of ringing clarity - whatever buzz I’d had going has now evaporated entirely. It’s been a clear week since the last rainy meeting I had with Aiden, and the late-night air has the slightest cold bite to it. It’s starting to take some of the stress-heat out of my face. The shadowy breeze lifts my hair off of my forehead and seems to pull away the lingering presence of Aiden’s high school social circle. I close my eyes for a moment to listen to the leaves whispering in the tree branches over our heads.

Aiden pokes my arm.

“You’re okay to talk, by the way. Honestly, it’s more unsettling when you don’t talk. That makes it feel like a crisis.”

“That was a crisis!” I protest. “Oh, man. I am way too Irish to be around a situation as uncomfortable as that.”

“What can that possibly mean?”

“It means this!” I point to my face, and Aiden glances down at me. A tiny smile returns to his face.

“Yeah, wow. Your cheeks are really red. Your face matches your hair, almost.”

“Stop, please.”

“Honestly, it’s cute.”

It’s cute? Am I wrong or is this the second time tonight he called me cute? No, wait. The first time he said he agreed that companion planting is cute. Which was actually very cute of him. Feeling suddenly a little flustered, I do the first thing that comes to mind: talk.

“Yeah, it’s very cute, but only because everything about me is cute. Otherwise, it isn’t cute. It’s like a thing that happens when I get happy, or sad, or angry, or if I spend more than ten minutes in the sun, or when I go up a steep flight of stairs, or when something embarrassing happens to me, or to someone else, or to someone on TV.”

“This already feels more back to normal,” Aiden muses, and he must be right, because his fingers have stopped shaking. “Are we walking towards something right now, by the way?”

“Yeah, we’ve headed to Kent’s place. Your place, I guess.”

“Cool. I’m still getting my bearings back, I probably wouldn’t know the way on my own. Thanks for coming with me, and leaving the party and everything.”

Hmm. There’s a long way and a short way to get to Kent’s house from here, and it sounds like Aiden wouldn’t notice if I steered us onto the longer path. I want us on the longer path. The turn for the short one is coming up.

Oh god, I didn’t take it. We’re officially taking the long way. I hope we don’t run out of stuff to talk about. I didn’t think this through, actually. Shit! It’s just - after a whole night of our every conversation being interrupted, it feels good to be alone with him.

Despite my nerves, he simply picks up the conversation where we left it off at the party, and even the long way back feels short. He’s surprisingly easy to talk to, now that I’ve come to realize his stretches of silence don’t indicate he’s hating our conversation. He just likes to listen, I guess. According to him. I might be a little paranoid that I’m rambling, but I’m trying to ignore that nagging worry and just let the conversation go where it takes us. Which is how we end up at:

“I’m not saying you’re too tall. I’m just saying that your height is unnecessary. Aggressive, even.”

“I don’t know,” Aiden answers. “It comes in handy sometimes. But I do hit my head sometimes in my new place. Attic drawbacks.”

“How do you like it? Besides the spiteful ceiling height?”

“It’s nice. Works for what I need it for.”

“Is it starting to look more like home?”

“Sure. Sort of.”

“So what, did you just cut your one backpack into hundreds of little pieces and make a macramé for your wall? Or did you have like one single set of tealight candles in there?”

“I feel like you’re personally offended by the backpack thing. Like I came back with no luggage to spite you. You may be amazed to learn this, but I didn’t realize how upsetting you’d find my packing style.”

“It is upsetting. It makes me feel attacked, actually. You should try and be more considerate of other people’s feelings.”

“Okay. I’ll try to be less selfish in the future,” Aiden says, planting a hand over his heart so earnestly that my snark-face breaks and I let out a stupid little laugh. When I open my eyes, he’s watching me closely, and something unreadable moves behind his gaze. My stomach does the thing that it does when an elevator drops unexpectedly. I once again feel like I’m snapping out of - something, but I don’t know what.

“What time is it?” I ask. Aiden pushes his sleeve back. “How long have we been standing out here?”

We’re outside of Kent’s house, and have been for a while.

“Oh,” is all Aiden says, blinking at his watch. “Longer than I thought.”

I lay awake for a long time after I get home. I feel like I have a lot to think about.