CHAPTER 6 — A Penguin and a Dolphin

The first gift was a declaration of war against Ryan’s own anxiety.

He’d been wandering aimlessly through a quirky gift shop downtown, allegedly looking for a new notebook, but his feet had betrayed him — leading him straight to a large, overflowing bin of stuffed animals.

And there, sitting right on top, was a small, perfectly soft penguin plushie with big, soulful, black-beaded eyes.

His first thought, immediate and unbidden, was: Jude.

His second thought was a tidal wave of pure, uncut panic.

Okay, hold on. A gift? Is it too soon for a gift? We just started… whatever this is. A plushie is a childish gift, right? He’s gonna think I’m a baby. But it’s also cute. What does a penguin even symbolize? I should google it. Do they symbolize… flightlessness? Is that a weirdly passive-aggressive metaphor for his fledgling music career? Oh my god, this is a terrible idea.

He walked away from the bin.

Then he circled back.

He picked up the penguin. Its felt feet were soft against his palm.

He imagined Jude smiling that easy, brilliant smile.

With a surge of what felt like reckless, life-altering courage, Ryan walked to the counter and bought the penguin.

It was the most terrifying purchase of his life.

Unbeknownst to Ryan, a similar — though far less dramatic — scene was playing out a few blocks away.

Jude was killing time in a bookstore, waiting for his mom.

He browsed the comic section, picking up a trade paperback of Zoomers, smiling to himself. Near the front of the store, there was a small section of toys and collectibles.

His eyes landed on a dolphin plushie — its fabric a sleek, cool grey, its expression permanently fixed in a playful, intelligent curve.

Jude’s thought process was a straight line.

 Huh. That looks like him. Smart. A little bit sleek and hard to read, but also playful.

He picked it up.

 Yeah. He’d like this.

He walked to the counter and bought it.

The entire operation took less than three minutes.

The exchange happened the next day, in a quiet corner of the school library.

Ryan had the penguin stuffed deep in his backpack, the small box it was in feeling like it weighed a thousand pounds.

He’d rehearsed his lines. He would be cool. He would be casual.

“Hey,” he said, his voice coming out as a nervous squeak. “So. I got you a thing.”

“Oh yeah?” Jude said, looking up from his book, a warm, curious smile already on his face.

“It’s really stupid,” Ryan continued, rambling as he pulled the box from his bag. “You can totally throw it away if you want. It’s probably lame. I just saw it and for some reason it made me think of—”

He stopped as Jude opened the box and pulled out the penguin.

Jude didn’t say anything for a moment. He just held the little plushie in his palm, a look of pure, unadulterated delight on his face.

“A penguin,” he said, his voice soft with wonder. “I love it.”

He looked up at Ryan, his eyes shining. “It’s perfect.”

Ryan felt a wave of relief so powerful it almost made him dizzy. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jude said, still smiling.

Then his smile turned mischievous.

“Funny,” he said, reaching into his own backpack. “I had the same stupid idea.”

He pulled out a small, similarly shaped box and handed it to Ryan.

Ryan opened it, his hands trembling slightly. Inside, staring up at him, was the sleek, grey dolphin.

Ryan looked from the dolphin to Jude, a look of shocked, joyful disbelief on his face.

“No way,” Ryan breathed.

Jude just laughed — a bright, happy sound that echoed softly in the quiet library.

“Great minds, I guess.”

They sat there for a minute in stunned, happy silence — a strange and wonderful symmetry hanging in the air between them.

They hadn’t planned it. They hadn’t discussed it.

They had just, separately, felt the same quiet, goofy, affectionate urge.

It was a perfect, unspoken confirmation of their new and growing frequency.

They walked out of the library a few minutes later, side by side.

Ryan hesitated on the threshold; he’d meant to say something clever and instead found himself pausing. Through the library’s glass door he watched Jude stop, just for a second, as if he’d forgotten the world existed on the other side. Jude’s face went slack — not sleep, not rest, but a small, blanking out. He stared at a poster on the wall, fingers slack at his backpack strap.

Then the door opened and the smile clicked back on, too fast, like a stage light flipping from dark to warm. Ryan felt a prick behind his eyes. The switch was there, small and mechanical, and he carried it in his pocket like a new, fragile fact.

Ryan was clutching the dolphin in his hand, its smooth fabric a comforting weight.

Jude had the little penguin perched on his shoulder, a silent, flightless companion on its new journey.

They didn’t say much.

They didn’t need to.

The plushies said it all.

Chapter Word:

Symmetry (n.): A rare and beautiful alignment of feelings. The uncanny sense of realizing that you and another person were walking on parallel paths, at the same pace — destined to arrive at the same wonderful, unspoken conclusion.