“I don’t know,” they said, avoiding his beady stare in the rearview mirror.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time together, but you’re not sure how he is?” the Avia pressed, and Cya curled up tighter, tail coiling beside them on the bench seat. “He seems very sweet. Always walks you to the car after your study sessions. Never forgets to greet me and ask how I am.”
Rattle clicking, they shot him a petulant frown. “Are you fishing for something specific, old man? Or has your mind finally started to go?”
With a huff, he pulled into traffic and headed toward home. “You’re rather testy today.”
“Only because you’re nosy.”
“It’s just nice, is all,” he said, dry tone warming several degrees.
“What’s nice?”
“To see you with friends again,” he replied, eyes crinkling with a soft, nearly pitying smile when Cya met them in the rearview mirror.
Something in their chest twinged, like a stitch in their breathing after they’d attempted too much exertion, and they dropped their gaze. “He’s not my friend.”
“He could be.”
“I don’t need friends,” they said, hating how childish they sounded.
A beat of silence. Then, “We all need friends, Cya.”
“Well, it sure as hell won’t be him!” The words sliced through the car, sharper and harsher than they’d intended, and they swallowed the defensive anger strangling their throat. “He’s ridiculous. We could never be friends.”
When Hemersyn replied, there was an edge of admonishment, tinged with disappointment. “Does he know that?”
“Deities below, will you just fuck off?” they muttered, and Hemersyn’s feathered crest rose in genuine offense.
The rest of the drive passed in tense silence while Cya sulked in the back, their aggravation slowly but surely morphing into guilt. As the car came to a stop in the gravel driveway, Hemersyn put it into Park, then turned in his seat to level them with a hard stare.
They froze with their hand on the door handle. “Can I help you?”
“I don’t appreciate you speaking to me like that,” he said sternly, but not unkindly. “If you feel I over-stepped, you can communicate that like an adult, but you have no right to treat me with that kind of disrespect. It’s rude and childish, and by gods, you’re better than that, Cylene.”
His use of their full name cut the deepest, and they flinched, eyes burning with the threat of imminent tears. They clamped their mouth shut, refusing to let them gather. They hadn’t cried in front of anyone in years, and they weren’t about to start now.
So they glared down at their bleached knuckles, hand cramping from the pressure they were exerting on the door handle. An apology tap-danced behind their teeth, but they couldn’t unhinge their jaw wide enough to release it without freeing the sob lodged in their throat as well.
The silence stretched uncomfortably until Cya felt they’d explode out of their scales. They didn’t move. They didn’t speak. They didn’t look away from their hand on the door.
Eventually, Hemersyn sighed, and they knew they’d disappointed him again. “Best get inside. Your parents are home.”
Without a word, they shoved the door open and unfurled from the back seat. They slammed the car door shut, fuming when the expensive safety features slowed the momentum, robbing them of the dramaticthud!
When they burst through the front doors of the house, they yelped in fright as they nearly smashed right into their mother.
“Cylene!” she shrieked, rearing back to avoid a true collision.
In an attempt to keep her flute of champagne from spilling onto her expensive, bejeweled dress, Cya’s mother tipped the glass forward and away from her. Unfortunately, that sent the champagne splashing all over Cya’s neck and chest, between the lapels of their open coat. The sticky liquid soaked into their clothes and trickled down their torso before it settled cold and clammy between the scales at their waist.
“Puckered shitass twatwaffle motherfucker!” Cya snarled, stamping their tail like a tantruming hatchling as they internally thanked their coworkers’ creativity when it came to colorful curses.
Their mother gasped dramatically, pressing a hand to the base of her throat. “Cylene Zoia Vysov!”
The tears they’d been fighting rose to the surface and blurred their vision as they plucked at their sodden tunic. “You spilled champagne all over me!”
“Well, it wasn’t my fault, now was it?” Swinging the champagne flute dangerously, she gestured to the front door. “You come barreling in like a bulgridge, spouting off obscenities like you’d been raised in a Sloth whorehouse.”
