The Polaroid's on the Wall

Chapter 6: I wanna hold your hand

Before we get into it, I feel like after this chapter my writing is starting to lag so please do give me advice. Hate is not welcome but constructive criticism definitely is :)

Cyrus POV:

It was getting dark outside with the beautiful orange light reflecting through the window onto the carpet. The ends of the sunset were stained purple and pink as the clouds passed over them to look like cotton candy. It was beautiful. Me and TJ had just been talking for hours (after our little dance session) with a bag of lightly salted tortilla chips each. It was peaceful, quiet, no one else was here. Which seemed strange to me as it was getting to at least 6:30. Ok so it's not like it's ten but still...

'Where's Amber?' I asked, taking some more crisps and eating them. What else was I going to do with them? Snort them?

'She's at Andi's I think,' TJ responded, also having some crisps but, unlike me, delicately makes sure he spills no crumbs.

I nodded, 'And your parents,'

He tensed up a little bit, he shuffled in his seat which if you blinked you might've missed but I didn't. That's when it hit me. He's Amber's brother. This entire time I've been counselling Amber because she's upset with her parents fighting all the time and not even realising TJ has the same problems. Shoot. 'I don't know, probably...I don't know,'

'That's ok! I'm sorry! I didn't...I wasn't-'

'Cyrus it's ok,' he reassured me, 'I know you didn't mean anything,'

There was a pause before I gestured towards the pride flag hanging above his bed, 'Did you tell them?'

He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair, 'No, they never come in here and they don't have social media so they won't find out, at least I don't plan on it,'

Thankfully the conversation picked up as usual shortly after as we were so caught up in it we didn't even realise the sun had disappeared over the horizon leaving TJ's room in pitch black. I couldn't even make out where he was if I didn't have the knowledge that he's sat right in front of me. I seemed to be having déjà vu. 'It's dark,' I stated, exactly as I did last time.

A second past before I sensed he was extremely close to me. The room was filled with the light from the small bedside lamp as I saw he really was close to me. His eyes held my gaze for a moment, it felt so fast as quickly, he sunk back to where he was originally sat at a friendly distance away from me.

I was about to continue a normal conversation when the record ended so TJ got up to change it. He flicked through a few before pausing, glancing back at me. I thought this was because he realised I was watching him so I averted my eyes before hearing the clicking of his fingers on the slim cardboard. Yes, that was definitely why...right? I then heard him pull out a record and set it up on the player. It wasn't long after that the music started to fill the room.

Play song

He said nothing as he sat back across from me, lightly bobbing his head to the beat as he just stared into my eyes. At first I thought this was a regular song but as TJ wasn't saying anything, I guessed he wanted me to listen to it. As in, properly.

Oh yeah I'll

Tell ya something

I think you'll understand

When I

Say that something

I wanna hold your hand

I wanna hold your hand

I wanna hold your hand

I tried to push away the thought that he picked this song on purpose because if there's something liking Jonah taught me it's that there's no point deluding myself about silly fantasies...hang on. Is he looking at my hand? No, he's just looking at my bracelet...right? I watched his eyes carefully, it was noticeable as the song played that his eyes were flicking from mine to my hand. Ok, no, this was actually happening. My heart fluttered furiously against my chest so hard that I was scared he would hear it.