Cryptidcore

wednesday, october 10: tilly marlow

I asked Tilly to get coffee with me during third period.

It turned out to be more uncomfortable than I meant it to because Tilly has about ten thousand friends and she's always surrounded by them.

So anyways, she was sitting at a table with Simon Corfeild and Erica Ngo, and she was talking about a show she did with her band last weekend (apparently it went well) and then I'm hovering there over Simon's shoulder like "...hey?" and Tilly looks up at me expectantly with her huge brown eyes and I just panicked:

"Tilly can I buy you a coffee?" except I might actually have said something closer to "Tilly, coffee me?"

And she passed a hand through her thick, dark, corkscrew curls, smiled just barely and said, "sure I'll coffee you."

And I was so relieved that I literally gave this girl finger guns. They might have been snapping finger guns. Literally kill me.

But Tilly, bless her, just gave me this huge grin like she thought my finger guns were charming. So I said, "can we go today? After school?" and she said, "yeah totally, I'll meet you in the south lot?" And I said sure and then I ran the heck out of there because it was so fucking awkward. Like you don't just walk up to the coolest girl in school and ask her to coffee you. Y i k e s

Anyways.

Tilly didn't have her car today and I don't have a car period, so there was a moment of awkwardness when Simon said, "oh I can drive you, that's no problem!" But sitting in the back of Simon's infamous mid-nineties brown mini van was too much for me to handle, so I glanced at Tilly and said, "I mean I don't mind walking."

And she grinned at me and my stomach gave this unexpected twinge and I was like oH m ygod please no because I needed her some very important questions re: the woods and Madelyn. Developing a crush on Tilly Marlow was so low on my to-do list it was freezing in Satan's ice lake. (cuz the bottom circle of hell is full of ice? Get it?)

So we walked. And it was kind of great. It wasn't exactly warm or even dry, but the sun was out in that golden October way, and there were lots of leaves to crunch, and it smelled super fresh and clean outside. And also it was nice to be like... with someone else? With Madelyn missing I've become painfully aware of how much time we used to spend together. I've been pretty much solo for like weeks. I mean obviously, I have people to talk to in class or whatever, and I have my mom. But this was different.

It was a little bit uncomfortable at first, but Tilly isn't the coolest girl in school for no reason.

"Hey did you draw the comic of Mr. Herman in the C hall bathroom?"

K context: it is a truth universally acknowledged that the geography teacher Mr. Herman is the hottest teacher in school. Not even Madelyn was immune to his beauty. The first week of school I was pooping and happened to have a sharpie on me so I drew Mr. Herman looking like a pretty anime girl with like sparkles and flowers on the bathroom stall. It was scrubbed off a few days later, but most people saw it.

"I did," I admitted and Tilly laughed.

"I knew that was you. Everyone thought it was Jenna Huff, but I knew it was you."

And after that it was actually pretty easy. We talked about my art a little bit, and then I asked her about her band and she shrugged.

"I don't know, mostly we're just playing in houses in Seattle. But lots of cool bands play in houses in Seattle. Like, even if this isn't like the band that makes it big, but who cares, you know? We're having a lot of fun. You should come see us play some time."

I've never heard their music, but according to everyone they're actually good. But like, even if they were bad I think I would have wanted to go.

I said, "yeah I'd love that," and I glanced sideways at her, and our eyes met and we both sorta laughed and it was totally A Moment.