Cinnamon Muffins Chapter 19:
Spoiler: The novel version of a campfire-on-the-beach flashback/filler episode <3
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Todd orders pizza for dinner and pays with his parent's Wells Fargo Business Elite Signature Card®. He tips 30% because he, unlike his parents, believes that trickle-down economics only work through direct actions, like tipping your delivery driver 30% when you can definitely afford it. He also might still be feeling a little sore about his parents leaving for their yearly Christmas Conference Trip.
He's always a little sore around Christmas.
Todd and his friends go down to the basement and play around with his VR headset. Jaxson makes too many jokes about how lucky a "poor commoner" like him is to "have but a moment of enjoyment with the toys of the wealthy." Taylor tells him to shut the fuck up. Collin asks if he can have a turn, and can he switch the game to something where PvP is disabled. Dalton says "smacking people with our rubbery, digital hands is the best part!" Wes says VR freaks him out, and he and Todd watch the other boys making weird faces under the headset and crying out at digital perils.
The bandaids Todd put on the worst of the scrapes on Wes's cheek and forehead wrinkle when he laughs. Todd's just relieved Wes sat still enough to get the bandaids on there, and clean the asphalt and road salt out of the injury, and throw some hydrogen peroxide on to prevent infection—
Taylor never lets Todd clean the asphalt and road salt out of his face. Taylor says "I'm fine, Todd, lay off" for two weeks until the cut that hadn't been too bad is oozing puss and still bright red and Todd snaps "for fuck's sake!" and has Dalton threaten to hold him down if he doesn't cooperate. And Taylor flinches the whole time like Todd might hit him.
"Thanks for patching me up," Wes says.
Without really meaning to, Todd replies, "Why are you such a good kid?"
Wes looks at him like his hair's on fire (maybe it is) and says, "I'm not."
They don't talk for a minute. Todd is trying not to let reality set in yet.
When Todd was four-and-a-half, just about ready to start school in the early kindergarten program, his parents sat him down and explained to him that there would be bullies. Todd was just enamored by the rare moment of undivided attention from both parents, so he listened extra carefully as his mom and dad explained how bullies could be any size or shape, with any face. They might use physical violence, they might use emotional violence, but they would certainly pick on Todd.
Without voicing it, Todd had known that his parents said this because Todd was small, and people picked on small kids. The movies told him that.
Mom had said that these things would surely hurt Todd's feelings. This hurt, she said gently, would help him grow. She reassured Todd that, if they could, she and Dad would hide Todd from this hurt, but if they did then he would grow up "too sheltered" and he would never know how to navigate the world as an adult.
Todd, at four-and-a-half, had no clue what any of that meant, but he had nodded along sagely as if he understood.
Dad had said that Todd should never respond to those words. Todd should, Dad said firmly, not even react, because he is better than any of the names the other kids would call him. He muttered under his breath that he wasn't sure if things would be better or worse in a backwater town like this, and Mom had said it couldn't be worse than the city they had just moved from.
Todd, at four-and-a-half, had no clue what "words" his parents were referring to, but it was clear they meant a specific one, and so he nodded along sagely as if he understood that his parents were trying to brace him against being the only Black kindergartner at Swisher Elementary School.
And the next day, Todd stomped confidently to school in his nicest outfit (he dressed himself, which his parents thought was a wonderful show of his independence and they took pictures of the outfit with pride— after a few "fixes") and hung his tiny, shiny backpack on the hook with his name on it, and sat in the tiny, tiny desk with his name on it, and he smiled.
He was in school now. No more playtimes alone with the nanny! He would have friends. He would make sure of it.
To his left, there was a little boy who was sitting very still, for a kindergartener, and his nametag read "Taylor." Taylor didn't smile, or frown. He didn't make any faces at all. He looked like a statue, just like the ones in the museums Mom and Dad took Todd to.
Behind Taylor, there was another little boy who was very chubby, for a kindergartener, and his nametag read "Dalton." Dalton was tapping on Taylor's shoulder and saying "Hey, hey, what's your name? Hey. Turn around. Hey, what's your name? Hey, do you wanna be friends? We could play on the slide together at recess. What's your name? Are you ignoring me?"
Todd waved at the still, quiet boy. Taylor didn't wave back. Todd wanted to tell the chubby boy what the quiet boy's name was, since he could mostly read, but he wasn't sure how the "lor" sound was pronounced: was it like the first half of ‘lord’ or the second half of ‘tailer’? He didn't wanna be wrong and look stupid, so Todd said nothing.
Eventually, the chubby boy turned to the girl behind Todd, she had very long hair, for a kindergartener, and her nametag read "Celsee." Dalton didn't talk to Celsee, and as his eyes moved past her, they reached Todd, and Dalton said, "Hi, my name is Dalton, what's your name?"
"My name is Todd,” Todd said, trying to sit up so straight so he wouldn’t look so small, for a kindergartner.
"Do you wanna be friends, Todd?" Dalton asked, "We can play on the slide at recess together. This is my other friend, but he's ignoring me and he won't tell me his name, so we'll have to ask him later. My mom always says to ask people things when they're in a good mood, not a bad mood."
"Yeah," Todd had replied. His toddler-brain hadn't heard anything after that first question. "Yeah, let's be friends Dalton."
At snacktime, Dalton dragged Taylor by the hand to sit on the same mat with him and Todd. Dalton had an orange and a snackpack of goldfish. Taylor had half a package of graham crackers. Todd had a whole bunch of fruit snack packets. He gave some to Dalton and Taylor, and Dalton said thank you very much and Taylor said thanks— the first thing he’d said all day.
They sat next to each other on the rug for storytime, and Todd helped Dalton when they did spelling practice, and, at lunch, they sat next to each other in the cafeteria.
At recess, Todd went up to the slide first, followed quickly by Dalton (who was insistent that the swings were next) and Taylor (who might have been having fun with them and might have just been just sticking around so nobody else talked to him). At the top, there was a boy who was very big, for a kindergartner, and Todd recognized him as the boy who interrupted story time three times and already had his behavior card on yellow, Freddy Peters.
Freddy Peters was already infamous, but he still had four friends. Todd wasn't jealous of Freddy Peters having more friends than him because his mom told him already that, with friends, it's quality over quantity. Unlike fruit snacks, where the opposite principle is true.
Freddy Peters had sneered that it was his slide.
Todd had said it's not his, it's the school's, "but if it's your turn now, we can share."
Freddy Peters said it's not his turn it's his slide, and he said Todd can "go suck a dick." Todd didn't know what a "dick" was, but he had figured that must be the word his parents were warning him about. Freddy Peter’s friend in the puffy blue coat with a hole in the arm knew what that word meant, and he laughed at Freddy Peters for saying it.
"Why are you being mean to me?" Todd asked plainly, almost plaintively— almost. He was determined not to have his feelings hurt by the only boy in class who already had a yellow behavior card.
Freddy Peters called him a word that starts with an "n" sound, but Todd didn't hear the rest of it because Taylor had already pushed Freddy Peters off the whole play structure.
Taylor became the first boy in class to have a red behavior card, and he was the first one to have to sit in the timeout chair for the whole of craft time.
Todd didn't figure out what word his parents had tried to protect him from until he was already a third-grader and he asked them what they had meant and they had seemed surprised that he didn't already know.
Todd didn't figure out that Jaxson Dixon had told Taylor Macready what that word was— the word that Jaxson had heard from his parents all the time at home— until fifth grade, when he asked him. By then, Taylor had already had a red behavior card enough times that everyone in their grade knew better than to say it when he was in earshot.
Now, Taylor laughs and pushes Dalton into the couch cushions, and Dalton bitches and moans and tells Todd that Taylor is being mean to him, and for once Todd can't look Taylor in his bruised face and tell him to knock it off.
Instead, Wes tells Taylor not to push his friends, and Taylor throws his arms up like it’s some unreasonable request, and Jaxson shoves Taylor into the couch next to Dalton.
Todd smiles and tries not to let reality sink in.
After pizza, everyone kind of sits around talking and tacitly wondering whether they should go home for pajamas and shit or not. "I've slept in jeans before and I'll do it again," Taylor grumbles stubbornly. Wes has somehow gotten Taylor squished up next to him, wrapped comfortably in his arms. Taylor's expression is daring anyone to comment on it, and Wes looks fucking giddy.
Jaxson, of course, has outgrown such childish embarrassment, but not the delight of sitting in Collin's lap with his head on his shoulder.
Todd is saying that, of course, anyone who wants can borrow pajamas, "and I'm sure there's some extra toothbrushes around here."
Dalton says "nobody here brushes their teeth and you know it."
But Todd, apparently did not know that. Totally unaware that this is the least significant thing to occur today, Todd starts insisting to Dalton (and, after a minute, Taylor and Wes and Jaxson and Collin too) that brushing your teeth is paramount to your dental health and nobody here wants dentures, do they? No, they don't.
Jaxson is kinda basking in it all. The easy domesticity after such a genuinely fucking absurd day.
Juniper-Maisie texted him this morning, asked him to come home and talk. She brought Hellen along too, teary-eyed and stiff-spined. The girls sat him down very seriously, more serious than Jaxson knows how to be, and Hellen told Jaxson that Taylor won't respond to her texts. Jaxson had tried to reassure her that Taylor was alright, and he was probably just being stupid, but Hellen interrupted him and told him it wasn't about her brother texting her back it was about him being safe. She'd told Jaxson that if Taylor won't text her back, fine, he's an idiot, whatever, "but, please, Jaxson, make sure he's taking care of himself." Juniper-Maisie had given Jaxson a look that balanced puppy-dog eyes and a death threat, and Jaxson promised he would.
"What am I supposed to say?" he had joked, "No? To those cute little faces?"
In the summer before she started fifth grade, Juniper-Maisie Dixon had said she didn't want to go home anymore, and she had taken her best friend, Hellen Macready, by the hand and they had packed what they deemed essential and they ran away.
Taylor had found out first because Hellen left him a note because she didn't think her big brother, stoic and aloof as he was, would ever bother looking for her. She had been proven very wrong when Taylor stomped right up to the tree she and Juniper-Maisie had been hiding from the world in, out of breath, after searching the whole town for seven hours. It was dark by then, and Taylor had never been good at climbing trees because he was scared of heights, but he climbed this tree and sat on the limb just below Juniper-Maisie and Hellen's and he said, "What the fuck were you thinking, Hellen?" Juniper-Maisie and Hellen knew Taylor barely well enough by then to hear that he had been worried. Taylor said, "C'mon. Let's go home. Jaxson will actually kill me if I let you get hurt." But Juniper-Maisie leaned close to Hellen and Hellen screamed that she didn't wanna go home anymore because Mom and Dad are mean to Taylor and Mr. and Mrs. Dixon are mean to Juniper-Maisie and Hellen doesn't think she needs adults for anything because they're all mean so no she isn't going home not ever.
Taylor had no answer for that, but he wasn't going home without them either. He'd get his ass kicked for that. So he waited.
Eventually, Juniper-Maisie said besides, this is a nice tree. And Hellen nodded and said it was the best tree ever and no adults would ever find them this high because adults never look up. Taylor said, "How about a treehouse?" and, after some careful negotiation, the girls finally agreed to return home under the condition that Taylor build them a treehouse in this exact tree.
Taylor walked Hellen home first because Mom and Dad knew those two didn't ever go anywhere together and they didn't want to seem suspicious. Then Taylor walked Juniper-Maisie home, and the first thing Juniper-Maisie said to Jaxson was "I'm so sorry, Jaxson! I promise I won't ever run away again! I would miss you too much."
And Jaxson, who had thought Juniper-Maisie was at Hellen's house, said, "What the fuck are you talking about, Jamwich?"
And Taylor tried to walk away, but Juniper-Maisie grabbed him by the hem of his shirt and said, "Taylor promised to build us a treehouse, can you help him?"
And by then, Juniper-Maisie had started crying, so Jaxson just said, "Sure thing,” to get her to calm down and then, “Why don't you go to bed? I'll come tuck you in in a minute." And when she was gone and as out-of-earshot as one can be in the Dixon trailer, Jaxson asked Taylor what the fuck happened, was Hellen okay, did anyone die or anything.
And Taylor had shrugged and walked away.
Jaxson and Taylor spent the rest of the summer building that treehouse. Neither of them talked at all because their entire relationship to that point had been built on their sisters speaking for them, and neither Taylor nor Jaxson knew what to say to each other.
Lumber was unwillingly and unwittingly donated by the logging yard on the other side of the woods. They only got caught once, and they ran so fast that the guy didn't get a chance to really see who they were. Jaxson, going into his freshman year of high school after an eighth grade spent bitterly alone, was growing into his charisma, and got the plans for how to build the treehouse from the Home Depot manager, operating as a distraction while Taylor stole the nails and hammer behind their back.
It was shitty and small and barely held the weight of the girls when they finished it in late June, but Juniper-Maisie and Hellen screamed for joy when they saw it for the first time and decorated it with pink sewing fabric that they found at a garage sale for fifty cents. Over the years, Jaxson has updated the treehouse with a better, wider, less flimsy foundation so he could spend the night here with Collin when their parents are both too much. He gave it walls the first winter after he and Taylor finished it, and he put a tin roof on last year. After asking anxiously for permission, Collin hollowed out a bit of the tree trunk and started stashing non-perishable snacks for when his parents decide food is a luxury.
It's as much a home for Jaxson as anywhere else, at this point. And the girls haven't used it in years, although Jaxson never took their pink garage-sale fabric out of the tree-branches.
Jaxson chews on the fact that the Macreadys really do pick favorites. He's not sure whether it's better or worse that the Dixons hit all their kids equally. Whatever. At least Juniper-Maisie and Hellen don't need a treehouse to feel safe anymore.
Now, Jaxson is leaning into the relative safety of Collin's arms and smiling to himself that he doesn't really need that treehouse either. Not now.
Good. Let it rot, even if he loved it.
Out of a languid, passing curiosity, Jaxson lowers his voice below the conversation that Todd, Dalton, Taylor, and Wes are still having. "Hey, Collin, when was the last time you went to the treehouse?"
Jaxson feels it when Collin' smile drops, feels the rumble of breath in his lungs where they're pressed into Jaxson's back when he replies, "Can we talk about this later, Jax?"
The texture of the couch turns into linoleum underneath him, and Todd’s basement is suddenly frigid. Jaxson says, maybe louder than he meant, "Collin, the fuck're you talking about?"
Yay! The flashback chapter! This chapter and the next are a bit of a reprieve, speaking in terms of trigger warnings and such. Enjoy it before the horrors(TM) to come :)
As always, Scream at me in the comments! Nothing brings me more joy!!