Earth to Me

Remember when I said that Tegan had an alien girlfriend? Well, I wasn’t kidding. Her name was Shira (no last name that we knew of, sort of like Madonna, or Satan), and she hailed from a planet known as Daltia. This planet was a few galaxies over, so whenever she visited Earth about once a week, she had to blast through multiple intergalactic highways and gates that were guarded by creatures I can’t even fathom.

Daltians are odd creatures, if Shira is any indication of the species. They’re incredibly humanlike, from what I’ve seen of Shira’s family photos, though they’re cold-blooded and reproduce asexually. (I just tuned out Shira’s in-depth explanation since I really didn’t wanna hear about how their babies are made, honestly.) Also according to Shira, humans and Daltians share a ton of DNA because they have the same evolutionary roots, but aliens swept up some of the monkeys on Earth way back when, and that’s when Daltians evolved from the uprooted primates.

Shira is many things, but one thing she isn’t is a liar, so I sort of believe her. She almost killed my dad, although she apologized for it eventually, and even if she’s stubborn and sometimes violent, she makes my best friend incredibly happy, so a part of me likes having her around.

Another reason why we welcome her presence is the fact that she can literally fly anywhere. I don’t know how she does it – I never found out, actually – but back in 2011, when the guardians were still being assembled, she was the one who brought Chuck and Riley up to Chicago with the rest of us to make sure they knew of their fate. Daltia has had a rocky relationship with Earth in the past (don’t ask me, I don’t know why), but they reached out to us when a good chunk of the universe was in danger.

And Shira, the princess of Daltia and heir to the world-ruling throne, was sent to make sure we had our act together. In the process, she fell for Tegan just as Tegan had a monster crush on her, and soon enough, they became probably the first gay alien couple Earth had ever seen.

They kept in touch through the Internet, which Shira hacked into and made intergalactic only for the guardians, and as soon as Chance invited us over to Put’emup, Put’emup’s apartment for a last hurrah before college, Shira bolted over to Tegan’s house to ask even more questions.

Of course she was invited, but it was still weird to have all of Earth’s guardians in one place with an extra guardian from another planet. At least, I thought so.

It was a Sunday in late July, a few days before the little get-together would be held. Tegan and I were hanging out in her room, saying nothing but just doodling in sketchbooks (the usual), when Tegan’s mom knocked on her door, even though it was open.

“Shira’s here,” she smiled sweetly. (I didn’t know how she did it. If my daughter were dating an alien, I’d have a few things to say about that. Tegan was always a good kid, though, so I understood to an extent.)

Sure enough, as Ms. Tracey exited the room, Shira entered, her normally-tough face softening after seeing her long-long-distance girlfriend for the first time in a week. Like clockwork, they hugged and shared a kiss while I tried not to look conspicuous sitting on Tegan’s bed, and this time, Tegan started the visit off right to the point.

“The dudes are throwing a little party for us,” she explained, falling back into her swivel chair. “Chance asked us if we’d be up for it a few days ago, and you’re invited too. Wanna come along?” She even winked with that last question.

Shira stood on thick legs that had obviously been trained to kick the crap out of anybody who wronged her, and then with a gloved hand under her chin, she simply stated, “Perhaps.”

“Come on! We haven’t hung out all together since New Years, for cryin’ out loud,” Tegan pleaded, folding her hands in front of her.

“Are the other brats coming along too?” Shira squinted.

Of course she’d be the one to call Chuck and Riley “the other brats.” She had to drag them up to Chicago and hear their complaints firsthand, alongside me and Tegan.

Tegan rolled her eyes. “I asked Mick the other night and he said he already invited them. He also said that they can’t come if you don’t come because they can’t just leave everything and come to Chicago, unless you flew them up.”

“Good! I assume you’re all just as tired of them as I am, so there shouldn’t be any loss if I do not attend this party.” It was pretty typical of Shira to be so quick to make her decisions. That didn’t make her any less annoying when she did, though.

“I was actually kinda looking forward to seeing them,” I spoke up, a little sheepish. Tegan was my only friend in Chicago who was my age, and Chuck and Riley were my only other friends on the planet who were my age.

Shira glared at me. “Do not tell me you’ve forgotten the troubles they’ve caused you.”

“Princess,” Tegan started, reverting back to a cute-but-condescending nickname she’d only recently started calling her girlfriend, “c’mon. Do it for us. For me? Please?”

Shira’s fuchsia eyes could’ve bored holes into anybody else’s brain, but Tegan wasn’t anybody else.

Finally, she cracked.

“Okay, alright,” Shira sighed, glancing at the floor. “I suppose I can make it to this party, and I guess I can give those swamp-dwellers free transportation. Though I must say, they do not seem like adequate friends if they do not make the effort to visit you on a regular basis.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, we know. We just wanna get the team together one last time before me and Oshie go back to college, alright?” Tegan grinned, leaning back in her seat. “Thanks for cooperating, finally.”

Shira was a brick wall, but Tegan was the only person who could manage to make her change her cemented mind. When they made snarky comments at each other, it never seemed to escalate into anything worse.

They were rock-solid, the way all eight of us were when the planet needed saving. Shira had even weaseled her way into the pack at a few points and we almost felt like a nine-person unit sometimes…if Shira was a person, I mean.

- - -

Friday was the day we all agreed upon. I got that day off and so did Tegan, and from what Chuck and Riley told us over Facenook, they both had no work that day either, so it all just worked out pretty perfectly.

It was beyond surreal to think about how I’d be revisiting the same starstruck feelings I had all throughout 2011, seeing the same people I’d seen on TV and on the Internet, the same folks who made some of the music I replayed religiously whenever I drew something – not to mention the same four guys who were thrown into a universe of superpowers and guardianship alongside me and Tegan, right when we thought our lives couldn’t possibly rise above average.

Since New Years and the world-saving incident, Put’emup, Put’emup had become almost untouchable. They always returned our calls and texts whenever we wanted to catch up with them while they were on the road or doing official band stuff, but it was so rare that we got to see them that I had almost forgotten what their real faces looked like. I forgot what it sounded like when Andy and Anthony would fight over their important issues, I couldn’t remember how genuine Mick’s smile felt in person, and until Chance had visited Subhero that day, I totally forgot how blank his mind could seem.

Soon enough it had dawned on me, and it was right as I left my house to go to the get-together.

In fact, it hit me so hard that I actually stopped dead in my tracks before opening the front door.

My dad, sitting in the leather chair of the living room with his nose in a book, looked up and said, “Oshie? Did you forget something?”

Of course, I could go all metaphorical on him and say that yes, I did forget something about the way these very-real band members acted in real life, but I kept my mouth shut. “N-no, no, I’m good. I’ll see you tonight, Papá.”

He furrowed his thick eyebrows and dog-eared his book. “Are you sure? You seem a little nervous, mijo.”

“Nah, I’m just a little – it’s a little weird,” I said, forcing a laugh. “I haven’t seen the band in a few months.”

Dad cracked a smirk. “I’m sure they are still the same hooligans as they ever were. Just don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

Good old Dad, eloquent in his words and still not completely used to the fact that I could control lightning.

With that in mind, I stepped out the front door and felt the cool late-afternoon suburban air hit me, prompting me to hold my hat down to my head. A year ago, I’d have been dreading the start of my senior year and also dreading the battle that ended up being nothing in the scheme of things. Now, I was dreading college and…not much else.

Tegan was already standing in front of my car. Because we lived next to each other since we were born, we grew up in each other’s houses, which was probably why neither her mom nor my dad minded when we ate each other’s food. (It was also probably why neither of us minded it when her mom and my dad started going on a few dates, though nothing too serious ended up happening.)

She nodded at me and said, “C’mon, get your ass in the car so we can go!”

“Alright, alright, I’m comin’,” I smiled. I unlocked my door and swung it open to unlock her side (I inherited a crappy ‘90s sedan that my dad drove back in the day, but since I plastered it with band stickers, it wasn’t so bad, at least until the A/C gave out every few months).

With that, we sped off into the marvelous downtown area that we had seen so often a year beforehand. It’s always weird to visit a place you’ve seen so often at one point in your life, and then when you go through it again, it’s just a jumble of memories and hazy thoughts. Driving down the bridges that took us into the heart of Chicago, Tegan had her eyes glued out the window, and I had to fight not to do the same.

I missed a few turns here and there, but we eventually made it. The apartment complex that Put’emup, Put’emup lived in seemed a million stories high, and at first glance it just looked like a black-and-white-striped rectangle that pierced the sky. They were rich enough to live in a place that seemed like a house among the city, and even though they had only initially moved in together to make the whole guardian thing easier, they were still doing the impossible – being a band that lived under one roof.

I heard that it was hard enough for some bands to tour together in the same van, but living together? No wonder two members in particular always seemed to be at each other’s throats.

I parked behind the building in the cramped parking lot, and for a few seconds after I yanked the keys out of ignition, I just had to sit there and sigh. Tegan looked over at me and poked my arm, and when we met eyes, for a second hers reflected mine.

And man, I couldn’t nail down what I was feeling at that moment, but I didn’t really like it. People change all the time, don’t they? What if Put’emup, Put’emup had turned into completely different people than the awesome folks they were? Good thing I hadn’t eaten anything all day, because otherwise it would’ve been coming back out one way or the other.

“Just chill out, dude,” Tegan assured me. “They’re still gonna be the same idiots. Our chatroom conversations haven’t changed at all over the months.”

Truth be told, that made me feel a little better, so I smiled a bit and took off my seatbelt.

We took the elevator up to the seventh floor, remaining quiet all the way through. I’d be lying if I said my hands weren’t practically dripping with sweat, so I wiped them on my khaki shorts in a feeble attempt to at least scrounge up some dignity.

When we got down to the end of the hallway to their flat, it was all a blur as far as what happened. The two of us were standing in front of the door and Tegan was about to knock, and then suddenly, the door flung open so fast I thought it was gonna fly off its hinges.

Standing in front of us was the first person in the band we’d met over a year ago after we got struck by lightning – Andy Allen, his hair slicked back messily and a five-o-clock shadow tangling in with his trademark chinstrap.

“Holy fuckin’ shit, am I glad to see you guys! Get the hell in here!” he gushed. The grin tacked onto his face was exactly the same as it ever was, the same one I’d seen in magazines and on all of his social networking profiles, as well as the one I’d seen too many times to count in the previous year.

He didn’t give us time to get in on our own, though, and instead he first pulled Tegan forward and squeezed her tightly in what had to have been the biggest hug of her young life.

And as he pulled her into the apartment, that’s when I saw the inside – looking the exact same as it always did, save for a new circle couch in the middle (the last one was set on fire), and…a few banners taped up on the walls and in front of the giant window.

One banner said, “CONGRATULATIONS!,” and the other one looked hand-painted, strung below it. “OSHIE, RILEY, CHUCK, AND TEGAN!!! :),” it had said.

I wasn’t sure at first what they were congratulating us for at first, but the gesture was enough to dry my palms and turn me beet-red from the getgo.

In fact, I was so caught up in not talking and just admiring the friendliness that I didn’t even notice Andy racing over to me and nearly tackling me in his beefy arms. In an instant, I was laughing, at least until he said, “I missed you!” in my ear and every emotion just suddenly washed over me.

I didn’t have a thing to worry about.

Andy didn’t even let go until a few other voices tuned back into my ears; he let go of me and then he literally winked at me. (I’m not kidding.)

I still didn’t have my head on straight, not even when somebody else had their arms around me, and judging from the fact that this person was half a head shorter than me, I eventually realized it was Mick. He was all smiles as usual, asking me how my summer was going, and I was on auto-pilot, saying it was alright and that I was a little nervous for college. There were too many things happening all at once.

Mick let go and then Chance didn’t even bother with a full-on hug, but he did hang onto me from the side without a word. I looked around while he did it, seeing smiles everywhere, so much talking between only six people. It was nuts.

The last person to nearly suffocate me in an embrace was Anthony, right as he was done cutting off Tegan’s circulation in a hug that seemed a little too friendly for him. It was weird at first, being that close to somebody who hardly even spoke kindly about anybody, but in the end I had to remember that we were all just people living strange lives, and we hadn’t seen each other in months.

It was natural. I was fine, and things were alright.

“Shit, guys! Shira said she wasn’t gonna be able to show up with the others until, like, six,” Anthony said after letting go of me. “You’re here pretty early.”

“Oh, you know you missed our beautiful faces,” Tegan sassed, a hand on her hip.

“Damn straight we did.” Mick reached over to muss her hair. “Can we get you something to drink? Food? We’ve got a bunch of pizza in the fridge, and we’re getting takeout later on.”

My stomach growled. Now that the worst of my nerves were calmed down, I was finally starting to feel a little hungry, but I wasn’t about to be the only person eating. Thankfully, Tegan jumped in and said, “Sure, I could go for something to eat.”

Well, Mick wasn’t lying when they said they had pizza in the fridge. When he opened the door, boxes upon boxes lay stacked up on each shelf, and it was another dead giveaway that nothing had changed while we lost physical contact.

In that day and age, it was a bit hard to be a pop-punk band without at least having a tolerance for pizza.

Other than the banners hanging from the walls, there wasn’t much of a “festive” atmosphere in the apartment, but that wasn’t anything to gripe about. There was a silence that lulled over everybody when Mick pulled out some leftover pizza for anybody hungry to heat up. I sat at the counter where we used to eat whenever we stayed for dinner last summer, and within seconds the other barstools around me were occupied.

Andy sat right next to me and twisted open a beer – nothing special. “So how are you guys, anyway?” I just shrugged, but Andy elbowed me and said, “Don’t give me that, we know there’s stuff going on right now!”

Tegan popped a few slices into their microwave and leaned against the counter while Mick grabbed a cold piece for himself. “Same old, same old,” she shrugged. “We graduated, we’re going to college in a few weeks.”

Man, just when she mentioned that, my blood ran cold.

“UChicago, right?” Mick said, his mouth full. We both nodded in response. “Sweet, what are you gonna study?”

Tegan and I looked at each other before I answered, “We’re both gonna do visual arts.”

“I might do cinema studies, though. I’ll wait and see,” she clarified, pulling her pizza out from the microwave.

Andy’s arms shot up in the air before he whooped, “Visual arts?! Sweet Jesus, I’ve never felt closer to you two than I do now!” He almost whacked me in the face, but I dodged it just in time and he never realized it. (And yes, I caught sight of something I had only seen in interviews on Cooltube for months – Anthony’s infamous eye-roll.)

Tegan nodded at me. “Oshie’s better than me at it. He got a four in his AP Art class.” God, the way she smiled, she might as well have said, “Oshie wants to be embarrassed tonight, so please pay more attention to him than you ever have in your entire life.”

“Really? That’s awesome!” Andy gushed, shaking my shoulder. “That shit’s hard, dude. Congrats!”

“Thanks,” I sort of mumbled, feeling my nose turn red first and foremost. “But Tegan aced her portfolio class, so there’s that, too.”

“Well, obviously,” Anthony said, sitting in a stool next to Andy with a beer in front of him. “Weren’t you guys, like, straight-A students or something?”

Hardly. Tegan had great grades, but I was lucky to get a C in math. At the end of the day, though, the conversations about high school only lasted for a few minutes while they asked us what we had been up to for the summer. They already knew about our jobs, and sometimes they’d even ask us when we worked just to make conversation.

It was a nice few hours, just the six of us Chicago natives shooting the breeze. Nothing was awkward, and for a little while it felt like we were just normal humans who weren’t thrown together by a random act of the universe, not a couple of weirdos who also happened to control certain elements and had permanent lightning scars along our arms.

Andy had to break that normalcy, though, but it wasn’t really in a bad way – just in the same fashion we’d gotten the hang of before letting it slip away.

“Do you guys ever use your powers anymore?” he asked, leaning one elbow against the counter.

I immediately shook my head. Lightning wasn’t the most convenient power on the planet, so I didn’t have much of a use for it in my daily life.

Tegan laughed, though, and said, “Yeah, all the time. Not in front of people, but still.” I saw her move stuff sometimes, since she had telekinesis abilities that could actually be worth something, especially to someone of her five-foot-three-inch frame.

And I already knew that Put’emup, Put’emup didn’t stow away their powers for good, since they kept making music headlines every so often for incorporating their powers into live shows. “What about you guys? Do you still use yours?” I asked, just to start a new conversation.

As if he were waiting for a cue, Mick suddenly sprouted a flower from his hand and put it in Tegan’s hair, the master of flora. “Yup! We’re careful about it, though,” he explained. A sunflower sprouted from his wrist and he handed it to me.

I held the flower in my fingers and twisted it, aimlessly watching the petals swirl in front of me. “I’ve heard a few things about your live shows and how awesome they are.” (Or, at least how awesome they could be when I wasn’t getting struck with lightning.)

Chance, sipping root beer through a straw, smirked and said, “It’s the best whenever I can just spray water on people.” Noticing the funny look Anthony was giving him, he added, “Not like a hose or anything, but like when it’s hot at a gig and people are sweating and stuff.”

I never knew whether or not Chance was a surfer, but the laid-back way he spoke his words always sort of struck me in the way. It was always fitting for him to end up with water as his power, I guess.

Andy jabbed his elbow into Anthony’s ribs and said, “And Anthony’s gotta make sure not to burn any more people, since he nearly killed me twice already. So he keeps his flamethrowing to a minimum.”

He said it with a smile – so I just assumed that they had put those two incidents behind them enough for them to laugh about it.

“Shut up, fuckface,” Anthony hissed with a smirk. “May I remind you of all the blowjob jokes we’ve made ever since you found out you can control air?”

“Please, it’s not like I haven’t heard them millions of times already,” Andy grunted, returning the eye-roll back at his sometimes-best-friend.

It went on like that for a few more minutes, just us talking about our powers and how Put’emup, Put’emup had been doing it for their fans; they were even thinking about expanding upon it just for entertainment’s sake. It was all just a sort of nebulous idea between the band at the moment, though, and even they didn’t know if it would ever come to fruition.

As the few hours passed, though, the manmade ice had been broken down once again, and everything fell back into place even if we weren’t technically complete. There were a few beer bottles piling up on the counter from nobody other than Andy and Anthony, and even if their speech was already getting a little slurred, it was nothing to shake a stick at.

Frankly, Tegan and I were used to them being drunk.

I’m sure things would’ve gotten even more inebriated after that point, but as soon as somebody knocked on the door, it seemed like the two co-singers instantly sobered up.

“Shira!” Tegan exclaimed immediately. She waited a few seconds. “And…Chuck and Riley, too!”

She was the one who raced over to open the door and let in our last two guardians into the apartment, accompanied by the tough alien girl who dragged them up to Chicago in the first place. Shira smiled at her instantly, completely ignoring the two boys standing behind her in favor of her girlfriend.

Mick invited Chuck and Riley in after they stood awkwardly in the hallway for a few seconds, and after that, it was all hugs once again. (I never figured out what it was with us and hugs, but I definitely wasn’t complaining. It’s nice to know that people care about you enough to want to touch you that much.)

After about five minutes of a spread-out group-hug, it was back to square one – all of us sitting in the couch pit this time, asking each other about school and summer, Put’emup, Put’emup retelling the same band stories they told us minutes beforehand.

But first it was interrogation time for Chuck and Riley, who had to already have been sick of people asking them how their summer was going.

“It’s been a’ight,” Riley smiled, kicking back in his seat and throwing his arm over the edge. Since he was sitting next to me, it almost felt like he was about to pull me into a chokehold, knowing him. “It’s been chill. We moved out, we got an apartment together. We pay the bills just fine.”

Chuck, on his right side, coughed. “Yeah, I got a job as a waiter. It’s a weird job.”

“Do you have to wear a bowtie or anything stupid like that?” Mick joked. He was leaned forward in his seat, his little legs propped up on the coffee table. Of everyone in the band, him and Andy asked the most questions.

“I started a petition for his restaurant to make all the waiters wear nothing but thongs and bowties, but it never got off the ground,” Riley snorted. “Anyways, I’m a bartender at a venue downtown.”

I think all of us were thinking the same thing I had thought a few thousand words ago – “Gainesville has a downtown?”

Shira, sitting above us on one of the barstools, sniffed her soda pop and said, “Your city is nothing that any normal human should want to continue living in. You people are freaks.”

“You’re just saying that ‘cause I’m black,” Riley egged her on, throwing on a straight face just for that sentence. Leaning back again, he took off his Braves baseball cap just to scratch at his messy hair. He looked the same as he ever did – gym shorts and a t-shirt with cleats.

Chuck’s hands were folded in his lap, and for that night, he hardly ever spoke unless someone really asked him to. That previous year, he was the same way, but sometimes he’d sneak in some sarcasm or something pessimistic; he just seemed a little tired. I could understand, though – going to a party just to get asked the same things every adult usually asked us was a little weird at first, honestly.

About an hour after Chuck, Riley, and Shira arrived, the couch circle gang had dissipated and we kind of grouped off on our own. Mick hooked up his mp3 player to the giant computer monitor that now lay gathering dust in the main room (which was a little sad, I have to admit), so at least there was a little bit of background noise, though.

I was polishing off my third slice of leftover pepperoni pizza, since they never ended up ordering takeout, but I wasn’t really surprised by that. Everybody else was having a good time, and so by default, that put me in a pretty good mood too. Part of me wished that I could join in with any conversation without it being weird, but I was fine being a part of the sidelines, too. It was the way things always were.

Right as I was taking a sip of pop, though, somebody came up next to me and yanked my hat off. I whipped my head over to see Andy putting it on backwards on his own head, and he smiled, taking the barstool in front of me. There was alcohol on his breath, but he was still the same guy no matter how many beers he drank; he would just get a little slower.

“Oshie, dude, how’s it going? You don’t talk a lot,” he greeted. “You looked lonely so I figured I’d come over and make you talk, ‘cause I wanna hear about what you’ve been up to, alright?”

I just shrugged a little bit. “Nothing’s really going on. Nothing other than college and work, and you already know about that stuff, so yeah.”

Then, he officially pulled out The Big Guns.

(And no, I’m not talking about his arms.)

It was something he knew I would want to talk about, since it was something that was hovering over every single comic book reader’s heads since its announcement. It was also something that hardly anybody else on the planet would ever have the privilege of talking to him about, because it was still news to a lot of people. And most importantly, it was something regarding the very same reason I had my heart set on studying art at UChicago.

“You excited about the Johnny Cool cartoon?” he said oh so slyly, grinning knowingly from under my hat.

I couldn’t hold back my smile. It was something I had known about ever since the secret spilled that Andy was the creator of Johnny Cool and the Dudes, one of the best-selling comics in history, alongside being one of the most popular webcomics ever. Even if the secret was spilled alongside blood (it came to a head in a fight with Anthony), it was still incredible, and I was still in disbelief over it. “Yeah, I can’t wait to see it.”

Suddenly he slapped his open hand down on the counter and rubbed his flushed face with the same hand. “Me too! It’s gonna be so fuckin’ cool!”

I had to smile at his happiness, no matter how weird that probably sounds. I hardly ever got to talk to him about Johnny Cool before New Years happened and we drifted apart in real life, and yet there we sat with everything in front of us – and I didn’t know where to start. “How far along is it in production?” I ended up starting kind of small.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he shrugged with exaggeration, laughing. “I’ve just seen the concept art and some of the background paintings. I know what the cast is, but I can’t tell anybody yet.” He pressed his lips together and squinted at me for a moment. “Oh, who the hell cares, I’ll tell you because I like you so much. Just don’t go blabbin’ about it, alright?”

I didn’t even have time to agree; he just named off a list of random voice actors, some I recognized, and most I didn’t. His voice was boisterous as he did it, counting on fingers and staring at the ceiling.

“And everything looks fuckin’ awesome, and they’re all going off of the worlds in the comic and the characters are coming to life, and it’s just so awesome to see it all happen, even if I’m too busy to be directly involved with it,” he continued, absolutely gushing at the seams with excitement. He didn’t even sound drunk anymore; if his face wasn’t redder than usual, I would’ve thought he was completely sober.

“It’s like a dream come true, isn’t it?” I said. God, what I would’ve given to be in his shoes at that moment. To be hailed as an incredible frontman, to have the webcomic world at my fingertips, and to have my dearest creation be turned into something that kids would be watching for years. I almost hated him for a second, to be honest.

“It is a dream, dude. Sometimes I forget I’m real. I don’t get a heavy hand in any of the production, but I get the final say if something gets fucked up, and so far, it looks great. It’s just so awesome to see it all happen,” he went on, looking me straight in the eye with every word.

That was one of those moments where I felt a mixture of pride and jealousy and absolute hopelessness, knowing that somebody was living my dream and that I probably could never be in his shoes, no matter how much I tried, no matter how many life drawings I did or color studies I churned out.

It was moments like those where I seriously questioned my lack of motivation, gulping down a lump of doubt. Andy seemed like just the kind of person who deserved to live the dream that I never really earned in the first place. He was older, more experienced, funnier – he just had better ideas, ones that I ate up as a kid who tried to make up my own cartoons.

Before I could wallow around for too long, Andy reached over and hugged me again. I kept the emotions on my face to a minimum, smiling as real as I could, but it all wavered for a moment when he reached across the gap.

“Keep on drawing, Osh. You gotta show me the stuff you make in college, ‘cause I know you’re gonna get even better,” he almost whispered, nearly crushing me in his grip.

The doubt dwindled and went out like a flame on a candle, and something else swelled up inside me right then. I don’t really know what it was. I was just really happy that night, partly because nothing had changed in the big bad way I had feared it would, and mostly because the friends I made in 2011 were still the best friends I could have ever hoped for.