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Ava Wong and Mateo Herrera had been best friends since they were in diapers, much to the mutual loathing of their enemies-to-neighbours mothers.

Toddling around daycare, Mateo had been robbed of his favourite set of blocks by doe-eyed, drooling little Joanna Jameson, and as big, juicy tears rolled down his chubby face, Ava had leaned in and given him a kiss on the forehead. It was what her mother always did when she was feeling sad, so it had seemed only right for her to do the same to a crying boy.

Lessons in propriety would come later, but the pair henceforth became inseparable.

Lila Wong and Gabriela Herrera had had no choice but to bury the rusty hatchet when their three-year-olds refused to spend their days apart. Neither of them were willing to discuss why they were enemies in the first place – it was because of a boy, like most problems in suburban life – despite several ill-timed interventions on the part of their children. The animosity had simmered to a cordial acceptance of each other’s existence in the past eighteen years, and though both would rather poke out their eyes with an infected screwdriver than admit it, their petty feud had only served to reveal how alike they both were.

Their similarities were instead brought to abundant fruition in Ava and Mateo. Both preferred their spaces in chaos than tidiness (because things that were too neat were too fake, apparently), both listened to Bon Jovi like their lives depended on it, and both had always dreamed of a life in the Big Apple – as friends, of course.

It is in their twenty-first year of life that we find our protagonists huddled on the rooftop of their apartment building in Brooklyn. Books and crumpled scripts and abandoned to-go containers litter the floor of their living room, but what is cleaning compared to stargazing on a clear night?

A few months prior, the pair had dragged a compact lounger up the fire escape so that they could cuddle – for warmth – while talking and spotting as many constellations as possible. Laughter sprinkles the air with joy and that delicious sense of something. They’re not exactly sure what, but when experiments go awry and scripts reject creative expression, it is this time together that rights their ever-twisting universe.

“I think that’s Taurus up there,” Ava murmurs, head leaning against Mateo’s shoulder.

His arms tighten where they are around her waist. “Yeah, I see Perseus over to the left of it.”

Both know they’re talking out of fiery asses, given that the metropolitan smog eclipses any sane view of the sky, but this ritual of theirs wouldn’t be complete without a few concessions.

Ava runs hers fingers through the soft wool of the blanket covering them from feet to hips, consuming the heat he’s giving off through corporeal osmosis. The layers of undershirts and sweaters and jackets do surprisingly little against Mateo’s natural temperature.

“What’s bothering you?”

The question could have come from either of them, but tonight it is Ava who asks. Her fingers draw circles on the wool, running lower and lower until she’s outlining his hand where they rest above her stomach. Rings adorn their hands, two on Mateo’s index and pointer fingers and one for each of hers. Their matching apple tattoos – the result of a teenager’s wisdom – contrast the tan of their skin.

Mateo’s thumb flexes and catches her finger at its next pass. “I can’t shake the writer’s block. It’s like…”

Ava breathes deeply. Four, seven, two… The rhythm of it on his chest forces him to do the same. Their exhales form wisps in the chilly December evening.

After a couple of minutes, Mateo swallows the inarticulacy. “I have the threads, the overall feeling I’m working towards, but I find my sewing ability has stagnated. I don’t want to make the same picture again.”

Humming, Ava sneaks a peek at his face. His eyes are shut, lips pursed, and he is as beautiful as any dream she has ever had.

“What is that feeling, though?” she asks.

His eyes open, and he gets that look that suggests he’s struggling with the verbalization. Though she might be conducting an experiment on the development of artificial lungs and could solve equations most of Brooklyn has never heard of, it is Mateo whose logic impedes his empathy, his ability to connect with himself.

Mateo hums the funky tune he came up with when he stubbed his toe on a Lego tower fifteen years ago. “Healing, I suppose. Relief. Release. Restoration.”

Ava, whose imagination has her soaring over fantasy lands in those seconds leading to Morpheus’ realm, taps her fingers on his. “You’re writing a story based on your mother, right? How she raised you as a single parent fleeing from trauma and war and the pain of being an eighteen-year-old widow?”

He nods against her head.

“Maybe those threads, instead of being part of your mother’s story, need to be their own,” Ava suggests, her brow furrowing to ensure she’s making sense. It’s past midnight, after all. “Like, instead of your mother as the sole protagonist, you make it a multi-generational script that carries a common thread – hope, love, fear, whatever you want.”

A car alarm sounds in the distance. The middle-aged couple across the street start yet another round of “I’m right!” Drunk college kids meander their way down the street, jeering each other on and cursing as their beer spills on the pavement. All that happens in the ensuing silence.

“Mateo?” Ava prompts. She tilts her head back to see what has him frozen.

His eyes are already on her, and she fights the lump in her throat at the intensity of his gaze.

All he says is, “Huh.”

Seconds pass with her watching him, both their brains working overtime. Then, she settles back down.

Her fingers resume their restless path between his, and he playfully traps her thumb every once in a while to elicit a smile from her mouth.

For two best friends, they find that the older they get, the less they speak. A whole conversation could be had with some eye contact and vague nods or blinks, their proficiency in their unspoken language growing exponentially in the past year since they moved in together.

“I think James is about to dump me,” Ava offers the next time Mateo nabs her thumb.

He snorts. “He’s a dumbass. I told you as much when you started dating him six months ago.”

“But -“

“Yeah, yeah, he’s sweet and he noticed when you got your hair trimmed and brings you flowers every Sunday,” Mateo lists off as if he’s had this speech prepared for weeks – which he has. “But Ava, again, he’s a dumbass.”

“You don’t like any of the guys I date,” Ava points out, frowning to appease the urge to roll her eyes as dramatically as possible.

“Nu-uh,” Mateo denies. “I liked Kiah from high school. He was smart, polite, treated you well -”

“He was boring -”

“And Nicholas, the psychology major from two years ago. Smart, polite, a bit adventurous for my tastes -”

“He rollerbladed straight into a pond!”

“And Riley, who you decided to dump because he…got a bad haircut?” Mateo raises his eyebrows. “Let’s see, why did you break up with all these intelligent, socially capable, ambitious young men?”

Ava chooses that moment to stare at the pigeon perched on the edge of the rooftop. “I didn’t like them,” she answers halfheartedly.

“Why?” Mateo probes.

They’ve discussed her relationship trials and tribulations many a night over the past few years, but other than the aforementioned Nicholas, whose company Ava had enjoyed for almost a full year, none had stuck. He stifles the whatever-it-is that bubbles up in his chest at the thought.

“I just didn’t,” Ava explains, as she always does. “The vibes weren’t there.”

Mateo squeezes her tight. “That’s fine, Aveeno,” he says, using the nickname he had coined during that eighth-grade trip to Eaton Centre. His lips quirks in a smile when he spots the scowl on her face. “If you didn’t feel like it fit, then it didn’t fit. But you can’t honestly tell me you’re that broken up over James Lame-Shoes Davison.”

“I’m not,” Ava reassures. “It’s just been a while since I was the dumpee.”

Mateo barks out a laugh. “Maybe ask yourself why that is.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” She jabs him in the side, her grin brightening her whole face.

Wow, he thinks, just like he does every time she smiles like that.

“Mateo?” she asks, cocking her head to the side.

He stabs his nails into his palms. “Right. I just meant that though you complain about the zit that forms on your forehead whenever your period comes or the way your hair sits on your shoulders after a rainy day, you, Ava Wong, are very easy to fall in love with.”

“Is that so?” She asks the question like it’s a challenge, but they’re now both sitting up, their hips affixed to each other as their eyes never stray.

Mateo sees her gulp, sees the hesitation in her shaking hands.

Ava thinks of their eighteen-year-old friendship even as she feels his body lean imperceptibly closer. She thinks of all possibilities branching from this singular moment.

The buzz of a phone gives them pause. Both mask their relief – but they fail to mask their disappointment as perfectly.

Bon Jovi’s “Always” echoes in the misty air. Ava fumbles to untangle the blankets in her lap, and Mateo gathers his brain from where her smile had shattered it into a million pieces.

She answers the call. “Hello?”

A male voice sounds from the other end. James, she mouths.

Mateo nods, giving her space to climb out of their nest. What did you almost let happen, you fool? he chastises himself.

Ava zips up her jacket and paces toward the moon. Her tone is serious, but there’s a smile on the edge of her mouth.

“They’re not breaking up,” Mateo mutters with a shake of his head. He leans down to retrieve the notebook he discarded as soon as Ava’s dark head had popped up over the fire escape. The cold prevents smooth penmanship, but he jots down the idea she’d conjured out of her brilliant mind. His writer’s block isn’t so easily vanquished, and perhaps it wouldn’t work, but this is a start.

You could’ve also started something else if you had just chucked her stupid phone off the roof.

He shakes his head again.

Over on the other side of the stairwell door, Ava is wishing for a city-wide blackout that would excuse her ending the call early. James is jabbering in her ear about some hockey-ball game or other that he scored tickets to for them next week.

Is that regret blooming in her throat at the realization that he’s not about to break up with her? Shouldn’t she be happy that her boyfriend is taking her to some base-basket competition?

You, Ava Wong, are very easy to fall in love with.

She spies Mateo muttering to himself as he scribbles in his leather-bound notebook, the one she’d gifted him for Christmas last year, the one he shared with only her. She thinks of her thus far failing experiment to invent artificial lungs, the formulas and materials and irreversibly damaged equipment – and she remembers who has always told her to try another way, to persevere as her mother and his mother and he has as they battle the trauma of immigration and discrimination and depression.

She remembers all of it. All of him. She would recognize his soul in any universe.

“Hey, James,” she says into the phone, quieting the cell biology genius who had fortified his wits to ask her out in the lab all those months ago. “I don’t think this is going to work out.”

“Huh? Ava -”

“You’ve been really nice, but I don’t want to lead you on. I hope this doesn’t make things awkward at school. I’m sorry. Have a good night.” Ava shuts her phone off before he can protest in whatever legalese he has stored up.

Mateo studies her approach as one would a particularly unfathomable piece of abstract art. “You all right?”

She reaches both hands out to him, inviting him to stand. Their eyes are almost level, but even without the inch he has on her, Ava has always looked up to him.

When she does nothing but study his face, Mateo scrunches his brow. “Ava, what’s -”

“I love you,” she blurts out. Horror weighs her jaw down to a gape, but she steels her spine. “I don’t know why I’m saying it now, but I know I don’t want to wait until the time is right because the time is never right. I love you. And I want to be with you. And I know you’re going to give me a list of reasons why we wouldn’t work – like how you eat your Pocky chocolate-first – but Mateo, this is why none of my relationships ever work out. It’s you. It’s always been you. None of them even come close. ”

She expects him to tell her he returns her feelings, to put his hands on her waist and his forehead on hers, to sweep her off her feet and have all their repressed feelings sublimate in a kiss – but he does none of those things.

Instead, Mateo swallows.

Ava knows what he’s about to say as soon as he opens his mouth. She puts up a hand. “Don’t,” she says, tears welling in her eyes as shame sews the final thread in the empty pincushion that is her heart. She shoves a smile onto her face. “You’re right. Our friendship is too precious to stake on the whim of a relationship fuckup like me.”

Mateo makes a sound of protest, shaking his head, but she steps back.

“I’m… I’ll be in my room,” she tells him, already turning away. “You can stay here thinking, plotting, whatever you want. I’ll probably be asleep by the time you get back in.”

The concrete beneath his feet rumbles, and he falls back onto the lounger as his knees give way. Mateo can only watch as Ava scrambles down the fire escape toward their open window two floors down, her gaze on her hands even as he senses her instinct to peek at him over the ladder.

“What…” he mumbles to himself. What the fuck was that? Where did that even come from?

His fingers flex, itching to flip open his notebook and scribble his thoughts into logic. But the pounding in his ears and the lack of oxygen in his lungs prevents him from doing much more than just remembering what breathing means.

I love you. I want to be with you.

That hope on her face – he had thought it faded many years ago, when they were sixteen and her father came back into her mother’s life only to steal her jewelry and vanish into the night. Ava had sunk so deep into her chronic depression that Mateo thought she might never be able to dig herself out, even with everyone who loved her operating an excavator.

But Ava kept fighting for herself. She inched her way out of her living grave, and she has since been adamant that life is meant to be enjoyed.

Snuffing out that hope with silence sent daggers through his heart, his soul.

Idiot. You’re such a tongue-tied, inflexible idiot.

He loves her. Of course, he loves her. Mateo has been in love with her since before he even learned what the word meant. He’s loved her since that kiss on the forehead in daycare.

She was just never meant to be his. She has always kept her eyes forward, has always seen the guys heading toward her with their genius smarts and enough manners to be considered an eligible bachelor.

Mateo has been beside her for all of it, all the dates and six-month anniversaries and breakups.

He has never dared hope to be hers. That has never been the plan. He’s meant to see her finally find the guy who makes her heart smile, someone smart and interesting and spontaneous enough for her quick wit but not so adventurous that her anxiety is awakened.

Ava confessing her desire to be with him throws all that into a garburator.

A police car turns on its sirens, tires screeching. The sound jolts Mateo out of his tangled tapestry of thought.

His feet are moving before he realizes he’s made up his mind. Down the ladder, ducking under the open window, checking once, twice, three times to make sure it’s locked.

Silence greets him. The living room has been haphazardly cleaned up, their study materials now stacked up on the coffee table as opposed to promising stubbed toes. Ava’s door is shut, but he can see light peeking out from under it.

Here goes nothing. He stifles the jitter in his hands and marches right up to her room, raising his hand –

The door swings open.

Ava screams and stumbles backward, Mateo’s feet clearing two feet in the air in response.

“Shit,” he curses just as she demands, “What the hell is wrong with you? You scared me!”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he bites back.

“You should’ve knocked -“

“I was going to -”

“Why would you just stand there -”

“I just got here -”

“I could’ve hit you -“

“Ava -”

“You’re lucky I wasn’t carrying my bat -“

“Ava, listen -”

“Or I totally would’ve beat the shit out of you for breaking into my house.”

Mateo crosses his arms, tapping his foot on the floor.

Ava’s chest is heaving as she gathers her breath, and she has almost forgotten that not ten minutes ago, she told her best friend she’s in love with him. Almost.

Brushing her hair back, she straightens her tank top and shorts and eyes him. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“I was waiting for you to finish,” he answers with a raised eyebrow.

“Finish what?” she asks, throwing her hands up.

“Telling me how you’d have beaten me up if you’d been carrying a weapon with you to the bathroom.” Mateo purses his lips. “Why would you be carrying a weapon with you to the bathroom?”

Ava leans against her doorjamb, matching his crossed arms. “Why are you really here, Mateo?”

He swallows, and she notes the movement.

“Ava, I…” he starts, then shakes his head.

Though her heart ceases to beat, she forces herself to say, “It’s okay, Mateo. I’m – I don’t know why I even said that. I shouldn’t have. I know you don’t feel the same way, and -”

He shakes his head again.

“I know,” she assures.

“You don’t,” he counters, taking exactly two and three-quarters of a step forward so they’re toe to toe and he can look her in the eye. “You don’t, Ava. You don’t know.”

Ava feels her breath stutter. “You -”

Confidence crowning his nerves, Mateo brings his hands to her waist. His grip tightens just enough to draw her close, and he leans his forehead against hers, breathing her in. Four, seven, two… Until she follows out of habit, their hearts and minds and souls syncing along with it.

“I love you,” he says. The words come out easily, readily, like they’ve been waiting a lifetime to be said. His eyes soften as he spies the growing smile on her face. Wow. “I’ve always loved you. And Ava…”

“Yeah?” she breathes.

He kisses her on the forehead. “You’re not a relationship fuckup. Our friendship isn’t too precious to stake on you – on us. It’s too precious for us not to give this a shot. The right time is now, because right now is where I want to be. And for every reason you can come up with for why we wouldn’t work, I can give you ten for why we will.”

Her smile is now a grin, her hands finding their way to his chest. She laughs, and he feels his nerves flee.

“We would’ve saved a lot of time if we got here sooner, huh?” she thinks aloud, bouncing in place.

“I guess it just means we have no more time to waste,” he murmurs, his whole body aligning with hers.

“I guess so,” she answers. She tilts her head up in anticipation.

And it is there, with their futures forever entwined, that one ordinary night becomes the start of an extraordinary life.