"Did you see me at school today, Calv? You must've saw."

He was smiling because she was smiling, watching as Dellie spun herself around and around in his spinny chair. She was too excited for stillness- excited like how particles could be excited, full of energy and buzzing faster and faster, on the verge of ripping through their bonds and expanding into another state.

Calvin's self-appointed job was to keep her from that frantic, bouncing-off-the-walls state. Human beings did not burst from their bounds as gracefully as a particle could, and there was a fresh dent in the wall of their den that could attest to that. Hence the spinny chair.

"Being picked for the regional science competition, right? Nice one Dels, I'm sure you're gonna do great."

Dellie paused mid-spin.

"Oh. Yeah, that was pretty cool too. But that isn't what I'm talking about."

Calvin looked up from his sheet music with a frown (he was transposing music) to try and catch a glimpse of her face through the blur she'd become. Usually he could always tell what she was talking about. He was often the only one who could.

"I think I have friends now."

The words were quiet and hushed, carried by new hope and an aching relief. There was awe in her tone, as though she couldn't quite believe it herself. Dellie's chest filled with the feeling of it. She wasn't much of a poet, but she would say it felt like a tiny sun- a tiny star- that expanded whenever she thought of them. They were the little bits of hydrogen that kept her burning.

Dellie suddenly launched herself off of the chair to land on his bed, bouncing his pencils off the edge as Cal flinched back to avoid getting headbutted. She laughed as they clattered to the ground, but it was difficult to be mad at her when the entire room crackled with her giddiness.

Her happiness had always been infectious to him- along with all her sadness and anger and competitiveness. Maybe it was their version of twin telepathy. If he really was the empty thing he sometimes feared he was, then Dellie was what filled him up. When he was standing on the top of a podium and feeling nothing, it was her over-the-top cheers ("that's my little brother up there, with the gold and the awful hair cut!") and the pride in her eyes that made him proud of himself too. And right now, she had enough enthusiasm for the both of them.

"You know Joni, right? She's amazing- she has horses, did you know that? She can ride them and everything- she told me I can come over and ride them too, if I want. Which I definitely do." Rolling onto her stomach, she started kicking her feet into the air behind her.

Calvin nodded along with a smile, remembering the new girl who had at first struck him as the personification of a Disney Channel character. She was a little strange, but ultimately managed to match Dellie's friendliness, which was no easy task.

"And I started sitting with Nico and Dickie at lunch. They haven't moved tables yet so I'm taking that as a good sign."

What did Calvin know about Nickie and Dickie? Just that one couldn't be found without the other- they were practically one entity. An entity that tended to get themselves into trouble. He kept nodding even though he wasn't sure how much they all had in common- other than the fact that he was sure he had seen all of them run into a wall at one point (though with Nickie and Dickie it seemed intentional, where for Dellie it was decidedly not).

"They have a strange obsession with hot sauce, Nico categorizes things by how easily he could jump over them with his bike, and Dickie will say the craziest things. They're really cool. We're going to hang out at Nickie's tomorrow after school! Dickie invited me, and I invited Joni, so all of us are going to hang out together."

Calvin looked up at that, something new taking root in his chest- it felt like the first time his asthma worked up at a track meet and he watched the runner ahead of him get further and further away. Leaving him behind.

This was new territory. He never got second, he never missed an invitation from a classmates birthday party, and Dellie had never hung out with friends without him. He blinked at her, and she blinked back at him. It didn't seem like she was going to invite him, then. Even though Cal invited her to every one of his friend's hangouts- even when he knew what her answer would be.

"That sounds great."

It sounded hollower than he meant it too. Dellie looked up at him, the beginning of a furrow forming between her brows.

"What-"

Michelle's call from the kitchen interrupted her, echoing up to his room.

"Kids, who's doing the dishes tonight?"

The conversation was then effortlessly derailed- it had been chili night. The twins looked at each other. Their eyes narrowed.

"Calvin said he'd do it!"

Cal whipped around to look at her, mouth already opening to refute that, but got a mouth full of pillow instead. Dellie muffled his cries, pushing him down into the bed as she continued.

"He promises he'll do a great job, and said that if he doesn't, you should give me all his TV time this week!"

She was laughing now, and even as he was being crushed by his own pillow, fighting to get her off him, Calvin was grinning too. He jabbed his fingers into her sides where he knew she was ticklish and she sat on his chest to pin him down. They both heard the clack of their mum's heels as she came upstairs to investigate, knowing that soon the jig would be up.