#misdirections

Of course, it wasn’t enough time. But Andi, who was already a few feet ahead of him, swiftly ran to the other side long after the countdown was over and the red hand on the light had stopped flashing. Almost immediately, impatient drivers began to move forward and aggressively honk at a panicked Cyrus who gave up midway into the street and ran back to the safety of the sidewalk from which he was currently murdering Andi with his stare. If he was being honest with himself, almost no one cared. It was summer. Which meant that the streets of downtown Manhattan were swarming with tourists who were either too engrossed in the scenery of imposing skyscrapers or too fixated on following their map, physical or digital, to notice a certain 16-year-old’s pathetic and failed attempt at crossing a street.

In theory, Cyrus should have overcome his initial anger by now. Except he didn’t, and this irrational bundle of emotions had now only changed target. Cyrus was angry at himself. Anyone else who hadn’t been in his hormone-fueled teenage mind for the past couple of months would find his reaction absurd, and under normal circumstances, it might have been. After all, he had just rationalized himself that what just happened was practically a non-event for all witnesses, of which there were few to none. The truth was, being extremely self-conscious did unspeakable wonders for the teenage brain.

Cyrus was suffering from a very common, yet rarely spoken about ailment known as the spotlight effect. Simply put, he always felt watched, less in a creepy stalker way than bearing the nagging feeling that people around him not only paid attention to what he did but constantly judged his every move. He felt that way in school, at home, on social media, and now on a hot summer day on Broadway. Perhaps this wouldn’t such a bad thing if he felt confident about who he was and what he was doing. But it was quite the opposite. Lately, his thoughts were ridden of judgment about his own lack of a sense of self-accomplishment. And while he had always been a pensive person by nature, he found himself spending increasingly longer periods of time reflecting on all the things that he either had done wrong, hadn’t done at all, or should have been doing.

Unsurprisingly, the prospect of beginning his junior year in a few months and having to start serious conversations with himself, his friends, his parents, and his school officials about college and his “future”―whatever that entailed―had exacerbated this feeling. And if somehow that hadn’t been enough, the disastrous status of his romantic life was also becoming a trusted source of insecurity. Somehow, that’s probably what he felt most guilty about.

Cyrus Goodman has been out as gay to practically everyone he knows since middle school. In the liberal bubble of New York City, his sexuality was never an issue with the people he interacted with on a daily basis, and he was well aware of this privilege. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there must be something wrong with him when everyone around him was having some kind of romantic experience and he wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t the case, but it definitely felt like it.

In some regards, the environment of nearly automatic acceptance he was is only made things worse. As fucked up as he knew that sounded, he couldn’t even blame homophobia for his lack of romantic encounters. It also didn’t help that living in such a big city, he couldn’t pretend that a lack of possible romantic interests was the thing that was holding him back. It should be the total opposite. In fact, Cyrus believed he had run into more cute boys his age than he could count, and that according to the law of probability and probably some other principles that he had no time for, some of these boys were bound to like other boys. At this point into the endless pit of self-deprecation, the question he would ask was:

Then why hasn’t any of them liked me yet?

Before he even had time to mentally go down the preexisting list of all the possible reasons why, Cyrus was abruptly pulled out his thoughts and back into reality by a soft tap on his left shoulder, followed by a rather polite “Excuse me.” Startled, he briskly turned to face whoever was trying to get his attention. A girl with long blond hair, approximately his age or a little older, stood in front of him and began talking as soon as he made eye contact with her.

“Hi, sorry if I scared you but you look like you’re from here so I was wondering if you could help us,” she explained with a smile.

The “us” she was referring to consisted of her and the taller blond boy who was standing next to her, sporting a reluctant smile which signaled that he did not want to be part of this interaction. But the girl seemed nice, so Cyrus decided he would try to help. Only a few moments ago, he had been spiraling down some fairly unhealthy thoughts, but it only took a split second of hesitation before he returned their smile and replied:

“Sure, what do you guys need help with?”

“Do you know if there’s a Subway around here? It should be on this block but we’ve been walking around for like 20 minutes and we can’t find it,” she answered, her polite smile wavering as her despair became more obvious.

Although it didn’t show outwardly, Cyrus began to panic. He was horrible with directions and he knew it. That’s the main reason he never really went anywhere without his trusted best friends, Andi and Buffy. Worst of all, he didn’t live in the area they were in. He was merely being dragged along by Andi on one of her surprisingly frequent craft supplies shopping sprees. But now that he had already committed to helping this girl and her decidedly silent companion, he felt too awkward to tell these tourists the truth about his less than exceptional navigational abilities. So instead of saying: “I’m sorry, I don’t know,” which he really didn’t, he kept trying to help.

“Um like which- which one do you need?” he asked her, as he uncomfortably shifted his all his weight to one foot.

The girl seemed confused by the question. She gave a questioning look to the boy next to her who only shrugged in response.

“Well uh, I don’t know, whichever one is closest. I didn’t know there more than one in the area,” she admitted, visibly annoyed now. Her response made Cyrus chuckle internally. She had to have known that there was more than one subway line. It seemed like a no-brainer, even for a tourist.

“I mean… yeah, it depends where you wanna go. Do you have like an address?” he asked. Had he known what he was doing, he would have sent them to the nearest train station he knew of. But since he didn’t, he strategized to stall for as long as he could until they hopefully gave up or asked someone else. Unfortunately for him, despite her friend’s mildly uncomfortable silence, the girl seemed intent on getting a concrete answer out of him.

“No, we don’t have one. We didn’t think we’d need it. A friend told us there was a Subway on this street so I didn’t think it would be so hard to find. Could you just tell us if we’re supposed to go north or south?” Her tone was still polite, but growing increasingly forced. But Cyrus could tell that she wasn’t annoyed at him specifically, but frustrated with the situation as a whole. Now he was feeling awkward and guilty that he was being practically useless to these strangers. Suddenly, he felt unable to keep the charade going for much longer. After all, he only had to say north or south. Plus, he was sure that either way they would eventually stumble upon a subway station because as far as he knew, they were often not too far apart.

“Yeah okay. In that case, you should definitely go north,” he affirmed with all the fake certainty he could muster. He thought he was off the hook until the girl spoke again.

“So this way?” she asked, pointing in a general direction to their right. Now, more than ever, Cyrus wished Andi was still with him. She would have known what to do. For the first time since he’d started speaking to the stranger, he glanced across the street to find Andi looking down at her phone, waiting for him. He also noticed that the pedestrian light indicated that he could cross, so he decided to end this conversation as quickly as possible so he could escape to the other side of the street before the light went red again.

“Yup it’s that way,” he responded with more of the false confidence from his earlier reply, while vaguely gesturing to his right. The girl seemed satisfied with his answer and her face visibly relaxed as her smile became more genuine.

“Thank you! Thanks a lot,” she said while simultaneously beginning to drag her friend―or whatever he was―with her. “Have a great day!” she nearly shouted, already walking away, without waiting for Cyrus’ response.

Both relieved and a little panicked about what he’d just done, Cyrus wasted no time in crossing the street as fast as he possibly could until he reached Andi who was still on her phone. Needless to say, his encounter with the tourists had dissipated his anger towards his best friend, rendering all murder plots useless. Once he stood directly in front of her, Andi looked up at him and shoved her phone in her pocket.

“Who was that?” she inquired.

“Just some strangers. They were asking me for directions,” he responded, scratching the back of his head. Almost immediately, Andi’s eyebrows shot up.

“You? Giving directions? Since when-”

“Since never,” he interrupted her. “I panicked and just pretended I knew what I was talking about until they went away.” His tone was brusque and he clearly didn’t want to elaborate any further, which Andi must have noticed because she started walking again without a word, although Cyrus could tell she trying to suppress a chuckle. Still, grateful of her silence, he just followed her pace, sure to keep up with her this time to whatever thrift store they were headed to. As if his efforts to catch up with her had reminded her of what happened earlier, Andi turned to Cyrus to ask him about it.

“Hey, why did you run back? We were already in the middle of the street so you could have just run to the other side with me.” Her voice was soft and Cyrus couldn’t say that she was annoyed, just sincerely confused at his counterintuitive reaction. For his part, maybe he was no longer angry at her, but Cyrus wasn’t any more thrilled to discuss what he still felt was an embarrassing moment, so he didn’t. Instead, he looked away and just shrugged. Once again, Andi seemed to understand and didn’t pry. They had been walking in comfortable silence for only a few minutes before something caught Cyrus’ eye.

Subway.

The food franchise, not the mode of transportation. Cyrus stopped in his tracks, staring at the green sign as a wave of realization hitting him. Maybe she was talking about the restaurant this whole time. Then he thought about how confused she’d seemed when he asked her which subway line she wanted to take. Come to think of it, he hadn’t specified “subway line”. And when he asked her for the address she was headed to, she probably thought he meant the address of the restaurant.

Andi, who had noticed that he stopped walking, turned around and shot him a questioning look which he ignored as the maybe in his head turned into a most certainly. He looked back to where he was walking from, now painfully aware that he sent two strangers in the very opposite direction of what they were looking for. He definitely messed this up for them. His only consolation was that they were clearly tourists visiting the city so there was no chance he’d run into them again. Right?