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If someone were to ask Neil how he feels about parties, he’d say something like They’re okay, or They’re not really my thing, or Sorry, I gotta go, I’m late for class—But really, these would be massive understatements, because now a party has taken root in his own apartment, and he can’t think of anything he’d like to do less than continue to stand here, in the corner of the living room, trying to listen while Jeremy Knox tells him about something called “growth mindset.”
“—and it’s really so powerful,” Jeremy Knox says, “and I just think that people don’t realize how much potential they’ve got, you know what I mean?”
Neil hesitates, because he has no idea what they’re actually talking about. Yes? No? Who the hell knows?
Jeremy smiles. “It’s okay if you don’t agree with me. We can have an open conversation, you know? You’re a really good listener, by the way.”
If only the poor man knew Neil is a terrible conversationalist, not a good listener. Neil needs a strategy to get himself out of this conversation. Maybe Allison can save him, pretend to need him for something, or—
In the kitchen, something shatters, and someone drunkenly shouts, “Opa!”
“Oh, be quiet, you’re not even Greek.” That’s Allison’s voice.
“I’m Sicilian,” the cheerful drunk person says, “on my mother’s side.”
“Oh my god. Did you break Matt’s vintage Popeye the Sailor plate? Oh my god. He loves that thing.”
Then Matt laughs and says, “Oh, I got that plate at a garage sale for a quarter to annoy you, it wasn’t actually important to me.”
“I’m seriously considering evicting you,” Allison replies.
“It must be fun, living here,” Jeremy says, laughing a little awkwardly.
“Yeah,” Neil says.
It is definitely awkward. And yet, Jeremy doesn’t seem to realize that Neil isn’t exactly reciprocating his attempts at friendly conversation. He came up to Neil half an hour ago, and he keeps bringing up new topics, one after another, as though searching for the one that will spark Neil’s enthusiasm.
Neil isn’t sure he has enthusiasm that can be sparked.
Did Allison send Jeremy over? Likely enough. She and Matt have been trying to set Neil up with people, either platonically or romantically, since the day the three of them moved in together. Neil finds it enough to handle, living with Matt and Allison and interacting with them on a daily basis, without adding a third person into the mix. He hasn’t said that out loud.
“Is that guy smoking?” Jeremy says. “That’s a little rude.”
Neil follow’s Jeremy’s eyes to the open window, where a blonde guy is leaning against the radiator, gazing outside as he exhales a breath of smoke.
“Want me to ask him to stop?” Jeremy asks.
The faint smokiness has actually been calming Neil, helping to distract him from the other smells of alcohol and someone’s overused cologne. He shakes his head. “It’s fine. Um. I’m gonna...go to the bathroom.”
“Oh, for sure.”
Neil flees. As he ducks past two guys arguing about basketball or something, he wonders how Matt and Allison describe him to people when they try to set him up. It’s probably not an accurate description. An accurate description would be something like, “Hey! This is my friend Neil, he doesn’t say much, and by that I mean he says basically nothing, like, ever, so don’t try to start a conversation with him, because let me tell you, I can say from experience, it’d be a nightmare.” If they used this accurate description, no one like Jeremy Knox would ever try to befriend him.
Neil manages to catch about five minutes of peace in the bathroom before someone knocks obnoxiously hard on the door. He grew up needing crowds and populated areas to blend in, so he’s used to them, but he’s never liked them. When it gets to the point where he can’t move without getting pulled into a conversation about winter break or career goals, it gets harder for him to breathe, and he doesn’t know why. All he knows is that when people ask him questions about himself, his instinct is to lurch away.
Matt is nowhere to be seen. In the kitchen, Allison is talking to Renee with the rainbow hair, laughing more than Neil has heard her laugh in weeks, so he doesn’t interrupt.
He ends up back in the living room, near the guy with the cigarette nestled between two fingers. He is shorter than Neil, and he’s wearing a black shirt, black armbands, and black jeans splattered with white paint. He has no expression on his face, which is a relief. If he was smiling, that would mean he was friendly.
Neil doesn’t want to be near a friendly person right now, and he isn’t quite deft enough to stop himself from exhaling in relief.
The stranger hears it—he must have ears like a fucking bat—and looks over, and Neil recognizes him. This is the guy Neil sees on his runs who’s always hanging around campus, drawing in a big sketch pad or taking pictures of things it makes no sense to take pictures of, like litter or bulletin boards or the outdoor ashtrays in the courtyard. He’s Renee’s friend. Andrew.
Neil looks back, because once there’s eye contact, it would be weird to just look away. But it’s also weird to keep looking. What does he do? Fuck.
Andrew’s eyes skate over him, and he seems to come to some sort of decision, and then he says, “I didn’t know Allison had changed her mind about picking up hitchhikers.”
Neil blinks. “You mean me?”
Andrew’s eyes go even more bored, but he pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and holds it out. “Want one?”
“Sure.”
It’s been several weeks since the last time he held a cigarette, since he’s been too nervous to go into a gas station alone after a nightmare he had one night. Once the cigarette is between his fingers and lit, it’s like a switch gets flipped, and Neil’s other hand relaxes from its tight fist in his pocket.
Allison comes around the corner, two cups in her hands and a strand of hair in her mouth. “My feet are killing me, these shoes are an occupational hazard.” She looks up and sees Andrew. “Oh, have you two met?”
Neil hates introductions, so he nods, but then Andrew says, “No.”
Allison hands Neil one of her cups. “This is Andrew, Renee’s friend we told you about, the crazy art major. Andrew, this is Neil.”
“Neil,” Andrew repeats, looking at Neil again. His eyes are an ambery brown. “The runner.”
Neil has to tear his eyes away and look down at his drink. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Andrew says.
Allison pretends not to be surprised that Neil has willingly greeted someone, but it’s obvious she has come over to make sure Neil is making progress toward becoming a person with ‘an actual social circle.’ “Wow. You guys are completely made for each other.”
Andrew raises an eyebrow just slightly.
“Seriously.” Allison points at the cup she gave Neil and says, “Drink that. Like, actually drink it. It’ll help.”
Neil wonders what exactly alcohol is supposed to help with, but it’s probably best he doesn’t ask. He takes a sip to appease Allison.
Allison smiles. “There you go. Have fun. Bond with each other. I’m gonna go find Renee, okay?”
Neil nods.
“‘Kay, text if you need me. Just, like, try not to need me after midnight, ‘cause you know where I’ll be then.”
Neil wrinkles his nose.
Allison laughs. “You’re adorable. Love you!”
Once Allison is gone, Neil expects to feel panic about being left with another stranger, but Andrew doesn’t give off small-talk vibes. He seems like he wouldn’t care at all if Neil continues to say nothing. If they just continue to say nothing together.
One of the football players on the couch manages to connect his phone to the bluetooth speaker, and he plays a song that sounds like it was recorded by a goth seventeen-year-old boy in 2007.
Andrew frowns, and when he takes another drag from his cigarette, a little drawing on his wrist peeks out from the edge of his armband. It looks like a knife, sketched in black pen.
Andrew looks and listens to his surroundings as though he is casually weighing each individual object and statement on a scale in his mind, examining them, deciding where they belong. It’s almost funny, because nobody would first think Andrew is a considerate person, if they saw his narrowed eyes.
Andrew is aware Neil is watching him, and when they make eye contact, it burns a little like electricity. “Who are you?”
Neil’s heart hiccups like it always does when people ask him questions. “What do you mean?”
“Simple question.”
“It’s really not.” Neil makes his heart slow down. “I live here. With Matt and Allison. Who are you?”
“You’re not good with small talk.”
Neil snorts. “You’re not great at it either.”
“I am, actually. I excel in small talk.”
Across the room, someone shouts, “Put on some real music, would you? My ears are fucking bleeding.”
The song changes from the emo screaming to folk guitar.
Andrew’s expression remains composed. “He calls this real music.”
Neil feels his lips twitch, and before he can consider whether it’s a smart thing to say, he asks, “What would you play?”
“Not this.”
Neil waits.
“At least some David Bowie,” Andrew says. He somehow seems both sincere and sarcastic.
Neil has no idea who David Bowie is.
Andrew shakes his head. “Never mind.”
People wander out the door one or two at a time, calling out goodbyes over their shoulders. Everyone except for Andrew, Renee, and the girl Matt is talking to. Neil expects Andrew to say he has to go, because he must have class or work in the morning, but he sits on the now-empty sofa and reaches for the bluetooth speaker on the coffee table.
Neil sits on the other end of the sofa and watches.
Andrew connects his phone to the speaker and puts on a song with a melody that starts quiet but then picks up. There’s piano and electric guitar, and there aren’t any words yet, but it sounds sort of sad, or maybe regretful.
“Is this David Bowie?” Neil asks.
Andrew gives him a look. “No.”
“What is it, then?”
“Nothing.”
“It doesn’t sound like nothing.”
Andrew doesn’t look at him as he sets the speaker on the coffee table and sits back.
Music has never really been Neil’s thing. He prefers concrete things he can look at and hold, like books or puzzles. He doesn’t think he really gets the point of music.
As if he can read these thoughts on Neil’s face, Andrew says, “Do you have a better idea?”
“No. My phone doesn’t connect to those things, anyway.”
“You have a flip phone.”
“Yeah.”
Andrew considers this with thoughtful eyes, as though it’s an intense confession. “What’s your major?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Andrew raises his eyebrows at Neil’s reaction. “It isn’t incriminating information, is it?”
“No.” Neil forces himself to stop twisting his fingers into the bottom of his sweatshirt, to relax again. “It’s Spanish, I guess.”
“You guess.”
“It just feels like a long time ago when I chose it. I thought it’d be useful. More useful than…”
Andrew waits, showing no sign that he cares whether Neil finishes the sentence.
“Math,” Neil admits. There’s a flutter of nervousness in his chest when he says it, like it’s a dark secret. “I wanted to major in mathematical sciences.”
“But you chose Spanish,” Andrew says.
“Because it’s useful,” Neil finishes.
“That’s stupid.”
“It is not. What’s your major?”
“Visual arts. How useful do you think that is?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen your art.”
“You don’t need to. Art is useless. It doesn’t matter who makes it.”
“It could matter,” Neil says. “Are you good at it?”
“I’m shit at it.”
“I don’t think I believe you.”
“I didn’t ask.”
They’re both leaning their heads back against the sagging couch cushions, facing each other. Inexplicably, Neil feels like Andrew is about to kiss him, and also inexplicably, the idea of kissing Andrew does not make him feel like he’s about to throw up.
“Staring,” Andrew says.
“You are, too.” Neil feels...loose. Like there’s no tension in his body, which is a new feeling, strange and light, like he could say something true out loud and it wouldn’t be scary. “Maybe…”
There are footsteps coming into the living room, creaky on the old hardwood floors, and a sweet voice says, “It’s almost midnight.”
It’s Renee, and Andrew looks over, nods, and pushes himself off the couch.
Allison comes into the living room, her face a little flushed from drinking, and hands Renee an empty tupperware container. “Don’t forget this. Those cookies were heavenly. You have a serious gift.”
Renee smiles and holds the tupperware container against her chest. “Thank you! I could give you the recipe, if you like.”
Allison waves a hand. “I can barely manage to microwave ramen without setting something on fire. I’ll leave the gourmet desserts to you.”
Renee laughs. “Anyone can learn. Maybe we can bake together sometime.”
Allison tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. It looks like she’s actually blushing. “I’d love that.”
“We’ve got to go, we’ve got class in the morning. Thank you for such a fun night.”
“Any time.”
After the door has closed, the swoony smile doesn’t leave Allison’s face. She sighs. “God, she’s cute.”
“You don’t eat ramen,” Neil says.
“It was an expression.”
Neil frowns. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Matt walks in and looks surprised when he sees Allison. “Didn’t think you’d still be here.”
“Change of plan.”
“Really?”
Allison groans. “You two are insufferable. I’m allowed to change my mind, okay? And maybe I do eat ramen. You don’t know. There are lots of things about me that are a mystery.”
-
In the morning, Matt shuffles into the kitchen at half-past ten and lets out an enormous yawn, then grumbles, “S’ there coffee?”
Neil pours a mug, stirs in one sugar and some cream, and hands it over.
Matt yawns again before taking a sip. “Thanks. Last night was a bad idea, I’m supposed to work at—what time’s it?”
“Ten-thirty.”
“Oh, shit, I have a shift at eleven. Did you make any—”
Neil holds out a paper plate with two Eggo waffles.
“Thanks, bud, you’re a legend.”
As Matt takes a bite of one of his waffles and starts poking around to find his shoes, Allison comes into the kitchen with messy hair and sits across from Matt’s chair at the table. Their kitchen table found its home here after Neil and Matt picked it up from the side of the road last summer. One of its legs was broken, but they managed to put it back together with Duct tape.
Allison tears off a piece of one of the waffles Neil made. “Well, that was a wild night.”
“You’re telling me,” Matt mutters, sitting back down and fumbling to put on his sneakers while also drinking coffee.
“Neil talked to Andrew Minyard for a while.”
Matt looks up. “Wait, what?”
“I’m serious, they totally vibed. And for a while, Neil didn’t even look like he’d rather jump out the window than socialize.”
“You’re kidding. This actually happened?”
“I swear on all that I hold dear.”
Matt’s hand has frozen halfway through the motion of bringing his mug to his lips. “Holy shit.”
Neil leans against the counter and sighs. “I’m right here, guys.”
Allison gives him a fond look. “We know, babe, and you’re the light of our lives, so we’re happy you made a friend.”
“I didn’t make a friend. I’m not a little kid.”
“That has yet to be confirmed. I mean, you don’t eat apples unless they’re in little slices, so...”
Neil rolls his eyes. Thank god Allison is only joking, because she could easily bring up the way she and Matt shepherd him like he’s a baby sheep, and how they do everything short of setting up literal playdates for him in an attempt to get him to talk to people other than them. In his defense, it’s not like he asks them to do that.
“Making friends isn’t a little kid thing, buddy,” Matt says, frowning slightly. “It’s a people thing.” He smooths a hand over his hair and fits a baseball cap over it. “But I am confused about how Andrew Minyard is who we’re talking about. He seems kind of intense.”
Allison starts typing something on her phone, at a speed of what looks like one hundred words a minute. “Yeah, I meant to find someone a little...fluffier for him to hang out with, someone chill to study with or something. I don’t know if Andrew even studies. Do art majors study?”
Matt shrugs. “You’re asking the wrong dude.”
“They take classes like everyone else,” Neil says. “I’m sure they study.” He doesn’t know why he feels the need to defend art students.
“I’ll take your word for it.” Allison coughs and frowns down at the waffle in her hand. “How do you eat this every day? Jesus. At least use some syrup.”
“It's a unique culinary craft,” Matt says. “Syrup dilutes the flavor.”
“That’s ridiculous. By the way, Neil, I gave Renee your number so she can give it to Andrew, hope that’s okay with you—”
“Wait, you—”
“—Be good, you guys, I’m gonna go shower.”
Neil straightens. “You can’t do that.”
“I can’t shower?”
“You can’t just give someone my number.”
“I wasn’t just giving someone your number, it’s bigger than that. I was giving you a nudge in the right direction. And I know that you like Andrew.”
“I don’t.”
“You willingly talked to him for, like, an hour. After you’d just met. That’s a first for you, and it is a sign from above. I told you, you’re perfect for each other.” Allison blows him a kiss. “I gotta go, babe, I smell like booze. We’ll talk later. See you!”
Neil turns to Matt.
Matt gives him a sympathetic look as he grabs his backpack. “Sorry, man. If it makes you feel any better, she tries to set me up with people, too.”
“Why would that make me feel better?”
“Guess not. I gotta go. Take it easy today, okay?”
-
Neil takes his usual route when he goes for a run, past the biotech atriums and the life sciences building, then towards the library. He must be ridiculously tired or distracted or something, because after he crosses the street, he trips on a crack in the curb, and his ankle turns when he catches himself. There’s a slice of pain that runs up to his knee, but he rights himself and keeps going.
The library is probably Neil’s favorite part of campus. He often goes there after his classes and finds a table in the CDs section, because hardly anyone goes back there. He likes to sit there to do homework. It’s quiet, and big windows line the wall and look over the fountain outside, and there’s an exit nearby so he doesn’t get antsy.
Outside the library, along the side of the building, a grassy area stretches several square yards. Oak trees stretch over the sidewalk to create patches of shade, and a few picnic tables are scattered across the grass. Sometimes it gets crowded, but during this time of day, when lots of students are in class and not yet eating lunch, it’s quieter, and birds flutter around and peck at the ground for bugs. This is when Neil cuts through here during his runs, and it’s also when Andrew is often here, taking pictures.
Andrew is here now, crouched under an oak tree, looking at something in its roots. His camera hangs around his neck from a leather strap, and his sketchpad sits in the grass a few feet away.
Then the pain in Neil’s ankle flares. He slows down, but he doesn’t stop. He runs every day, so he shouldn’t have tripped, and he’s been through worse than a sprained ankle. His lungs start to burn, even though he’s going much slower. He doesn’t want to stop. He has to keep going. But if he doesn’t stop, he might not be able to keep going at all.
He stops and sits on one of the picnic table benches, just to catch his breath for a minute.
Under the tree, about ten yards away, Andrew has his camera pointed at an anthill. His hands hold the camera in a familiar, practiced position. One hand holds the body of the device, and the other hand cups around the lens and turns it a few times. Then his index finger presses the shutter button, and it lets out two soft clicks.
Andrew seems to sense he’s being watched, and he turns and catches Neil’s eye. It’s like last night all over again, except now Andrew’s boredom and hostility looks more like intrigue, and he says, “Staring.”
Neil’s eyes flicker down to his feet.
“Did you hurt yourself?”
Neil’s head snaps up, and his stomach flips when he sees Andrew is in front of him now. He shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
Andrew looks both amused and unimpressed at this statement, but he sits on the other end of the bench. He sets his camera on the table and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.
When Andrew offers him the pack, Neil takes one, and Andrew lights both their cigarettes with a zippo lighter that has a fox silhouette on it.
“Thanks,” Neil says.
Andrew exhales a ring of smoke and doesn’t look at Neil. “You don't even smoke, do you?” Despite the question, he doesn’t seem annoyed that Neil is wasting one of his cigarettes.
“Not really,” Neil says. “I just like it.”
“Why is that.”
Neil shrugs, and his free hand fidgets with the hem of his shirt. “Lots of people like the smell of smoke.”
“Do you even hear yourself?”
“It’s not that weird.”
“I didn’t say it was weird. You came to that conclusion on your own.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re kind of annoying?”
“No.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I find you hard to believe,” Andrew says.
Neil frowns and runs his free hand through his hair. Most of the fight drains out of him. “Why were you taking a picture of an anthill?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“No. I don’t care.”
“Hmm.” Andrew rubs his hand off on his pants and tilts his head back to look at the tops of the trees across from them. “I’ll tell you why I took pictures of an anthill, if you tell me why you like the smell of smoke.”
“Why do you want to know so badly?”
“I don’t.” Andrew pulls a black ballpoint pen out of his pocket. “But it could be interesting.”
“Well, I’m busy.”
Andrew nods, and the vague you’re-full-of-shit look on his face is infuriating.
“It just reminds me of someone,” Neil says, and he has no idea why he says it. It’s like his mouth isn’t his for the moment the words come out of him.
Andrew doesn’t look up from where he’s drawing a 3d cube on the back of his hand. “That’s unspecific.”
“I answered. Your turn.”
“It reminds me of something.”
“The anthill does?”
“Yes.”
“You’re bullshitting your answer.”
“I’m not. It’s the truth. Just unspecific. That’s what you earned.”
“It reminds me of my mom,” Neil says.
Andrew shows no sign of hearing this at first, but then he nods, and he seems to tuck the information away. It’s the same inconsequential attitude from the other night, and again it is strangely comforting. Andrew pulls a sketchbook out of his backpack and flips it open to begin a loose sketch of his zippo lighter from memory.
Neil gets the feeling Andrew has probably done this same sketch several times. He watches. They sit in silence for a few minutes. Last night wasn’t a fluke, apparently, because Neil still feels just as comfortable. Next to Andrew. No sounds except for pencil and breaths and birds and faraway cars. Andrew eventually finishes his cigarette and his drawing and flips to another blank page of his sketchbook. He takes the pen from behind his ear, uncaps it, writes a few words, and hands the notebook to Neil.
It says, Truth for truth. Andrew’s handwriting is sharp, each letter cutting across the page.
Neil doesn’t know what they’re doing or why, but he takes the pen and writes, Okay.
Every time it’s Andrew’s turn, Neil waits for the question he’s learned to expect from everyone, the ultimate question, his trademark question. If other people’s trademark questions are things like What do you do? or What’s your tattoo of? or Can I get your number?, Neil’s question is Why are you so quiet? Or the classic What happened to your face?
But Andrew doesn’t ask either of those questions. He asks, Do you read and How do you like your coffee and Are you a light or heavy sleeper?
Neil’s answers are A little, and Black and Light sleeper.
Neil isn’t used to having conversations like this, with equal give and take. He talks to Allison and Matt, but mostly he listens while they tell him about what’s going on in their lives, and then he’ll dodge most of the questions they ask him about his.
Do you think it’s bad to let the sun go down on your anger?
What the fuck does that mean
I honestly have no idea
Do you believe in God
Don’t think so. Do you?
Not anymore.
They give each other truth after truth, and eventually Neil looks up and realizes eleven o’clock classes are over, and there are people clustering at the picnic tables and sitting in the grass and skateboarding across the sidewalks. And Neil had barely noticed.
Neil guesses that part of why he’s bad with talking is because of truth and lies and the lines between them.
Andrew scribbles something on a green sticky note and sticks it to Neil’s palm. It’s a phone number. Andrew’s phone number.
“Didn’t Allison already give you my number?”
“It wasn’t her number to give,” Andrew says. “I’m giving you mine. Use it if you want to.”
If he wants to. Neil both likes and distrusts those words.
After another dull glance at Neil’s sore ankle, Andrew asks, “Do you need a ride back to your place?”
“I’m fine.”
“I heard you the first time. Not what I asked.”
“I usually go on foot.”
“Still not an answer to my question.”
Neil frowns and looks at the sky. “Sure.”
“Okay.” Andrew flicks his cigarette into the ashtray. “Come on.”
-
After Matt somehow notices the almost nonexistent limp Neil has from twisting his ankle, Matt tells Allison about it, and Allison lectures Neil about how he has such narrow interests that his only real hobby has become “hazardous” to his health. She also complains that Neil never answers texts or calls, and asks what will happen if he ends up in a ditch somewhere. Neil tells her his usual excuse for not answering, which is that his phone was dead, and Allison tells him his phone is always dead, and he should let her buy him a smartphone, for her sanity, if not for his safety. So they have the Neil’s Phone Conversation for the forty-seventh time, in the middle of the grocery store while Matt throws various energy bars and cereals into the cart.
Neil: “What’s wrong with flip phones?”
Allison: “There are a gazillion things wrong with them, but we can start with how you carrying one is an omen.”
Neil: “An omen for what?”
Allison: “Death, obviously.”
Neil: “That makes no sense.”
Allison: “People with flip phones are always getting kidnapped and stranded in the desert.”
Matt: “Okay, maybe she’s reading into it a little too much, but she has a point.”
Allison: “Of course I have a point. I’m right. Which creamer?”
Matt: “French Vanilla.”
Neil: “I like my phone. I like that it’s simple.”
Allison: “It’s my job to help you move on from simple and toward the cutting edge.”
Neil: “I don’t know what that means.”
Matt: “I don’t really get it, either, but—Oh look, Ho Hos are buy one get one.”
Allison: “Absolutely not, those things are disgusting.”
Eventually, Neil manages to distract Allison from the topic of smartphones by starting an argument about whether or not a salad by itself counts as a meal, and it ends with her at her “wit's end,” but at least Neil doesn’t have to think about her buying him a device that costs hundreds of dollars and could probably be hacked and used to track his location.
-
Neil is at the kitchen table, working on chem equations. Matt has a girl in his room, and they’re talking low and laughing. They’ve probably forgotten there’s anyone else in the apartment, so Neil will have to kick himself out if he doesn’t want to hear when they start getting closer.
It’s hotter out today, not the best weather for a run, but Neil has done worse. He almost takes a different route, because if Andrew’s in the courtyard, it might be awkward to see him again. Maybe Andrew will ignore him. In the end, Neil’s curiosity wins out, and he takes his usual route.
It’s a passing period, and it’s lunchtime, so there are people around, texting while they eat sub sandwiches and potato chips. Andrew is nowhere to be seen.
The day after that, Neil goes on his run, and Andrew is crouched in the same spot as before, focused on the anthill.
“A bird attacked the nest. They’re fixing the damage.”
Hundreds of ants, scurrying in lines around the dirt. Many of them carry specks of earth, bring them to the top of the mound, then run back down into the ground for more.
Andrew watches, his whole body remarkably still, his breathing light as if even a too-heavy breath would disturb the ants. Then it’s like a spell breaks, and he lowers his camera, stands, and takes a step back.
“Are you leaving?”
Andrew nods. “Come with me. If you want.”
“Where are you going?”
“Studio.”
“Okay.”
In the car, Andrew buckles his seatbelt and turns the key in the ignition and pulls out of the parking lot and drives at the speed limit almost exactly.
Neil has found himself watching Andrew again. He makes himself stop. “I pictured you as more of a daredevil driver.”
“Because?”
“You just come across kind of hardcore to most people. Who dresses like that and also follows traffic regulations?”
“Sorry to disappoint. It’s a classic misdirect. My crimes reside in other areas.”
“Alright.”
“‘Alright?’”
“Yeah.”
“Every time you open your mouth, I regret the decisions that brought me here.”
Neil smiles. “Me too.”
“Shut up. Turn on the radio.”
Neil turns on the radio. They’re playing Under Pressure. He always thought this song was kind of stupid.
-
The studio is split into individual studios by white screen dividers. The wood floors are nicked and splattered with paint, and dozens of different sized canvases lean against the wall, some even taller than Neil.
The only other person in the studio is a girl with rainbow-tipped blonde hair, sculpting something on a table in the corner workspace. She looks up and smiles when she sees Andrew. “Hello.”
Andrew jerks his chin in greeting, which is probably generous, coming from him.
Renee turns to Neil. “Hello, Neil.” She holds up a hand, which is caked in clay from her work, and waves as though in apology for not shaking his. “It’s nice to see you again.”
There’s a foldout table in the middle of the area, covered in paint tubes and torn strips of t-shirts.
The only seat is a faded rolling desk chair, and Andrew gestures for Neil to sit, so Neil does.
Andrew hops up onto the table, sits facing Neil. “Have you ever heard of the art of subtraction?”
Neil shakes his head.
“It’s the idea that art isn’t creating something, it’s taking away everything that isn’t the art.”
Neil looks around the room again, at the walls coated in post-it notes and torn magazine pages and photographs of random objects and abstract blobs of color. “Is that why you take pictures of everything?”
Andrew looks up from his sketchbook, as though surprised by the observation. “Part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
“When I take a picture of something, I subtract it from an equation, and I get closer to finding something.”
Finding what? is what Neil wants to know, but he doesn’t think Andrew will answer that, so he says, “I’m not good with philosophy.”
“Good. I hate philosophy.” Andrew reaches for a charcoal pencil. “Can I draw you?”
Neil bites back a laugh.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing. Just...you want to draw me?”
“Yes, Neil.”
“Isn’t that kind of cliche?”
Andrew raises his eyebrows. “Is that your only objection?”
“I don’t know. I guess.”
“I want to draw you. Yes or no?”
“Okay.”
Andrew watches him for several seconds, as though trying to discern whether Neil really means it.
Neil hasn’t completely warmed to the idea of Andrew drawing him, but he’s curious, and he keeps giving in to the way Andrew makes him feel unpressured.
And anyway, Andrew doesn’t draw Neil’s face. He draws Neil’s hands. His eyes hardly stray from Neil’s loosely folded fingers, and he doesn't talk as he works, his energy absorbed in the place where his pencil skates across the paper. He tilts his head slightly in one direction, then the other, his eyes flicking between Neil’s hands and the sketch.
Neil looks around. Students have drawn on the studio windows in dry erase markers, and they’ve written quotes in their sharp, illegible handwriting. The only one Neil can make out says, Art is to console those who are broken by life.
When he sees Andrew’s finished sketch, Neil thinks those can’t be his hands, but they are. It’s strange to see them through another person’s eyes.
His hesitation seeps away, and he leans forward. “Aren’t models supposed to be compensated?”
Andrew raises his eyebrows. “What would you take?”
Neil has no idea how to begin answering that question, so he asks, “What would you give me?”
Andrew tilts his head. “Come on.”
-
Andrew takes Neil up a flight of stairs, and out a locked door to the roof that looks over the parking lot and, behind that, the forest of overgrown oak trees. A flock of mourning doves drifts across the sky.
“Nobody else comes up here,” Andrew says. “It’s quiet.”
“The view’s okay, too,” Neil says.
Andrew doesn’t seem to care about the view. Once he’s within a few feet of the edge, his shoulders become tense, and his hands curl into loose fists.
“Are you afraid of heights?”
“Yes.” Andrew sits on the ledge, letting his legs hang over the side of the building.
“Then why—”
“No,” Andrew says. He pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his jeans pocket and pulls one out to put between his lips. He offers the pack to Neil.
Neil understands the no as Andrew not wanting to talk about it, so he sits a foot away, takes a cigarette, and lets Andrew light it for him.
Andrew tilts his head back a little, which Neil has started to recognize as his way of expressing amusement.
“What’s funny?” Neil asks.
“You are.”
“Thanks for bringing me up here.”
“Quiet.”
-
Neil starts seeing Andrew regularly. He doesn’t know how it happens.
Sometimes they go to Neil’s or Andrew’s place, but mostly they sit in the grass outside the library or on the studio roof to talk and smoke, or be quiet and smoke. Renee is sometimes there to join their conversations. Andrew draws Neil’s hands—he does this several times and somehow doesn’t get bored of it—or Neil’s eyes while Neil sits across from him and flips through sketchbooks. Andrew has a stack of filled sketchbooks on the floor, and Neil finds that the one on the bottom is full of drawings of cars, of engines, wrecks, and license plates, and also streetlamps, and pieces of furniture. There’s a drawing of a headboard that’s more detailed than the other drawings, rendered so closely that the wood’s grainy texture looks real.
On a Monday, they spend almost four hours just sitting in the grass, and they only get up because Neil has to go to Chemistry. Andrew walks him to the building, and when they reach the doors, he presses a cold piece of metal into Neil’s palm. It’s a key.
“Studio key. You can use it, if you want.”
Neil smiles. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Don’t look at me like that. Go to class.”
-
They’re laying sideways on Neil’s bed, wide space between them, just talking about the apocalypse, and how they’d survive it, and whether the world could ever come back from destruction like that, and Neil starts to smile like an idiot.
Andrew narrows his eyes. “What.”
“Nothing. I mean...I just think it’s funny. The kinds of things you ask me. I like your questions.”
Andrew is wearing a dark gray t-shirt with shredded sleeves, and he smells faintly of acrylic paint.
They’re close, less than a foot between them. Andrew’s eyelashes are sort of gold-colored.
“Yes or no?” Andrew holds out his hand.
Neil links their fingers together. “Yes.”
Neil doesn’t know what it feels like to kiss someone. He kissed a girl when he was fourteen or fifteen, but that lasted only a couple seconds, and it was just pressure, just closed lips pressed straight against closed lips.
When Andrew kisses him, it feels like slipping and falling in. It’s soft and small, but also consuming, and their breaths break through once or twice. Both their lips are chapped, and Neil leans into it clumsily.
Andrew’s kisses are like the rest of him, all barebones and honest. No bullshit. And Neil has that feeling, the same one from when he first looked through Andrew’s sketches, of wanting to know. He wants to know Andrew. He’s never wanted to know someone like this before. In the past, he wished for people’s thoughts and histories, but only because he wanted to know in order to keep himself safe from them. But this isn’t about survival. Neil wants to know Andrew because Andrew deserves to be known.
It’s a scary feeling.
Neil doesn’t want to fall asleep first, but whereas he can usually stay awake all night if he has to, this time he goes to sleep so quickly, he doesn’t see it coming.
-
“What would you take?”
“What would you give me?”
“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”
“What are you trying to find? With your pictures?”
Andrew turns off his camera, fits the lens cap back on, and sets it in on the table next to hm. “Things to care about.”
“Have you found any?”
Andrew blinks. His hands are still, as usual, unlike Neil’s constantly fidgeting fingers. Everything about Andrew radiates calm and stability, like he’s a stone building that’ll never be knocked down. But maybe behind the stone walls, there’s other things.
“Yes,” Andrew says.
-
The next day, Neil finds a blue post-it note, folded into a tiny square, in his sweatshirt pocket. When he unfolds it, Andrew’s handwriting reads, Was the moon landing faked? and Neil almost laughs out loud in the middle of his empty bedroom.
-
They’re on the roof again, and Andrew is on his second cigarette when he says out of nowhere, “I do it to feel something.”
Neil looks at him. It takes him several seconds to realize Andrew has told him the reason for why he comes up to the roof despite being afraid of heights. Neil understands. He has his own collection of reflexes, of frayed nerves that make him glance over his shoulder one too many times a day. What happened in the past can’t really ever stop happening, because he just keeps walking through it again and again. He’ll be standing outside a classroom, and then something tiny snaps and he’s not there anymore, instead he’s hunched into a coat waiting for the ferry to arrive. He’s just walking through the cafeteria during lunch, but then he’s not, he’s trying to blend into the bumper-car traffic of the airport during rush hour, he’s reaching out to find his mother’s arm because he can’t afford to lose her in the crowd. It doesn’t matter where he is, because half the time he’s really somewhere else.
-
They’re in Neil’s bed, facing each other, and Andrew is examining Neil’s hand like it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. “What’s something you’re scared of?”
“The ocean,” Neil says. It’s true, even if it’s not at the top of the list.
“Why.”
Neil shrugs.
Andrew says, “You know why.”
Neil huffs and presses his face half-into his pillow. “It’s hard to explain.”
Andrew gently bites Neil’s index finger. “Try.”
Neil smiles. “Will you eat my other fingers if I don’t?
“I might.”
“My…” Neil tries to think of a way to say it without giving away his other secrets. “My mom died by the ocean.”
Andrew’s expression doesn’t change.
“We were away from home. The water makes me think of her. It makes me think of…” He can’t say running, so instead he says, “It makes me think of the past.”
“Your turn.”
Neil considers for a moment. “Tell me something about your family?”
“They’re idiots.”
Neil starts to pull his hand away.
Andrew lets him. “I have an idiot twin.”
“Identical?”
“We look nothing alike.”
Neil stifles a smile. “Of course not.”
“There’s also my idiot cousin.”
“What’re their names?”
“Aaron and Nicky.”
“Anything else, besides their names and the fact that they’re idiots?”
“No.” Andrew slides his hand down, runs his fingers lightly over Neil's scarred wrist. “I didn’t know I had a brother when I was growing up. He didn’t either. I was in foster care, he was with her. He found out when we were thirteen and sent me a letter.”
Andrew tells Neil about meeting his brother, and how their mother died not long after, and then they met their cousin, Nicky, who took them in. Neil listens until the story reaches the present. It feels like there’s more to it, like Andrew has left out certain details, but Neil doesn’t ask for them.
Andrew’s fingers are still hovering over the scars on Neil’s wrist, a barely-there pressure. People often ask for the origin of Neil’s scars, sometimes even complete strangers. He is used to satisfying their curiosity with easy lies, but he finds he is prepared, even sort of willing, to give Andrew a truth about his scars.
“You can ask about them,” Neil says quietly. “If you want.”
Andrew’s fingers still. He slowly brings them back to Neil’s palm. “You can tell me about them. If you want.”
Neil feels his shoulders relax. This happens lately—different parts of him loosen and unwind, parts of him he never realized were strained in the first place.
“Why don’t you have a bed?” Andrew asks.
“What do you mean? We’re laying on it.”
“We are laying on a mattress. A bed is a contraption people often use to hold their mattress.”
“Do I really need one? This works fine.”
“You might as well pen written invitations for every spider in the city to come sleep with you.”
Neil laughs again, and he slides his fingers between Andrew’s. “I haven’t seen any in here. Are you afraid of spiders?”
“No.”
“If there are any, I’ll protect you.”
“Stop talking.”
-
One Thursday, Andrew interrupts Neil’s calculus homework by asking him if he’s eaten lunch, and when Neil says no, Andrew picks him up.
When they park in front of an ice cream parlor, Neil starts laughing. “‘Lunch?’”
Inside, two guys are working behind the counter—Andrew’s identical twin and a tall guy with a huge smile who gasps when he sees them. “Oh my god, Andrew, who is this?”
“I’m Neil.”
“And I’m Nicky,” the guy says, smiling more flirtatiously now. “How do you and Andrew know each other?”
Neil hesitates. “Um…”
“We’re associates,” Andrew says. “Two scoops of rocky road.”
Nicky sighs, seeming used to Andrew’s behavior, and slides open the glass door to the ice cream case to take a scoop out of one of the cartons. “Alright. Seriously, though, how did you convince someone that cute to go out with you?”
Neil says, “I’m right here,” at the same time Andrew says, “Knives.” Neil isn’t sure if “knives” is supposed to be an explanation or a threat, but it doesn’t really matter.
Nicky hands Neil a scoop of strawberry ice cream. “Go eat your cones. I’m just the dusty guy who serves the ice cream.”
They sit at one of the tiny tables by the windows.
“So, Neil,” Nicky says loudly. “Tell us about yourself.”
Neil swallows a small wave of anxiety. “What about myself?”
“Are you single?”
“Yes?”
Nicky laughs. “Why did you say that like it’s a question?” He leans forward, resting his arms on the countertop. “Is it...complicated?”
On the other side of the room, Aaron squints. “Don’t be gross, Nicky.”
“How is that in any way gross? You’re too touchy, baby cousin.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“It’s not,” Neil says. “Complicated.”
“Oh, good,” Nicky says. He waves a hand. “Complicated is so exhausting. I’m done with complicated, I’ve been done with it for years. I’m with Erik now. Has Andrew told you about Erik? No, obviously, he hasn’t. I’ll tell you about him. He’s my future husband. He’s literally the hottest man I’ve ever seen—I swear, if I wasn’t with him, you—”
“Nicky,” Andrew says.
“Anyways. Erik’s in Germany. I’m headed there, too, once these two finish school. Not that they need me. They’re all grown up now, out saving the world, falling in love.”
Aaron scowls.
Nicky doesn’t notice. “Oh, Andrew, how’s Kevin doing?”
Andrew makes a displeased noise.
“Are you and him still fighting?” Nicky turns to Neil. “They had a fight a while ago because Kevin brought this new guy to our night out and—what was his name? Jeremy—Jeremy kinda got freaked out around Andrew. He was hot. Too bad he probably couldn’t handle hanging out with us again.”
Aaron rolls his eyes. “It’s closing time.”
“What? We don’t close until—”
Aaron throws a chocolate chip at Nicky’s head.
“What the fuck was that for? Honestly, you guys are so rude. I thought I taught you manners.”
Outside, it’s what Andrew says artists call golden hour—the sun slides into the perfect position to shed liquid light across the trees and buildings and turn everything a pale gold, and the asphalt shimmers black.
“Am I taking you home?”
“I was going to run.”
“Of course you were. Do you have something against motor vehicles?”
“No. I just…” Neil is about to say he likes to run, but this is not strictly true. He likes fruit, he likes math, he likes being near Andrew, but he doesn’t like running. He runs because if he didn’t, he’d lose his mind, or die, or someone would kill him, or something bad would happen. He’s not sure what.
Andrew is watching as if he can see Neil’s thoughts, which he probably can. “Get in the car, Neil,” he says, like it's a suggestion.
Neil decides to get in the car. Andrew’s car, he realizes, has become a familiar scent of Andrew’s paint and smokiness, of a lukewarm wind that ruffles their hair when Andrew puts the windows halfway down, and another smell that Neil can’t pinpoint that makes him a little sleepy. He rests his head back.
-
“Neil.”
“Hmm?”
“You fell asleep.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Go home and go to bed.”
“Okay. Will I see you tomorrow?”
“Use your phone. I’ll answer.”
-
Neil calls, and like he said he would, Andrew answers.
“Junkie.”
“Hey.”
“What are you doing awake at three in the morning?”
“Just...homework. What are you doing awake at three in the morning?”
“Other than answering your calls? Out vandalizing public property.”
“You are?”
“No, Neil. I’m painting.”
“What are you painting?”
“Nothing.”
“What does nothing look like?”
“Go to sleep.”
“I don’t want to.”
“What do you want?”
Neil shrugs, and he thinks Andrew knows he does it even over the phone.
“Come with me. Yes or no?”
Neil smiles. “Yes.”
“I haven’t even told you where.”
“I’ll go anywhere you wanna go.”
-
It’s not even seven a.m., and they’re in the studio, and Andrew is working on a painting, and the sun streams through the window and turns his hair a soft gold.
They haven’t talked out loud much since Andrew picked Neil up, neither of them trying to coax a conversation out of the air between them. It's a comfortable silence, but there’s a noticeable change in the way Andrew angles his body, like he can’t look at Neil. It seems like he wants to be alone, except he keeps glancing over, and every once and awhile he’ll do something, like set a pencil sharpener next to Neil’s notebook like it's a peace offering.
Neil knows the unexplainable need to let go of noise, just to think, just to be quiet. So he says nothing, and he picks up Andrew’s pencil sharpener and sharpens his pencil.
Andrew’s painting is of a bar. It’s an unclear image, actually, because the lines and shapes are hazy and out of focus as if pulled from a dream, but when Neil looks at it, he sees a bar like the one he went to once with Allison. He hyperventilated in the bathroom at that place for probably twenty minutes, but before that, he remembers the lights on the dance floor, the pulsing blues and purples. The muzzy scent of alcohol and sweat. All of that, all that claustrophobic intimacy—Andrew has captured it in his blurry painting.
Andrew is processing the world, that’s what all the pictures and drawings and paintings are. He’s looking for something, sifting through the cacophony of all the colors and sounds. Neil does the opposite, he hides from things he doesn’t understand, and instead of trying to find something, he’s constantly running and trying to forget.
“Hey,” Andrew says. He sets his paint brush back in its jar.
“Hey,” Neil says. Would he still be here, not running, if not for Andrew?
“Truth.”
When they started, it felt like a game. It was light, but now it has weight. Now it feels like it matters, which isn’t good, because Neil doesn’t know how he’ll feel when he has to let it go.
Andrew takes his sketchbook off the table and flips to the page they used that day outside the library. When Andrew starts writing, a wave of something crashes in Neil’s chest, like nostalgia. It’s ridiculous. They’ve known each other for a month. There can’t be any nostalgia.
Andrew writes, What’s something your brain tries to make you do that you have to will yourself not to do?
All Neil can think is, Running. He can’t say that. But he doesn’t want to lie to Andrew, so he tries to find a different answer that will still be true.
Andrew watches Neil’s unmoving hand and, after a minute passes, says, “Let’s go.”
Neil looks up. “Where?”
“My apartment. If you want. We can watch a movie.”
“Okay.”
-
Andrew’s apartment is small and clean, the walls scattered with posters of various paintings by Banksy and Georgia O’Keefe. Unlike Neil, Andrew actually owns furniture, a bed to hold his mattress, a dresser. The window is open halfway. There’s a box of colored pencils at the end of the bed.
“What movie are we watching?” Neil asks.
Andrew gestures to a skinny shelf in the corner, which is full of DVDs from top to bottom.
“Wow,” Neil says. “That’s a big collection.”
Andrew slowly shakes his head.
“Is it your roommate’s?”
Andrew nods.
“What’s he like?”
Andrew wrinkles his nose.
Neil has heard of almost none of the movies in Andrew’s roommate’s collection, so he chooses one at random and slides it into the DVD player. It’s about the graffiti art scene in 1980s New York. The camera pans over walls coated in spray painted words—The whole livery line bow like this…—that form sentences with no clear meaning.
Andrew makes two mugs of tea.
Neil has a feeling they’re both tired, and they’re both trying to hide it. He turns the TV volume down until the music is faint.
Andrew sets his mug down and starts sketching another knife on the back of his hand. He stops and looks at Neil. “I don’t do this with other people.”
Do what, Neil almost asks, but he thinks he knows already.
“There’s no point for people to try to know each other if they’ll never be able to.”
Neil wraps his arms around his knees. “Maybe it’s not impossible to know someone. Maybe it’s just really hard. Maybe it takes a long time.”
Andrew looks at Neil the way he always does, with his hard, hazel eyes, unmoved, and yet something flickers in his expression. He pushes Neil’s face away, lightly. “I told you not to look at me like that.”
Neil hadn’t realized he was looking in any particular way.
Andrew looks away. Quietly, he says, “You’re impossible.”
“Why do you always say stuff like that? I’m not a hallucination.”
“You are a pipedream.”
Neil rolls his eyes. “There’s nothing dreamlike about me.”
“You’re right. You’re incredibly idiotic.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s why you like me so much.”
“Shut up.” There’s no sharpness to it.
-
It’s dark by the time Neil heads home. When he gets there, the front door is propped open—even though Allison yells at him about it, Matt does this sometimes because the shitty vents give the place a weird smell, and he says it needs to air out.
Neil stands in the doorway and sees Matt and Allison on opposite ends of the sofa, talking.
Matt pops open a tube of pringles. “She’s been having trouble finding a place she can afford, so I offered to look with her, and then…”
Allison doesn’t look up from her laptop. “Are you actually thinking about moving in with her? Or are you being dreamy-in-love because you’re still in the honeymoon phase?”
“I’m not dreamy,” Matt says. “We’ve been together for three months. We’ve known each other for a year. We trust each other fine. I don’t think it’s a bad idea. You don’t know her well yet, but she’s...level-headed, you know? I don’t know how to explain it. You guys should hang out.”
“From what you’ve told me, we’re literal opposites, Matt. When would we ever have a reason to meet?”
“Not for school or anything. Just for fun. We can go out somewhere with you and Renee.”
Allison laughs. “Yeah, and will Neil come too?”
“Maybe. Anything can happen.”
“Who told you that? Anything can’t happen. Neil’s not going to party with us. And I’m pretty sure Dan doesn’t want to be friends with me. But if you think you guys should move in together, do it.”
“Yeah.”
Still standing in the doorway as if he doesn’t live here, Neil takes a step back. He doesn’t want to talk. He doesn’t want to sit or lay down or go to sleep. He wants to run.
On his way down the stairs, his phone starts to ring, and it scares him for some reason. When he pulls it out, he fumbles, and it hits the cement steps with a crack and tumbles down to the landing. It’s a cheap phone, and it was already on its last leg. The cracked screen doesn’t light up when Neil tries to turn it on. Now no one will be able to reach him, but that’s happened before, so Neil shoves the broken thing into his pocket and runs.
He runs to the library, just because it feels natural for his body to take him there. He goes home, and it’s even later, and he stands at the door again and knows he won’t be able to fall asleep if he tries. His legs feel a little sore, but if anything, running more will help to distract him from it. It’s like his body is pulling him away again, like the need to run is in his bones and his blood, and there’s a certain strain that doesn’t really leave until he’s going back down the stairs and onto the sidewalk and through the parking lot and to the road, and then he’s not nothing anymore. This time the library won’t be enough. This time he’ll keep going and going.
-
Neil takes a breath, and his chest hurts.
On the side of the road, the grass dewy from rain, the only sounds are cicadas and rustling trees and the occasional cars. The dark sky has turned to a washed-out blue, and the sun starts to peek out from the tops of the trees.
Neil doesn’t know how long he’s been walking or where he is when a black car passes him, slowing down, and pulls into the grass several yards ahead.
Neil stops.
Nobody gets out. Neil hesitates, but he walks until he reaches the passenger side, and the window rolls down, and Andrew is in the driver’s seat, shadows under his eyes and a cigarette butt between his lips, looking straight ahead.
Neil swallows. “How did you find me?” His voice sounds raw.
“I was out for a drive.”
Neil nods, still not looking up.
“What about you?” Andrew says.
“What about me?”
“Where are you headed, rabbit.”
“Nowhere.”
“Truth.”
“I just needed to run. It’s not a big deal.”
“Your roommates think you’ve been abducted by the mafia. They’ve apparently called you seventy-four times and you haven’t answered.”
“My phone’s broken,” Neil admits. “But I’ve only been gone for...”
“It’s almost eight a.m.”
“Oh.”
“Get in.”
Neil gets in the car.
-
When Andrew pulls up to the apartment building and puts the car in park, Neil blurts, “I’m sorry.”
“For what.”
“Getting in the way. I should go. I’ll…Bye.”
Matt answers the door with his phone pressed to his ear, but he drops it when he sees who’s in front of him. “Oh, thank god. Allison, he’s here.”
Since Neil disappears so often, he doesn’t expect his return to be a big deal, but the next two minutes are a blur of arms and hands as Allison and Matt take turns hugging him and checking him for injuries and asking him where has he been, is he okay, and does he want a glass of water.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Allison demands. Her hair is tangled, and her mascara has smeared in the corners of her eyes.
Neil fishes his smashed phone out of his pocket and holds it up.
“Fuck, okay, don’t worry about it, we’re going to get you a real phone tomorrow. Come sit down.”
“Andrew drove me back. Let me talk to him for a second.”
Matt and Allison exchange a look, but Matt says, “Alright.”
Like Neil knew it would be, Andrew’s car is still at the curb. He opens the passenger door and gets back in.
Andrew waits.
Neil feels like Andrew knows everything about him, even though he hasn’t told Andrew everything. “You’ve never asked about my scars. Or why I’m so messed up.”
“Why you’re so messed up,” Andrew repeats.
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, actually. Do you think you have the honor of being the only fucked up member of the human race?”
Neil says nothing.
“Neil.”
Neil looks up.
“I don’t care where you’ve been.”
“You don’t care about anything,” Neil says, and it’s supposed to sound teasing, but it sounds tired.
“Shut up. You don’t have to keep running. You can stay.”
“I don’t know how.”
“You don’t have to know. Make it up as you go. At least keep trying.”
“Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“I want to stay. I’ll keep trying.”
“I want to see you tomorrow. Yes or no?”
“Yes,” Neil says. It isn’t just a yes to tomorrow. It’s a yes to the day after that, and the day after that. It’s a yes.
They haven’t told each other everything. There’s still plenty of truths left to give, and Neil doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind that someone knows these things about him, and he doesn’t mind that there’s something else tying him to this place.