Chapter Text
After Sophie broke up with me, there was nothing holding me in California except inertia. Part of me longed to return to the Northeast, part of me just wanted to get out, but a much larger part was afraid to make any move, so I hung around for another year. When I wasn’t working, I read constantly (usually in English, with the occasional Greek text so I didn’t completely lose it) and made feeble plans to write my dissertation. The manic energy that had driven me to Hampden when I was nineteen was gone, leaving me feeling unmotivated and old.
I may well have remained in California feeling sorry for myself for the rest of my life if not for a certain letter I received. It was from Francis, telling me I should visit him in Boston. “I’ve moved home and my family’s being dreadful, won’t you please come distract me?” he wrote. I was surprised to hear from him — we hadn’t spoken since my graduation over a year ago — but even more surprising, I found I really wanted to see him again. And even if I didn’t, it gave me an excuse to go east.
Within a week, I was on a plane to Logan. Francis gave me his address in lieu of picking me up from the airport, so I didn’t see his face until he opened the door to his apartment to let me in.
“Jesus, Francis, you look terrible,” I said without thinking. He looked paler than I remembered, dark circles standing out under his eyes.
“Hello you to you,” he pouted, holding the door open but making no move to help me with my bags.
“Sorry. It is good to see you again,” I said as I walked in. In spite of the shock of his haggard look, my heart leapt when I saw that bright red hair again. “But seriously, are you ill or something?”
“I’m getting those panic attacks I got at Hampden again.” Francis said this evenly, not sounding distraught or sorry for himself, but I suddenly and vividly remembered the night he made me drive him to the emergency room, convinced he was having a heart attack. Something on my face must have betrayed this memory, because Francis quickly said, “That’s not why I asked you to come.”
“Of course not.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I never said that!” I genuinely hadn’t been trying to sound flippant but I didn’t mind terribly if he took it that way.
Francis opened his mouth to make another retort, glaring fiercely, and then his face softened and he rolled his eyes instead. “God, this is ridiculous, I didn’t mean to start off your visit bickering with you.” To my surprise, he crossed the room and pulled me into a hug.
Placing my arms hesitantly around him, I tried to remember if he had ever hugged me before. At Hampden he sometimes attached himself to my arm when we were walking together in the cold, and there was that fateful night when we kissed, but hugging was a new and foreign experience.
“I’ve missed you,” Francis said into my shoulder. He pulled back, only to meet my eyes intently.
“You too.” I was aware, in some distant corner of my mind, that in college I would have felt the need to discourage Francis from reading too much into this exchange, but now I made no attempt to do so.
After another brief interlude he snapped himself out of whatever strange mood he had gotten into. “Well!” he said brusquely. “Let’s get you settled in.”
Francis left me to my own devices to unpack and shower. We hadn’t agreed how long I would stay, but on the phone Francis had made vague references to the comfortable guest room and his building’s laundry facilities, implying that he wouldn’t mind if I stayed as long as I wanted. Therefore I packed enough clothes for two weeks and as many books as I could reasonably carry. (Francis also promised that I could use his Athenaeum membership for whatever I needed, another hint that I should extend my stay.)
That evening, Francis made dinner at home, and I discovered how much I had missed not only his cooking but also the sight of him puttering around a kitchen. The small room in his apartment felt a little lonelier than the kitchen at the country house; the was no Charles coming in for a drink or Bunny trying to steal part of the meal before it was done, but it was a comforting image nonetheless.
While he was cooking, we didn’t have to talk, because he could occupy himself with the food and I could write. Once we sat down to eat, however, the silence became awkward, and we struggled to find topics of conversation that wouldn’t upset one or both of us. Eventually, Francis took up much of the meal explaining the trials through which his family was putting him.
“My grandfather’s decided I’m getting too old to be unwed,” he said.
“Does he know—?” I had never actually mentioned Francis’s homosexuality directly to his face.
“Oh God, no! I’d probably be disowned by now if that were the case. But he’s certainly suspicious that he hasn’t ever met any woman friends of mine at the holidays.”
“But why does it matter if you’re married or not? This isn’t the eighteenth century, plenty of people stay single these days,” I said, ignoring the thought that I was distinctly unhappy about the near-certainty that I would live out the rest of my life alone.
Francis sighed, setting down his fork. “You don’t understand old money families, Richard.” He managed to keep his tone from sounding completely offensive. “The Abernathys need an heir, and I must provide. At least, my grandfather thinks we need an heir. Olivia probably doesn’t give a damn. She might like to give childrearing a go since she didn’t really get a chance with me, but she wouldn’t be cut out for it.”
“So what are you going to do?” I asked. I genuinely felt for him and wouldn’t wish his situation on anyone.
“Avoid the subject. For as long as possible. Maybe Camilla would marry me,” he said thoughtfully.
At the mention of Camilla, we both fell silent, remembering the wide gulf that lay between the days when she and Francis could have easily joked about such a thing and now. We finished dinner without saying much else, only speaking to coordinate who would wash up what.
But then after dinner Francis made us drinks, and we sat at opposite ends of his small couch, once again grasping for something to talk about. It was like this every time I spoke to either him or Camilla nowadays, and I almost regretted my decision to come, or at least to pack so heavily.
The silence was becoming unbearable when Francis asked, as if he had read my mind earlier in the afternoon, “Do you remember the night I kissed you?”
“God, what made you think of that?” I said, forcing a laugh and pretending I’d only just remembered myself.
“I don’t know, I’m getting all nostalgic,” Francis sighed. I thought it might be in poor taste to point out that it was rather odd to feel nostalgic about the night in question since it was also immediately after we killed Bunny. “Do you remember what I said to you about it?” Francis continued.
It took me a minute to figure out he was talking about that uncomfortable car ride. “I said I wasn’t attracted to you and you got all cold and said you weren’t attracted to me either.”
Francis laughed. “Could you blame me? You were terrible. I knew you weren’t interested, I wasn’t going to bring it up.”
“Yes, I supposed I ought to apologize for that.”
He waved me off with one hand while taking a sip of his whiskey. “It’s alright, I was harsh too. Anyway,” he said, “I lied.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wanted you the first moment I knew who you were.”
I startled at such a direct admission, and the strangely low tone of voice Francis used. I searched his eyes, trying to determine whether he meant only that he had been attracted to me at Hampden, or that he was still attracted to me now.
“Would you panic now as much as you did then?” he asked in the same odd voice. Momentarily considering his question, it occurred to me that his advances weren’t inspiring the same mild terror they might have three years earlier.
“Did you invite me all the way here just to proposition me?” I asked, somewhat put out. I was more offended at the thought that he didn’t want to see me just for the company than that it still hadn’t sunk in that I was heterosexual.
“Why did you drop everything to visit me on such short notice?” he retorted.
“I wanted to get out of California.”
Francis scoffed. “You could have left California anytime you wanted! I was half surprised my letter still reached you at that address.”
“I was busy with work,” I pointed out. “And I’ve been meaning to start my dissertation.”
“And yet you’re here.”
This line of debate surprised me. Francis and I had often found ourselves at odds when we were younger, but his side of it usually involved sulking and desperate apologies, not so much determination to get me to admit something. “Anyway,” I said, trying to gain the upper hand. “I didn’t exactly have anywhere outside of California to go.”
Francis sat back and took a drink. “Then it’s a good thing I so thoughtfully provided an escape.” His voice was light again. The interrogation, apparently, was over.
I tried to get some reading done when I retired to my room that night, but I couldn’t focus. My mind kept drifting towards the look I had seen in Francis’s eyes. I wanted you the moment I knew who you were. I had never heard him talk so frankly about another man, let alone me. Even when he explained his relationship with Charles, he hadn’t allowed himself to sound overtly desirous.
And yet, despite the novelty of the turn our conversation took, I reacted much less harshly than I had in college. I had grown less uncomfortable with his preferences over time, but that still didn’t explain I didn’t gently dissuade him that evening. The explanation seemed to be that I didn’t think he needed dissuading.
That was an overwhelming thought. I couldn’t possibly want Francis’s advances; I’d rejected him twice at Hampden. But why had I been so eager to accept his invitation to Boston? I hadn’t told him any lies. I really was ready to leap at any opportunity to come back to the East Coast, but I needed an outside force to pull me here. And on top of that, no matter how fraught our communication had become, I wouldn’t turn down the chance to see either Francis or Camilla again. Francis must be getting into my head, I decided. There was nothing strange about visiting an old friend. A small voice in the back of my mind pointed out that Francis’s invitation hadn’t come with a time frame, so there had really been no need to book the soonest plane ticket I could get. But I forcefully pushed that thought away, rolled over and tried to get some sleep.