Chapter Text
New York’s climate in June had never been something Neil took a liking to. The moment he stepped out of the plane, his shirt was clinging to his body, beads of sweat already forming on his forehead and lower back.
The turbines were still accelerating the warm, sticky air, but the cooling effect wasn’t sufficient. It got even worse when Neil pushed his trolley bags airportwards just to get through passport control, pick up Sir and wait for a vacant cab, once more exposed to the pre-summer heat.
The skyline strived upwards at the horizon as the cab driver weaved through crowded streets, constantly being on the phone with presumably another cab driver, but it wasn’t like Neil cared anyway.
Neil’s heart still twinged at the sight of New York’s skyline, too many memories connected to tall buildings and broad bridges, Hudson River and rooftops too tempting to forego relishing the incredible view they offered at night from.
“That’s fifty-five dollars,” the driver’s voice cut through Neil’s thoughts.
Neil handed him sixty bucks and got out of the cab, slowly approaching the apartment building where he had rented an apartment for the next three months.
His artworks should arrive tomorrow afternoon, so there was plenty of time left to reaccommodate himself to the buzzing city after two years of absence.
As he lifted his last trolley case onto the baggage rack, his phone started ringing. Stuart’s name appeared on the display, and although Neil didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, he couldn’t reject his uncle’s call just like that.
“Hi,” Neil answered, phone tucked in between ear and shoulder so he could continue unpacking his clothes. It wasn’t a lot — his past ever-present whenever he travelled — but it was still a bit and he thought it would be easier to settle if he unpacked right away.
“Neil! How was your flight?”
“It was fine.”
Flying had never been a problem for Neil, but since the breakup, it reminded him all the more of the life he had gained after all the shit he had been through as a child and teen, and lost again so suddenly.
“That’s good to hear. I just wanted to wish you good luck with your exhibition. I know that— Well, I hope you can have a good time despite... being back in New York.”
Neil knew exactly what Stuart wanted to say.
“You rather mean despite being back to where the only man I ever had feelings for broke up with me.”
Stuart sighed. Wasn’t it Neil who should have sighed there? He picked up Sir, who was exploring his new territory, and let his hand roam about soft fur. The motion was grounding — not as much as Andrew’s hand used to be, but Neil was sure he’d never experience that kind of grounding intimacy ever again.
“I didn’t want to phrase it like that. Whatever. If you need something, let me know, Neil.”
“I will. Thank you,” Neil said and rolled his eyes.
He was tired of everyone still beating around the bush whenever the topic “Andrew” came up. It was over; had been for over two years, now. And although Neil had never thought this void could be filled again, it wasn’t as big as it had been back then. He had a handful of good friends and Stuart and a cat, and life was… well, not bad .
“Talk to you soon!”
“Yeah, talk to you soon.”
Neil’s head ached. The last thing he wanted to do is ever step a foot out of his apartment again, but he’d promised his gallerist to meet her for dinner, and Neil knew that he’d better never stand up Allison Reynolds.
~~~
“Hey, sweetheart!”
It was impossible to not recognise Allison with her perfectly styled blonde hair, red lipstick and these impossible-to-walk-in looking high heels. Neil had to admit that he had missed her crushing hugs, her merry chit-chat and even the way she gave him a once-over, judging his poor style, and yet never once failing to stand up for Neil whenever it became necessary.
“Hey, Ally,” Neil said and settled in the secluded booth, rejoicing in the cooling air condition.
Allison’s name was enough to get them the best tables in every high class restaurant in New York City, which Neil usually considered ostentatious, but sometimes came in handy, especially when one didn’t want to run into certain people, and there definitely was one person Neil still avoided meeting again.
“How was your flight, honey? God, you look tired. Your works are supposed to arrive tomorrow, right? I can’t wait to finally exhibit them in my gallery. I’m sure we’ll sell a few.”
“My flight was fine, and you know that I don’t really care about selling my work. It’s just what I want to show.”
“So, are you finally over the five-foot idiot? Have you read his book by the way? I hope you didn’t, because damn, he doesn’t deserve to write about heartbreak when he was the one to drive you away.”
Allison prepped her head onto her in the air folded hands, her eyes sparkling in anticipation of the newest gossip material.
“I’ve told you I’ve been over him for quite some time, and it’s not okay to call him an idiot.”
Of course, Neil had read Andrew’s novel. How could he have ignored it, when Andrew had chosen to rather write about his feelings instead of ever expressing them to Neil when they had been together. The critics had praised it, had marked it one of the best novels of the decade, a novelty in the way the author expressed pain and apathy in equal shares. Well, apathy had definitely been one of Andrew’s strengths. Just the feelings part was new.
“You know, it would be much easier to finally come to a closure if you and Matt and everyone else stopped inquiring about my feelings all the time,” Neil added, trying to avert the whole topic.
Neil was sure he looked like a pouting child right now, but he couldn’t care less. It was absolutely true. Matt and Dan and Allison were always the first ones to bring up Andrew whenever they saw Neil, and it was exhausting. All Neil wanted was to shelve the Andrew file once and for all and move on, and that had already proven hard enough without his friends poking their noses into his business.
“Okay, okay,” Allison gave in, studying the menu hyperbolically. “So, what else is happening in your life? Any new acquaintances? California for sure has some dating material on hand, right?”
Neil sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You should know that I don’t really look at them the way you guys do, but whatever you say.”
The waiter cut through the ensuing silence, taking their orders and recommending a wine that seemed much too expensive, especially when Neil wouldn’t drink it anyway.
“Neil, listen. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, okay? Let’s put it aside, okay?”
It wasn’t in Neil’s nature to bear grudges for long, so he nodded and talked about his artworks, his successful exhibitions around the country and his upcoming project once his
“Disillusion” exhibition was over.
“It helped me with the breakup so it’ll probably help me with that trauma, too,” Neil said and leaned back, wiping his mouth with his napkin. He was full to the brim and couldn’t understand how Allison could keep her weight steady despite eating for ten.
“That’s so inspiring. My little baby spreads his wings.” Allison faked wiping her eyes, fanning herself with the menu.
“It’s not that big of a deal, you know? I mean, it’s not like it’s going to be fun revisiting my past, my childhood, my parents, but my therapist told me it could be really helpful, and if it’ll pay my rent, my parents will have served at least one good purpose.”
“I’m so proud of you,” Allison drawled, stopping the waiter with her perfectly manicured hand to order dessert. It made Neil’s calloused fingers stick out even more, but they also showed how much effort he put into his art, and how much he’d overcome with it.
Proud .
If Andrew would be proud? Neil sometimes wondered if Andrew had been to one of his exhibitions. If Andrew could see how much Neil had felt for him. Still felt for him. All the time he told people he was over him, but was he really over the person who’d made him swing for the first and probably last time ever?
Some nights, he wasn’t so sure anymore.
“— really not worth exhibiting. Honey, are you okay? You look like you’re having a stroke.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Ah, forget it. I’m really happy for you. It’s great you’re making so much progress.”
“Thanks, Ally,” Neil answered, but zoned out again the moment Allison went on about another one of her artists.
As the waiter set down two sundaes, Neil didn’t know how he should take another bite. His tongue felt heavy and his mouth was dry. When Allison finally asked for the check, Neil couldn’t wait to get into the next cab passing by. He didn’t even know how he’d bidden Allison goodbye.
Seemed like tonight was one of those nights where nothing was certain anymore.
~~~
“Disillusion” had attracted a million visitors around the whole country so far. Andrew Minyard’s novel “Pipe Dream” had five million sales worldwide so far. Five million people who had been allowed into Andrew’s emotional world, and Neil hadn’t been one of them although this book wouldn’t exist without him in the first place.
Neil arranged the last canvas in the exhibition room before he could quickly step under the shower to be presentable for the big opening of his last stop with the traveling exhibition.
He was used to the photographers, the journalists, the people trying to get to chat with him about one of the paintings or installations, but he somehow still wasn’t used to giving his opening speech wherein he explained to the world how this exhibition had come to life.
Neil never mentioned Andrew. He talked about a breakup, a person he’d let in and whom he’d loved. A person who simply hadn’t been able to overcome his horrific past, a trauma so big that even he, the son of a murderer, couldn’t really relate to.
As always, he hinted at the foundation he and Allison had founded, the Hatford-Reynolds Against Childhood Abuse foundation, that provided facilities where traumatized kids and teenagers could escape to, get trauma therapy and find a way into a better life with college scholarships. And just like always, he was glad when the speech was over.
The mingling wasn’t exactly something he wanted to do, but he’d long accepted it as a part of his life as an artist, and from time to time someone interesting approached him to talk about his art. It wasn’t the worst.
After about an hour into the evening, Allison came up behind Neil, dragging him over to a woman who was interested in the Disillusion diptych — one of the works Neil wouldn’t sell. She didn’t seem all too excited about hearing it wasn’t available for purchase, but Neil wouldn’t change his mind.
It was a core work of his oeuvre, the eponym for the exhibition. Two black canvases. Hope — with an ombré white dot in the middle — and Disillusion (The Day You Left) — the white dot gone; complete blackness.
As the woman was about to leave, Neil’s eyes locked with a set of hazel ones. It took him a moment to avert them and scan the rest of the appertaining body, but Neil knew it was obsolete. He knew these eyes, had looked into them a million times, had studied every little color deviation in the iris, had woken up to them for years, their brown like honey and whiskey and sometimes, with the right amount of sunlight hitting them, like amber or pure gold.
Andrew .
He was standing in front of Boundaries . It was one of the installations that were focused on Andrew’s take on life and relationships. Over and over, the projection showed a stream of No’s, only interrupted by a flashing butitsstillayesforme once in every cycle. It was all Neil had felt when Andrew had decided they’d be better off without the other, not even leaving Neil a choice to decide what was best for him himself, so Neil had obeyed, had accepted Andrew’s boundaries.
Neil’s heart fluttered. He felt a strong internal pull, everything in his system screaming at him to move his feet and get to Andrew, just like the sun’s gravity kept the solar system together with a steady pull, but the moment he actually got under way, he bumped into a tall man with green eyes he knew too well.
“Kevin, what the fuck?!”
Kevin Day had studied with Neil and Andrew, had excelled in art history and journalism likewise, and was one of the most critically acclaimed art bloggers of their time — and the last person Neil wanted to see right now.
“Nice to see you, too, Neil,” Kevin huffed and frowned, clicking his pen. “I wanted to ask for an interview for the blo—”
“Kevin, can you just move ?! Andrew’s there.”
Of course, Kevin, in all his inconspicuousness, swung around, asking, “Where?”, and as quick as the moment had come, it was gone again.
Neil ditched Kevin to look for Andrew, but he was nowhere to be found. He even asked Allison, but neither she nor her wife Renee had seen him all night. Had it been a hallucination? Just a mirage elicited by all the traveling and exhausting exhibitions?
When he walked back towards the exhibition room, Neil’s eyes were burning and his mouth dry. His muscles were tense, and he wanted nothing more than to get home to curl up in his bed with Sir and hibernate.
Kevin wasn’t someone to get rid off quickly, so of course he was still standing by the installation, but Neil had only eyes for the projection screen with its flashing itsstillayesforme .
Maybe, he thought, the next exhibition should focus on truths.