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Anger fizzed through Neil as he looked at Andrew. They stood in the kitchen of their shared dorm, staring each other down – one apoplectic, one apathetic, both quietly furious.
“When were you going to tell me?” Neil spat out, his left fist balled up, body a tightly wound coil. Andrew cocked his head to one side and regarded him with a detachment that Neil couldn’t get past, “What makes you think I was going to tell you?”
Neil felt hot and then cold. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t find the words. Andrew moved past him and into the living room, plopping down on to the couch. “I don’t owe you anything, Neil.” Hearing the tone in his voice, the way his name sounded – bitten out and sharp – was Neil’s undoing. He clenched his fists and unclenched them, thinking back to a day three years ago.
I’ll get bored of you eventually.
He turned around and took in the faded carpet, the beanbag chairs, the desks pushed against the wall; he remembered the way Andrew had taken his hand and placed it flat on his chest; he remembered the rabbitting pulse beneath the palm of his hand. He remembered every word; he wished he didn’t.
Neil scrubbed a hand across his face, and sighed deeply.
“Andrew.”
“Don’t.”
For the second time in under half-an-hour, Neil felt like the air was punched out of his lungs.
“Fine,” he bit out, feeling something inside him fray and snap. “Fine,” he said, striding into the bedroom, rooting around for his hoodie. “Fine,” he snapped again, as he carelessly pulled on a pair of shorts and looked for his shoes. “You don’t owe me anything,” he said and stormed out, slamming the door in his wake.
*
When Neil Josten woke up that morning, he had been expecting a mundane day, bordering on boring. He expected to go on a run, eat breakfast, finish assignments and head out to practice. He hadn’t expected the floor to tilt beneath him in the five minutes that he had gotten out of bed.
“What’s going on,” he’d asked Nicky, glancing at the open door and the people milling around in the corridor.
“Andrew’s press meet is in 30 minutes, everyone is excited,” Nicky had said cheerfully, making Neil pause.
“What press meet?”
“The one on him going pro. Denver’s got it all set up,” Nicky clarified, sounding a little confused. “I thought you would be in the stadium.”
And Neil’s world had warped around him as he tried to wrap his head around the words “pro” and “Denver”.
“Neil?” Nicky sounded hesitant, unsure, and Neil felt overwhelmed; he couldn’t locate his words.
“What?” he had managed to rasp out, and Nicky had shot him a troubled look.
“Andrew told you, didn’t he?”
He hadn’t.
Neil felt wobbly. His chest burned like someone took a dashboard lighter to his fucking heart. He had slipped out quietly and made his way to the roof, ignoring Nicky’s calls. Soon enough, notifications started pouring in – messages, news stories, links to videos – and Neil felt numb, numb, numb. He felt a distant part of his mine struggle to put a word to a question that had been plaguing him since morning.
The sun went higher and higher, tracing an invisible arc across the sky, and he had sat on the edge of the ledge as he had countless times before, legs tucked in, finger tracing a scar on his left hand. Reluctantly, he had pulled out his phone and clicked on the first link he found. Andrew’s face shivered on to the screen, impassive as always and Neil had the distinct impression of watching a stranger talk.
His mind said it was Andrew, but he couldn’t process it.
A PR rep threw around words like contract, acquisition and team pride, even as Andrew fidgeted, fingers pacing back and forth on the table in front of him. Neil felt dazed; he had done the only thing that made sense to him, and pressed the call button.
“Neil.”
He took a shaky breath, and another, and then another.
“Neil,” came the voice again, now a little annoyed.
“When did you know?” he whispered, hating the way his voice had sounded.
Kevin paused before answering, “What? Why?” And then a little more concerned: “Neil?”
“I didn’t know,” he bit out, realization crashing at him like a second wave, threatening to take him under.
He didn’t know. He didn’t know.
He heard Kevin pause; he could practically hear his frown. “He must have his reasons.”
“Fuck you.”
“Neil. No, listen. He knows what he’s doing. Talk to him.”
And Neil wondered. If they knew what they were doing; if they were going to be a they anymore.
I’ll get bored of you eventually.
“How long have you known?”
“Don’t do this.”
“Tell me.” Neil’s voice had gone deceptively quiet. Kevin fumbled for a second before answering. “A month.”
Neil didn’t know when he hung up. All he had known in that moment was that he had to find Andrew and talk to him.
And Andrew had stopped him with a single word.
*
Running felt like meditation; like a big broken pile of puzzle pieces slotting together neatly as his feet hit the ground repeatedly.
He remembered the way Andrew had looked at him that afternoon, a wall of blankness, and ran faster to forget.
He remembered the way he had pressed Neil into the concrete of the terrace two nights ago, and ran faster to forget.
He remembered Nicky’s uneasy glance and Kevin’s confusion, and ran faster to forget.
He remembered his mother’s sharp voice lacerating through the fog in his mind, and ran faster to forget.
He remembered six words and ten syllables spoken into the space between their lips years ago, and struggled to forget.
I’ll get bored of you eventually.
As the sun went down and lights flickered down the road, Neil stopped, knees finally giving away and relearned how to breathe. He had no idea where he was, and to his utter consternation, realised with a belated jolt of anxiety that he had left his phone behind.
“Fuck.”
Andrew would be pissed, was his first thought before he the anger lancing through him reminded that it was the other way around. His feet hurt, his head hurt, and he realised that he hadn’t eaten anything that day. He looked down the road, shorts sticking to his thighs, left sleeve of his hoodie torn, hair a sweaty mess, the burn of exertion blanking out any coherent thought, and considered running. His mother’s voice played in a loop in his head, berating him for getting complacent.
He trudged on toward a gas station that he knew was somewhere down the road, wincing in pain on every fourth step forward. The deepening sky told him it was evening, but time, as a concept, had ceased to exist for Neil. A week ago, he had told Andrew he wanted to get a cat. Seven days later, he was hobbling toward a gas station in search of a pay phone, feeling off-kilter and thoroughly miserable.
He called the only person that he could think of.
“Hello,” came the gruff voice, sounding annoyed as always and Neil felt a bubble of amusement ripple through his overwhelming thoughts. He tamped down on the hysteria he felt clawing its way up his throat.
“Coach,” he said, sounding weary, ragged and so so done.
“Neil?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t “yeah” me, Josten, where the fuck are you?” Neil detected anger and an undercurrent of worry in Wymack’s voice.
“On the interstate. At the gas station. Could you pick me up?”
“Fuck,” Wymack swore. “We were about to send a search party. What the fuck, Neil?”
“Coach.”
“What?”
“Bring me a sandwich will you?”
He heard Wymack sigh. “You lot will be the death of me.”
*
Abby’s couch was soft, Neil thought as he ran a hand through the grey down. She fussed over him, making him drink two glasses of electrolytes before he could even get in a word edgewise. The sandwich he had eaten in the car made him feel queasy.
His feet were bruised, sore and hurt like a bitch. He felt drained and sluggish. Wymack had kept quiet on the way back, and Neil was grateful for the silence. He didn’t trust himself to talk; not when he himself did not understand half the things he was currently feeling.
“You had been running for six hours,” he had told Neil gruffly, before helping him over the threshold of Abby’s house.
“Neil,” she said softly from the carpet where she was bandaging his feet, and he lifted his head to look at her. He was so tired. He was so tired.
“How do you feel?”
And Neil laughed, a hollow sound that fell flat. “I don’t know, Abby.”
“That’s new,” said Wymack from somewhere behind and Abby glared at him.
“You are sleeping here tonight, okay? I’ll get you some sheets,” she said, placing his right foot gently back on the couch.
He tried to protest but wilted under their twin glares. He didn’t want to go back to the dorm and face Andrew’s silence with a single “don’t” hanging over their heads like a sword. He didn’t feel like tolerating Nicky’s concern and worry either.
“Fine,” he said, sinking back into the cushions, defeat hovering tangible in the air.
No one mentioned Andrew or Denver.
*
Neil woke up to the smell of cigarette smoke and the sight of Andrew sitting in the dark on the floor next to the couch, leaning against it. He slowly ran his eyes over his profile, taking in the mussed hair and the way his cheeks slightly hollowed as he took a drag of the cigarette.
“Andrew,” Neil rasped out, and watched him go still for a split second. Andrew turned to face Neil, face obscured by the darkness, hair lit up in a halo of gold from the light near the stairs. “What are you doing here?”
Andrew stayed silent, and Neil huffed out a sigh. Served him right for expecting anything, he thought to himself viciously.
Four minutes ticked past at a glacial pace. “I panicked,” Andrew said, softly, answering the unspoken question that had been plaguing Neil since 10am that morning.
Neil frowned, trying to make sense of the answer. “Why?” he eventually ventured.
Andrew exhaled. “I don’t know. I was scared, I think, of change.”
Neil took a minute to process this. Confessions were common enough between them, but this felt more vulnerable than anything they had chosen to tell each other, and some part of him – the disbelieving part that hurt and hurt and hurt – ached with the realisation.
“I don’t like explaining myself, but it felt too big, too impossible, too much,” Andrew said, turning to face Neil fully, resting his elbow on the couch near his stomach.
Neil nodded; he saw the apology in between the words, but couldn’t bring himself to talk yet.
“Nicky overheard me talking to Kevin, and Kevin was the one who called me about it in the first place,” he continued, now examining a coffee stain on the cushion.
“Andrew,” Neil interjected. “You don’t have to explain yourself. You don’t owe me anything, remember?”
Andrew didn’t flinch, but it was a close thing. He screwed his eyes shut and bit out, “I didn’t really know what to say.” A beat later, he added, “I’m sorry,” while worrying a loose thread on the carpet.
Neil thawed, a little relief coursing through him. He didn’t know what he needed, but an apology seemed to quieten his frantic thoughts. But he still had to address something. Fidgeting with the covers, he began hesitatingly, “Three years ago, one day, you said you’ll eventually get bored of me.”
Andrew turned sharply.
“Are you bored of me, yet?”
Andrew exhaled heavily. “I thought remembering everything to a fault was my thing.” He stubbed the cigarette on the floor and looked into Neil’s eyes. “No. No I’m not,” and then, “I hate that you thought that was the case.”
Neil laughed, a short, sharp thing that sliced through the tension like a knife, and gestured to Andrew to come closer. He rested his forehead against Andrew’s shoulder and mumbled, “I’m tired.”
“Turned into a rabbit, did you?”
Neil’s lips twitched at that, “Not completely, no. But Wymack says I ran for six hours. Should I believe him?”
Andrew narrowed his eyebrows at Neil. “Take your fucking phone along with you.” Neil knew that was the closest Andrew would come to saying I was worried about you.
Andrew pulled himself on to the couch and placed Neil’s legs across his thighs, and sighed. “Nicky and Kevin both yelled at me.”
“You deserve it.”
Andrew swatted at his ankle, and then proceeded to bend down and press a kiss to Neil’s bandaged foot. Neil’s breath hitched. The gesture warmed him from within.
“I’m still angry with you.”
“I know,” Andrew replied, kissing his ankle now, rubbing circles into his skin.
Neil sighed and pulled at his sleeve, and Andrew bent down to meet him halfway. The kiss was softer than they were used to, and Neil melted into it.
They broke apart and Neil quirked an eyebrow at Andrew, “So, Denver huh?” and Andrew hummed in response.
“You know their players are shit right?”
Andrew huffed out a laugh at that. “Shut up, junkie.”
*
When Wymack came down the next day, he missed a step, almost crashing into the table at the foot of the stairs.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
Abby shut him up with a glare.
“Should I throw something at them?”
“David.”
Wymack held his hands up in submission and turned to look at his two best players wrapped across each other on the couch, covers thrown aside.
“They’ll be the death of me,” he sighed, making his way to the coffee pot.