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‘Refill?’
The waitress has cute dark curls and a cropped t-shirt. Shawn kind of wants to flirt with her, but he can’t think of anything to say, and all he manages is ‘Oh, yeah. Thanks.’
She refills his coffee, splashes some on the table, but he waves her away when she moves to clean it up. ‘Oh, that’s fine. That’s - thanks. It’s okay. I’m fine.’ He’s relieved when she moves to the next table.
This is the first time he’s been anywhere public since his dad died, and he feels anxious, skittish, self-conscious. He’s spent days at the Matthews’ house, a lot of them time asleep in Cory’s old bed, in the dark, and now everything out here is too loud and bright and he’s shaky.
He wasn’t even sure how he’d ended up at the Matthews’ place, after the hospital. He only remembers broken pieces of the rest of that day, after they told him his dad was dead.
He remembers the doctor asking if they wanted to see Chet – or his body, or whatever. Jack did. Shawn did not. So Shawn stayed in the waiting room while Jack went in. Shawn regrets that, now. He feels like Jack passed a test and he failed.
And he remembers going to wash his face and then having some kind of meltdown, sobbing and sobbing alone in the bathroom until Cory came to find him and said ‘Shawnie, Shawnie,’ and wrapped him in a hug and held on very tight until – until whatever happened next. He can’t remember.
He must have stopped crying at some point, must have left the hospital, must have got in a car. The next thing he knew it was midnight and he was lying in Cory’s old bed, Cory was asleep in Eric’s, and Shawn was staring up at the ceiling with a pounding headache, scared to go to sleep because then he would have to wake up and remember what had happened.
He stayed at the Matthews’ all the next day and the next, crying a lot, totally out of it, dimly aware that Alan Matthews was making phone-calls for him, making arrangements, sorting stuff that needed to be sorted. Mrs Matthews brought him food and kept telling Shawn how much they all loved him, which just set him off crying again.
Somehow, he managed to avoid seeing Jack. He felt guilty about it, but whatever.
Jack’s parents were in town. Jack had called them at the hospital, and they’d already been on their way before Chet died. And, like, of course Jack called his parents, why wouldn’t he? – but Shawn didn’t want to meet them. Honestly, he was kind of offended by their existence, and he was mad at Jack as a consequence, and so he pretended to be asleep both times Jack came over and the three times he called.
Cory, eventually, very carefully, explained that there was going to be a funeral, that Shawn needed to be involved in it. He needed to talk to Alan and Jack and Jack’s parents and help them make arrangements, because actually nobody knew a damn thing about Chet apart from Shawn. Who should be called? Did Chet have more family? Did he have a bank account? Insurance? A will?
Shawn promised he would deal with all of that, he would make a list, he would call people. Then he went back to bed, and the next time he woke up – yesterday morning – Cory told him that he hoped Shawn didn’t mind but he’d called Mr Turner because he thought he would want to know, and Mr Turner was going to drive down from New York the next day and be here for the funeral, whenever that was.
Well, fuck. Shawn was a little mad at Cory about that – if someone was going to phone Turner, it should have been him – but also it was a very Cory thing to do, and like most things Cory did, it made Shawn feel cared for.
He hadn’t spoken to Jon in a while, but the news that he was coming filled Shawn with unexpected gratitude. Yes: Cory had told him, and yes, of course Jon would want to be here, he would want to see Shawn. Shawn had a burst of childish satisfaction: Jon was coming, and Jon belonged to him. Jon did not have to be shared with Jack, or anybody. He was coming just for Shawn, because he loved him.
He hadn’t seen Jon all that much since his bike accident – a bunch of times at the hospital, but then Jon had gone to stay with his parents for a while when he got out, and hadn’t come back to Philadelphia after, he’d got a job in New York. But Jon visited a few times, and called Shawn at least every couple of months, calls that were awkward at first but that eventually Shawn came to rely on. Jon kept it light, didn’t ask heavy questions or pressure Shawn about school, but somehow he made spaces in their conversations where Shawn always ended up spilling his guts about everything that was going on, and Jon just listened.
Anyway, so here he is, waiting to meet him in this too-loud coffee shop near the hotel Jon said he’d booked, but now Shawn feels nervous. He hasn’t seen him in more than a year and he wants to impress him. He wants him to think that Shawn is smart and cool and grown-up, a college student, a man, not a fragile little boy with no parents.
He sips his coffee, doesn’t really taste it, and tries to rehearse what he will say, to make it sound like he’s fine.
There’s a bunch of stuff from his childhood that is starting to embarrass Shawn as he gets older. Mainly the stuff involving having to be rescued from his own pathetic life.
When he was fifteen, he remembers thinking it was kind of cool to live with his English teacher, but the first time it came up with Jack, Shawn suddenly realised it wasn’t cool at all, it was just sad.
He’d just mentioned it in passing, not even thinking about it. They’d been talking about high school and Shawn had said ‘Yeah, that was when I was living with Jon.’
And Jack had said: ‘Who?’
And Shawn had explained, not thinking it was a big deal, but Jack’s face had done this weird complicated mix of guilt and poor Shawn and seriously, your English teacher? – and so Shawn had changed the subject and never mentioned it again, although Cory said Jack had asked him about it later.
He’s also embarrassed by some of the stuff that only Jon knows about: mainly how fucking vulnerable and weird Shawn was that year they lived together.
Like, for example: he used to hide food in his room. Not just, like, snacks, maybe that would have been normal, but also fruit and cereal, and bags of rice and other stuff he either bought or stole or got from the Matthews or just took from the kitchen when Jon wasn’t there. He had food under his bed, in the closet, stashed at the bottom of his duffel bag, hidden everywhere.
Seriously, even now, he doesn’t know what the hell he thought he was doing or why, it was just a compulsion, like biting his nails, and it made him feel better, safer. Like, you never know, right? What’s going to happen?
Shawn doesn’t know when or how Jon found out about it, but he knew. Once, very, very carefully, Jon had tried to talk to him about it – saying it was okay, that if Shawn wanted to keep food in his room he could, but that Shawn shouldn’t be worried about food because there was always going to be enough, blah blah blah, and Shawn had shut that down as fast he could, laughed a little hysterically, pretended not to know what Jon was talking about it and then ran out the door claiming he had a date.
The memory makes him feel sick: guilty, ashamed, stupid. His face burns just thinking about it.
Here’s another memory and this one is maybe worse: this was after he lived with Jon, but before Jon’s accident, when Shawn was back at the trailer park – with both of his parents, for a little while. But his mom had started taking off again, for weeks at a time, and his dad was all over the place, taking jobs here and there, letting bills pile up and acting like everything was going great.
Shawn hadn’t told anyone, not even Cory, what was going on. He couldn’t face another round of poor Shawn. And no one would have found out, except that this nasty flu went around school and took out all the kids one by one so that half the classrooms were empty.
Shawn got it right after Cory. Cory was already off sick, and Shawn got sent to the nurse after he got dizzy in class, and the nurse sent him home, and Shawn pretended to call his dad, said he was getting picked up right outside, and then walked home, feeling like shit the whole way. He walked home alone because his mom was gone and his dad was out of town on some sure-thing job he said would take two weeks, three weeks max, then he'd be back and they’d be rich, at least rich enough to pay the bills.
He'd left Shawn money for food or whatever, but Shawn was stupid and had already spent it, and Chet either didn’t know or didn’t care that all those overdue bills were about to hit their final deadline, and the day after Shawn got sent home sick, the phone got cut off, and the next day the electricity, which meant the heat as well as the light.
It would have been fine, not a big deal: he would’ve just gone to the Matthews, made some excuse, stayed there till his dad got back. Except that he was really sick by then: dizzy, aching all over, freezing cold then way too hot. Like, he woke up and just could not get out of bed to go any further than the bathroom without falling over. So he was stuck in the trailer, no phone, no heat, no electricity, no food.
And it was winter so it got really cold, really see-your-breath icy in there at night. If the phone had been working he definitely would’ve called the Matthews and said he needed help, but he couldn’t do that, and he couldn’t even stand up long enough to go outside and get help from one of the neighbours. So he just lay in his bed, shivering and sweating and then delirious in the dark until at some point Alan Matthews and Mr Turner were there. They’d kicked the door in because no one was answering and no one had seen or heard from Shawn in days. And then Mr Matthews was carrying him outside to his car, and then Shawn was in Cory’s bedroom and the adults were having a very long, serious conversation about him downstairs.
He was too sick to listen in, mostly, but Cory did his best. Mr Turner and Mr Feeny and Amy and Alan were all there, and Cory reported back fragments of conversation.
‘—should never have let him go back there—’
‘—doesn’t matter what Shawn wants, we have a responsibility—’
‘—could’ve died and Chet wouldn’t even have—'
‘—not going back to that trailer, he can move back with me and I don’t care what—'
It was bad, even Shawn had to admit it was bad: him, a kid, lying delirious in a dark, freezing trailer for three days with nothing to eat. Alan Matthews was so careful with him in the weeks after that, looked at him with such a complicated mix of sadness and compassion that Shawn could hardly stand to be around him.
Well, whatever. Eventually Chet came back, money in his pocket, and Shawn managed to convince everyone that he wanted to go back to his dad and if they made him do anything else he’d run away, which they all believed, no problem.
It was nobody’s fault, what had happened: it was just bad luck. That’s what Shawn said, that’s what Chet said, and what could anyone do about it, it’s not like Shawn wasn’t old enough to have a say in what happened to him. If he’d wanted to move back in with Jon, where the lights always worked and it was always warm and the fridge was always stocked - he could have said so, couldn’t he.
Shawn wants to scrub that whole incident from his brain. He won’t talk about it, ever, even with Cory. He hates that anybody ever got to see him that vulnerable.
And god, he doesn’t want to think about any of this stuff right now. He should be focusing on good memories of his father, but it’s hard when he’s waiting to see Jon because Jon is eternally bound up with very bad memories of Shawn’s father, the first one, obviously, being the time Shawn’s father abandoned him to go on a ‘search for his wife’ that everyone knew was just an excuse to leave.
Everyone knew, right? No one actually believed Chet had spent all those months painstakingly searching the country for Virna? Everyone knew that Chet had just panicked at the thought of taking sole responsibility for his son and had dumped him off on the Matthews and got the hell out of town as fast as he could?
Yes, everyone knew. All the humiliations of being a Hunter were public.
He sees Jon edge his way around a group of girls standing at the door and cast his eyes around the tables looking for Shawn. He looks good, healthy, tanned as if he might have been on vacation, which makes Shawn more conscious that he probably looks like shit: pale, tired, too thin.
Then Jon sees him, comes towards him, and Shawn stands up. His throat and mouth are dry and his eyes sting. Then Jon is right there, saying ‘Hey, Shawn, I’m so sorry,’ and then hugging him.
It’s not a tentative, polite hug, it’s more like a full Cory hug, and Shawn screws his eyes shut and presses his face into Jon’s shoulder, hugs him back and stays there, not trusting himself to speak in case he cries.
Neither of them were ever huggers, really, but his memory cuts back to one time he fell asleep on the couch, when he lived with Jon, and woke up in a blaze of terror and confusion from a nightmare, choking on tears and feeling like he couldn’t breathe, and Jon being there suddenly and hugging him, and it was kind of awkward but also nice. He had a bunch of nightmares that year.
Shawn’s dad’s hugs always came with manly back-slaps that knocked the breath out of you.
He pulls back, pushes Jon away, scrubs at his face with his hands and grins. ‘Hey! Hey, thanks for – hey, you didn’t have to, thanks, this is – this is really nice of you.’
Jon looks faintly bemused, like Shawn’s just stuck his hand up and said something stupid at the back of the class.
‘I mean,’ says Shawn. ‘All this way. Come all this way.’
‘Are you kidding?’
‘You didn’t have to.’
‘Shawn.’
‘Do you want a coffee or something? Or something to eat?’
Jon pauses, looking at Shawn carefully. Then he said, ‘Coffee. Sure.’
Shawn looks around for the waitress, and waves at her, like an idiot, then sits back down. He’s still smiling, he can’t seem to stop himself, but he knows it’s not a normal smile. Jon sits down opposite, and Shawn says, ‘I think the - the food’s okay, here, I think. I think it’s—’ He pushes the sandwich menu across the table in case Jon wants something to eat, but as he does he realises his hands are shaking and he yanks them back, presses his palms together under the table. He can feel the weird smile on his face. Distantly, he notices that he isn’t breathing right, his breath is coming too fast.
‘So, did you – um – I mean, the drive – was the drive – did you—‘
‘Shawn—’
‘I think – I mean – I appreciate, you know – it’s nice of you—’
Someone has switched out a light, or maybe it’s night-time, because things are getting dark at the edges. Shawn thinks it’s loud in here but it’s just his own heartbeat. He’s trying to swallow but he can’t. Oh god, he thinks, suddenly realising: he’s dying. A heart attack, just like his dad. Right now, today, this is it: he’s dying.
‘You alright, Hunter?’ Jon says, leaning forward, concerned. Great. This is great. Jon has been here for all of thirty seconds and already Shawn is a pathetic mess, or else about to drop dead. He has no idea what’s happening but everything is racing and he’s shaking all over.
It’s like seeing Jon has knocked loose whatever it was that was holding Shawn together.
‘I can’t—’
‘Shawn. Shawn. Hunter. Hey.’ Jon is up again, then at his side, crouching next to him. Then he is holding both of Shawn’s hands in his and saying, ‘Hunter, hey. Look at me. Shawn, c’mon. Look at me. Hey. Breathe. You’re okay. You’re fine. I’ve got you, you’re okay. Just breathe. Shawn. Look at me.’
He looks at Jon, tries to focus, which is hard because things are graying out and he thinks he might be crying. His heart thunders in his ears, and he’s not breathing right, he knows it, but he can’t help it. This must be what it feels like, what his dad felt like.
‘Jon?’ he hears himself choke out, confused about where he is, what’s happening, how old he is. He is fifteen and sleeping on a park bench. He is five and sleeping on his father’s lap. He is eighteen and dying in a coffee shop.
‘Yeah, Shawn, it’s me. I’m here. You’re okay. You’re alright. Slow down, try and breathe.’
There is a blur of noise all around, and people, and he thinks the waitress is there, asking if they need help, and Jon is saying something to her Shawn doesn’t pick up. Shawn wonders if he’s trapped in some kind of nightmare, if he’s suffocating, but Jon is holding his hands and he tries to focus on that, even if it’s embarrassing and fuck, fuck, this is all embarrassing and this is not the way to show Jon that he’s fine.
‘You’re alright,’ Jon says again, in a soft voice. ‘I’ve got you.’
Shawn’s brain loops on that for a moment, I’ve got you, sort of a meaningless thing to say but it’s good, it helps, someone has got him, he isn’t dying, he isn’t falling, Jon has got him.
‘There you go,’ Jon says, when Shawn starts to get his breathing under control, still shaking like crazy and there’s tears all over his face but he feels like he’s starting to get oxygen again. ‘Nice work,’ Jon says, easy, reassuring, like Shawn did good on a test. ‘There you go. You’re alright. You’re doing really good there, Hunter.’
Shawn gives a shaky little laugh that turns into a sob. Jesus. What a mess. The waitress is there again, she’s pouring water into a glass. He feels like people are staring so he just tries to focus on Jon and get his fucking shit together. He pulls a hand free to rub it over his face, wipe the tears away. ‘Oh, god,’ he says, when he finds his voice. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. God.’
Jon lets go of his other hand and squeezes his shoulder, still crouched by Shawn’s chair. Shawn folds over himself, wraps his arms around his stomach, closes his eyes. There are people everywhere, all around them, way too many people. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says again.
‘Ssh.’ Jon’s hand rubs up and down his arm. Shawn is still shaking. He feels very cold. ‘You’re okay, Hunter. You’re alright.’
‘I don’t know what this is, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s just a panic attack, it’s okay, just keep breathing, nice and easy.’
He doesn’t know what that means, but he lets himself float for a few minutes, concentrating on breathing, still shaking but his heart not thundering any more. He opens his eyes but only to look at the floor, then closes them again. It’s still too much.
He feels Jon stand up, keeping one hand on his shoulder, and hears him say to the waitress, ‘Is there like a store room or something, a quiet place we can just—’
‘Yes, yeah, of course,’ he hears her say. ‘Yeah, let me just get – let me ask—’
More movement, more voices, and then Jon crouches again and pushes Shawn’s hair out of his face. ‘We’re just going to stand up for a minute, okay?’ he says. ‘Just hold on to me for a minute, we’re just going somewhere quiet, okay? Shawn?’
‘Okay,’ Shawn says, and lets Jon help him to his feet, hold on to his arm and lead him somewhere, Shawn trying very hard not to look at anybody, just trying to stay up and keep walking even though he’s light headed and he’s pretty sure Jon is taking 90% of his weight.
Then they are somewhere else. A small, dark, quiet room with boxes on shelves, and they’re sitting on a beat-up looking couch, and Shawn sits with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, Jon’s hand on his shoulder.
‘So, coffee?’ Shawn says eventually, and Jon laughs, like Shawn hoped he would, and Shawn feels better.
They’re quiet for another few minutes, then Shawn says, ‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I don’t - I don’t know what happened. Everything just got real loud for a second and I thought—’ He stops. ‘I don’t know. Whatever. I feel like an idiot.’
‘Looked like a panic attack to me,’ says Jon. ‘That ever happened to you before?’
‘No. I don’t know.’
‘Can happen when you’ve had a shock, or a trauma, or you’re going through something. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It happens. What matters is you’re okay.’
‘What do you know about this stuff?’
‘I had some therapy, after the accident. Had some stuff to deal with. I wanted to get back on the bike, you know, but I just couldn’t do it, so I did some reading, talked to a few people, tried to get my head screwed on right. Psychology 101, you know? I’m an expert now.’
Shawn rubs his face and looks at the backs of his hands, which are still trembling slightly. ‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You back on the bike?’
‘You kidding? I drive a Camry.’
‘That’s what I heard.’
‘I’m so sorry about your father, Shawn.’
Pain in his throat. Shawn nods, unable to speak.
‘When Cory called me - I wish I’d been there, I wish I could’ve been with you at the hospital. I know you’ve got the Matthews, and your brother—’
Half-brother, Shawn thinks, petulantly, but he doesn’t say it.
‘—but I know how hard this must be. I know how much you loved him. How much he loved you.’
‘Yeah,’ says Shawn. ‘Right.’
‘He loved you, Shawn. You know that, don’t you? More than anything.’
‘You don’t have to be nice about him just because he’s—I know you didn’t like him, it’s okay.’
‘I liked him fine, Hunter. I didn’t always like the way he treated you but I know he loved you. I know that for sure.’
Shawn doesn’t know how to think about any of that, how much his dad did or did not love him, so instead he says, impulsively: ‘Jack’s parents are rich.’
‘Yeah?’ Jon says, easily, like he’s not thrown by the change of subject.
‘Yeah.’ This is a much easier subject. It’s so easy to nurse his resentment towards Jack’s step-father and Jack’s mother and Jack himself - who is grieving, Shawn knows he’s grieving, but he’s grieving while he stays at a hotel with his parents, and how is Shawn not supposed to resent that? ‘They want to pay for everything. They paid for the hospital room and they want to pay for the funeral and they think they can just throw money around and I’ll be grateful or something.’ He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. ‘And Jack wants us to like, bond over this, and I’ve just – I’ve never felt less connected to him, you know? Like, Cory knows more about what I’m feeling, you know more about what I’m feeling, what I went through with my dad, and Jack doesn’t – he just doesn’t get it, he can’t get it, he thinks he’s missed out on this amazing relationship that I never had, so why should Jack have had it, you know? And I know I’m being a jerk, like, I can hear myself being a jerk, but that’s how I feel, so.’
‘I get it,’ Jon says. ‘I’d probably feel the same way.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
It’s all spilling out of him now, he can’t shut up. ‘We were just – we were like desperate for money, the whole time I was a kid, you know? It was like this never ending – it was just exhausting. Every week was like – what scheme is Chet gonna come up with now, how many nights can Shawn eat at the Matthews this week – and Jack didn’t have any of that, and now I’m supposed to feel close to him because Chet’s dead?’
He doesn’t talk about this stuff that much, and didn’t used to even care about it, but since Jack came into town Shawn thinks a lot about how being poor consumed so much of his childhood, how the constant background anxiety of it is something he still can’t shake, doesn’t think he ever will. It blows his mind sometimes how much his friends and his own brother will never understand that feeling.
‘You’re not supposed to feel anything, Shawn. Just let yourself feel however you feel. You don’t owe anybody anything. You’re the one hurting the most, here.’
Shawn’s selfish, selfish heart fills with gratitude. He has been desperate for someone to say this, to give him permission to feel it. No one is hurting worse than him. It isn’t possible. He doesn’t have to share his grief. It is only his. It belongs to him, just like Jon does.
‘I’m really glad you’re here,’ Shawn says. He clears his throat, rubs his face. He feels like they need to leave, but he’s still jittery, still high from whatever it was that happened to him back there. ‘I mean it. Thank you for coming. I know you’ve got your own life going on. You didn’t have to.’
‘I want to be here. I wish I’d been here sooner.’
‘Because I’m fine. You know, you don’t have to worry or anything. I’m doing alright.’
‘Well, sure,’ Jon says, ‘I mean, that’s obvious,’ and Shawn gives a wheezy little laugh, and wipes his eyes.
‘Alright, I’m screwed up,’ he says. ‘But I always was.’
I’m real screwed up, Dad. The memory knifes through him, brutally painful, one of the last things he would ever say to his father. Wasn’t I good enough for you?
If he had known, what would he have said instead? Would he have lied? You were a great father. I’m happy. I like myself. I always feel safe.
Chet would have seen through it. He was all noise and bluster but he wasn’t stupid. He knew his own failings. Probably how he justified abandoning Shawn; probably he really did think Shawn was better off without him.
‘Shawn, have you heard from your mom?’ Jon says. His voice is so, so gentle, and it hurts. ‘Do you know—’
Shawn shakes his head. ‘I don’t know where she is. I got a letter a while back but it didn’t have an address, or a number, or anything, so I don’t know what to – I don’t know how to contact her. She needs to know but I don’t know how—I haven’t seen her in like, two years.’
‘Okay,’ Jon says. ‘That’s okay,’ and Shawn hears a ripple of something in his voice, a frustration that he’s trying to keep down. He knows it’s not directed at him, that Jon is frustrated with Shawn’s irresponsible mother and not with Shawn, but it throws up a random spike of anxiety and Shawn stands up, rubs his hands together – stupid, stupid nervous habit that he hates whenever he catches himself doing it – says, wildly, ‘We should get out of here, right? This is like, staff only, we should – I’m fine now, if you want to – we could take a walk, or maybe you want to, like – catch up with people, we could go see the Matthews, Mr Feeny—Cory’d like to see you, and Topanga—'
Jon stands up too, rests a hand on Shawn’s arm and says, in that careful voice like he’s talking to a scared animal, ‘Sure, Shawn, whatever you like.’
He doesn’t really want to share Jon yet, but he knows there’s funeral stuff he’s meant to be doing and if they go back to the Matthews maybe he’ll find the courage to do it, maybe Jon will help him somehow, just by being there.
‘Can you maybe not—’ Shawn shoves his shaking hands into his pocket, swallows a couple of times. ‘Can you maybe not tell anyone, what happened back there? That I had – you know, whatever.’
‘A panic attack.’
‘Yeah.’ Shawn’s voice has gone very small. ‘Can you please not tell anyone?’
He winces, hearing how much of a kid he sounds.
He has said those exact words before. That night when Jon asked him about the food in his room. Shawn came back from his fake date, resolved that he wouldn’t lie to Jon anymore, but he couldn’t to think of a decent truth to tell him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he’d said, back then. He’d been on the edge of tears. ‘I don’t know why I do it.’
‘It’s alright,’ Jon had said, with feeling. ‘It doesn’t matter, Shawn. You can keep food wherever you like. I’m not mad. I just want you to know – I don’t know. I want you to know that you’re alright. That you’re safe. You can take all the food you want, I don’t care what you do with it.’
And Shawn had nodded, and said, his voice shaking, ‘Can you please not tell anyone?’
Now, just like then, Jon says, ‘I won’t if you don’t want me to.’
‘I don’t want you to.’
Jon says, ‘Then I won’t.’
Jon can keep a secret: not that it’s a secret, how screwed up Shawn is, everyone knows. But Jon really knows, he’s seen the worst of it, and he’s still here, he’s still come back.
That year when he was fifteen, Shawn kept saying how he couldn’t wait for his dad to come back. It was important: he wanted everyone to know. He started a lot of sentences, ‘When my dad gets back—’
He could never admit to all the ways that living with Jon was better.
It shouldn’t have been better: for all he was their ‘cool’ teacher, Jon was actually boring. He went to bed at the same time each night; ate breakfast, dinner, lunch, always at the same time; he had rules he expected Shawn to stick to; he made him sit down for two hours on Sundays and do homework.
Shawn should have hated those things, but it turned out he didn’t. The truth is, half the time he was with Jon he didn’t know if he was desperate for his dad to come back, or desperate for him to stay away.
Chet was not boring. Bedtime was any time; breakfast was if you were lucky, dinner was who knows, homework was a waste of time and rules were made to be broken. Shawn grew up half-wild and it was fun, but he never realised until he lived with Jon how exhausting it was.
That’s the other thing that Jon knows, that no one else does. He knows those nights when fifteen-year-old Shawn unravelled. When he’d gone months without a phone call, or when Chet forgot his birthday, and Shawn sat on Jon’s couch crying like a little kid and said I hope he never comes back.
Well, he won’t come back now, not ever. Shawn is all alone, an orphan, but this time he’s too old for anyone to offer him a home.
‘Hunter?’ Jon is saying. ‘You okay?’
Shawn is spacing out, losing track of where he is. ‘No,’ he says, and then: ‘Yeah, no, I’m fine.’
Jon looks at him, and nods, as if he understands that Shawn is not fine, that Shawn is broken, probably always has been, but now worse than ever. ‘So you want to get out of here?’
‘Yeah,’ Shawn says, but he doesn’t move. The blur of noise from behind the door is making him nervous; he’s safer, here, where it’s dark and quiet and the whole world doesn’t get to see him falling apart.
They don’t move, and Jon says, ‘Or we can just stay here for a while?’
Shawn would like that. He would like to pretend there is nothing else – no funeral to arrange, no Jack or Jack’s parents, no anxious Cory, no trailer to visit and clear out. Just Shawn and his buddy Jon, hanging out in a store-room, totally normal.
‘We can’t do that,’ Shawn says. ‘They’re gonna kick us out any minute, right? I never even paid for the coffee.’
‘They don’t care,’ Jon says. ‘The waitress thought you were allergic to something. She’s just glad they didn’t kill you. We’ve got as long as you need. Let’s hang here. No offence, Shawn, but you don’t look that good.’
‘I’m fine,’ Shawn says, but his voice breaks a little.
‘Yeah,’ Jon says. ‘But let’s hang here for a while. The members-only room. Real exclusive.’
Shawn’s laugh is right on the edge of tears, but he sits down again, grateful. Jon sits next to him.
‘It’s alright,’ Jon says, easy voice. ‘There’s nowhere else we’ve got to be.’
Jon was always good at letting Shawn pretend. Pretend that he was okay, totally chilled, pretend he wasn’t hiding food in his room or crying or having nightmares.
So, okay, he’ll pretend a little bit longer, right here. He’ll pretend he said all the right things to his dad in the hospital. He’ll pretend he isn’t being a jerk to Jack. He’ll pretend he’s not screwed up at all. He’ll pretend no one ever had to rescue him.
The couch in here is actually kind of like the one in Jon’s old apartment. Older and dustier but it’s the same colour, almost, and it’s worn out and comfortable and feels like it would be good to sleep on.
God, he’s tired. Way too tired for someone who’s slept so much the last few days.
‘I don’t even know why he was in town,’ Shawn says. ‘He was just here for a few hours and Jack’s all excited about it and then we’re in the hospital and then—you know? It was just—it was all really fast, you know? I can’t believe it happened.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You should meet Jack, I guess. I mean you’ll meet him at the—at the funeral, or whatever.’
‘Sure,’ says Jon.
‘It’s not like he’s a bad guy. I don’t hate him or anything.’
‘I know, Shawn.’
‘I should be better, I should try harder, I’m screwing everything up with him, like I do with everyone. It’s just—it’s just a lot. All of it. It’s like it’s too much. You know?’
‘I know,’ Jon says. ‘You’ve had a lifetime of too much, Shawn. That’s what I think. You don’t owe anybody anything. Okay? The world owes you, at this point. The world owes you a break.’
Shawn almost laughs. ‘You think?’
‘I think, yeah.’
Shawn swallows. ‘It’s just. I can’t believe I’m not going to get another chance. To be close with him, or whatever. He was never around but he was always—around, you know? He was just out there. I knew he was out there somewhere, and that was like—it was something.’
It was something. It was everything. Both his parents, out there somewhere, orbiting him like satellites. It was all he had, and now there’s just his mom left, and Shawn knows—he doesn’t know how, he just knows—that she’s never coming back for him. Whatever thread kept him and Chet connected, it had broken entirely between him and Virna.
At least Chet tried. That’s a good thing Shawn will try and think about. He tried to be a father. He came back, sometimes. He came back often enough to give Shawn a chink of hope that one day he’d come back forever.
‘I know,’ Jon says.
They’re quiet again for a while, and slowly, Shawn starts to feel okay. ‘We should go,’ he says. ‘I’m really alright. You want to stop by the Matthews’, say hi?’
‘Sure,’ Jon says, although he doesn’t move. ‘Sounds good. See the old gang.’
‘Cory’s worried about me.’
‘Of course he is. He’s your best friend.’
‘Yeah. But it’s like, the full Matthews pity party, right now. Poor Shawn. We have to clothe and feed him. Mrs Matthews keeps making me soup.’
Jon grins. ‘Hey, enjoy it,’ he says. ‘Better than what you got with me, right?’
‘You did alright,’ Shawn says, seriously. Actually Jon was a pretty good cook. He remembers being impressed.
They both stand up. Jon grabs his jacket from the couch, hangs it over his arm and nods towards the door. ‘Ready?’ he says, voice nice and steady but with a serious note, like he’s really asking.
Is Shawn ready? It feels like there’s a whole lot of shit on the other side of the door that he doesn’t want to deal with. ‘I don’t know,’ he says, honestly.
Jon nods, like he gets that feeling. ‘You want to find out?’
‘Yeah. Yes.’ Shawn swallows, steels himself, and pushes the door open.
Jon wasn’t ready to look after a teenager, back then, but he got ready, real quick. He stepped up. Shawn is still pathetically grateful that somebody who wasn’t a Matthews cared enough about him to do that. It was like this big sign, this big golden affirmation, that Shawn wasn’t worthless, that there was something good in him and Jon could see it.
Yes, he was weird and sad and vulnerable that year they lived together, but Shawn remembers being happy, too. Those nights spent sprawled on Jon’s couch, watching TV. Cory next to him, their schoolbooks abandoned on the coffee table. Jon cooking: chopping vegetables, boiling water, setting out plates. There were moments like that where he was maybe as happy as he’d ever been, as he ever will be again. Moments where he was warm and safe and it didn’t matter that Chet wasn’t around because Shawn knew he was out there somewhere, and that was enough.
Maybe that’s how he gets through this, Shawn thinks, as him and Jon cut their way back through the coffee shop and out into the street. Jon is talking, real easy, about the weather or something, and Shawn is fine, he thinks he’s fine now, Jon is here and that means he’s safe.
That’s how Shawn will get through this. He won’t think of his dad as dead. He’ll choose to believe that he’s still out there, driving across America on some big open highway, and Shawn will just wait. He’ll live his life and hang out here with Cory and Topanga and the Matthews and Feeny and Jon and the people who love him – and he’ll wait and wait, the way he learned to do when he was a kid, the way he waited that year he lived with Jon. He’ll just wait, and let himself believe that his dad is still out there, and that one day, somehow, he’ll find the road that will bring him home.