Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jack has been staring at this essay prompt for -

He leans over the couch and checks the time on the stove. “That can’t be right,” he says out loud while mourning the fact that it absolutely is and he’s totally screwed.

Who needs a college degree anyway? If he can’t hack even one semester, then he should give up early. Since he couldn’t even hack one semester, he didn’t waste much anyway.

Beyond several grand on tuition, the move to Philadelphia, and rent. Beyond the past few months. Beyond the forty-five minutes he’s spent staring at this essay prompt.

In his defence, this is a ridiculous assignment. Take an event from your life. Turn it into a written story, but write a different ending than whatever actually occurred. Have fun with it. No, vague instructions, Jack will not have fun with it!

What an invasive assignment anyway. One might say it’s his fault for choosing Intro to Creative Writing as one of his electives. One should consider that this is still a stupid assignment and not his fault at all.

Oh, who is he kidding? Of course it’s his fault.

“Idiot,” he whispers to himself. Only, no one’s home. Eric has a late lecture on Thursdays. Shawn is … probably with Cory, but Jack should probably know that for sure.

“Idiot,” Jack says louder. It doesn’t make him feel any better. But it’s still sort of nice to be mean to himself as loudly as he’d like to. He appreciates that freedom.

He shoots another panicked look at his assignment. Then at the lined piece of paper next to it. Written in his mildly legible handwriting:

Story ideas

• The whole separated from my dad and brother thing
• Come on, there has to be something else about my life
• My mom lying to me for my entire life?
• Something not family related
• Dammit, is there nothing not family related?
• Eric
• No I’m not writing about Eric
• Can I not seriously think of anything about my life besides my soap opera family life and Eric Matthews?
• Okay, there’s school
• No, I can’t write a story about school for school
• Back to Eric?
• Eric or Shawn
• But what ABOUT them?

So maybe it’s not just the story that’s freaking him out. Maybe it also has to do with his useless list. How his mind keeps coming back to people. How the only events he can go back to are things with no existing ending for him to change. How he doesn’t know how things will end and if any of this has been worth it. If his hope had been worth everything it cost and if it’s only ever been suspended pain just waiting to reveal itself.

Okay, yeah. Maybe it’s that. But it’s mostly this assignment.

Jack lifts his useless list. Before he can crumple the only progress he’s made, he hears his mother’s voice. Stop. Take big three breaths. Then see how you feel.

Well, Jack still feels pretty mad at her, so he ignores that.

He checks the time again. It blinks mockingly from 7:59 to 8:00. Announces his full hour wasted at this desk.

Before Jack can decisively crumple the paper and scream, the front door kicks open.

“Guess who didn’t fall asleep in their inhumanely late class today,” Eric cheerfully announces. He dumps his backpack on the floor. Enters their apartment with the sunniest smile that instantly parts all of Jack’s clouds. It should be scary, how easily Eric does that, how he doesn’t even mean to sometimes. It should be scary and it is.

Jack nearly trips over his chair to get up. “Oh yeah? Proud of you.”

Eric’s smile blooms brighter. This time, Jack almost trips over his feet in the rush to get closer. “Did you stay awake for your twelve o’clock Intro to Finance class?”

“Unfortunately.” Jack finally meets Eric by the door. How did that scramble make him breathless?

“Aw, well, I’m proud of you too, buddy,” Eric says, reaching up, brushing imaginary lint off of Jack’s collar. Oh, right. That’s why Jack’s breathless. Eric keeps brushing and not so subtly peers around the apartment.

Jack blurts out, “Shawn’s not home.”

Eric’s eyes refocus on Jack. They’re hazy and warm. “Sweet.”

Jack grabs the back of Eric’s neck and kisses Eric’s grin. Soon enough, they’re both smiling, fumbling but refusing to disentangle on their way to the couch. Their teeth clack. Noses bump. Eric tastes like the half-bottle of Coke he probably chugged in the last hour of his lecture to stay awake and watermelon gum. Jack loves watermelon.

Before they can gracelessly fall onto the couch, Jack pulls back. “What’s your favourite flavour of gum?”

“Mint,” Eric replies without missing a beat. “Wow. Don’t you have weirdly specific things that get you going? Alright, I can work with that. Don’t be ashamed about what you like, it’s really fine to -”

“Shut up.” Jack laughs and tips Eric onto the couch. He gladly lets Eric take him down with him. They pile together easily, legs tangling, knees bumping. “I’m not ashamed about what I like. I’m asking about what you like.”

“Your gum-related dirty talk.”

“Stop making me laugh, goddammit, I’m trying to make out with you.”

“Don’t limit yourself, you can do both if you really -”

Jack takes Eric’s unfinished advice and presses his laugh against Eric’s mouth.

They go on like this for a few minutes. Jack keeps thinking that they should get up and go to one of their rooms. They can’t possibly hook up on a couch that Jack shares with his little brother.

But he doesn’t want to interrupt. In a rare miracle, the couch feels comfortable. That could be because Jack’s barely on it since he’s just on Eric, but still. Eric keeps humming contently the more Jack’s fingers dip into his hair. For the first time, there’s no urgency to go any further. No rush to peel off clothing. No escalation.

It’s only this. It’s new. It’s good. It’s -

Well, Jack’s trying hard not to think about what this is. So he lets out his first real happy sigh against Eric’s mouth. His mind finally quiets.

Which is of course when the repeated twisting of a key sounds from the other side of the door.

Jack and Eric’s eyes blow wide. For a moment, they’re still.

The key twists again.

And then they’re off. Jack flies off of Eric so fast, he nearly hits the floor. Eric yanks Jack up and sets him on the other side of the couch.

“Thanks,” Jack whispers, staring at Eric’s mouth.

“Course,” Eric whispers back. He brushes the nonexistent dust off of his pants.

Shawn’s still fumbling with his key. Jack contemplates just opening the door for him. He can’t stand the waiting and how warm his mouth still is and how all he can do is look at Eric’s mouth, his hands, his hair -

“Oh, your hair,” Jack whisper-shouts.

Eric lets out a panicked squawk. “What about my hair?”

“It’s all - it’s all sex-y!”

Eric tilts his head. “Thank you?”

Jack’s face burns pink. “No, like, it looks all sex-like. Like I - like we -”

“Getting sex hair without even having sex,” Eric says mournfully. “The world is so cruel.”

Jack snorts as he combs back Eric’s hair. “I know. We could’ve finished considering how long it’s taking Shawn to open that door.”

“Finish, huh?” Eric’s eyebrows raise. “That’s the crudest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“How is finish crude?”

“I didn’t say it was crude, I’m saying you saying it is crude.”

Jack scratches Eric’s scalp. “That’s a double standard.”

“Hey, I wasn’t criticizing the crude. I love the crude,” Eric says factually. Jack doesn’t know why that makes his face burn red now, but it does, and okay, this is who he is now. Great.

“I hate the word crude now. We’ve said it too many times.” Jack remains straight-faced until he leans in, stopping once their noses touch. His smile betrays him, but he goes for it anyway. “How about we finish saying it?”

Eric laughs, warming Jack’s cheeks.

“You’re such a five-year-old,” Jack says.

“You made the joke. Talk about a double standard.”

Shawn’s still on the other side. The doorknob twists. Doesn’t budge.

Eric catches Jack’s eyes straying to the door. “You can open it for him, you know.”

“Isn’t the true brotherly thing to let him suffer?” Jack watches the door rattle unsuccessfully again. “It’ll help build character. It’ll also help me catch up on all the torturing I’ve missed out on all our lives. Right?”

“I have never seen you look more pained,” Eric says. “Dude. Just get the door.”

“The brotherly thing is to -”

“Do whatever you want.”

Jack doesn’t know why he’s as agonized as he is. He’s acquainted with the familiar swelling of panic in his chest, but he’d rather be strangers with it, thanks.

Eric looks confused. But he sweeps his thumb across Jack’s knee, both tentative and patient. “Whatever you want,” Eric repeats. “Sometimes I feel like calling Cory into another room, and he always thinks I have something important to say, but I never do. I just like annoying him and wasting his time.”

As Jack gets up, he scoffs at Eric over his shoulder. “That’s not a brotherly thing at all. You did that to me yesterday. Called me right into your room while I was trying to study in the living room.”

Eric scoffs back. “You were not trying to study. You were watching Buffy and you happened to have your textbook on the table.”

“Shut up,” Jack grumbles, the tragic retort of someone who must admit defeat. He walks back to the door. “You still had nothing important to tell me.”

“Well, yeah, but I just wanted to talk to you.”

It’s the smallest of things. Just a fact, something Jack should know intuitively because he and Eric are, like, friends. But for some reason, it makes Jack unable to look Eric in the eye. He quickly swings around and opens the door for Shawn.

“You know how to pick a lock but you can’t use a key on it?”

With his key still lifted, Shawn squawks. “Excuse me! I was a second away from getting it.”

“I can teach you how to -”

Shawn sidesteps Jack to get inside the apartment. “I don’t need you to teach me how to use a key, because I know how to use one.”

“Well, what was that embarrassing display Jack and I spent five full minutes listening to?” Eric pipes up.

Shawn stops midway to the kitchen to stare them down. “You guys chose to stop what you were doing and listen to my key? Jeez. Get some hobbies. Join a club. Become more interesting friends to each other.”

“We are interesting to each other,” Jack protests. He follows Shawn into the kitchen. “And talk about getting a hobby, can your next hobby be knowing how to use a key and telling me where you’re going?”

Shawn swings the fridge door open. “It’s fine. I was with Cory.”

“Where?”

“Chubbies or my house,” Eric guesses.

“Ding ding ding, we have a winner,” Shawn says. “It’s both. Chubbies first, then Cory’s house. What’s the big deal?”

Jack blows out an exasperated breath. “I’d appreciate you letting me know.”

Shawn peeks over his shoulder. His expression is unreadable. Or maybe it’s only Jack who can’t read it. “Okay,” Shawn says slowly.

Jack blinks. “Okay? Just like that?”

Shawn shrugs almost casually. “You look deeply stressed about it, so yes, just like that.”

“I am not -”

“I’d say mildly,” Eric cuts in. “He looks mildly stressed.”

“That’s still way too much stress and over what?” Shawn sticks his head back into the fridge. “What do you think’s gonna happen? Someone’s gonna kidnap a fully grown teenager off the street? I’m not cute anymore. No one’s gonna want me.”

“It’s funny you think that you’re fully grown,” Jack says. “And there’s always some freak out there who could want you.”

“He’s talking about himself,” Eric mock-whispers to Shawn. “He’s the freak.”

“Don’t worry, the only freak I’d want is you anyway.” Shawn pulls out a three-day-old pizza container and a bottle of orange juice. He shuts the fridge with his hip and tilts his chin at Jack. “So I’m good.”

Jack crosses his arms. “That’s not how kidnapping works.”

“You basically kidnapped me, so I can’t be kidnapped again.”

“That’s not how - I didn’t kidnap you. I wasn’t even the one who asked you to move in.”

Shawn’s jaw ticks. For a millisecond. Jack can’t believe he caught that. He still holds onto it, even though Shawn’s face immediately recovers. “Exactly what a kidnapper would say.”

“If you would like to be kidnapped by someone else, then I respect your choices,” Jack says carefully. He feels like he’s walking on a tightrope invisible to everyone else. Eric’s still curled up on the couch with his legs propped on the inch of clear space on the table. Shawn still buzzes around the kitchen, preparing his dinner. Jack’s unfinished assignment remains on the table. He hopes neither of them sees it.

“You’re a decent captor,” Shawn says at last. He’s in front of the oven, his back to Jack. “You don’t get to choose who kidnaps you, sure, but, you know. Can’t complain.”

Jack’s throat swells up. He glances back to Eric, but Eric’s idly flicking through television channels. It’s a quiet granting of privacy that makes Jack’s throat swell up even more.

Jack clears his throat and sidles up to Shawn. He lifts his hand but stops midway. Is it weird to clap Shawn’s shoulder? Maybe that’s more of a father-son thing. Maybe Shawn doesn’t like to be touched. Maybe Shawn wouldn’t give a single shit and Jack’s the only one who could possibly overthink something as natural and intuitive as family.

Jack thinks of what Eric said earlier. The brotherly thing is to do whatever he wants.

But then the oven dings. Shawn turns around, chugging his orange juice, and Jack has to lower his hand then. The moment for a friendly shoulder clap passes.

“You okay?” Shawn asks. Drops of juice drip down his chin. He wipes it away with the long sleeves of his oversized sweatshirt. He’s not wearing a jacket. It’s November. He bussed home like this?

“Why weren’t you wearing a jacket today?”

“You sound like Cory.” As Shawn walks past Jack, their shoulders brush. Jack can’t tell if Shawn did that on purpose or not.

Jack watches his younger brother go up to his room. “I could’ve picked you up, you know.”

“I’ll wear a jacket next time!”

“Okay, but I can still pick you -”

“There’s still some pizza left if you want it, Jack. It’s got only a little bit of mold on it.”

“That is disgusting.”

Shawn stops in front of his room. He points between Eric and Jack. “I’ve seen you and Eric drink directly from the same milk carton back to back. Don’t judge. Be an adult and scrape off the tiny bit of mold. Eat it, alright?”

“I already ate dinner,” Jack says. “And we’ll go grocery shopping tomorrow, okay? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m starting to get sick of pizza.”

Eric gasps from the couch. “Take that blasphemy outside of our apartment.”

“I know you and I are busy with school,” Jack continues, walking back to the couch. He ruffles Eric’s hair. “But we’ve gotta go back to some homemade meals or else we’ll all develop some gnarly food disease. So tomorrow, you’ll have something fresh to eat.”

Shawn’s forehead wrinkles. “I can cook for myself.”

Eric snorts. “Remember that fire you and Cory started in our kitchen when you were trying to make instant ramen?”

“Hey, I was a kid when that happened.”

“This was four months ago.”

“I was practically a baby.”

“I had to stop the fire,” Eric mock-whispers to Jack. Jack’s fingers linger in Eric’s hair before he draws back, hoping Shawn hasn’t noticed. Shawn and Cory do this kinda stuff often, anyway, enough flashes of touch like these that maybe Shawn won’t even care.

Still. Better be careful.

“Yeah, you were so brave, dumping one cup of water onto the pot,” Shawn says. “You really saved our lives there.”

“You’re welcome,” Eric says.

Jack ignores the twinge of jealousy that cuts into him. He tips his chin at Shawn. “Case in point. You can’t cook, we all need something other than pizza, and can you please wear a freaking jacket?”

“Can you please eat some freaking moldy pizza?” Shawn shoots back.

“Fine!”

“Then fine!”

Eric lolls his head back, giving them an upside-down smile. “Productive roommate meeting guys. Great stuff.”

“Yeah, super work,” Shawn echoes. “I’m gonna go to bed then. Night. Eric, make sure Jack eats the pizza, will you?”

“I’ll scrape off the mold myself,” Eric says solemnly.

“You guys don’t have to -”

“Shut up,” Shawn and Eric say. They spiral into an unending round of jinx, you owe me a soda, jinx, no, you owe me, jinx, okay, now this is getting creepy -

Jack’s glad neither of them can see the size of his smile. For a minute, all his overthinking, stress, and jealousy get swept away by the force of his fondness.

Only for a minute, but still. It’s a pretty good minute.

.

.

.

The next morning, Jack takes a five-mile run around the neighbourhood.

Yes, it’s early winter. Yes, he’s running in shorts. Yes, he has a morning lecture that he’s supposed to be in right now.

But runs are good for you. He can’t take another three hours hunched in a chair. He needs some fresh air. Mostly, he could use some help clearing his mind.

He’s got two tests later this week. A paper due Saturday. That stupid writing assignment the following week. The apartment kitchen is still empty. They’re out of toilet paper. The sink’s faucet is leaking. He still needs to call his family, and Chet, and at some point, has to stop excluding Chet from the label of his family, and -

Five miles pass by sooner than he expects. Before he knows it, he’s back in his apartment. He bolts to the washroom for a shower, only to find the door locked.

“What, did your class let out early?” Jack bangs his fist against the door. “C’mon, Eric, you never normally lock the door, what, you playing hard to -”

The door cracks open. His little brother’s disgruntled face sticks out. A fresh glob of toothpaste dots the corner of his shirt. “You walk in on Eric when he’s in the bathroom?”

Jack flushes furiously. “It was a joke. Anyway, you jokingly flirt with Cory all the time, I’m not about to be shamed, in my own household, by a child.”

“You’re still technically a teen, Mr. Eight-teen.”

“Yeah, but I’m not in high school anymore,” Jack says pointedly. “A place where you’re supposed to be right now. What happened? Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” Shawn insists.

“Want me to check your temperature?”

“No, I - well, maybe? Okay?”

“I’ve checked for Elle before,” Jack mumbles before Shawn can change his mind. “Elle’s my -”

“I know your sister’s name.” Shawn opens the door all the way. He’s still in his pajamas, sleeves on both his arms and legs rolled up. Jack wonders if Shawn owns any clothes that fit.

“Sorry,” Jack says sheepishly.

“Shut up,” Shawn says, managing to make it sound kind. He bends like he’s going for a squat and pats his forehead. “C’mon, human thermometer.”

“You don’t have to bend, but okay. That works.” Mindful not to spook Shawn, even though Shawn already knows it’s coming, Jack slowly brings his hand to Shawn’s forehead. “You literally feel fine. But how do you feel inside?”

“I’m okay,” Shawn says. “Beyond the usual case of I-wanna-skip-icitis. Didn’t sleep too good and didn’t wake up on time.”

Jack draws his hand back with a frown. “What’s wrong?”

“I just told you -”

“No, like. Why couldn’t you sleep?”

“Just one of those nights.” Shawn gives Jack a tiny crooked smile. Almost shy. “Don’t worry about me.”

Jack tries his best to examine Shawn. See if there are any cracks. Anything to give him away.

Nothing.

Maybe Shawn is really fine. Maybe Jack doesn’t know shit. Maybe it’s not his business either way.

Maybe all he’s supposed to do, the real brotherly thing, is just offer his hand. For a temperature check. For Shawn to take. For when Shawn doesn’t even want it.

“Okay,” Jack relents. “But are you heading to school or are we succumbing to I’m-skipping-icitus?”

“I-wanna-skip-icitus.”

“So you are going to skip?”

“No, I was correcting you. You pronounced my very real illness wrong.”

“The illness you don’t have because I checked your temperature and you feel fine.”

“Oh no … I’m suddenly feeling faint and woozy …” Shawn feigns stumbling back into the wall. “Maybe it’s airborne. That explains how I got it. Jack, save yourself and leave me alone in this apartment right now!”

Jack rolls his eyes despite the bright banner that unfurls in his head, reading BANTER, BANTER, WE’RE HAVING BANTER! The banner comes with a victory cry and a grin that Jack feels but fights to conceal. “Sorry, but you’re not getting left alone,” Jack says, “and we’re not letting skip-osis win, so how about I-”

“Dude, you’re not even trying anymore,” Shawn complains. But Jack sees it, the twitch in Shawn’s mouth. The victory music in his head amps up even louder. “I-wanna-skip-icitus. How hard is that?”

“It’s very hard and shut up, I am trying,” Jack says and fights the twin twitch in his mouth. “I’m trying to tell you that I’ll drive you, okay? You can still make it to second -” He stops, twisting around to check the clock. “Okay, third period.”

Shawn’s eyebrows furrow. “You know my schedule?”

The only reason Jack knows the breakdown of John Quincy’s school day is because of Eric. Back in late September, while they were still getting to know each other. Jack was obsessed with every detail, inch, and breath of his cool, funny, and pretty roommate. Obsessed in not any weird way. The usual kind after meeting someone you like - in any way. Friends or not. That rush of getting to know them.

(He keeps waiting for that complete enamourment of meeting someone new with Eric to pass. It hasn’t.)

Anyway. The point is, they were up late one night, talking about nothing and everything on the couch. It was a little past one. Shawn kept snoring from his bedroom. The television was on but neither of them was paying attention. Jack had made them tea three times. He kept sipping from his cup and asking Eric questions.

Do you like your classes so far? Why do you like meteorology? Do you miss your parents? To more trivial things. Anything his mind could latch on. What’re your siblings’ middle names? Do you have a favourite brand of socks? What part of England is your neighbour/teacher from?

Eric kept trying to ask Jack questions back. But Jack answered flippantly, unwilling to talk too much about himself. He’s never met someone as lively as Eric. He didn’t want Eric to catch on yet that Jack, though a cool guy, sure, wasn’t that interesting.

The point is, Jack is aware it’s insane to act like someone’s high school day could possibly be fascinating. It’s not his fault that Eric’s just is. Why? He couldn’t tell you.

But the proof lies in how Jack remembers that John Quincy’s third period is from 10:30-11:30.

He checks the time again. 10:14.

“What do you have third period?” Jack asks.

Shawn rubs the sleep gunk out of his eyes. “English.”

“That’s good! English is your favourite class, right?”

Shawn blinks. “I mean. I don’t think I really have a favourite - How’d you know that?”

Jack hesitates. “I don’t know, but I do? I mean, I’m right, right?”

“Yeah?”

This should be another win. Except Shawn looks deeply confused. Honestly, so is Jack. He has no idea how he knows this about Shawn.

Shawn lights up. “Wait, do you -”

“Finish getting ready quick so I can drop you off,” Jack interrupts before Shawn can ask and be disappointed. No, Jack doesn’t like English at all. He hates writing essays. Poetry reads like a foreign language to him. He likes murder mysteries, the kind that fills up two rows on his mother’s bookshelves, but not anything else.

Why did he take that Creative Writing class?

“I’m going, I’m going.” Shawn races back into the washroom. Before he closes the door, he juts his chin at Jack. “Hey. Don’t you have class right now?”

Busted. Jack freezes until it hits him. “Wait, you know my schedule?”

“Settle down, Mr. Succumbed-to-skip-icitus,” Shawn says lightly. “You’re setting a bad example.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “And you’re setting off a god-awful odour in our apartment. Can you shower please?”

“Wait, you’re a morning shower person?”

“You’re a night shower person?”

For a long moment, the brothers stare at each other.

“Gross,” they say together.

“Okay, go get ready,” Jack says, trying not to release the delighted laugh from his throat. My brother just called me gross. Elle doesn’t really insult him. She’s done it a bit recently but that’s only because of their mother. That doesn’t count.

Shawn’s eyes glint as he steps back into their bathroom. “Fine but it won’t include a shower at ten in the morning, because I’m not disgusting.”

“I’m giving you five minutes,” Jack sing-songs before bounding to the kitchen. As he tries to see if they have any juice left, another banner unfurls in his head. MY BROTHER JUST CALLED ME DISGUSTING! The victory music kicks in. Louder than before. A whole damn orchestra this time.

.

.

.

“You’re really wearing shorts in winter, huh? I dig it. Really.”

“I can tell you’re making fun of me, Shawn, even if I can’t tell how.”

“Well, yesterday, you were giving me crap about a jacket.”

“Oh, here we go.”

“And here you are now in shorts.”

“That’s different. I’m driving my car. Yesterday, you were outside on the bus. You don’t even have to take the bus since -”

“Hey, what’s wrong with the bus?”

“People are weird, Shawn! Strangers are strange!”

“We’ve been over this! No one’s gonna wanna kidnap me. Besides, I carry a pocket knife on me. It’s got little fish on the base.”

“What!? No, I meant that I could pick you up sometimes if you ask me to - why do you have a pocket knife!?

“It was a birthday gift!”

“Wow. I didn’t know Cory was so … edgy.”

“Dude, no, it’s not from Cory, he’s more ‘here’s a stuffed bear, here’s some flowers, here’s a nice ring’ kinda guy.”

“And you call me and Eric weird.”

“Shut up.”

“Sorry, no, I didn’t mean - that’s sweet. Cory’s sweet.”

“Yeah. Yeah, he is. But the pocket knife wasn’t from him, it was from someone else.”

“Topanga?”

“No, Jack, it was from my - our dad.”

“Oh. That’s, uh, really nice, man.”

“It’s not even a fancy pocket knife. I don’t even really -”

“Shawn.”

“- like it that much. I think he had it lying around so when he remembered it was my birthday, he just picked it up and gave it to me, you know, so it’s -”

“It’s fine. It’s okay.”

“No, I know that, but I’m just saying! He’ll probably give you one for your birthday. Or something even better.”

“Right. Yeah. Definitely. That’s nice of you to say, Shawn, thanks.”

“Well, it’s nice of me to say because it’s true, he’ll -”

“Hey, so I take a right here, right?”

.

.

.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

Nothing.

Jack grinds his teeth and dials again.

He shouldn’t be surprised when there’s no answer again. It’s only three in the afternoon. Chet could be working. But was he also working yesterday evening, and Sunday morning, and Saturday night when Jack tried him?

Jack should suck it up and ask Shawn to call for him or come visit the trailer with him. Thanksgiving is next week. They need to finalize their plans soon.

Jack takes a long look around the apartment. He pictures it clean. Vacuumed. Mopped. All the mess tidied away. The picture-perfect Thanksgiving akin to the one he’s had for the past nine years spread out in this kitchen. Big turkey. Mashed potatoes. Beef casserole. Pumpkin pie. Wine glasses for everyone. Cranberry juice for the kids while Jack’s mother and Ernie had wine themselves. Only this time, he really hopes Chet doesn’t drink wine. He could ask him not to. Would that be rude? Ruder than not returning any of your eldest son’s calls for almost a week?

A familiar tide rises and approaches. Jack tries to keep his head above water and focus on how this year is different. This year is good. This year, he’ll spend Thanksgiving with his dad and brother.

This year will be better. This year he’ll be better.

The tide passes and Jack - Jack can’t breathe.

Before he’s lost entirely, he dials another number. It rings once before picking up.

“Mom?” Jack asks, though it’s more of a plea.

“Hey, buddy! How’s it going?”

“Oh, hey, Ernie.” Jack’s disappointment lingers for only a second before he softens at his stepfather’s lively voice. “I’m good, thanks. School’s starting to get busy but …” He trails off, unsure of how to finish his sentence.

“I’d imagine! First semester sure is rough, but you just do your best, alright? It’s your first rodeo in college. It’s okay that it’s tough. Heck, it’d be weird if it wasn’t.”

It’s not as good as one of Jack’s mom’s pep talks but it comes pretty close. “Thanks, Ernie, that, uh - thanks.” He clears his throat. “How’ve you been?”

“Busy. Still fixing up those post-Halloween cavities. But otherwise good. Your sister’s at a friend’s house right now, so she’ll call you back, and, er, if you’re ready, your mom’s downstairs and can come -”

“I’m not ready,” Jack blurts out. His heart twists into itself, longing and resentment tangled into one awful ache. “Not yet. I’m almost there, I’ll get there before Christmas, I promise, but for now -”

“It’s okay. I understand.”

Do you? Do you really? Jack wants to ask but he doesn’t. Instead, he leans his forehead against his apartment wall and breathes into the line. Ernie breathes back.

Ernie lets a few seconds of silence pass before he breaks it. “She misses you, though.”

Jack’s heart twists even further. “I know. I miss her too.”

“I miss you. You know, for Thanksgiving, my siblings and I and all our families are going to Connecticut to see my parents -”

“Oh.”

“I know, but hear me out! It’ll be good to see everyone and with all the cousins there, you’ll barely have time to talk to your mother or your grandparents if you don’t want to. Plus, Elle will be … snippy about your grandparents unless you’re there.”

“Unless I’m there to tell her it’s okay that they hate me. Since you can’t say that yourself,” Jack says. He’s teasing. Mostly.

“They don’t hate you.”

“Sure.”

“They don’t, they’re just … traditional.”

“Right.”

“Jack.”

“Look, I’m not blaming you or anything. I’m just saying what we already know. I can tell Elle when I talk to her next to take it easy and not be so grumpy to your parents on my behalf. But I’m sorry, I can’t make it. It has nothing to do with your parents or Mom. Honestly! It’s my first Thanksgiving in Philadelphia, and I think it’s important to spend it with Shawn and my - my Chet. With my Chet.”

“Of course,” Ernie says faintly.

Jack resists the urge to bang his head against the wall.

“How is he doing?”

“Good.” Because Jack hates himself, apparently, he keeps going. “He’s great, he’s got a steady job, he’s working like crazy, and I see him a few times a week. We had dinner last night, and it’s - it’s good. Everything’s good.”

“That’s great,” Ernie says, sounding stunned. Jack’s shoulders slump. “And your brother?”

This one, Jack answers easier since he knows it’s true. “Shawn’s also doing good. He called me disgusting this morning!”

“Nice, buddy!” Jack can hear the sunny smile in his stepfather’s voice. “And your other roommate? Eric?”

“Also good. Really good. I think -” We’re best friends, he nearly says before the sincerity of it knocks into him hard enough that he loses balance. Best friends don’t even encompass everything Eric has rapidly become to Jack. Eric’s his roommate. The guy Jack makes out with a lot and hooks up with sometimes. His brother’s best friend’s brother. A character so recurrent in Shawn’s childhood stories that he may as well be Shawn’s pseudo-brother too.

Jack’s only known Eric for eleven weeks. He wonders what another eleven weeks could bring. Or break.

“I think we’re getting along well too,” Jack finishes lamely. “He’s a good guy. So is Shawn.”

Ernie doesn’t respond right away.

It takes Jack a few seconds to realize why. He hastily adds, “So is Chet.”

Ernie exhales. “Good.”

.

.

.

Later that night, Jack and Eric go grocery shopping.

Jack drives, laughing the whole ride as Eric sings earnestly to the station’s line-up of Whitney Houston, Céline Dion, and Mariah Carey.

It takes them fifteen minutes after parking to actually go inside because Eric crawls inside the cart and Jack wheels him around the empty parking lot. Eric convinces Jack to trade places. After a minute, Jack tells him this is the best rollercoaster he’s been on. Eric laughs as though Jack isn’t being serious.

Once they’re finished shopping, they return to the apartment. They ditch the elevator in favour of racing up the stairs. Eric wins by a second.

“Why are you out of breath?” Shawn asks from the couch.

“Racing,” Jack says, nearly doubling over. “Duh.”

Shawn nods. “Well, of course.”

Eric closes the door behind him. “You eat?”

“Yeah,” Shawn says, rising from the couch. He manhandles the groceries out of Jack’s hand and shoulder-checks him when Jack tries to grab them back.

Jack follows Shawn into the kitchen. “What’d you eat? We have nothing in the fridge but dust and more dust.”

“I got a burger on the way home,” Shawn says dismissively. He heaves the bags onto the counter. When he turns around to grab Eric’s, he finds Eric already dumping his bags. “You guys eat?”

“No, not yet.” Eric reaches into the first bag and pulls out a package of spinach. “But we can cook this?”

Jack takes the package from Eric. “Ew, no.”

“You bought the spinach.”

“Yeah. To eat later.”

“On its own?”

“No! With … something else. We’ll figure it out. But not tonight.”

“You could make spinach soup,” Shawn suggests. “Jon says you can make soup with anything.”

“We could but that doesn’t mean we should,” Eric says pointedly. “I mean, c’mon. Spinach soup?”

“Wait,” Jack cuts in. “You do have another friend besides Cory and Topanga! Who’s Jon?”

Eric’s jaw drops. “Dude, you haven’t told him about Turner?”

“It hasn’t come up,” Shawn says defensively. But guilt is the only thing Jack sees when Shawn looks at him. “I’m sorry, it’s not - Jon was my teacher for a few years. We were close. He’s a real good guy.”

Jack tries to laugh it off. “What is with you guys and teachers?”

Shawn laughs back nervously. “What, you’ve never been almost adopted by your teacher?”

“What!?” Jack glances at Eric for confirmation. “Is he serious?”

“Why would I be lying? Jack, could you just look at me?”

No, Jack can’t. The tide is fast approaching. Jack’s afraid one look at Shawn will send him under completely.

Eric looks between both brothers hesitantly. “I mean. Well. Yeah. That was a thing that almost happened. When was it? Last year?”

Jack’s heart sinks. “Last year?”

“More like a year and a half,” Shawn mumbles behind him. “It never happened, obviously, and dad came back, like, right after, so it wasn’t -”

This gets Jack to spin around and finally meet Shawn’s eye. “Came back? Where did he go? He - he does this? Just comes and goes?”

“No! Well, not anymore,” Shawn amends.

“I haven’t heard from him since last week, is that -”

“No. He’s around, alright? It’s not happening again. He’ll get back to you soon.”

“Bullcrap,” Jack snaps. “How long had he been gone for you to almost get adopted by a complete stranger?”

Shawn’s jaw tightens. “Hey. Turner’s not a stranger.”

“Then why haven’t you mentioned him before?”

“I don’t know. It never came up, okay? We haven’t been talking as much lately, since he’s gone back home to take care of his dad lately, but he’ll be back in school in January.”

Eric perks up. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Shawn says. He’s still looking at Jack like he’s waiting for Jack to burst.

Jack won’t give him the satisfaction despite how much he wants to. Despite how much he deserves to. There’s another weirdly close teacher figure in his brother’s life, one who almost became his dad and Shawn didn’t even think to mention it to Jack? Jack applied to Penbrook for Shawn. He moved to Philadelphia for Shawn. He left his family - the rest of his family, his other family for Shawn.

But Jack’s not going to burst. He straightens, tips his chin up, and holds his head above water. “I’m glad you had a good teacher around,” he says diplomatically. “Glad that he’ll be back pretty soon too.” He musters up a fake smile.

Shawn doesn’t have the decency to return it. “I can tell you’re still pissed.”

Jack turns his back to Shawn and starts unpacking the groceries. “Why would I be pissed?”

“It’s a trap, don’t answer that,” Eric whispers to Shawn before sidling next to Jack. “Your emotions are valid. I learned that in my intro to psych class.”

Jack laughs despite himself. He sneaks a peek at Eric, whose eyes crinkle with his victorious smile from making Jack laugh. “Thought you hated that class.”

Eric elbows Jack before he starts unpacking too. “I hate unpacking groceries too yet here I am.”

Behind them, Shawn huffs. “Jack. C’mon.”

“I said it’s fine, alright?” Jack looks over his shoulder and flashes Shawn another tight smile. Shawn seems unconvinced. Jack doesn’t care. Shawn will just have to take it. “That Turner guy is right about soup. We could make spinach soup now, I guess, if -”

“No,” Eric and Shawn say together.

“Alright.” Jack turns back to the groceries. Shawn tries to wedge his way in but Jack waves him away. “We still need to make our dinner, Eric.”

“Oh my god,” Shawn says, “you can be mad at me and let me put everything away.”

“God, could you quit saying that? Who’s mad? Not me!”

“Totally, right, you’re the picture of calm.” Eric takes Jack by the shoulders and steers him out of the kitchen. “Big brother tip: let the little ones do your chores, especially when they’re offering.”

“Shawn, I’m really not -”

“Not mad, I know,” Shawn says, putting their bread away. “Your face is just red and you can’t look at me longer than three seconds. Look, I’m sorry, but if you’re gonna be upset, just be upset and tell me to fuck off, and I’ll -”

Jack’s face heats up. He gently pries Eric’s hands off of his shoulders and twists back around again to Shawn. “I’m not going to tell you to fuck off. Why do you want me to so bad?”

Shawn wags the bag of carrots in his grip in Jack’s direction. “Because you obviously want to tell me and I’m giving you permission!” He shoots a helpless look at Eric. “Is there some crap about not repressing your emotions in your psych class?”

“Uh, yeah,” Eric says. “It says not to repress them.”

“I’m not repressing!” Jack insists. He hates how whiney he sounds, how Eric’s looking at Jack like he’s about to crack, how Shawn doesn’t even seem affected. Jack doesn’t know why he’s affected at all. Jack’s essentially got three parents. It’s good that Shawn seems to have three too. It’s not like Jack is jealous or anything.

Eric and Shawn trade a look, silently conversing. Okay, now Jack is jealous.

“How about we go out for dinner, huh?” Eric’s grip finds its way back to Jack’s shoulders. “I’ll take you to a new Philly spot. You’ll love it.”

Jack has to dig his fingers into his palms to keep from turning around and kissing Eric. Instead, he glints his soft smile at Eric all while vowing to sneak a big - but friendly, just friendly - kiss in the elevator. But first.

“Wanna come?” Jack asks Shawn.

“No,” Shawn says dubiously. “You two crazy kids have fun.”

This is supposed to be a moment. Jack is supposed to apologize. Or have some revelation. Or make a big declaration. Or hug Shawn. Or say something cheesy like brothers fight, but -

Jack can’t even finish that stock phrase. He doesn’t know how.

Regardless, he knows that this is the brotherly part of the script. Only he doesn’t know his lines.

Jack clears his throat. Improv will have to do. “Can I get you some takeout then? You can take it for lunch tomorrow.”

Shawn’s hardened features soften with gentle shock. “No, it’s okay. Thanks, though.” He nods once before returning to the groceries.

Jack sighs. He reaches behind, purposefully brushing his hands against Eric’s. He tries to enjoy this split-second of calm while it lasts as the tide passes.

.

.

.

“This is not a new Philly spot,” Jack complains as Eric walks them into Penbrook’s Student Union. He nudges his way in front of Eric and holds the door out for him.

“Seriously, man?” Eric comes to a standstill. He crosses his arms, utterly still.

“C’mon, dude,” Jack says, also refusing to budge. “Come inside already. You’re letting all the cold air out.”

“Holding the door for me is too chivalrous.”

“Not as chivalrous as you taking me to a spot on campus that I’ve already been to,” Jack retorts. He hopes it’s too dark out for Eric to see how pink his face is. “And making me pay for parking!”

“It’s not like you had to pay for it twice today,” Eric says.

Jack’s face burns. “When did Shawn tell you?”

“You just happened to be in the bathroom when I got home.” Eric shrugs. “Gave us a few minutes to talk. What happened?”

“It’s one missed class and we’re nearing exams anyway, Eric,” Jack says over the thudding of his heart. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Like how the whole who’s Turner thing back at the apartment isn’t a big deal or is it actually not a big deal?”

Jack is somehow both severely aggravated and severely needing to kiss Eric again. He hates feeling both. Mostly, he hates how many people are still in the Union.

But even if this square of the school was empty, Jack doesn’t know if it’d make a difference. They’ve never kissed outside of their apartment. The idea of doing so is horrifying and tantalizing. Another combination that Jack hates.

Jack shakes his head. “None of it is a big deal. Quit worrying, okay? I’m worried about you and the hypothermia you’re gonna catch if you don’t walk inside already.”

“Only if I get to hold the door out for you on our way out.” Eric holds his hand out. “Deal?”

Jack’s mouth twitches. “You just want me to hold your -”

“‘Scuse me,” a student says before scurrying past the door.

Eric sidesteps to let him pass. After the student’s gone, Eric drops his hand.

Jack clears his throat and looks into the Union. “Deal then. C’mon. Show me the Philly spot I haven’t been to even though I already have been.”

Eric finally walks in. “Yeah, but you haven’t been with me.”

.

.

.

This feels like a date but Jack can’t tell.

They nab a table near the counter. It’s small. A cozy fit for two. Jack and Eric can only sit across each other with their knees completely pressed underneath the table. Eric ordered two turkey sandwiches, a hot chocolate for himself, orange pekoe tea for Jack, and a croissant to split.

Jack gave him a pointed look. This is the weirdest combination ever.

Eric looked back eagerly. I know and you’ll love it.

Eric paid. Jack fought valiantly but gave up because Eric said Jack could pay next time, and Jack shouldn’t have had to today because he drove, and Jack, just shut up and let me, okay?

So Jack shut up and let him.

And now they’ve finished their sandwiches. Almost done with their drinks. Jack attempts to delicately and evenly tear the croissant in two. Beneath the table, Eric’s knee bounces against Jack’s. Three students snore in sync on the couch. A few more students trickle out of the Union, bringing in a burst of cool air as the door shuts behind them.

The second Eric’s knee stops bouncing, Jack finally makes the tear. “Dammit.” It’s not even.

“It’s fine, dude.” Eric reaches for the smaller half.

“As if,” Jack says and hands Eric the larger half. “Here.”

After Jack’s first bite, Eric stares expectantly at him. Understanding that Eric won’t eat it until Jack gives a glowing review, he says, “I love it, it’s great, you’re right, all of this is a weird combo but it works really well, nice -”

“A girl in my psych class asked me out this morning.”

Jack freezes.

Eric sets his croissant onto their shared napkin. “This is the part where you say something.”

Again, for the second time that day, Jack fumbles his lines. He knew this was going to happen eventually. Why is he surprised? What did he think was going to happen?

“Jack,” Eric says gently.

“That’s - wow. Great. Cool! Tell me how it happened.”

Eric smiles and drops his gaze to the table. “It just did,” he says, picking listlessly at his food. “We’ve sat next to each other all semester, y’know, small talk here and there. Her name’s Erin.”

Jack can’t help it. He laughs because he has to and then he laughs for his own heartbreak. “Eric and Erin. That’s cute.”

“Yeah. At the end of class, she gave me a slip of paper with her number on it. Told me I could call for a study date, emphasis on study, or just a date, emphasis on … date. And then she left.”

“Wow,” Jack says over the mantra in his head to keep it together, keep it together, just keep it together. “Bold. I like that.”

Eric nods enthusiastically. “Yeah! Me too. She’s funny. Gorgeous. Smart.”

Jack attempts a smile. He hopes to god it’s convincing. “Then that’s great. When are you two going out?”

“Well, I haven’t, uh, called her yet? I don’t know, I still can’t decide.” Eric scratches his neck. “What do you think?”

“What?”

“Like. Should I say yes?”

Jack doesn’t know how Eric can ask that so casually. How Eric can not know that he’s got Jack’s stupid heart in his hands. That even if Eric breaks it without meaning to, it’s still his. Jack can’t take it back.

But why would Eric know? Why should he?

This is easier. This is better. Erin sounds great. Eric deserves great. What else is there to know?

Jack kicks Eric’s foot. It gets Eric to finally look at Jack, open hope all over his eyes.

“I think you should,” Jack says.

“Oh.” Eric’s voice cracks with what Jack thinks is relief. “Okay, good. Great. Thanks, man.”

“Yeah, of course.” Jack waits, wondering if Eric will bring up where that leaves them and their unspoken thing.

Eric doesn’t. He silently munches on his lukewarm croissant.

Maybe they shouldn’t talk about it. Just let it go off quietly into the night or whatever. At least they’re still friends.

“I’m, uh, gonna get Shawn a croissant,” Jack says. “Can I get you something?”

“I’m good,” Eric says. “Finish your half, though.”

Jack’s lost his appetite but he wolfs it all down. He walks to the counter and buys two croissants anyway. One for Shawn, one for Eric.

.

.

.

It takes one ring for Jack’s call to get answered.

“Jack!?”

That’s all it takes for him to melt. Just his name from the one person whose love Jack has never questioned.

“Elle,” he exhales. “Hey. What’re you doing at home on a Saturday night?”

“I’m not the one with the car and my apartment and no parents living with me. What’re you doing at home on a Saturday night?”

“Talking to you!”

“Shawn and Eric are busy?”

“I missed you.”

“And they’re busy.”

Eric’s on his first date with Erin tonight. Shawn’s in the shower, getting ready for a date he has later tonight.

But that’s not the point. Jack tells her so.

“I’m only teasing,” Elle says, rewarding him with her brilliant laugh. “I went to the movies with Sasha earlier today, though. We saw A Bug’s Life. You should see it.”

“I will. What did you like about -”

“What did you do today?”

“So much homework. Like a ton. Like tons.”

“What a normal way to say that,” Elle says dubiously.

“Are you doing your homework?”

“I’m in the fifth grade. My homework takes me five minutes to do. Are you doing yours?”

“Oh yeah, and I’m doing -”

“Tons, yeah, I got it. But school is okay?”

“School is good,” he lies. “What about you? Tell me everything.”

So she does. He listens to all the fifth-grade drama, how Dylan said he kissed Elle’s best friend, Shara, but Shara said it didn’t happen and, ugh, Dylan is so gross, why would he lie about it, what a loser, and Mrs. Jackson’s science tests are ridiculous, and the uniform colours have changed from graphite to smoke, and when are you going to talk to Mom -

“What?”

“It’s getting annoying! You’re both being stupid.”

Jack guffaws. “I’m not being stupid. And nothing’s going on.”

“Do you think I’m stupid?”

“No, but I think you’re pushy.”

“Obviously I can tell that you’re not talking and Mom is trying to be all chill about it, but she’s so sad and she doesn’t know how to make it right, so if you just tell her what to do to fix it, she’ll do it. And then you’ll both be happy.”

An ache hits him square in the chest. He tries desperately to keep her from hearing it in his voice. “It’s not that easy, Elle. I wish it were. I promise it’s not as bad as you might think, okay? I just need some time. I’m not mad at Mom, but it’s like, you know how sometimes, when Mom and Dad fight, they don’t talk for, like, a few hours, maybe even a day?”

“Yeah?” Jack can hear the pout in her voice.

He smiles to himself, his ache even larger now. “But you and me and they, I mean, we all know they’re going to make up. They’re gonna talk about it and apologize and it’ll be fine. We all know they’re not gonna break up forever or anything.”

“You’re so stupid.”

“Exac - what?”

“You haven’t gone a day not talking to Mom, you’ve gone two months!”

Jack rubs his forehead with his hand not gripping the phone. “I know. But I promise. We’ll be fine. I’ve never lied to you, have I?”

“No,” Elle says, her voice small.

“I’m not gonna start now, okay? I love Mom. I’m almost ready to talk to her again. That’s all there is. I swear.”

“What happened? I know it has to do with your brother -”

“It has nothing to do with Shawn.” He hates how intuitive his sister is. “Mom and I will be fine. Please don’t worry about it because there’s nothing to worry about. I promise.”

“Then why aren’t you coming for Thanksgiving?” Elle demands.

Jack winces. “Well, this is my first year in Philly with my - my father and with Shawn. I’ve spent all my Thanksgivings with you guys.”

“Not all.”

“Most,” he amends. “But still, you don’t remember a Thanksgiving without me, do you?”

“No.”

“But my father and brother do. I think it’d be nice to spend it with them. It’s got nothing to do with Mom. I’m sorry I can’t be there.”

“But I hate Grandma and Grandpa, and you never leave me alone with them!”

“But they love you.”

“Yeah, but -” She stops herself. She doesn’t actually say it. What they all know to be true. But they don’t love you. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. You have nothing to be sorry for. But it’s really not a big deal. Our grandparents are just stuck in their ways.”

“They call you Elaine’s son. I know you have your actual dad, but Dad’s still - he’s still -”

“I know,” he promises her. “I know that. They love me, it’s just distant.”

“But they’re supposed to love you properly!”

He can picture how red her face must be, her face scrunched up and chin wobbly whenever she gets worked up. He wishes he was there to take her shoulder. Look her in the eye. Calm her down with just a half-smile.

It’s his fault he’s not there. He made his choice to come here. He doesn’t regret it. He doesn’t want to start to, either.

“I know,” he says. “But you don’t have to fight this one for me, okay? It’s not worth it. I want you to have a good Thanksgiving. Say hi to all the Connecticut cousins for me. Stay out late with the older ones when they go hang out. Tell Aunt Serena I said hi. And the nicer you are to our grandparents, the more money they’ll give you when you’re leaving, so be nice ‘cause it’s the right thing to do, maybe, but also so it’ll get you paid.”

Elle giggles. Clouds part. All Jack can feel is the sun shining just for them, just because of her. “Fine,” she says. “But you have to come home for Christmas.”

“Deal.”

“And you have to talk to Mom by then.”

Jack’s stomach sinks. “C’mon, Mom and I will be done fighting in no time, so don’t worry -”

“By Christmas!”

There’s no use in arguing with Elle. Mostly because he doesn’t want to and because she’s annoyingly reasonable. “Deal. Wanna know something?”

“Yes,” she says, utterly delighted.

“Wǒ xiǎng nǐ.”

She sniffles. Jack’s eyes already sting before she says back, “Wǒ yě xiǎng nǐ.”

I miss you. I miss you too.

Elle’s the only reason that Jack knows Mandarin and is halfway decent at it. When she was four, the year after their parents got married, Ernie signed her up for Mandarin lessons. He wanted her to be bilingual. She’d picked Mandarin because her best friend, Shara, spoke it. After Elle loved her first few lessons, Ernie offered Jack the chance too.

“It’d be nice if both of my children were bilingual,” Ernie explained with a kind smile. “Only if you want.”

Jack had been twelve. Old enough to know what it meant when Ernie had asked if Jack wanted to change his last name to Grady but never held it against him when Jack said no. Old enough to understand that he’d still be Ernie’s kid even if he never thought of Ernie as his father. Old enough that he knew he’d never be as good as Elle in Mandarin but he could be good enough.

Still in Mandarin, Elle says she has to go eat dinner. “Call me later this week!”

Back to English, Jack says, “Of course, yeah. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Tell Mom I love her.”

“I will.”

“Tell Ernie -”

“Oh my god, I will,” Elle says exasperatedly, but he hears the smile in her voice.

Jack smiles back. “We’ll talk soon, okay? Love you.”

“You said that already.”

“Yeah and I’m saying it again.”

“Ugh, love you too.”

.

.

.

Five seconds later, after Jack hangs up, Shawn bolts out of his room. Jack tries stifling his shriek, unwilling to give Shawn the ammo to make fun of him.

But Shawn only grimaces. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No, you didn’t, I -” Jack falls quiet after getting a better look at Shawn. “Whoa. You look nice.”

Shawn brightens with a grin. Jack is briefly overcome with the urge to ruffle Shawn’s neatly combed hair like he would with Elle. Only Shawn’s not Elle and Shawn’s grin is as fragile as it is luminous.

“I love the surprise in your voice,” Shawn says flatly. “Could you sound even more surprised that I don’t look like trailer trash?”

“You could never look like trailer trash because you’re not trailer trash,” Jack grumbles. He brushes the lint away from Shawn’s shirt. It’s the only thing Jack’s ever seen Shawn wear that fits perfectly. Black, long-sleeved, no holes.

Jack’s about to ask if Shawn used Jack’s iron when Shawn says, “There’s nothing wrong with being trailer trash.”

Jack’s fingers hesitate over Shawn’s shoulders. He keeps his eyes fixed on Shawn’s silver chain. He wonders if pocket knives and missed calls aren’t the only things Chet gives his children.

“I don’t like that term,” Jack says finally. “I can’t imagine why you would either.”

“I don’t but I don’t get why -”

“Are you trying to pick a fight with me?” Jack looks up sharply at Shawn. He drops his hands and crosses his arms. “Is this because I was mad about your secret teacher-father?”

Shawn’s eyes widen. “So you were mad. And Jon isn’t my secret teacher-father!”

Jack grits his teeth and storms past Shawn toward the kitchen. He can’t tell if he’s more relieved or annoyed by the immediate noise of footsteps trailing behind him. “Right, he’s your almost teacher-father. My bad.” If there’s a way to angrily fill a kettle, then Jack has it mastered. He’s sure Shawn will take the cue to leave Jack alone to make tea, but Shawn stays rooted behind Jack.

“I said sorry. I don’t know what else you want from me, man.”

“I said I was mad. Past tense.” Jack pulls his mug out from their highest cabinet. “I’m not anymore.”

“I’m sure there are a lot of things you haven’t told me either,” Shawn says. The nervous lilt in his voice makes Jack turn around with a deep frown. “Like how you’re not talking to your mom?”

“What were you - how did you - were you eavesdropping on my call with my sister?”

Shawn juts his chin out. “It’s not eavesdropping when you’re talking right outside of my room. These walls are pretty thin. But you’re right, it’s none of my my business. Unless the reason you’re fighting with your mom is me.”

“You’re right,” Jack says, barely able to hear himself over the pounding in his ears. “It’s really not your business.”

“I never asked you to get upset with her.”

“Who says it’s about you?”

Shawn goes on like he hadn’t heard Jack. “Don’t be selfish. Your mom doesn’t deserve that.”

“Okay, don’t act like you suddenly care about my mom.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You think of her as the woman that left your dad,” Jack spits out. “Some gold digger who latched onto the first rich guy that would take us. So why do you care if I’m not talking to her?”

“Do you even hear yourself?”

“I’m only saying what you think is -”

“No, not that.” Shawn shakes his head with a scowl. “And I don’t think that about her, either. I meant that you called our dad my dad. You said ‘your dad.’”

Jack stands taller and tries desperately not to waver. “Fine, slip of the tongue. It doesn’t matter. I’m just saying, you don’t have to be worried about me and my mom. It’s a small fight that has nothing to do with you. Don’t you have a date to get to?”

Shawn ignores Jack’s question. “‘Nothing to do with me,’” he quotes. “Don’t be a hypocrite. If you were mad I didn’t tell you something about me, then how can you -”

“Fine!” Jack bursts out. “Fine. I haven’t talked to her since I learned about the letters, okay? I called her that night after you and I talked at the old apartment because I needed an explanation. Not hearing from you for my entire life couldn’t have been a choice my mom really made, right? It had to have been an accident or something. But no. She chose to keep your letters away from me. To keep you away from me. I know it wasn’t easy for her, I know, and part of me wants to get it, but I can’t. I won’t. I couldn’t get to choose anything but I got to choose Penbrook and now, I get to choose to be mad about not knowing you at all. It’s my choice.”

Jack doesn’t recognize his voice, thin and exhausted. He doesn’t recognize himself in this unfamiliar kitchen, in this unfamiliar city, across this unfamiliar boy he was supposed to know in another life but who will now only be the biggest should’ve of Jack’s life.

They can play by the brother script all they want. It won’t be the real thing. Jack goes over all of his unreturned calls from Chet. How his mother had kept Shawn’s letters a secret even after Jack had told her about Penbrook and how he just wanted to try with this other side of his family despite all this time they’d spent estranged.

So maybe Jack doesn’t know anything about the real thing either way.

The stinging in Jack’s eyes renders Shawn a blurry image before him, but Shawn’s discomfort is palpable enough that Jack still sees it clear as day.

“Don’t be an idiot over a bunch of dumb old letters,” Shawn says, voice softer than his words. “She’s your mom.”

Jack snorts an ugly laugh, hoping it conceals the stupid sob threatening to burst from his throat. “I’m allowed to be upset. I’m not out here telling you to hey, just forgive Dad for abandoning you for a year.”

“Yeah, because I already did that. Parents do shitty things. You get mad for a second. Then you buck up, forgive them, and move on. So move on.”

Jack nearly laughs again. When Shawn stays straight-faced, Jack clenches his jaw, desperate to hide his betrayal and watering eyes. Oh, how quickly the tide has come. How often Jack keeps forgetting how to swim.

“I’m not going to move on,” Jack snaps. “All you’re doing is making me more mad. I’m already mad at Dad for not answering my calls, now I’m mad at him for leaving you alone for a year, and doubly mad since you’re not mad. I am continents away from forgiveness right now!”

Shawn jabs his finger into Jack’s shoulder. “Well, then take a flight!”

Jack scowls and bats Shawn’s hand away. “Why do I have to be the one moving to everyone else? I’m tired of it. I’m done with it. You had a lot of talk when I got here about me leaving you, but you never went looking for me.”

Shawn tries valiantly to keep his face straight. Jack still catches the tremble in his chin. “I wrote you fourteen letters. I tried, okay? You can’t say that I didn’t. And - and c’mon, you know I appreciate you coming here, I -”

“Do I? How do I know that?”

“You know,” Shawn says quietly. Jack wishes more than anything that Shawn would yell. “And you have to know that you can’t blow up your life because of me. Seriously, talk to your mom. How awkward is your Thanksgiving gonna be if you don’t clear the air already?”

The tide swells into a riptide. “Oh,” Jack says as best he can while completely submerged. “I just assumed …”

Shawn’s face falls. “Oh.”

Jack tries to smile. It hurts his face, but he can only smile wider. “My first Thanksgiving in Philadelphia, I thought I could spend it with you and Dad. But he hasn’t been returning my calls. We haven’t spoken in a month. I have no idea how to reach him.”

Shawn looks at Jack like he sees everything. Like he sees right through Jack. Jack tries not to shift under Shawn’s watchful gaze.

“Why don’t you visit the trailer?” Shawn has the nerve to sound amused.

“Oh my god,” Jack says. Despite himself, he can’t help but take one-second delight in how both of his siblings can so accurately read him. “If you wanna call me a rich snob for not wanting to go to a trailer park, go ahead. I don’t care. I just think our father should call me back and I shouldn’t have to go chasing after every member of my family all the time.”

“He does that. Runs sometimes.”

“But it’s been an entire month.”

“I really thought he wouldn’t do it again with you here,” Shawn admits, averting Jack’s gaze. “I’m sorry he -”

Jack raises a hand. “Don’t.” He doesn’t need his little brother to comfort him. “It’s okay. I … I get it. Guess you and I can spend Thanksgiving together again? Whip up something almost edible in the apartment?”

Shawn’s eyes are still red. But miraculously, his mouth cracks into a near smile. “You’re really gonna go from yelling to inviting me to a Thanksgiving dinner?”

Jack doesn’t miss a beat. “Yes.”

“I’m sure Eric’ll ask you soon, but, uh, Cory invited me to his family’s Thanksgiving. Screw that, we don’t even need to wait for Eric, I’ll ask Cory to -”

“No,” Jack says so loudly that Shawn flinches. “No, that’s okay,” he tries, gentler this time despite, or maybe just because of all of his simmering anger. “I appreciate it, I do, but I can’t butt into another family’s holiday.”

Shawn’s throat bobs around a harsh swallow. “Right. Of course.”

Shit. Jack wants to bang his head against the wall. “I didn’t mean it like -”

“I hope you change your mind,” Shawn cuts in. “I gotta get going for my date. I’ll bring you back something for dinner.”

“Shawn, you don’t have to do -”

“Shut up,” Shawn says. He automatically waves and then stares at his fingers like he doesn’t recognize them. “See you.” He leaves before Jack can think of anything to say.

Even after the door closes, Jack can’t bring himself to move. He listens intently. Waits for the usual few minutes of Shawn scrambling to lock the door.

Except that never comes. The key turns once before it successfully clicks.

Jack walks over to the couch. Falls face-first onto it. Whether he’s in New York or in Philadelphia, with one half of his family instead of the other, he’ll always end up caught in the sea’s tide anyway with only the lonely blue of the ocean around him. It doesn’t matter. Why did he think it ever did?

Jack doesn’t move from the couch for a long time.

.

.

.

The next few days pass by slowly.

Jack either holes himself in Penbrook’s giant, bleak library or in his small, bleak bedroom. Shawn’s never home for dinner now. Jack can’t tell if Shawn’s upset with him or if he’s upset with Shawn. They haven’t been around each other enough to tell.

Eric’s just as busy with his classes. Jack can pretend like school is the sole cause of the change between them. Until Saturday night.

Jack stumbles out of his room after a nap he shouldn’t have taken but definitely needed. He assumes the apartment is empty, but soon hears snores. He cautiously approaches the living room.

His heart flips at the sight of Eric fast asleep on the couch. Eric’s textbook sits wide open on his lap. A highlighter is clipped to the collar of his shirt. Jack wants to do nothing but plop onto the couch, burrow into Eric’s side, and settle back into sleep.

But he’s not sure what’s allowed now and what isn’t. That’s not even a new issue now. Just one made more pronounced since Eric’s date.

Jack glances at the clock. Half-past six. He sets the kettle on. Ten minutes later, he returns to their couch. He puts down two cups of steaming tea. Black tea for himself, ginger for Eric. He takes a deep breath and reminds himself that Eric’s still his roommate. Still his friend. There’s nothing weird about this. At least not anymore.

Then he shakes Eric’s shoulder. “Hey, sleepyhead. C’mon, get up. Your reading on … atmospheric chemistry is too interesting to sleep through.”

Eric raises his hand. Jack assumes that Eric will bat his hand away but Eric only laces their fingers and shakes Jack’s back. Eric’s skin is unbearably warm and soft. Jack wants to die.

Eric tugs Jack down, and oh, no. Jack just wants this instead.

“C’mon,” Jack says, fighting against his every instinct to sink down next to Eric. “Exams are coming up. Hustle up now before Thanksgiving break.”

Eric’s forehead creases. “Hustle?”

“Yes, hustle, this is a war zone we’re entering.”

“Hustling in a war zone? Is that what you think happens in war?”

“Like you know what happens in war.”

“I don’t but I’m not pretending like I do.”

Jack sighs through his nose. “Shut up and open your eyes please.”

“I’m going back to Nap Land,” Eric huffs. He’s still clinging to Jack’s wrist. He probably forgot that he’s still holding onto it. Jack lets go before Eric can.

“I made tea.”

Eric’s eyes fly open. They’re hazy but instantly alert, browner than the tea Jack hands him. Suddenly, Jack wants to do something stupid. He wants to lean in, get as good of a view as he can of Eric’s eyes, and just stare. Not as a prelude to kissing him, crawling over him, having sex. Jack just wants to look. He wants to see Eric.

But then their fingers brush as Eric accepts the mug and everything is too much.

“I knew that’d work,” Jack mutters, taking his mug. He turns his back to Eric and heads toward the kitchen.

“Is it ginger?”

“What am I, new here? Of course it’s ginger.”

Eric audibly blows over his tea.

By the sink, Jack steals a peek over his shoulder. He melts into a sad, gooey puddle from watching Eric sip with his pinky raised. “What, your British teacher teach you how to drink like that?”

Eric throws his head back and laughs. Jack beams from the victory. “First of all, it feels satisfying as hell to do. Second of all, I’m surprised you don’t drink like that. What do they teach you in prep school if not how to hold your mugs properly, hm?”

“Good posture?”

“Cheap shot,” Eric says, hastily straightening his back. “What’re you doing in the kitchen?”

“Kitchen stuff.”

“You’re not gonna sit here? Drink your black tea with me?”

“Well, I, uh, figure that you’re busy. Studying. I shouldn’t distract you.”

“Oh,” Eric says. “Okay. Yeah.”

But Jack can’t hold back entirely. “How is your studying going, though?”

Eric makes a fart noise.

“Seriously,” Jack says through a laugh. “C’mon, I know you’ve been hitting the books like crazy lately.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m doing great.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re doing …” Jack clears his throat and makes Eric’s fart noise. “… either.”

“Well, we’ll see how I do on finals.” A trickle of shyness sneaks into Eric’s voice. “I could still fail.”

Jack looks down at the towering stack of plates in the sink. He holds his untouched mug with both hands. “You could fail,” he tells Eric so tenderly he almost doesn’t recognize his voice. “But you won’t.”

.

.

.

That Sunday night, Eric’s with a study group at Penbrook’s library and Shawn has another date.

Shawn left the apartment dressed up as nicely as he was for his last date.

Jack couldn’t help but ask who the girl was that could get Shawn to shower during the day. Shawn had rolled his eyes at Jack so hard that Jack found it an offensively disproportionate response.

Until Shawn muttered, “Her name is Angela.” He raced out of the door before Jack could ask anything else.

Jack thinks about it for the duration of his twenty-minute car ride. Is Angela the first person Shawn’s ever been serious with? Would he ever want to borrow Jack’s car for dates? Does Shawn know how to drive? Would it be dickish to ask and lead to another pointless fight? Would he let Jack teach him? Would he care about Jack’s dating life? Would he care that Jack likes boys - really, only the one, but still - and likes boys too? Does Shawn maybe also -

Jack’s glad the trailer park comes into view before he can linger on that last thought.

He parks his car and braves his way into the park. This visit isn’t nearly as nerve-wracking as his first time back in September, the address in his palm, his heart in his throat.

It’s not as scary. It just feels ridiculous. He went from “hey, Dad, I haven’t seen you since I was three, how’ve you been” to “hey, Dad, why haven’t you answered my calls in weeks?”

It was supposed to be easier. Jack moved all this way. He constantly calls Chet first. He’s at Chet’s address right now. What else could he possibly do to make things easier?

What’s missing? Beyond the obvious: the last fifteen years of their lives together. Jack can’t give them that. But he can storm up to his father’s trailer and bang his fist on the screen door.

“Dad? Dad. Dad!”

“Hey,” barks a jagged voice several feet over.

Oh god. Jack’s going to die. He’s going to get killed. He’s going to deserve it from making all of this noise. He’s sorry, he’s usually never this loud, he just wanted one stupid Thanksgiving with his Dad, what an idiot -

“Kid!”

Jack gulps and looks over. In the trailer next door, peeking her head from her door, an elderly woman waves wildly at Jack. She’s as tall as Elle. Looks as old as Ernie’s parents.

Jack would like to think he’s good with elderly people. But Ernie’s parents also call him kid. Well, they say child, because they’re rich and scary. Nine-year-old Jack’s first impressions of them were that they were going to eat him. Eighteen-year-old Jack still thinks the same, so.

Maybe he’s not so good with the elderly.

“I was leaving,” Jack babbles, backing up.

The woman flicks her wrist toward herself. Beckoning him to stay.

Jack should run. Instead, he digs his shoes firmer into the ground. “Yes?”

“Hunter’s your father?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“He’s not home.”

“I figured.”

“Hasn’t been for a while now.” A shadow crosses her face. “Haven’t seen Shawn in a while, either.”

Jack’s chest squeezes with the painful grip of an unnameable yearning. “Oh, he’s good. He’s great. He’s with me. We’re brothers. I’m his - yeah, you know what a brother is. Sorry.”

“I figured you were his brother when you said Chet was your dad.”

“That makes sense. Sorry, I’m just - sorry.”

She tilts her head. “You used to live here too?”

“No, I didn’t -” He pauses. Thinks it over. “I don’t think so.”

“You would’ve been little. Very little. I remember a second kid. Here for two, maybe three months. ‘81?”

“Maybe? I’m not sure.” His brain whirrs, trying to slot that piece and see if it fits. It’s hard to pin down the first four years of his life. His mom doesn’t like to talk much about their three years in Philadelphia or their first year, just the two of them, in New York.

He thought they’d only lived with Chet, Shawn, and Shawn’s mother in the apartment. Clearly not.

“Your mom, I remember her,” the woman says triumphantly. “She was a little young thing. I remembered thinking she was also Chet’s kid.” She laughs. Jack laughs too. Mostly to be polite but also to drown out the noise of the irreparable crack in his chest.

This will probably break something else in him but he needs to know. “How long was she - were we, I guess, here for?”

“Two months? Maybe three?” She doesn’t ask why Jack doesn’t know all of this. He’s immensely grateful.

“It was just the four of us? No other woman?”

“Nope.”

“Could you tell me anything else you remember? Please?”

“The best earl grey I’ve ever had.”

“Pardon?”

“Your momma made the best tea I’ve ever had,” she says. She continues, unaware that she’s provided gauze and tape and put everything she’s accidentally cracked together. Not healed but still together. “I always said that was my favourite earl grey. Above my husband, Grey Earl.”

He smiles hesitantly. “That’s a funny joke.”

“My husband laughs the hardest whenever I say it. Sure, that man laughs at anything, but still. It’s nice to be the one to get him to laugh that damn loud.”

Jack’s smile slips and becomes real. “Sounds really nice. I’m glad to hear that. Thank you for telling me all that, I appreciate -”

“She spent all her time looking after you two boys,” she continues. “God, two toddlers are a handful enough, but two toddlers up to mischief together? Your momma’s a goddamn saint.”

He walks down the trailer steps and up the woman’s without realizing it. “Up to mischief?”

She laughs out a twinkly noise that plays better than any song. “Oh, you know, the usual. Taking turns pushing each other in your little stroller things. Chasing each other round the park. Helping each other up those steps into your trailer. Taking naps on the grass right there.” She tips her chin. He follows her line of vision to the patch of grass right beyond Chet’s main window.

When he looks back at her, her smile dims. “Don’t remember it, huh?”

He can only shake his head.

“It still happened, though.”

He glances back at that spot of grass. He’d spent so much time wondering about what he and Shawn could be. He’s never thought about what they once were.

“Thank you,” he tells her, looking her right in the eye. His mom always stressed the importance of eye contact. It’s good to make people feel seen. “May I ask your name?”

“Linda,” she says. “Funny that I remember so much about you as a tot but not your name.”

“Jack. My mom’s -”

“Elaine. I remember that.”

“She’ll be happy to hear about you, Linda.”

“She’s doing good?” Linda asks so protectively that Jack has the absurd urge to cry with relief.

“Real good,” Jack says. He hopes it’s true.

.

.

.

The following Monday, Jack skips his morning class again. It’s to get more study time in. Nothing to do with how he can’t get out of bed until noon.

He’s not even finished his cereal when the doorbell rings. He stares at the door from his spot hunched over on the couch. He has no idea who that could be. Certainly not anyone for him; the only two people who would see him already have keys to the apartment.

The doorbell rings again.

Robbers don’t usually come in during the daytime. They also don’t ring the doorbell. Jack should be fine.

He springs to his feet and cautiously opens the door.

“Jack, hi!” No robber. Only a brightly smiling Amy Matthews.

Jack melts from relief. For a second. Then he fixes his posture, smooths his hair, and hopes Amy doesn’t notice the milk stain on his sweatpants.

“I was running an errand for work that brought me into the area and I wanted to see if Eric was home,” she says. “I could’ve called, but. You know.”

He tracks the way her eyes rove the state of the apartment. “You miss him, huh?”

“Pft. Not even a little. Do I see that stack of textbooks on the table,” she says, gesturing to the towering pile of textbooks arranged like Jenga, “and get nostalgic over telling Eric over and over again that that’s a hazard and one day, a book will fall on his foot and he’ll have to hear me say I told you so? Of course not. I don’t miss it one bit.”

Jack exhales a laugh. “I tell him that the day he breaks his feet, I’ll drive him to the hospital but be really annoying about it.”

Her eyes crinkle with a smile. “So we can both say we told him so, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says, resisting the urge to do a victory dance because he’s killing it with Amy. “Do you want me to leave a message or tell him to call you when he’s home? He should be back around four, so it’ll be a while.”

“Aw, well. Tell him to call me please but that it’s only for Thanksgiving. We want him to bring dessert. Store-bought is good.”

“Yeah, I can do that.”

“Thank you!” Her polite smile softens. “What’re you doing for your Thanksgiving break?”

“Oh,” Jack says. “You know. Living it up.”

“Thanksgiving in New York must be extravagant.”

“It is. Usually. But …” Goddamn Amy’s politeness. Goddamn Jack’s inability to lie to someone he really wants to impress. “I’m not going home this year. My family’s flying out of state so it was too much of a hassle.”

Witnessing the exact moment Amy’s face falls is torture. “I thought that since Shawn was coming over to ours that you’d be going home?”

“It was a last-minute decision to stay here,” he says so he doesn’t have to admit he didn’t find Chet and didn’t ask Shawn in time. “Shawn thought I was going back to New York. Small miscommunication is all.”

“Oh, Jack,” she says as though he’d announced he was orphaned. “Then you’ll just have to come to our -”

“Mrs. Matthews, no, it’s okay,” Jack insists. “I don’t want to intrude.”

Like a switch, her sympathy hardens into determination. “Both of your roommates are going.”

“Still.”

“Your brother is going.”

“Yeah, but. You know.”

She raises an eyebrow. “But?”

He can’t tell her that it’s different. Shawn is an honourary Matthews. He knows all of them as well as he probably knows Chet. Definitely better than he knows Jack. He’s had countless family dinners with them. They’ve spent Thanksgiving together before. He’s in a third of Eric’s family stories. He’s in the old photo albums that Eric’s shown Jack, the ones that Jack teased Eric for bringing with him to Penbrook while he resolutely did not think about how in another world, Jack would’ve also been tucked between those glossy pages with Eric, Shawn, and Cory.

Jack can’t just butt in. He hasn’t been here long enough. He hasn’t earned it yet.

And that’s not even touching how that’s Eric’s family too.

“But I think some time alone could do me good,” Jack says confidently.

Amy gestures to the empty apartment. “Because you’re rarely alone otherwise?”

“I’m not alone. I’m with you.”

Her surprised smile twinkles the same as Eric’s. Jack relaxes by another inch. “You’re as deflective as your brother, you know,” Amy says.

Jack accepts that scrap like the prize it is. “Thank you.” He means to leave it there but his mouth doesn’t close, and god, he’s tired of never talking about it and of repeatedly falling into the gap between what was supposed to be and what was. He wants to climb out now. “I don’t - I don’t know if this is weird to say, but, like, who cares if it is, but also thank you for everything you’ve done for Shawn. I’m glad he’s got a nice kitchen with even nicer company to go to for Thanksgiving.”

“Our kitchen isn’t that nice,” Amy says, would-be-teasing if not for the wobble in her voice. “There’s nothing to thank us for.”

Jack disagrees, but says, “Still.”

“But if I said thanks for taking good care of Eric and being such a good friend then you’d say -”

“Well, I’d say there’s nothing to thank me for because there is nothing to thank me for.”

Amy hums.

“Really! It’s different. Eric - he, well -” Jack can feel his face bloom red. God, he’s hopeless.

“He takes good care of me too,” Jack admits. “So really. Nothing to thank me for.”

For a split second, Amy just looks at Jack. Panic alarms fire off in his head. She knows. She figured it out. Jack can’t even talk about Eric without stupid cartoon hearts replacing his eyes. He can never talk to her again. She definitely won’t want him at Thanksgiving now. He would’ve never accepted anyway, so it’s fine. She probably won’t want to talk to him again either. Amy’s nice; she’d keep her disgust private. She probably doesn’t suspect anything about Eric, which is good. That matters most.

Still. Jack’s heart doesn’t break but it does chip.

And then the second passes. Amy’s still looking at Jack but it’s nothing to fear; it’s only something to recognize. That aggressive Matthews kindness. Cory’s offer of his brother as a roommate five minutes after meeting Jack. Eric as said roommate who rapidly became everything else to Jack too.

And now with Amy. How she firmly claps Jack’s shoulder and tells him, “That just means that you’re not a stranger. So don’t be one.”

Jack’s world tilts both slightly and completely. He manages a small, relieved smile. “I won’t, Mrs. Matthews. Thank you.”

Amy beams. Jack wonders if Shawn also gives in this easily to her. “I should get back to the office now but I hope I’ll see you on Thursday.”

“I hope so too.”

“That’s a funny way of saying yes.”

“Guess we’ll have to see on Thursday, huh?”

She chuckles and starts zipping her coat.

“I’ll let Eric know about bringing dessert,” he says, his hand returning to the door. “It was really nice talking to you. Thanks for the invite and the whole - you know.” His face turns pink again. He suddenly can’t look at her, making intense eye contact instead with his sock-covered feet.

“Thank you for the whole you-know-what.”

Jack has no idea what he’s done but he knows better than to question Amy Matthews. He thanks her again, says goodbye, and waits until she’s in the elevator to close the door.

.

.

.

An hour later, Eric returns to the apartment. He hangs his jacket up and dumps his backpack by the door.

Jack abandons the textbooks, notes, and damned creative writing assignment he’d already been ignoring anyway to greet Eric. “Hey, how was -”

Eric races to Jack with so much urgency that Jack’s mouth already warms. What about Erin, wait, is this allowed, he thinks but thankfully doesn’t ask.

Because Eric doesn’t kiss him. Of course not. He only takes Jack by the shoulders and yells, “Why didn’t you tell me you were staying here for Thanksgiving?”

It’s a lot. Eric standing close enough that all Jack could just tip his chin up to kiss him, the waft of Eric’s cologne tangled with the bubblegum on his breath, Eric’s grip on Jack unrelentingly secure.

Why did Jack suggest Eric go on that stupid date? Why hasn’t Eric mentioned it since? Why doesn’t Jack just ask?

Rational questions for a rational person. Unfortunately, a strand of Eric’s hair flops gracefully over his forehead and if Jack was ever rational, he sure as hell isn’t now.

Eric lightly jostles Jack back. “Thanksgiving! You! Here! Hello?”

“Right, sorry, I - I don’t know! Anyway.” Jack stares down resolutely at Eric’s knuckles before he joins that hand on his shoulder. “How was your class?”

“Who cares?”

“Hey! I do!”

“I asked you a question first.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Jack starts before Eric instantly interrupts him.

“It’s not no deal, either. You should’ve said something!”

“It’s a tiny, tiny deal and I wasn’t keeping it a secret, it really doesn’t matter that -”

“Yes, it does!”

“No, it -” Jack pauses, taking stock of how loudly he’s yelling. He’s struck with a pang of guilt for their neighbours. “I never used to yell this much before meeting you, you know.”

Eric transforms with laughter. The lines of his face smooth over, his head tips back, and his shoulders sag. Jack soars from the accomplishment.

“You’re welcome,” Eric says.

“Yeah, thanks so much.” Jack can’t even say it sarcastically. He means it too much. “But I wasn’t keeping that Thanksgiving thing from you. I didn’t even tell Shawn either until a few days ago. It’s not a big deal to me. I promise.”

“If it’s really not a big deal, then you know that means you have to come to mine for Thanksgiving though, right?”

“Okay.”

“You might as well since your brother’s already coming, and you’ll need to eat something for dinner that day anyway, and why spend more time in the apartment when you could just not and -”

“Eric, I said okay.”

“I don’t care if you think you’re intruding, you’re our roommate, how could you be -” Eric’s eyes widen. His hands finally fall from Jack’s shoulders. Jack can’t even mind because the quiet, cautious joy in Eric’s voice is better. “What did you say?”

Jack understands Eric’s disbelief. He can barely believe it himself that he said okay and said it twice. “What can I say? You’re very persuasive.”

“I didn’t even finish convincing you to say yes. I thought of a huge list on my walk home.”

“You can still tell me the rest of your list,” Jack urges. “I take it back. I’m not coming. Now convince me.”

“You said yes so much faster than I thought you would,” Eric says with open wonder all over his face. “Why?”

“Because you asked,” Jack says simply. He doesn’t share the entire truth. That he also just doesn’t want to be a stranger. Not anymore.

Eric grins, nudging Jack. “Well, that’s cute.”

“Not as cute as you,” Jack says so instinctively that he’s disgusted by himself.

Eric, though, looks utterly delighted. “I’m never letting that go.”

“I stand by what I say.” Jack has no idea what’s happening. He’s never been so confused in his life. He’s seconds away from being an Adult and just asking Eric what they’re doing. Really. Honestly. Almost. Except another thought pops into his head. “Wait. You talked to your mom today?”

“What?”

“Oh. When did Shawn tell you?”

“Shawn didn’t tell me anything,” Eric says rapidly. “I just know you that well.”

“What, did he swear you to secrecy?”

“You and I have a bond so strong it’s psychic.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“What? Of course not, how could you think so low of Shawn when he was only ever concerned about you and - oh my god, how did you do that, how did you get me to say that.”

Jack beams. “I just know you that well.”

“He told me this morning,” Eric admits. “Before we went to class while you were still in bed. He said he knew you wouldn’t accept an invitation to our Thanksgiving and that I should ask you and then he got mad that I didn’t already ask you. He didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t already know you weren’t going back to New York for Thanksgiving.”

Jack’s throat dries. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t intentionally keeping it a secret.”

“Hey, I know. I get it. And if you, uh, don’t really want to come to mine for Thanksgiving, I get that too but -”

“Are you insane?” It’s Jack’s turn to take Eric by the shoulders. Eric freezes, falling quiet, but Jack tries not to lose his nerve. “I want to go. Really. I’m glad you asked.”

“Okay, but you can say no if -”

“I don’t want to say no. So I’m not going to.” Jack digs his fingers firmer into Eric’s shoulder blades. Eric loosens beneath his fingertips, but he’s still clouded with rare shyness. “Thanks for asking. And for, uh, preparing that list of reasons to get me to come too. I’d really like to hear the rest of your list.”

Eric brightens immediately. “My next biggest reason was that we could use someone to make tea.”

“Well,” Jack says, choked up. “There you go. You’ve got me.”

.

.

.

Jack is sure he’s forgetting something.

He’s in the kitchen, staring down at what he, Shawn, and Eric are bringing. All store-bought from their late-night grocery store run last night. Eric’s pecan pie. Shawn’s pumpkin bread. Jack’s ten-dollar teapot. (He’d lost the fight to pay for Shawn too but he fought valiantly. He’ll win next time.)

Amy hadn’t asked them to bring anything else. Yet Jack spends a few minutes wracking his brain anyway, floating around the kitchen, unable to figure out what’s missing.

Shawn finishes getting ready before Eric. Jack hears his footsteps and calls out, “Shawn, do we have everything?”

“How’d you know it was me?”

Jack continues squinting at the groceries on the counter. “Your footsteps are distinct.”

“What does that - oh, wow.”

Jack stands to full height and faces Shawn. “What do you mean wow, why …” He trails off as he takes in Shawn’s clothes while Shawn takes in Jack’s. They’re both wearing slightly-too-large maroon sweaters and black jeans. “Oh, wow.”

“This is so weird,” Shawn says but he’s laughing. Some of the tension drawn between them over this past week eases just a bit. “You copied me.”

“I got dressed first,” Jack points out. “And I’m older.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I don’t know, I just hear Eric say it to Cory a lot, so. Is it effective?”

“At making me more annoyed with you? Yes.”

“More annoyed? I didn’t do anything today to get you annoyed at all.”

“Yeah …” Shawn trails off. Whether he means to say it in his silence or not, it doesn’t matter. Jack hears it all the same. All their tiny fights this past week over Turner and Jack’s mother and their father haven’t gone anywhere. Whether the conversations ever continue or not. “Cory’s always at least a little annoyed with Eric. That’s not a bad thing.”

Yeah, but they’re not Eric and Cory. Jack can’t afford to have Shawn always a little annoyed with them. Mostly, he doesn’t want to have Shawn always a little annoyed with him either. He doesn’t want to leave things hanging, unspoken, or unfinished.

He thinks about the box of Shawn’s letters that Jack’s mother promised she’d kept all this time. That she’d mail out if he wanted and that he can still read if he wants to. And now that they finally have no use for letters, how can he still leave things unsaid and unheard?

The thing is that Jack doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what to listen for. He doesn’t know anything except that he’s not doing this right.

Jack’s mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

Thankfully, Shawn swoops in. “I’m not changing clothes.”

“Neither am I. They’ll just think that we matched on purpose.”

“Lovely,” Shawn says. He peeks over Jack’s shoulder. “I think we have everything. What do you think we’re forgetting?”

“I have no idea since, y’know, I’m sure I’m forgetting it. But I, uh, trust your judgement.”

Shawn looks profoundly confused. “Okay. Thanks? Your clothes look nice.”

Jack’s still tense, the incoming tide sending water up to his neck, but he manages a near smile. “You’re just saying that because our clothes are practically the same.”

“The key word is practically,” Shawn points out. “They’re not really the same, so it’s still a compliment. Take it.”

Jack’s near smile blooms. “Taken. I like yours too.”

“Now you’re just reusing my compliments.”

“Fine, then I hate your -”

“Aw, you guys are matching,” Eric says, striding into the kitchen. He’s wearing a soft yellow sweater and dark pants too, his jacket slung over his shoulder. He twirls Jack’s car keys.

“Accidentally matching,” Jack clarifies. He opens his hand right as Eric tosses the keys.

When Jack catches it, Eric cheers. Jack does a little bow.

“That was impressive,” Shawn says.

Jack hesitates but decides to go for it anyway. “You have three seconds to catch or dodge.”

“What does that -”

“Okay, three seconds are up.” Jack throws his keys. A nice and easy underhand so it’ll only hit Shawn’s sleeve if Shawn neither moves nor catches.

But Shawn does move and he does catch it. He looks stunned by himself, holding the keys toward the fluorescent light.

Eric applauds him. “Look at you Hunters and your genetics. Bravo, you athletic boys. Men? Boys.”

“I’m a man,” Shawn insists.

“A young man,” Jack suggests.

Eric hums. “A mannish boy.”

“I like boyish man better,” Shawn says.

“Young man is obviously better,” Jack says. “But we can talk about that and our athletic genes in the car, okay? Let’s get going so we’re right on time. Oh, and Eric -”

“We’re not forgetting anything,” Eric reassures him. He heads into the kitchen and swipes all their food into the plastic bag Jack had set out on the counter. “Don’t worry, Jack. We’re good.”

Jack tries to wrestle the bag from Eric. “I’m not worried.”

“You’re a little worried,” Shawn says. He tries grabbing the bag too. It’s a miracle it hasn’t ripped open yet with three arms fighting for it. “Don’t be. It’s just the Matthews.”

Right. It’s just Eric’s family and Shawn’s other family. Jack exhales through his nose. He tries to put everything else but his excitement away. Because he is really looking forward to it. It’s not the dinner he’s used to with his family in New York. It’s not what he’d originally wanted with just Chet and Shawn. But he’s still got Shawn. He’s got Eric too. He wants to be there. And he’s wanted too.

He tries to focus on that on the way to the car. The entire time, out the apartment and through the elevator, all three of them still wrestle for the bag of food. The bag never rips.

.

.

.

Jack thinks of it the second he turns the car on. But he only has the guts to ask twenty-five minutes later when they’re half a dozen footsteps from the Matthews’ front door.

“Uh, Shawn?” Jack squeaks out.

Up ahead, Shawn and Eric stop walking.

“Can we -” Jack clears his throat. His mother’s voice returns to him. This time, he doesn’t banish her. He welcomes her in. Follows her instructions. A deep breath in, another out. A quiet but firm instruction to be a little brave. “Can we talk for a minute? Before going inside? It’s important.”

Shawn looks like a deer caught in headlights. “Uh, yeah, sure.” Jack’s seen Shawn defensive, unwilling, and upset. He’s never seen him skittish. He hates it. He hates being the reason why.

Eric wags their plastic bag of microwavable food. “I’ll take this inside. I’ll just tell my folks you’re doing some family stuff, so don’t rush,” he says softly, his eyes on Jack.

Jack’s burst of gratitude for Eric is almost painful. All he can do is say softly back, “Thanks, man.”

Eric walks ahead. Shawn and Jack both watch him twist the unlocked door open and slip in. At the moment before he shuts the door, the Matthews’ chaotic and lively chatter slips out. Snippets of another door rushing open, football from the television, yelling (the good kind), and Cory’s voice. Eric, hey, where’s Shawn and -

Shut.

Shawn clears his throat. He shoves his hands deep into his leather jacket’s pockets. Kicks at a stray dead leaf blowing past. “I was gonna ask you to talk too, you know. You just beat me to the punch.”

Jack can’t help but snort. “Sure. C’mon, let’s -”

Shawn’s scoff comes out in a cold cloud. “I was! Just after dinner.”

“That is awful timing.”

“That is good enough timing,” Shawn counters. “But fine. I know the place, though.”

“We can just talk out here, can’t we?”

Shawn rolls his eyes, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a near smile that Jack wants desperately to unfurl. Instead, Shawn tips his head toward the side of the Matthews’ house. “If we’re going with your timing for some big heart-to-heart that would put Full House out of business -”

“First of all -”

“Oh my god.” Shawn tugs firmly on Jack’s sleeve without ever coming into contact with Jack’s skin. “Anything but a ‘first of all.’”

“Full House is already out of business, it’s been over for three years. Second of all, hey, maybe I don’t want a heart-to-heart. Maybe I want to yell at you some more.”

“Fine. Then I’ve got a good place to yell at you right back.”

“Fine,” Jack shoots back. The BANTER banner hangs high once more, briefly and blessedly obscuring everything else in front of Jack. Everything but Shawn. Specifically, Shawn’s back. The collar of his leather jacket sticking out, the corner of his sagging pockets, his fluffy hair made even fluffier from how he keeps reaching back to mess through it.

Jack follows Shawn into the Matthews’ backyard. Over the thundering boom of his heartbeat, he tells himself that all he has to do is what he set out to do by moving to Philadelphia.

Just try.

.

.

.

“They just? Keep lawn chairs out?”

Shawn shrugs and plops into one. “They’ve got a good backyard. Why not regularly spend time in it?”

Jack takes his seat. “In late November though?”

“What, you don’t have a backyard back home?”

“We live in a brownstone. Elle has a cactus but that’s about it.”

“Well, don’t you ever sit around her cactus?”

“No?”

Shawn leans back. He tilts his head up to the grey skies. Squints with the thin sunlight in his eyes. “You should. Bet it’d be nice to do outside. Even in the cold. Nicer than when your brother asks you to talk without immediately saying why.” He glances at Jack from the corner of his eye. Raises an eyebrow. “Am I being too subtle, do you think?”

Jack laughs shakily. “Way too subtle.” He shifts in his seat, trying and failing to get comfortable. Shawn doesn’t immediately fill the silence. Jack can’t bring himself to either. He needs the right opening line. Dammit, he should’ve thought about this on the ride over.

He sighs and gazes out at the Matthews’ backyard.

In all the places Jack has lived (that he knows of), he’s never really had a backyard. He doubts that every backyard resembles the Matthews’, but it’d be nice if it did. Their oak tree with a furnished treehouse neatly secured to the branches. The small but sturdy row of purple flowers in their garden. These two lawn chairs but all the space for more, something cheesy but real enough to have. Like campfires and firecrackers and a full set of lawn chairs for long conversations.

“I’m sorry,” Jack says at last. He stares over the fence at the sole rocking chair on Feeny’s side. “For being so weird about your teacher-father - sorry, your almost teacher-father. He sounds like a good guy, and he must be since you like him so much, and it’s not any of my business anyway. Definitely not my business to try and tell you how to feel about Dad, so I’m sorry for that too. I know he’s our dad, but not really. Not in the same way. And that’s -” His throat tightens. “That’s how it is, so that’s okay. I’m glad you can forgive him.”

Shawn’s quiet for so long that Jack’s convinced that he’s somehow already ruined everything. Jack tucks his trembling hands beneath his knees. He listens to the wind, each scrap of noise from the Matthews’ kitchen, the thumping of his heartbeat.

“I can’t just not forgive him,” Shawn says finally. “He’s my dad. He’s all I have. All I had. There’s not another option. Your mom’s willing to visit, willing to have you back, willing to call you whenever. I’m not trying to be shitty, I just don’t know how you could ever turn all of that away over some stupid letters.”

“Your letters. I love her but I can’t just get over that.”

“You’ve got a great mom, you can’t just throw her away over one -”

“I know I have a great mom,” Jack insists, struck with the full force of how much he means it. “But I’m not throwing anything away. I’m her son. She has to put up with me while I … figure out how I feel.”

“Are you? Figuring it out?”

“That is not what we’re talking about.”

“That’s a fun way of saying no.”

Jack groans. “I know, okay, but I’m trying.”

“Are you?”

That gets Jack’s head to snap up and look at Shawn. “Of course I am. I don’t know why you’re not as mad as me.”

“Yeah, sure, it hurt or whatever to know she didn’t want me writing to you, but it was a lot better than the years I spent thinking you just never wrote me back, and it’s not like she’s my mom. She never owed me anything. Probably had her reasons, good ones or not, and figured if she really had it out for me, she’d make a big deal out of us living together. Of you moving all this way for …” Shawn trails off.

“The great education of Penbrook.”

Shawn nods rapidly. “Yeah. That.”

Jack feels like such an asshole but he can’t help his peel of laughter that sounds even louder in the breeze. “Dude, c’mon. We know this. You. I came here for you.” A pause. His laughter fades, the sudden silence of it hitting him square in the chest. “And Dad, but. You know.”

“I feel like we’ve established this, but no, I don’t know.” Shawn scoots his chair slightly forward. His seat’s leg clicks against Jack’s. “So tell me, man.”

Jack sits up, leaning toward Shawn. His heartbeat is still racing but differently now. As though he’s taking a run. The exhausting whole-body stretch of exertion that still only propels you forward despite how painful it is, because of how painful it is. And Jack wants to keep running ahead. He can’t possibly stop now.

“I came here for Dad too, yeah,” Jack says. “But he hasn’t really tried. It’s like he’s already accepted that we’ll only ever be strangers and he’s okay with that. But I’m not. I can’t be. I don’t want to be. I thought he wouldn’t want it to be either, that as my dad, he’s always wanted to know me but - but the break up with my mom, and us moving, and all that distance between us were just, like, unchangeable factors. Like he couldn’t have ever done more. Like our story was always gonna some tragedy so our ending was unavoidable.” Wow. Maybe he is learning from his creative writing class.

“But then I did it,” Jack continues, frantic now. “I came here. I threw everything holding us back away by coming here. I made it so easy for us! Finally, we could be the father and son we were supposed to be. And I love my stepdad, I really, really do. I wasn’t missing anything growing up, I knew that, except I knew I had a dad out there, and knowing about him without ever knowing him, it, like - it made sure something was missing. And I come here, ready to find it, ready to find him, except all I get in the end are four phone calls, three plans for dinner, two reschedulings, one final cancellation, and a toaster oven. Don’t get me wrong. I fucking love that toaster oven. But I wanted to love him too. It’s stupid but -”

“Shut up.” Shawn knocks his foot against Jack’s. “It’s not stupid. That’s our dad for ya. He tries. He’s good when he’s at his best. He’s just not at his best a lot.”

“But he’s supposed to be,” Jack says angrily. “Jesus, I’ve talked to the guy less than ten times this year. What the hell is he like for seventeen full years?”

“I didn’t have it that bad. I did fine.”

“I’m not saying you didn’t, but Shawn …” Jack reaches over and elbows Shawn as casually as he can. He hopes his attempt at feigning steadiness works. “You get that none of that’s fair, right?”

Shawn laughs out a one-note, empty sound. “Jack, I know. It’s okay. You don’t have to break anything about our dad to me, but do I have to break it to you that most things aren’t fair? We just make do. I’m sorry Dad wasn’t what you wanted him to be. I’ve been there. I get it.”

Jack’s chin wobbles. “But you get he was supposed to be more, right? For you?”

Shawn’s throat bobs around a harsh swallow. He stares down at his knee, bouncing so hard his chair creaks. “Do you get that your mom is already a hell of a lot for you? You say you’re not throwing it away, fine, but you can’t punish her.”

“I’m not punishing her.”

“Fine, then stop punishing yourself.”

“I’m not - what the hell are you talking about, Shawn?”

“Dude. You obviously miss her. You obviously love her a lot. And sure, yeah, it sucks she hid my letters from you, but I’m sure if you asked her why, then you could -”

“Oh. I know why.”

Shawn blinks. “What.”

Jack squints back at the sky and all of its white clouds hanging above. “When I called her about the letters, she tried to make me understand but I could tell she was holding back? She was saying how she thought me reading your letters would make it harder for us to stay in New York, that it’d be easier on us to start our new life without being in close contact yet. She said she always wanted to show me the letters eventually once we had enough money, once we could afford to keep visiting, once you and I were older and could handle the distance better. But time got away from her and the more time passed, the harder it got to tell me about the letters. So she didn’t.”

“Okay, so what? You don’t believe her?”

“I do, but it just didn’t feel like enough. Like something this monumental has to have a monumental reason but …”

“Right and not wanting our tiny child hearts to break isn’t a good enough reason,” Shawn drawls.

“What about you? Your child heart still broke,” Jack points out. “She was only protecting mine.”

Shawn doesn’t waver. “Yeah. Good point. Maybe that’s the point.”

“But that just hurt you and me both later, so what, was she just doing this for herself, why would - oh.”

Jack has always known that everything his mother has done, she’s done for him. He’s never thought about the things she might have done for herself.

It breaks his heart, colouring everything in a different shade now. But maybe this is what he’s needed all along. This glimmer of understanding, blinding but necessitating his gaze all the same.

“I met Linda from the trailer park the other day.” Jack speaks over Shawn’s delighted gasp. “She asked about you, says hi. She also remembered my mom. Apparently we did live in the trailer park for a bit. The first thing she said, though, was how young my mom looked. She first thought my mom was our sister.”

Shawn pales. “Oh.”

“She’s never talked about her relationship with Dad or anything,” Jack continues, beating the light bulb in his head until it flickers, flickers, flickers on. “I don’t know any of it. I never even asked. I wanted to know everything about you, about Dad, but I didn’t even think - didn’t even consider or wonder or even think to ask that - god, isn’t that crazy? I came all this way for him and I didn’t know - maybe she didn’t want me to know -”

“Maybe that’s also the point,” Shawn says softly. “Sometimes it’s good to just be mad at the world. I don’t care if that sounds bitter, maybe it is, but like - there’s not always one person to point the finger at, I don’t think. Maybe you and I can point our finger, the finger, at the world and not at anyone else. Not at each other. Not at your mom. Okay?”

Jack’s brain spins lightning-fast. He can only stop thinking, can only put it down just for now, because Shawn asks again, “Okay?”

“Okay,” Jack says, suddenly exhausted. He doesn’t want to think anymore. He wants to smooth over every sharp edge of his life. All the ones he’s found out this week, all the ones he’ll continue to find and bump into and bruise from. Mostly, he wants to fly to Connecticut and give his mother a bone-crushing, floor-sweeping hug. None of which he can do.

But he wants to be here too. And he’s glad that he is.

Jack raises his middle finger to the sky. He means it. But it’s difficult to be fully mad at the world when there’s all of this in it right now. The good dinner and good company inside. The November wind relenting for this one, halfway sunny afternoon. His long-held yearning to talk to his mother finally paired with the readiness to do so.

And Shawn, his not-so-little little brother, wheezing with laughter as he flips off the world too.

.

.

.

“Did you see Grey Earl?”

“No, but Linda mentioned him. Seems like they’re doing well. She said he laughs at anything.”

“He’s so easy to impress,” Shawn says with a grin. “Wow. I should visit soon. Say hi to Linda and Grey Earl and see the place before I become a complete stranger. God, I can’t believe you met Linda!”

Jack can’t help but grin back. “She scared the hell outta me at first. But she was nice. She also, uh, told me something interesting too.”

Shawn grimaces. “Yeah, Dad’s not the best neighbour.”

“No, she didn’t - well, that doesn’t surprise me, but something else. About my mom. About us.” Jack barrels through, not willing to risk losing his nerve. “She said my mom pretty much spent all her time taking care of us. The both of us. And you and I were annoying Thing 1 and Thing 2, but as tots. According to Linda.” He jerks a shaky finger between them. “I call dibs on Thing 1.”

“Oh.” Shawn goes still. “I didn’t know that. Dad always said …”

Jack leans forward so fast that he nearly flies off his seat. A flare of protectiveness shoots up his spine. “What?”

Shawn picks at his sleeves, shoulders hunching. “Well, he clearly said nothing true about your mom. Wow.” He laughs bitterly. “I guess the only real thing he ever said about her was her getting married again. And having your sister.”

Jack frowns. “What? That’s not even true. Elle’s my step-sister.”

Shawn stares at Jack as though he’d just said the earth was flat. “No, she isn’t.”

“Yes, she is?”

“No, she -”

“Shawn, I think I’d remember my mom giving birth to another child after me. Elle’s my step-sister,” Jack repeats. “I never told you?”

“I guess we both assumed.” Shawn shakes his head. “God, we’re stupid. But you both seem so - so sibling-y.”

“Our parents got married when she was three. She doesn’t remember a family without me and my mom.”

“That’s nice,” Shawn says faintly. He cracks a smile. “I’m sure she misses you, especially for the holidays.”

Jack weakly smiles back. He sinks back into his seat, stuffing his freezing hands in his coat’s pockets. “Yeah. I miss her too. I’m sure she’s keeping busy, though. She’s all loud and outgoing. She gets along with our cousins well. Her dad’s parents, though? I’m praying for them.”

“Are they sick?”

“Oh, no, Elle just gives them so much shit. She doesn’t like them.”

“Oh, so older stuffy rich people really do suck,” Shawn says.

“Well - yeah, but they don’t really like me? Or they don’t love me. One or the other but probably not both.”

“You said all of that very casually,” Shawn sputters. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing technically? I’m just not blood and I guess it makes a difference to them.” Shawn opens his mouth, an indignant furrow between his eyebrows. Jack quickly cuts him off. “It doesn’t matter to me. My stepdad is nothing like them, so it’s fine.”

“No, it isn’t, they’re supposed to treat you better than -”

Jack can’t help but laugh. “I’m not even gonna let you finish that sentence before calling you a total hypocrite, Shawn. What happened to taking what we get and forgiving parents? Dad can’t just leave you for a year and get away with it if you’re gonna go all ‘screw your grandparents, Jack, for not including you in the will, and for telling you that when you’re twelve at Christmas for some weird reason -’”

Shawn pulls a face, torn between disgust and fascination. “Rich people are so specifically mean. That is fucked up and completely different from Dad. Dad doesn’t even have a will.”

“You know what I mean!”

“It’s still different,” Shawn argues.

Jack crosses his arms. “Yeah? How?”

“I … don’t have to answer that.”

Jack softens. He drags one of his cold hands out of his pockets and clumsily pats Shawn’s shoulder. Shawn shivers instantly but doesn’t inch back. “You don’t, yeah, you’re right. But, uh, for what it’s worth - I know I’m not your grandparent or your dad -”

“Thank you for breaking it to me,” Shawn deadpans, loosening under Jack’s grip.

“You’re welcome. What I was gonna say was that I will have a will and I’d leave you in it. I wouldn’t leave you alone for a year.” He pauses. Reconsiders. “Well. Not again.”

“Stop that,” Shawn demands. “We’re mad at the world, remember? Not each other. You didn’t leave. You only ever came back.”

Now, Jack could justifiably accuse Shawn of putting Full House out of business. (And for making Jack’s eyes water but Jack can’t admit that. If Shawn asks about it, Jack will blame the wind.)

Except he’s on an honesty kick. Everything’s spilling over and Jack doesn’t care about making a mess anymore. The glass can’t be half-full if he doesn’t ever tip it over first. “I came back on my own once before too. Did you know that?”

Once again, Shawn’s mouth falls open. He huffs a disbelieving laugh. “I didn’t know Elle was your step-sister until five minutes ago. Of course I don’t know about this, what do you mean you came back before?”

Jack waits for a beat. When it’s clear that Shawn isn’t angry, just curious, he relaxes. “I took the train down last fall for a tour of Penbrook. Didn’t tell my parents or anyone else. I didn’t tell them yet that I was thinking about college in Philadelphia. It was still this impossible idea I kept to myself, not even a maybe, but a wouldn’t that be crazy? And then I heard about the tour from school, and it’s so easy to buy a train ticket, and there’s a direct bus from the station to Penbrook, so. It was barely a choice. It was so easy so I might as well do it, you know?”

Shawn nods along. “Then what?”

Jack can’t help his stupid little smile. “What do you mean then what?” He knocks his knee against Shawn’s. “I saw the tour, applied here, moved here, and now here we are.”

Shawn rolls his eyes. “Well, you told me that story for a reason, dude. What’s the reason?”

“What, I can’t tell you pointless stories?”

“Sure you can. But that wasn’t one, was it?”

Jack hates that everyone he loves is so goddamn perceptive. “It’s just that - I don’t know, I took the tour, and it was fine, I guess. Decent. I liked the school but I didn’t need to go here. But after, I took a walk around the campus and their gardens and parks and kept thinking that it wouldn’t be impossible to bump into you or Dad, and today could be the day we randomly find each other, which obviously didn’t happen. But that it could’ve snuck into my head and couldn’t leave. And I told my mom about it right after and she was instantly supportive, you know, like, here for it. But she said, as long as it’s what I really wanted, which made me even more determined to do it. I wanted it, obviously, I did, but - but -”

Shawn taps Jack’s bouncing knee. He waits for Jack to still before removing his finger.

“But,” Jack says again, trying to go slower. “But after graduation, seeing how many of my friends were sticking in New York or going off across the world to states they’d never been to before, and the reality that I’d kinda done both but in the worst way? I’m not in New York, but still close, and I’m not somewhere I’ve never been to before, except I don’t recognize Philadelphia at all, and I technically have family around, except I don’t know if I’d recognize your face and I don’t know if you’d recognize me.”

“At least we know now that we both recognized each other. Is that what those optimists call a, oh, how do you pronounce it, a silver lining?”

Jack’s own peel of laughter shocks him. It fills the otherwise silent backyard, warming the cool air and flickering soft surprise over Shawn’s face. “I don’t know,” Jack admits breathlessly. “We could ask Cory and Eric.”

“We could. Later. You keep talking.”

Jack doesn’t remember the last time he’s spoken this much. Or talked about himself this much. Or been this honest. Or talked to Shawn this much. Or -

Unrelentingly delicate, Shawn says, “Jack? Back to earth please. Look, you made me say please. Don’t let that go in vain.”

Jack laughs again. “Stop making me laugh, I’m trying to monologue here.”

“You keep pausing and I keep speaking instead, so I don’t think you’re trying that hard, and oh, man, do I know what a monologue is?”

“Yes, you do. I’m proud of you.”

“Shut up.”

“I was being serious! I’m not a very sarcastic person.”

“Still, shut -” Shawn hesitates. “Actually no, don’t shut up. I’m not dropping this, you know.”

Jack heaves a big dramatic sigh, meaning none of it. Considering what he’s about to admit to Shawn, it’s utterly bizarre that he’s too tired - or maybe too awake - to deny how clear it is. How Shawn has been diligently screwing these lightbulbs in all this time since September. Since his letters. How they’ve flickered in before but now flare, illuminating Jack.

Shawn’s looking at Jack. He has been this entire time.

But only now can Shawn see him when Jack admits, “I was afraid that you wouldn’t want to see me. I thought Dad would’ve, like what Dad doesn’t want to know their kid, right, but I only realized in the summer that it didn’t mean you wanted to know me -”

Shawn bristles. “Jack.”

“I’m talking in the past tense so I know that isn’t true anymore, alright? C’mon.” Jack kicks the leg of Shawn’s seat closest to him. “Of course I know. But let’s think about little baby summer Jack.”

Shawn seems like he still wants to protest, but he kindly settles on only kicking Jack’s seat back. “The almost adult going off to college, right, that baby. Alright. I’m thinking about him.”

“That baby was terrified. I didn’t know what to expect and I couldn’t believe I chose Penbrook without even trying to reach out to you and Dad and obviously, I knew I’d lived in Philadelphia before, but I was a New York kid through and through, you know?”

“Sure,” Shawn says, tilting his head. “But you never really talk about New York.”

Jack shifts in his seat. “Yeah, well. I love my family, obviously, and I got good friends from high school but god, it’s nothing like this.” He jerks his head toward the Matthews’ kitchen and silently prays that Shawn doesn’t make him explain.

“Oh. Okay.” That’s it. Then Shawn stares expectantly at Jack, his chin perched over his knuckles, hair the same brown as Jack’s falling over his forehead.

Jack’s throat closes. He’s smiling everywhere except for his mouth.

After several seconds, Shawn says, “This is inviting silence, Jack, I’m inviting you to keep going.”

Jack exhales. He rubs his hands together. Stares at Shawn’s silver chain because it counts as looking at Shawn without having to look him in the eye. “It’s like - it’s like, for as long as I can remember, there’s always been this huge incoming tide in the distance, right?”

Shawn nods again. “Right.”

“And it’s always there, even if the spot I’m in feels peaceful, it’s seconds away from being disrupted. So it’s not really peaceful then. I’m not really safe from the tide. Soon enough, the tide gets closer, and closer, and it just - I just -”

Shawn’s chin trembles. “You just what?”

It’d be easier to show Shawn. Give him a tour of the museum of Jack Hunter and His Inability to Handle Anything Well. They’d pass the half-dozen dents in Jack’s childhood bedroom walls left by his fists. Every broken stress ball. All the long mornings and longer nights he’d spent curled in his bed, unable to do anything let alone sleep because of his unforgivably loud heartbeat.

“I get pulled under,” Jack says instead. He shrugs, aiming for casual and missing it by an entire continent. “I always see the tide in the distance. Sometimes, I feel it. Only rarely does it actually, you know, get me, so it’s not a big deal or anything, it’s just - if I’m really thinking about it now, I guess some part of me also thought that if I left New York to come here, I’d be leaving the tide behind too.”

“And you did?”

“I thought I did for a second there,” Jack admits quietly. He hangs his head low. “But the water’s like nature or whatever. It’s natural.”

“Nature’s natural, huh?”

“I am baring my stupid soul to you,” Jack complains, but he’s laughing, lifting his head to make a face at Shawn. “I’m almost done!”

Shawn laughs back. “I’m not rushing you, I’m just doing the little brother thing, you know? Interrupting, making fun of you, demanding you tell me things you, uh, don’t have to tell me but I really, really wanna know anyway. I learned from the best, Cory.”

“He’s taught you well,” Jack says fondly. “You are very annoying.”

Shawn grins. “Thank you. You too. Now back to nature is natural.”

“Right, right. It’s just - that. Nature’s natural, the tide’s gonna come no matter what eventually. I just have to, like, swim.”

As gently as possible, Shawn asks, “Never thought about that before? Were you not … swimming before?”

“I was,” Jack says, only realizing how much he means it after he’s said it. “But I guess I didn’t think it made a difference. Plus, I’ve never really talked about it before with anyone.” Well. With anyone but his mom. Sure, Jack has already opened this door to Shawn, but he’s not ready to open all of his windows yet.

“And now?” Shawn probes.

“I don’t - I don’t know,” Jack groans. Shawn’s trying so hard to understand but Jack doesn’t know how to make any of this, any of himself, understandable. “Maybe I’m tired of never getting anywhere. Of never moving.”

Shawn stares at him flatly.

“Okay, beyond this one literal move to Philadelphia. It’s just that - I don’t know, sometimes it feels like I haven’t gotten anywhere, you know? Or maybe I’ve just waded deeper in the water. Deeper in the tide.” Jack takes a deep breath and doesn’t know how to release it, so he tries releasing everything else. “I am barely passing in all my classes, I haven’t talked to my mom, and I know that’s all my fault, but I haven’t been talking to my stepdad or sister as much as I should be either, haven’t talked to any of my friends from high school, and Eric, god, I don’t even know what’s going on there, and you and I might as well be -”

“You and I might as well be what?” Shawn clearly means to sound lighthearted, but the edge of hurt in his voice slices Jack in two.

This is it. The biggest part of the script. Jack can feel the weight of it in his bones and considers what to do: the brotherly thing. Whatever he wants. And what he wants is to be honest.

“Well - it’s not a big deal or anything, I just - what really makes us different from random people to each other beyond genes?”

Shawn groans. “Oh my god. This again? I thought we covered this.”

Thank god Shawn’s not angry. He’s only extremely irritated. Jack can work with this!

“We did,” Jack agrees, and oh, no, he’s starting to gesture with his hands. Well. Might as well commit to it now. “But it’s still a valid point to -”

“How is it valid? Tell me,” Shawn demands.

“Okay. Well. You and Eric.”

“First of all, that’s not a full sentence, and second of all, what about me and Eric?”

Jack can feel the rush of the tide sweep him up, water in his ears, in his mouth. “You two aren’t brothers, but you’ve basically grown up together and have all these memories and know each pretty well, you’re basically brother adjacent, and I don’t have anything that Eric can’t give you -”

“What’s going on with you?”

“- and I don’t have anything I can give Eric, either, so really, what am I but this roommate from New York who kind of looks like you?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“So much!” Jack can feel water everywhere. In his ears, his mouth, his eyes. Saltwater burning every inch of him. He’s fine. He’s on dry land. There’s grass beneath his feet, he knows this, but he can’t believe it. He can see it but he doesn’t feel it.

“I can’t believe you’re making me be the reliable one,” Shawn mutters, wiping his hands on his pants. “I’m supposed to be the flighty one.”

Even in the midst of drowning, his breathing short and nails digging into the closest thing, his lawn chair’s arms, Jack shoots Shawn a withering look. “Shut up. You are reliable.”

Shawn laughs weakly. “Yeah, well. Let’s see how good I do.” He scoots forward in his seat with a pained expression. Clears his throat. Then, cautiously as though approaching a deer, he drops his hand over Jack’s shoulder. “Listen to me, idiot. We’ve fought, like, three times this week. You keep buying me dinner even when I tell you not to. I hate tea so much but I like drinking it because you make it for me and it means we can talk for the ten minutes it takes to finish what is an unreasonably hot drink. I know your school schedule, you know mine. And we’ve been out here for, like, half an hour now. I know you. Or at least I’m getting to, okay? You’re seriously strange but you’re not a stranger. You came all this way here for me, which I still don’t understand, but you wanna start running now? Tough shit. It’s too late. I’m not letting you go.”

Shawn tightens his grip on Jack’s shoulder. The waves don’t relent. Shawn doesn’t pull him up, but better than that, he stays true to his word. He just holds onto Jack. He doesn’t let go.

Jack clears his throat, the sudden warmth enveloping him unbearable. “Well. I think you did a great job at being reliable. To be clear, I wasn’t ever thinking about running, never, ever, never ever -”

“I get it,” Shawn interjects.

Jack doesn’t believe him and forces himself not to say so. “But if I were somehow, impossibly thinking about it, then you would’ve convinced me otherwise. Nice - nice job. I feel -”

Shawn’s mouth quirks up. “Like you’re still some stranger who kinda looks like me?”

Jack lets his laugh fill the garden. “No. Like I’m just some strange guy who looks like you. Well. No, I’m just some strange guy who you look like.”

“You’re ruining the moment.”

“I’m annoying you, which is making this brotherly moment even more brotherly.”

“Now you’re being too self-aware.”

Jack scoffs. “What, you make one good pep talk that made me feel better but also whatever’s better than better and that I, like, you know, appreciate or whatever, and you think you’re the best brotherly conversation … alist out there?”

“Brotherly conversationalist,” Shawn repeats.

“You’re such a good listener.”

Shawn laughs. Jack soaks in the sound and tilts his head up out of the water. Toward the sun.

“Did that really work?”

“Yes,” Jack rushes to say. “Yes, absolutely, it did. It makes me kinda want to - you know -”

“We’ve established this,” Shawn says. “I have no idea.”

“Like hug you.”

Shawn’s hand twitches from where it remains on Jack’s shoulder. “Oh?”

“Only if you want to!”

“Um. Sure?”

It’s a maddeningly awkward hug. Jack commits to it anyway. From the shaky but sure way Shawn’s arms wrap around Jack, Shawn seems to commit to it too. Their lawn chairs nearly crumple beneath them. Jack claps the spot below Shawn’s right shoulder the same way his stepfather does every time he hugs Jack. He counts to three, squeezes, and then pulls back.

“Not so bad, right?”

“Yeah,” Shawn says as they both settle back in their seats. He half-smiles and pushes his hair back. Jack’s well aware that Shawn is only a year younger than him and that they’re both around the same height and weight. But Shawn suddenly looks so small, and the certainty that Jack isn’t just Shawn’s older brother but his big brother too slams into him harder than it ever has before.

The tide calms. Water’s only up to Jack’s shoulders now. He laughs nervously, hyper-aware of himself and the past half-hour they must’ve spent in the freezing cold in the Matthews’ backyard.

“So,” Jack says.

Shawn’s hands slip back into his pockets. “So.”

“Anything you need to get off your chest?”

“Not now, but hey.” Shawn cracks a smile. “The day’s still young or whatever.”

Jack cracks one back. “Right. You let me know when then.” He juts his chin at the sliding door into the Matthews’ kitchen. “Are we ready for our fashionably late entrance or is there any -”

“Actually, there’s any,” Shawn says, scooting forward in his seat. The outline of his fists strains the pockets of his leather jacket. “Just one last thing.”

“Yeah, man. Whatever it is.” Jack tries to sound as soothing as possible to compensate for how rapidly Shawn’s speaking now. His heartbeat trips. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, dude, definitely, I didn’t forget or anything, I just didn’t want to wish you without giving it to you, and I didn’t want to give it to you until after dinner and we could have a moment, maybe, and here, we’ve had like a dozen of those, so - why are you raising your hand?”

“To be polite!” Jack wags his hand. “Are you gonna call on me or not?”

Shawn sighs. “Yes, Jack?”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Your birthday.”

“What about it?”

“It’s today?”

Jack blinks. “No, it isn’t.”

Shawn blinks back. “Yes, it is.”

“I think I know my birthday. It’s not for a few days.”

“I know when your birthday is and it’s today,” Shawn says slowly.

“No, it’s not, my birthday’s on the twenty-fifth, and today’s - what’s the date today?”

The look in Shawn’s eyes makes Jack feel like the biggest, most beloved idiot in the world. “The twenty-fifth,” Shawn answers. “Dude, you are so out of it.”

“It’s my birthday today?”

“Yes.”

Jack smacks his forehead. “I am so out of it. Oh my god. Wow. I’m nineteen?”

Shawn nods. “Happy birthday, buddy.”

He tries to really take it in. Have some kind of wow, another year, I’m alive, the gift of life revelation that everyone wants to feel on their birthday instead of all the other weird, unpleasant bullshit that ticks in at midnight and leaves twenty-four hours later. But all he can think about is that he seriously forgot his birthday.

And that Shawn remembered.

Jack can only ask, “How?”

“She called the apartment back in September. Elle,” Shawn says, handling her name with caution and care. “You and Eric weren’t home, so I answered it. She was really friendly, and uh, wow, she talks fast -”

Jack laughs, feeling closer to his step-sister than he has in months. “She really does.”

“And she told me that you probably wouldn’t tell me your birthday yourself, so she told me the date and said I had to remember. I wrote it down to be safe and here we are.”

Jack swallows around the lump in his throat. “Oh. Wow. Thanks for remembering my -”

“So here you go.” From his pocket, Shawn unearths something rectangular-shaped. It’s messily wrapped in newspaper. Last week’s headline wrinkles around Jack’s gift. He shoves it into Jack’s hands. “It’s nothing.”

“You got me something,” Jack says, awe dripping from his voice. He lifts the light object. Digs his thumbs into the smooth paper.

“Are you gonna open it or keep staring?”

“In a minute,” Jack huffs, but he gives in and tears it open anyway.

It’s a framed photograph. Inside the five-by-seven-inch brown frame, the glass protects a creased photo of two toddlers. They’re boys, the one on the right a little older. They’re sharing the lap of a woman. She’s framed from the shoulders down. One of her arms is secure around Jack’s shoulders. Her free hand sinks into Shawn’s hair.

Jack’s laugh sounds like a sob. “This is an awful picture,” he exclaims, grinning. He points to baby Shawn, who’s crying, and baby Jack, whose face is partially cut off because he’s fully staring at Shawn.

Shawn inches his seat closer to Jack’s. He peers over, head nearly knocking into Jack’s, and gets an upside-down view. “It is awful. I looked through our photos and this is the only one of us. For the longest time, I used to think that was my mom, but now …”

Jack points to the woman’s nails in Shawn’s hair. They’re painted red. “That’s the only colour my mom uses.”

Shawn’s face grows soft. Briefly unguarded. “Oh.”

Jack smiles a gigantic, stupid, brilliant smile, and hugs the photograph to his chest. “This is so … so nice, gosh, thank you. I love it so much. It’s the best gift I could’ve -”

“It’s a photograph I already had and a small frame.”

“And it’s the best gift I could’ve ever asked for.”

Shawn chuckles. “Alright then, good. I’m glad. I, uh, hope you like this one too.” He plucks another newspaper-wrapped gift. Smaller, still rectangular.

“Shawn, you didn’t have to -”

“Shut up and open it please.”

“Only because you said please,” he grumbles before eagerly tearing that one open too. “Shawn, this is also so, so nice, but I don’t smoke.”

“Neither do I.” Shawn leans over again. His cold fingers brush up against Jack’s as he fiddles with the lighter and, oh, hi, there’s a blade. “It’s a pocket knife. Remember, a few days ago, you were all, oh, someone will kidnap you, Shawn, and I said no, they won’t because I have a pocket knife so -”

“I remember.” Jack’s throat closes up. He strokes the blade. The dark blue handle is cool and light in his grip. “Dad gave it to you for your birthday.”

“Happy birthday, Jack.”

Jack holds the pocket knife in one hand, the framed photograph in the other. Newspaper scraps pile on his lap. Every inch of his exposed skin has been bitten over and over again by the wind. His leg has fallen asleep. He can’t stop staring at the point of the pocket knife. The tide is out of sight.

Shawn breaks the silence. “So? You like it?”

Jack meets his eyes. “I love it. Thank you.”

Neither notices the first snowfall of the year descending. It doesn’t matter when Shawn’s smile blooms like the first flower of spring.

.

.

.

“Do I have to drink this with my pinky out?”

Jack mulls this over as he finishes pouring Morgan her cup of chamomile. “No,” he settles on. “But it feels more satisfying if you do.”

She hums, considering. “It seems pretentious.”

“It is.”

She raises her teacup. After a moment, she raises her pinky too. “I’m into it.”

He grins. “Good call.”

Morgan thanks him before rushing off to the living room for the game. As the door closes behind her, large applause from the Matthews and the sports audience on the television swoop in.

Jack sets his large glass teapot down. It’s half-full but he considers brewing more tea, just because. The tea he kept making is giving a good impression, but that’s probably counteracted by his spending forty-five minutes outside with Shawn and then hiding out in the kitchen.

Jack sucks in a deep breath. He lifts the teapot and strides confidently toward the door.

Only for it to swing open and nearly hit him in the face.

It’s a miracle that the teapot doesn’t shatter and the rest of the chamomile doesn’t burn him. Jack stumbles back, blurting, “I’m so sorry, hi, thanks for having me over in your home, I really appreciate -”

“I almost murdered you,” Eric says, kicking the door shut. He scrambles to take the teapot from Jack. Confused, Jack lets him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m peachy, I was just looking for you. Well. Your family, because I’m here to socialize and get to know and spend time with your family first, but also -”

Eric lifts his empty mug in his other hand. “Funny. I went looking for you too.”

“Guess we got good timing, huh?”

“Yeah.” Eric sets his mug and the teapot on the table in the one inch of space that isn’t covered by their soon-to-be-eaten dinner. “So, do you want anything to snack on or -”

“Can I see your room?”

Eric raises his eyebrows. “My room?”

Jack has no idea what he’s doing. But fuck it. As of today, he’s nineteen. He’s got a pocket knife and a reminder that he has a brother now, had one this entire time. He’s going to call his mother when he gets home. He doesn’t know how, but he’s going to figure out that stupid writing assignment.

He can do this too.

Jack nods. “Yeah. Your room. It’d be nice to see. I know I’m already in your childhood home and all, but your bedroom’s different.”

“Oh. Okay, yeah! Yeah. Sure. Let’s. Let’s do that.”

Jack bites his grin. Eric, flustered. He can’t believe he’s capable of causing that.

Jack’s about to follow Eric up the stairs when he remembers. “Oh! One thing.” He circles back to the kitchen table. Delicately pours Eric a cup. When he meets Eric back at the bottom step, he proudly holds out Eric’s cup for him. “Here. The refill you wanted.”

Eric’s eyes crinkle with the tiniest of smiles. “Thanks, man.” The look in Eric’s eyes makes Jack feel like the biggest, most beloved idiot in the world.

.

.

.

Eric’s shared room with Cory is extremely ordinary. Exactly what Jack expected. Yet Jack is obsessed with everything.

“Oh, wow.”

“Don’t tell me you’re impressed by a globe,” Eric says, plopping onto his bed.

Jack gives it a spin. After three beats, he stops. His thumb lands on Senegal. “Shut up. I’m taking it in.”

“It’s a globe.”

“It’s your globe,” Jack corrects. He examines the line of caps hanging on the wall. Moves on to the row of hair products, the poster of a Lamborghini, a lone bottle of hair gel that matches the three in their apartment’s bathroom. Eric is completely silent. Jack resists the urge to turn around and see the look on Eric’s face.

Instead, Jack spies a large frame with a dozen photos inside. The photos are evenly split between Cory’s and Eric’s. He tracks early ones of a gap-toothed Eric and toddler-sized Cory in the lawn. Another of baby Morgan in Cory’s lap who’s part way in Eric’s lap. Another of Cory and Shawn on the living room couch, both in shirts twice their size, wearing huge grins. They look about eleven. Maybe twelve.

“Sometimes,” Jack says, his throat dry. “I like to think about what things could’ve been like if I … if my mom and I hadn’t ever left Philadelphia.”

“Oh,” Eric says. The springs of his bed creak. Jack doesn’t have to check to know Eric has swung upright and his eyes are glued to the back of Jack’s neck. “Does this have to do with your very long conversation with Shawn outside? Not that I’m prying, you don’t have to -”

“It has to do with you actually?”

“What?”

Jack’s heartbeat hammers in his ears. He looks at a shiny picture of Eric’s high school graduation taped crookedly near the window. “Yeah. You. Like you and I could’ve been friends this entire time. Maybe even longer than Shawn and Cory.”

“That would’ve been nice,” Eric says. “You think about it a lot?”

Jack hesitates. “Not, like, a weird amount or anything. Just sometimes. I wonder. Do you?”

“Not really,” Eric admits. “I used to be, like, an idiot.”

“Shut up.”

“No, really, I was a -”

“No, I’m telling you to shut up. You weren’t an idiot.”

“You didn’t know me then.”

“Sure, but I know you now.”

“I had to take a gap year because I didn’t get into any -”

“I know that, but also, you got into Penbrook, didn’t you? Maybe … maybe you mean to say you didn’t take school as seriously, but that doesn’t make you an idiot.”

“Fine,” Eric says. “But my point is that you might not have liked me then.”

“Impossible,” Jack says, trying to sound casual. His gaze slips to the window. A steady stream of snow flutters down, coating both backyards. He tracks one snowflake. When it reaches the ground, he blurts out, “I like you too much now to not have liked you then.”

“Yeah, I know, you’re like my best friend.” Eric pauses. When he speaks again, his voice is unbearably soft: “Right?”

“When I think about you and me, if I’d gotten to know you my entire life, I think about how cool it would’ve been, obviously. But then I think about whether we’d be doing what we’re doing now - the roommate, best friend thing - or if we’d be doing that but differently. Like. Like, if I’d had the guts to just -” Jack turns around. He finds Eric sitting on the edge of his bed, back as straight as an arrow, eyes already on Jack.

It’s as intuitive as breathing. Jack takes two large strides. Sits right next to Eric. Takes hold of Eric’s face with both hands and tenderly tilts his chin up.

“If you had the guts to hold my face?” Eric tries to sound teasing, but he’s too breathless for it. His breath fans over Jack’s face. Watermelon gum again.

“Other things too.” Jack’s fingers tremble as he tucks a loose stray of Eric’s hair back. “But mostly these days, I’ve been wondering if I would’ve had the guts to tell you to not go on that date. And to ask you out on one myself.”

Eric’s entire face brightens. “You idiot.”

Jack sighs, sweeping his thumb down Eric’s cheek. “I know.”

Eric shakes his head rapidly. Jack winces and starts to pull his hands back, but Eric yanks them back into place on his jaw. “Sorry, no, I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to myself, I - I didn’t, um. End up going on that date?”

“What.”

“I’m not going out with Erin.”

“But you have been seeing her?”

“As friends.” Eric swallows. “I know you said that I should go for it, but that, and just the fact that I needed to ask you what to do first, it made me realize that, uh, I don’t wanna date anyone I’m not already basically already dating.” At Jack’s confusion, Eric explains, “Look, we live together and we’re best friends, which can just be best friend stuff. I know that.”

Jack nods. His hope is too enormous for him to even bother trying to tamp it down. “That’s fair. But the other stuff?”

“I mean, we’ve been screwing all month, and we hang out all the time, and you drive me around and let me pick the music, and you let me make you breakfast - which is just cereal or toast when I’m feeling fancy, but still - and when something good happens, I want to tell you about it first. Which I know can all be friendship stuff too, but I also wanna kiss you, like, all the time and keep having sex, so. There’s that.”

Jack laughs shakily. It prompts a nervous laugh back from Eric. “I’m supposed to be wooing you here.”

Eric raises his hands. “Alright, alright. The floor is yours. But yeah. That’s why I haven’t seen Erin like that but we are hanging out. As friends. I didn’t tell you because - I don’t know, it tripped me up, alright? I thought that you didn’t -”

“I do!” Jack tips his forehead forward until it meets Eric’s. “I really, really do, man.”

“Then why did you tell me I should’ve asked her out?”

“I figured - like, you and I were messing around, giving a helping hand to a good friend -”

“A helping hand,” Eric repeats. “That is the crudest thing you’ve ever said, actually.”

“Don’t make me laugh.”

“Don’t be so crude.”

Jack can’t help it. He laughs again, and Eric starts giggling, and Jack can feel it all over his face. The bed dips further as Jack tilts his knee toward Eric’s. “I didn’t know what we were doing. It’s not like we’d talked about it, so I figured, okay. Here’s Eric’s chance at something normal with a great girl, someone he could bring home to the family, you know?”

Eric’s laughter fades instantly. A hard line creases his forehead. “I brought you home to my family.”

Jack smooths over the line in Eric’s forehead and smiles weakly. “You know what I mean.”

“I do.” Eric leans in closer, smushing their noses together. “And I brought you home to my family.”

Jack thinks about the what-if he rolls over and over in his mind. It drives him crazy sometimes. All the roads not taken and all that. How he can wonder all he wants about where he could’ve gone, where he could’ve been now, what was supposed to be and what was. What drives him craziest, though, is that he’ll never really know what his life could’ve looked like. 

The handle of his pocket knife juts into his pocket. Eric’s face is so close to his, their mouths a breath apart, that all Jack can see are Eric’s sun-bright eyes.

Jack will never know. But for this one kind moment, it doesn’t matter. Not when the path he’s on now is lit so clearly that it’s obvious. Out of all the ones he could’ve taken, he’s on the best path now.

“I’m gonna ask you out on a date when we get home,” Jack says.

He can’t believe he’s somehow still terrified that Eric will say no until Eric says, “Fuck that, ask me now.”

“No, I want the element of surprise.”

“Element of - you just told me when you’ll ask me!”

“But you don’t know exactly when. Just that it’ll be sometime after dinner.”

Eric gives him a put-on sigh. “Fine.”

“And I’ll take you somewhere nice that isn’t the Union and I’ll pay.”

“No way, dude, I’ll pay.”

“You can pay for the next one?”

Eric grins. “Sweet. I’m liking the sound of this.”

Jack’s heartbeat eases. Not completely, but enough that he can exhale and shift one hand to cup the back of Eric’s neck. “And … I don’t know, we can see how it goes, how we’ll feel in a little bit, but maybe we can - when we’re ready - we don’t have to, we don’t even have to tell everyone else, but I’d really love to tell Shawn. If you want to tell Cory too or not, I’d -”

“Yeah,” Eric says, his smile nervous but earnest. “Let’s see, okay? But yes.”

“Ohthankgod,” Jack exhales. “Eric, I really am sorry about being a complete idiot about -”

Eric jabs Jack’s shoulder. “Hey, if I can’t call myself an idiot, you can’t call yourself one.”

“God, I like you so much.” Jack can’t help it anymore. He closes the inch of space between their mouths and finally, finally kisses Eric.

Outside, the snowfall rages on. But inside Eric’s room, all the sunlight in the world is in Eric’s smile as he kisses Jack back.

.

.

.

November 25th, 1998

Dear Mom,

Happy Thanksgiving. Happy ‘nineteen years ago, you gave birth to me’ day. Thanks for that!

I’m sorry I haven’t called sooner. I’m sorry I didn’t spend Thanksgiving with you, Ernie, and Elle. I’m sorry I didn’t understand why you hid Shawn’s letters from me. I’m sorry that I can’t fully understand it now. I’d really love for you to explain it again to me though. I want to know everything.

But I’m also sorry I never asked you what it was like living in Philly. Or about dad and why you left. There’s so much I don’t know but that’s not your fault. You did your best. I grew up happy and warm and loved. You could’ve let me forget about dad and Shawn but you didn’t. You hid letters from my brother but you also made sure I always remembered that I had one. You gave me a dad and a sister. You always let me come to you whenever everything inside hurt and I couldn’t stop thinking and I forgot how to breathe. You never left me. You did your best. Thank you.

Thank you also for giving me the space I asked for. But I don’t want it anymore. Call me when you get this. I love you.

I talked to Shawn about it and I’d really like to bring him home for Christmas. Maybe if you want to visit Philadelphia too I could introduce you to my roommate.

I hope you’re okay. I can’t wait to talk to you soon.

Love, Jack

P.S. Linda from the trailer park says hi. She says your earl grey is still the best she’s ever had.

.

.

.

Three weeks later, in the middle of all the chaos of finals, getting ready for his trip to New York with Shawn, and general holiday stress, Jack gets his grade for that dumb creative writing assignment back.

He managed a B+. He stares at the red mark on his paper in disbelief. Sure, he’d kind of liked how his short story turned out but still. He can’t believe he did this well.

In his lecture hall, to the relentless tune of seventy-something first-years turning to each other and going hey, what’d you get, Jack rereads his short story. A real event from his life but with the ending rewritten.

It’s not long before he reaches the last sentence. The truth of it - or rather, the truth of its impossibility washes over him like the gentlest of tides.

They were brothers first but they had been strangers for longer, so strangers were all they would be.