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“Cory and I are going to be roommates once the school year starts,” Shawn said. He was trying to be casual about the whole conversation. It was only a few months after that first panic attack that Jack had witnessed and there were several more after that, and Shawn honestly was still in a pretty bad place, but he really wanted this and was just hoping that his brother would agree.
Jack took a deep breath before answering. “Okay, Shawn,” Jack said.
Shawn was kind of surprised that he gave in so easily. “You don’t have a problem with it?”
“No,” Jack said. “As long as that’s what you want to do. If you think you’ll be okay.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“I guess we’ll need to find a new roommate then,” Jack said.
Shawn guessed they would.
He went out to hang with Cory.
What he didn’t expect was to find a pile of his stuff sitting in the hallway when he got back.
He entered the apartment and questioned his now former roommates. “What are you doing?”
“Moving you out so that she can move in,” Eric answered.
“She. Who is she?”
Then a girl stepped out of the hallway. She was tall and pretty with red hair.
Shawn understood why the others would rather share the apartment with her than with him.
Besides, he would be moving in with Cory in a few months. He could find somewhere to stay for the time being.
“Her name’s Rachel,” Eric stated.
Shawn smiled at her. “I’m Shawn, Jack’s brother. I used to live in what is now apparently your room.”
That was when Jack realized that this was probably a mistake. He probably should have at least told Shawn before they moved someone into his room. And made sure his brother had a place to stay until the dorms opened up.
Jack pulled Shawn aside, into the bedroom that was Jack’s.
“I’m sorry. I should have told you.”
“You did tell me. You said that you were going to have to find a new roommate and you did.”
“I should have made sure that you had a place to go first,” Jack said. He had made a dumb decision and, now that he was looking at his younger brother in the face, he realized it. He was just not really used to needing to put someone else’s needs in front of his own, or even on the same plane as his own. Jack had no siblings in New York, so it was hard for him, being thrown into a whole new role.
“It’s okay,” Shawn said. It wasn’t really. He knew that Eric and Jack would need to find a new roommate, but he didn’t expect them to be able to do it so fast. He didn’t expect to be quite so… replaceable.
“It’s not okay. Where are you going to live? God! I suck at being a good brother,” Jack said, plopping onto his bed with a heavy sigh.
“No you don’t,” Shawn said. He was thinking of the many times that Jack had sat with him through panic attacks and depressive episodes. Jack wasn’t a bad brother to Shawn. He just made one really big mistake.
“Where the fuck are you going to live?” Jack said. He was trying to rack his mind for a place that Shawn could go that he wouldn’t absolutely hate living for the next two and a half months. “You can stay in my room. I’ll sleep on the couch,” Jack decided. He had made the mistake and now he would take the fall for it.
Shawn just shook his head. He wasn’t going to ask that of his brother.
“I might go live with Dad,” Shawn said. Horror erupted on Jack’s face. How horrible must he have been to Shawn that he would rather go back to live with their abusive father than live in the new arrangement that he’d just offered. “I’ve been talking to him lately and… I think it will be okay. It’s only for a few months, right?”
“Are you sure, Shawn?” Jack really didn’t want to let Shawn do this, but Shawn was a stubborn boy who would end up doing what he wanted no matter how many people told him it was a bad idea.
“Yeah.”
“Promise me you’ll come right to me if he even so much as tries to do something to you,” Jack said.
“I promise.”
And that was the best that Jack was going to get on this one.
When the two boys stepped out of Jack’s room, the others looked at them.
“The room’s all emptied out,” Eric said to Jack.
Shawn looked at his clothes and other belongings that the boys, mainly Eric, had strewn across the room.
“If you’re kicking me out with no warning, at least help me pack my stuff up. Jesus Christ,” Shawn said.
So they did. In the end, there were three boxes worth of clothes and two boxes of other things, books and various other things that Shawn had in his room, whether or not he actually used them.
Shawn only took one box worth of clothes with him and the rest of the boxes were put into Jack’s room for the time being, until Shawn was able to move into the dorms.
As Shawn walked out of the apartment, Jack came with him.
“Remember your promise?” Jack asked, still hesitant about this whole thing.
“I remember,” Shawn answered, with a faint smile as he walked away towards the trailer park.
Little did they know that Shawn would be back so much sooner than anyone had expected.