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The rhythmic thud of the sharp kitchen knife Ronan was wielding to cut a bunch of oddly-colored carrots he’d brought back from a dream echoed on the chipped wooden cutting board. Adam was sitting near him, on the only patch of kitchen not covered in either utensils or unidentifiable junk. His eyes skated over Ronan’s figure, then resting on the furrow on his boyfriend’s dark eyebrows.
“Lynch?” Adam asked, which wasn’t enough to deter Ronan’s attention from his task, as evidenced by Ronan replying with a hhm sound and pointedly not looking at Adam.
“You haven’t said a word in, like, an hour. Should I worry?”
Ronan’s grip on the knife loosened. He swallowed, breathed through his nose. “I’m fine,” Rona said – or rather, lied. Adam was very much acquainted with fine Ronan, and this wasn’t it.
“You’re so fine you won’t even look at me?”
Ronan put the knife down, braced himself on the edge of the counter, and turned his head towards Adam’s. “I’m looking at you,” he said.
Adam chuckled humourlessly. He hadn’t uttered the words that were sitting on the tip of his tongue yet, and he was already regretting them – for a number of reasons. Number one, he was ninety percent sure he knew what was going through Ronan’s mind, why he’d been acting like a robot for the past few days, and he hated it. Number two, they were about to get into an argument Adam had been hoping to avoid for a long time; possibly, forever. Number three, he didn’t want to be responsible for Ronan’s pain. He wanted to be the guy that could take some of it away, not the one that would pile up on it with more.
“I know it’s not going to be easy,” Adam finally said.
Ronan shook his head imperceptibly. “I’m happy for you,” he said. Adam knew that was true – he’d seen it in the corners of Ronan’s mouth when Adam had showed him the acceptance letter from Harvard. He’d felt it in the bone-crushing hug Ronan had enveloped him in. You magical thing, he’d whispered in Adam’s good ear. But being happy for Adam didn’t mean he had to like it.
“I know that. But this,” Adam said, gesturing vaguely to Ronan’s figure, “isn’t happy.”
“What do you want me to do, Parrish? Pretend I don’t care that everything’s going to change?”
“Not everything,” Adam said, some kind of anger starting to simmer within him. Ronan hadn’t just sounded upset, which in Adam’s experience, was even worse. “It’s still going to be you and me.”
Ronan smiled a small, cruel smile. A smile Adam used to hate with a burning passion, but that now he knew better, it meant Ronan was just trying to hide. From himself, from Adam.
“Whatever you actually want to say, why don’t you just–”
“You, me, and hundreds of dozens of fucking geniuses who like the same goddamn things you do,” said Ronan. “I’m quiet because I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to hear you say that it’s going to be alright, because–because it’s not.” Ronan pushed himself off the counter and took a few steps further from Adam. He passed a hand over his buzzed head, his back to Adam, who was stunned into silence. He wanted to get up and shake Ronan and tell him to stop being ridiculous, but he felt like if he moved, he would crumble.
“I don’t know how to be alright without you,” Ronan added, quietly, without turning. “I know it’s pathetic, and wrong, and most of all I know it’s not the same for you, and that’s okay.”
Adam thought that if he’d been slapped, it would have hurt less. Did Ronan truly believe Adam wasn’t terrified at the thought of being apart from him? After all these months – of laughing, and talking until the sky was bright again, and kissing until they were out of breath, and being as together as they could have possible been – didn’t he know?
“Fuck you, Ronan,” Adam said.
At that, Ronan slowly turned until he was facing Adam again.
“Yeah, you heard me. Fuck you for implying I don’t give a shit about going somewhere you can’t follow.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Not in so many words, but I know you, Ronan.” Adam finally gathered the strength to get off his perch and walk up to Ronan’s infuriating face. “I’ve never said anything about it because I thought we would get past it, but here it is: Stop fucking doubting .”
Ronan’s eyes searched Adam’s. “Doubting what?”
“My love for you,” Adam said, his cheeks heating. “You think I don’t love you as much as you love me. You think that we’re doomed because I’m going to leave and forget about you, but you’re wrong. You’ve never been more wrong about – anything,” he added, his voice cracking on the last word.
“I need to get out of here, and it has nothing to do with you. I need to do it for me, Lynch. And me alone.
But don’t you fucking dare think for a second that it’s easy for me. That I don’t panic just thinking about what it’s going to be like not to wake up next to you. That I give a crap about a life without you. I don’t. I know what I want, and I know that it’s going to cost me, but it’s going to be worth it. Because you’re at the end of it. At the beginning, in the middle, all the time.”
Ronan’s lips parted, evidently stunned.
“Have a little faith in me, Lynch. Because this, us – it’s the only thing I have any faith in.”
A small tear rolled out of Ronan’s left eye, landing soundlessly on his sweatshirt.
“I do,” Ronan whispered. “I’m sorry.” He tentatively reached his arms towards Adam, who all but threw his arms around Ronan’s neck. Strong arms, familiar arms, settled around his waist, pulling him in close.
Adam breathed deeply into the crook of Ronan’s neck. Once, twice, he made sure he had Ronan’s smell memorized. Ronan pressed a kiss to his shoulder. They didn’t speak for a long time; they held each other, as they always did, as they always would.