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A week before Adam leaves for Harvard, he wakes to find Ronan lying next to him, on his back, staring up at the ceiling and twirling a small black device between his fingers.
“What’s that?” Adam’s voice is sleep heavy and cracks on the second word. He is way too comfortable, curled up in the sunlit warmth of Ronan’s childhood bed, to be properly embarrassed.
Ronan doesn’t look over at him, just tosses him the device. And Adam catches it without really looking either. He just watches the way Ronan’s sleep shirt slips up as he shifts, before looking down at the device in his hands.
“You dreamt… a flip phone?” Adam asks incredulously.
“Yeah. That’s high quality dream shit too.”
“Ronan, I already have a phone. I already have a better phone.”
Ronan shoots him a derisive look and snatches it back. “Good thing it’s not for you, charity case. You wouldn’t know how to appreciate it anyway.”
For his own sanity, Adam chooses to ignore that. He also chooses to ignore that Ronan had had a perfectly good phone with a touch screen and a functioning camera up until July and a certain ‘incident’ with the BMW.
“You know there have been major technological advancements in the last twenty years, right?”
“I know, you little shit.”
“And you don’t want to, I don’t know, ever be able to FaceTime me?”
“Please,” Ronan sneers. “As if I don’t see your face all the fucking time.”
Adam doesn’t say that the whole point of Ronan getting a cell phone is because he won’t be seeing his face all the fucking time. Mostly because, for all Adam has killed himself for this chance at Harvard, he is as committed to pretending this isn’t happening as Ronan is.
***
The day Adam is set to leave, he finally decides to face reality and corners Ronan against the BMW.
“I have discussion sections every other Friday at 3. We can call before my shift at 5, but when I don’t have discussion, I’m gonna use that time to catch up on studying before my weekend shifts, so Wednesday before—“
“You really put your Harvard brains into this, huh?” Ronan says, voice absolutely caustic, even as he lightly (affectionately) shoves at Adam’s head.
“Yeah I did,” Adam huffs, straightening himself and pushing Ronan back a little.
“Good.”
Then, Ronan reaches out, grabbing Adam, tangling their fingers together as his other hand slips into the hair at the base of his skull.
“So you’ll call?” Adam asks.
“Yeah, Parrish. I’ll call.”
***
Ronan, in the end, seems to take that question as some sort of challenge.
Every other Friday, Ronan calls exactly at 3, and when Adam is busy, he calls on Wednesday mornings instead. He even calls when he isn’t supposed to: in the hour before Adam’s gen-ed philosophy class, during his Saturday lunch breaks, in the 15 minutes between his pre-law seminars on Thursdays.
Adam doesn’t mind. What he feels when he sees Ronan’s name pop up on his phone with an incoming call doesn’t have a word. But they call so much that they run out of meaningful things to say. Adam finds himself droning on about his ecology textbook on Monday: the professor wrote it, it’s not online anywhere, and it was 70 fucking dollars. That’s a seven hour shift at the library. And Ronan takes the extra call time on Saturday to annoy the fuck out of Adam. During his only break, Adam feels crazy saying shit like, No, I can’t take Opal for the week, and What do you mean, why? and Because this isn’t a custody battle, and Lynch, I’m a college student. I live in the dorms. What do you want from me?
Two months into Adam’s first semester, Ronan also starts calling before Mass to bitch about Declan. To this, Adam is, and always will be, completely unsympathetic.
“If I have to see Declan, you have to suffer too,” Ronan says when Adam complains. “This is a partnership.”
“Sunday is the only day I get to sleep in, Ronan, God.”
“Don’t blaspheme,” Ronan cuts in. “And it’s the Lord’s day. Only He gets to sleep in, Parrish.”
Adam rolls his eyes violently, which always feels gratifying even when Ronan can’t see it.
Adam is annoyed, but he figures this is one of the ways Ronan asserts his importance in Adam’s life. He doesn’t allow himself to actually sabotage Adam’s work and study time with these constant and persistent calls. So instead, he interrupts Adam’s sleep, his breaks—just a little, just on Sundays, just on days when it doesn’t matter, just because he can—knowing with absolute certainty that Adam will answer.
***
Adam is surprised by how much Ronan calls. He is less surprised when Ronan starts mailing him a series of increasingly shitty and embarrassing postcards.
Adam checks his mail frequently. It’s mostly bills, paystubs, and a CBD company’s monthly promotional crap that Ronan has undoubtedly subscribed him to. An occasional postcard from Gansey. He’s gotten a few things from Maura too. It’s usually just hand-copied versions of Persephone’s recipes, which he appreciates even though he doesn’t have a kitchen. Once (in the first week of January), he received a letter from his mother. Adam hadn’t checked his mail for nearly two weeks after that.
It’s late January when he gets Ronan’s first postcard.
It’s a picture of an honest-to-god empty, dirt parking lot. It says “Boring, Oregon” in giant-ass, neon lettering at the bottom, with the words, “sent to the only place in the world more boring than this one” scrawled across the back. No name. No return address.
It doesn’t matter. Adam knows exactly who it’s from.
It’s so stupid that Adam’s first thought is Why? and then, his brain registers the four stamps on the back and every other thought becomes, fucking rich boys and their complete lack of—
But still, it’s so stupid and inconsequential that Adam doesn’t even remember to bring it up during their next call.
Which is, unfortunately, how the whole thing escalates.
The next week, it’s, “I like you like I like my towns” from Rough and Ready, California. The back has five stamps (just in case four hadn’t been enough) and a shitily drawn heart with the initials RNL scratched inside.
On the following Sunday—on God’s Day—it’s “You Made Me See God in Climax, Michigan.” Mid February, it’s “Intercourse, Pennsylvania,” and you know what, fair enough, but this one has six stamps, and Adam’s going to lose his mind.
How had Adam forgotten the principle rule? If ignored, Ronan Lynch will only become more annoying.
By the time Adam gets around to actually bringing it up with Ronan, it’s far too late. It’s March. They’ve reached the sixth postcard. The back is just a gridlock of stamps. So, it’s clear the logical “I have to go to school here, Lynch, you can’t keep sending me these” argument is now null and void.
Right before Adam’s second consecutive midterm in Advanced Statistics, he receives the seventh postcard. It just says “MISSOURI” in huge, blocky letters, followed by “Knob Lick more like suck my di—“
The whole thing, like most things, is really Gansey’s fault.
***
When Adam plans for Harvard, he focuses on the essentials: registering for classes, getting an on-campus job, buying textbooks on the cheap, getting another job at a mechanics. He also tunes up the shitbox to make sure it survives the drive to Cambridge. (Still, it stalls out once in Maryland.)
He admittedly does not put a lot of thought into his room’s interior design. Most everything is standard issue in the end. His towels and sheets and even blanket are all grey. He doesn’t bring any photos or posters, so the walls are blank too. Even Adam can admit that the room is pretty… sparse.
When Adam calls on that first Friday, he sends Ronan a picture (because they can’t fucking FaceTime). Ronan pulls the phone from his ear to examine what must be five pixels maximum on that tiny fucking screen. Then, he gets really quiet in that ‘I’m trying to decide which insult will offend my boyfriend but not make him hang up on me’ way.
“If Jeffery Dahmer had a dorm room, that’s probably what it looked like” is what Ronan lands on.
“I don’t think Ohio State has dorms this nice.” He doesn’t hang up because he can be the better person in this relationship even if Ronan can’t.
A week later, Gansey’s first postcard arrives. It says “Brazil” in multi-colored text while the Christ the Redeemer statue looms in the background. It has one stamp because for all Gansey’s stupid about money, at least he’s civilized.
Adam looks at it. He finds himself thinking about Ronan’s comment. And the way Adam’s RA had said “don’t be afraid to make this place your own, Adam,” with a reassuring smile. Like the issue was that Adam was shy, not that he was poor.
On impulse, he takes some of his roommate’s tape and tacks the postcard up on his dorm room wall.
Every one of Gansey’s postcards ends up there. Not because of any sentimentality, of course. Adam just likes the way Machu Picchu, Iguazu Falls, and Fernando de Noronha look up on his wall. They hang up there beside a few pictures of Gansey, Blue, and Adam, talking and leaning against the Camaro and smiling. Orla had taken them on one of those hot, sticky Virginia summer nights, and Maura had mailed them a few weeks into his freshman year. He also has one picture of Ronan. It’s super blurry and almost impossible to tell that it’s Ronan in the photo. When Orla had first taken it, she had stared down at her camera and said, “God, you’re like the undead or something, do you even show up on camera?” Ronan did not appreciate this accusation coming from a member of the ‘fucking occult.’ And Adam didn’t appreciate when she looked Ronan up and down and said, “It’s a damn shame.”
When Ronan comes to visit for the first time in October, he doesn’t notice the wall at first. He’s far too busy glaring intensely at Adam’s roommate.
Adam doesn’t think he’s told Amad much about Ronan. He remembers once saying, “My boyfriend’s a farmer.” Then, “At least, I think he’s a farmer. He spends a lot more time setting shit on fire than most farmers probably do, but that still counts right?” That must have been enough to warn Amad off trying to shake Ronan’s hand. But maybe that was the glaring.
“Amad, this is Ronan. Lynch, this is my roommate, Amad,” Adam says, though he knows from experience he’s a poor mediator.
Ronan continues glaring.
“You know what, I’m gonna head out,” Amad says, shoving his books into his bag and shuffling out of the room.
“Your roommate sucks,” Ronan says the second the door closes.
“He’s fine.”
Ronan directs his glaring at the closed door.
“He’s a lot fucking cleaner than you anyway,” Adam huffs out, throwing his bag onto the floor.
“Your names are anagrams. It’s fuck-ing weird.”
Adam laughs. “Shut up, Lynch.”
Ronan doesn’t notice the wall for at least another hour.
“Gansey send you these?”
“Yeah,” Adam says, and because his head is resting on Ronan’s shoulder, he doesn’t see that Ronan is getting horrible ideas.
He shifts a bit and watches as Ronan reaches up to thumb at the picture of Kuélap Fortress.
“That one came with a letter.” Brevity is not one of Gansey’s strengths.
“That fucking nerd,” Ronan mumbles. Then, “Lemme see,” because he’s fucking sappy about Gansey.
Adam sighs. Then, gets out of bed for the letter anyway because, apparently, he’s sappy about Gansey too.
Dear Adam,
I am writing to tell you that Blue, Henry, and I have finally reached the Peruvian coast! I have kept you fairly apprised of our historical explorations up to this point, so I wanted to inform you that we will soon be heading to the city of Cajamarca, the supposed original burial site of Atahualpa. If you remember, though I suppose you do, he was the last Incan emperor—the last Sapa, if you will—before its collapse in 1533. He ruled for less than a year because while on his way to claim his throne at Cuzco, he was captured by Francisco Pizarro, who is best remembered as one of history’s most genocidal bastards. There are legends of a room entirely filled with silver and gold, which Atahualpa offered in exchange for his release. Though, I am more interested in the man himself. He was found guilty of treason and heresy and idolatry—the lot—and was sentenced to death by garrote—brutal.
Blue is looking over my shoulder and telling me to ‘get on with it.’
In short, his body is no longer in Cajamarca. Some believe it was exhumed, mummified, and transported to modern-day Ecuador by one of Atahualpa’s generals, Rumiñahui. Though, other theories persist that Atahualpa never died by Pizarro’s hand at all. Some believed he lived out the rest of his days in the surrounding mountain range.
We have carved out some time to do a little exploring of this legend on our own, though our main obstacle in this appears to be our rudimentary Spanish. Latin only goes so far, though it has been somewhat beneficial due to its cognates and insight into the Spanish subjunctive.
Henry says that by nature of being bilingual, he is already pulling more than his weight and should thus be exempt from this language-learning responsibility. Blue said, and I quote, “We are in South America. Whatever ‘weight’ you are pulling is ir-rel-e-vant.” I have written it this way because she annunciated each syllable with jabs at Henry’s chest. Then, I said that language acquisition is a lot easier when one is already bilingual. Henry took great offense to all of this.
Blue and Henry say ‘Hello.’ I’m sure you’re all up-to-date about Ronan and his recent endeavors with the sheep (Adam was not, in fact, “all up-to-date” about the fucking sheep), so I won’t go on about it here. Please inform me how things are progressing at Harvard.
Your beloved friend,
Richard Campbell Gansey III
Every time he reads one of Gansey’s letters, Adam assumes this is what it would be like if he came from a family like the Ganseys. A family built up by generations of wealthy and powerful men (and women, he mentally adds, fearing the combined retribution of both Helen and Blue—and god forbid, Mrs. Gansey). A family who had the money, the means, and the self-assured importance to ensure the preservation of their family’s historical lineage. With artifacts and antique clocks and journals of ancestors who died some 250 years ago and records of tactical correspondence with confederate generals (very real in the Ganseys’ case and very much not an acceptable thing to have lying around). Even the simple knowledge of names that stretch back more than just one generation or two. It’s the culmination of material and immaterial wealth; the privilege to know that all your efforts to assert your existence will be preserved and marveled at by future generations.
By this, Adam means that every one of Gansey’s letters feels like it was written by someone’s 100-year-old grandfather who died two centuries ago rather than his 18-year-old best friend. This must be a partial side effect of dying twice, so Gansey must be (partially) forgiven.
When Ronan finishes the letter, he pulls out his phone to send his first and last text message into their group chat with Gansey, Blue, and Henry:
Dick 3, if u die searching 4 a dead king I will not make another magical forest 4 u 2 sacrifice
Adam watches Ronan aggressively smash the buttons on that stupid flip phone approximately 160 times. He doesn’t know how he can be so fucking sick of someone and never ever want them to leave.
***
He suspects one of Ronan’s greatest joys in sending him these shitty, obnoxious postcards is that by design their contents can’t be hidden. So every delivery driver and underpaid USPS worker between here and Virginia can potentially see the stupid dirty jokes his boyfriend decides are worth sending along with about 10 dollars worth of stamps.
Adam is resigned to this. What does he care if strangers four states away see that Ronan Lynch sent a postcard from “Dickshooter, Idaho” to someone named Adam Parrish? He had thought “Baby, you can shoot my dick anytime” was lacking in creativity and well… everything, but that’s not his problem.
What is presenting a problem, is that by March, Adam only feels comfortable checking the mail room in the middle of the night. While he can handle disgruntled postal workers seeing these postcards, he doesn’t want anyone he’s going to school with to.
“You know, one of the RAs has to sort through our mail. I’m pretty sure it’s Jenna, because she’s been giving me really weird looks,” Adam tells Ronan on Friday. And that’s embarrassing. But it’s fine. It’s just one person.
It’s past midnight when Adam gets in from one of his longer shifts at the library, and Adam is exhausted.
First thing, he goes to check his mail. He’s been accepted into a Fall internship program with an environmental law firm here in Boston, and he’s supposed to be receiving more onboarding paperwork soon. Because Adam’s always got his shit together (academically and professionally, certainly not personally), he’s been diligent in signing and filling out everything he needs to. This show of responsibleness and self-sufficiency includes checking his mail regularly.
He just finishes grabbing his mail and locking the box up when he hears, “Hey Adam!”
Adam turns.
Even though they are allegedly on a first name basis, he does not know the man in front of him. This lack of recognition must be obvious on his face because the man says,
“It’s David… David Yang… from Anderson’s Climate Change and International Law class.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, man” Adam says intelligently. “Yeah, I remember, we’re in the same discussion section.”
“Yes!” David says relieved to be recognized. “I was hoping I could pick your brain about this week’s reading—“
David cuts off abruptly. He’s looking down at the mail in Adam’s hand. Adam follows his gaze in solidarity.
There, in his hands, facing outwards, is Ronan’s most recent postcard.
“From Loveladies, Pennsylvania!” The photograph on the front is beautiful. It’s a lush, vibrant forest of deep green furs and skyward reaching pines. And there, at the bottom, in bright red, reads: “We Had Gay Sex Here!”
“Umm wow, what is…” David trails off. He clearly decides that this question would either be prying or come with an answer he deeply does not want.
“It’s a real city,” Adam says because he’s a fucking moron.
David starts nodding excessively. “Oh, okay.”
“I’m going to go to bed. We can talk about that—” He wracks his head for the name, “O’Neill reading before discussion tomorrow.”
Adam wanders sleepily to his room. He doesn’t even have the energy to think about anything except setting alarms for his 8 AM and going the fuck to sleep.
Later, when Adam remembers this incident—when he remembers that he will have to see David again once a week for the rest of the semester—he doesn’t know how he remained so composed in the face of such absolute mortification. Years of practice, he assumes.
Adam does not tell Ronan about this encounter. While he’s not sure there’s any winning in this game, he knows distinctly that would be losing.
***
The next day, Adam calls Blue. In hindsight, he does not know why he thought she would be receptive to hearing about this.
“Lynch has been sending me postcards.”
“Who was it that said you know your relationship’s doomed when you start calling your partner by their last name?”
“I’ve literally never heard you call Gansey Richard,” Adam says.
“Yeah, cause his name is Richard.” Adam can practically hear Blue waving her hand dismissively. “Also, we’re true loves. I can call him what I want, and you can die jealous.”
***
Ronan must be dreaming the postcards, Adam concludes.
Mostly because Ronan doesn’t own a computer. The image of him driving to a library and using one of theirs to order these stupid fucking cards online is somehow more improbable than Ronan pulling them out of his head.
Hell, Ronan doesn’t even have a library card. He probably doesn’t even know where the nearest library is.
The point is that Adam recognizes the postcards for what they are: a challenge. All Ronan really wants from him is to accept. And Adam knows the game, the terms and conditions. If he wants to play, he has two options: get incredibly fucking angry or reciprocate. With the latter, he finds himself at a disadvantage.
For all that Adam is a creature of want, he has never really envied Ronan’s ability to dream.
This fact confused Adam in the early days of their relationship. At St. Agnes, Adam used to stay up and watch Ronan dream. Or rather he did calculus in the dead of night, and in between derivatives, he caught glances at Ronan. He watched the way Ronan’s brows furrowed. The way his eyes squeezed shut against the harsh, overhead light. The way he shivered in a hoodie and boxers because it’s December and so damn cold and you know heating costs money, right?
Ronan was so clearly uncomfortable and yet so committed to spending the night in that rent-controlled refrigerator so long as Adam was there. And so, it was looking at Ronan, face buried in Adam’s pillow and fingers clutching at the seams, that Adam really thought about it. He wondered, why don’t I want to dream the way he does?
At first, he thought it was because he knew Ronan. He knew his past and his pain and more and more, Adam thought, his fucking soul. So maybe, it was some kind of fucked up self-preservation. Dreaming has cost Ronan his father. Cloaked his family in lies. Torn his body to shreds. Adam didn’t think he wanted that, no matter the reward. Even if it meant he could dream up engineless Camaros and perfect mothers and magical forests—
When Adam thought of Cabeswater, he thought of sacrifices, and the whole thing fell apart.
“I’m trying to sleep. Stop thinking and breathing so goddamn loud,” Ronan cut in.
Adam rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the last calculus problem. When he finished, he shut off the overhead light—“thank fuck” Ronan said—and crawled into bed behind Ronan. On the worn mattress on the cold floor of his shitty apartment, Adam wound his arm ‘round Ronan’s stomach and buried his face in his shoulder.
At the Barns, Adam used to stay up and watch Ronan dream, “stop watching me sleep like a fucking creep, seriously, Parrish, this is getting old,” and contemplated this: What would it be like to be both boy and god? And in the mornings, when he watched Ronan, and Ronan was still, not in sleep but in that full-body paralysis that made seconds infinite, he wondered what it meant to be Adam Parrish, creature of want, in the absence of desire.
He realized, some time in early January, before Harvard acceptance letters and summers at the Barns, the obvious answer. That if this is about desire, it’s certainly not about its absence.
He wants Ronan. Impossible, wonderful Ronan. In ways that have everything and nothing to do with his dreams. Because Adam loves Ronan.
(They say it now sometimes. Never over the phone. Still, Adam thinks he’s heard the words more since he started Harvard than in his first 18 years of life.)
So, no. Adam doesn’t desire dreaming. But, sometimes, for Ronan, he wishes he could.
***
He gets the worst one in April.
Adam doesn’t even bother bringing it up with Ronan. He knows Ronan would just pretend he had no idea what Adam was talking about until Adam caved and read the whole thing aloud. And Adam is never reading that fucking limerick about “Tightsqueeze, Virginia” aloud. Even if both his and Ronan’s and Gansey’s lives depended on it.
What’s more is that Adam is actually fucking angry. Across the back, Ronan had scrawled: “I drove over four hours for this one. U R WELCOME.”
Now, obviously, Adam can’t engage. Because, now, Ronan doesn’t deserve the satisfaction of knowing his efforts have successfully pissed Adam off. Because, Goddamn it, Ronan. If you’re gonna drive that far why couldn’t you just come see me.
But Adam knows he can’t. Because they both agreed. After Ronan’s last visit in November, when Ronan didn’t leave and Adam didn’t ask him to. After Adam missed three lectures and Amad finally asked about Ronan getting a hotel room.
So the rule was written: Any visiting of Adam Parrish by Ronan N. Lynch on the Harvard premises and surrounding area is only permissible during scheduled university breaks. Addendum: university breaks as defined on the Harvard website exclude any dates corresponding with the Easter Holiday as Ronan N. Lynch will spend it with Declan T. Lynch (“that’s fucking cruel and unusual, Parrish”) and Matthew A. Lynch.
So that’s the rule. It's perfectly reasonable.
Adam kinda hates Ronan for not breaking it.
“You know what would actually look good on a postcard?” Adam says. It’s been a week, and he’s finally calmed down enough to hold a conversation with Ronan. He also knows that he won’t get to see Ronan in person for at least another month. That’s probably a factor.
Ronan doesn’t say anything. He’s digging around for something in Niall Lynch’s dream barn. Or maybe he’s just breaking shit. There’s a lot of crashing and banging.
“The Barns.”
The crashing and banging stops. There’s some rustling over the line, and it sounds like Ronan has put the phone to his ear.
“If you wanna see it so bad, man, you gotta see it in person,” he says.
But Adam hears something else: “if you want to see it so bad, you could actually come visit me for once.” Just like that, Adam is angry all over again. Why can’t Ronan understand? It’s not that simple. Does Ronan think Adam wouldn’t come home if he could? Does Ronan think he would be killing himself here—
It’s the easiest thing in the world to be angry. Sometimes, Adam thinks it’s all he knows how to do. And why not? He’s had up and close and detailed instruction on this subject all his life.
He sets the phone down. Puts his head in his hands. Takes a deep breath.
He counts to ten.
He breathes again, this time disentangling his emotions. Pulling them apart. Separating them from Ronan’s words. Because he’s a scientist—a magician—looking for connections. For answers. Seeking objectivity. And only then, can he see Ronan.
Ronan, never-careful-Ronan, choosing his words carefully. So why is Adam twisting them? Hearing something ugly and accusing? Why is Adam hurt by words Ronan is too good to say?
In general, Adam finds it much harder to not be angry.
He picks the phone back up.
“Guess I’ll just have to see it in May then,” he says.
***
The semester’s nearly over when he gets Ronan’s last postcard. He’s going to see Ronan in less than two weeks. He’s excited. He would honestly be more excited if two weeks of Hell and finals didn’t stand in the way.
It’s Monday. He has that statistics final on Wednesday and a 15-page paper due tomorrow for Anderson’s class. And that’s just the first half of the week.
Around noon, he has about 12 pages written and decides to take a break from the unforgiving art that is citation formatting. The break from Amad’s loud, anxiety-ridden panic studying in the desk two feet away from his is also welcome. Adam gives himself 15 minutes and uses it practically. He grabs a cup of coffee from the dining hall. He’s been really taking advantage of the unlimited swipes included in his scholarship, and he stops by at least four or five times a day.
On his way back, coffee in hand, he peeks his head into the mail room. Feeling brave, evidently, given that it’s the middle of the day. He’s been waiting for a care package from Gansey, which was sent against Adam’s wishes. “It’s for finals week, and I’m in Argentina. That’s too far for you to yell at me.”
Strangely, he’s hoping there’s something from Ronan waiting for him too.
It must be pure insanity that makes Adam beam at the sight of Ronan’s latest postcard. That or some ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ bullshit. It’s easier to accept that than a “Missing you from Blue Balls, Delaware” card making him feel real human emotions.
He flips it over. On the back, Ronan has written, in his scratchy, illegible handwriting, “Tamquam alter idem.”
It’s the only one of Ronan’s postcards that ends up on his wall. The back facing outwards, obviously.