Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Evan first closed his eyes, there was only smoke, people, and noise. When he opened them again, the buildings sank into the earth, their edges softening into roots and leaves until the trees pressed in close. To his left, he could almost see the sky tangling itself into the kind of blue that sparkles. Endless trees lined up to his right, swaying with the wind. He has a guess it was only an hour before he reached the coast, basing on how hard his heart thumps on his chest like it’s begging to get out.

He could already smell the ocean, and it was kind of funny how much it smelled the same. It made his chest ache in the way summer used to. Like it stayed, waiting for him to come back. 

And to be honest, he did not even think about it.

Coming back.

What for?

Two years and four semesters later, well, here he is.

Four semesters of spilled coffee, unending lectures, and adrenaline worn into bone. Four semesters of dedicating his life into nothing but his father’s approving nod. Four semesters of learning how to win and how it could hollow you when you do out at the same time. Four semesters of his fragments flowing and drowning over the coursing river of validation.

The bus tilted toward the sun, and he leaned into it, letting the heat run down his cheek. Outside, the pines came in waves, their shadows flashing over his hands. Somewhere under the hum of the engine, the song playing on his earphones threads through the air, slashing his chest in an attempt to stab his heart to stop it from jumping out of the window. (Typically what happens when he puts Televangelism by Ethel Cain on loop, something he can’t help but do.)

He tried not to think about the last time he was here. About the car rides, the sharp scent of salt before the shoreline, the way someone’s manly laughter had curled warm against his ear. About all the almosts that summer had left behind. 

He didn’t know what would be waiting this time. Only that he wanted the world to slow down. To let him breathe.

He just needs to feel less. And more. And nothing at all.

He tilted his head back toward the light and stared at it through the dark tint of his sunglasses. 

If nothing else, he hoped the sun had missed him.

“You good?”

The silence abruptly vanishes as he turns his head a little, offering a lazy smile to Pandora, who is sitting beside him. “Yup. Why?”

“You looked sort of lost in there.” His sister comments, twirling a strand of her hair, a look of genuine confusion plastered on her face. “Are you worried?”

Evan shakes his head, looking at his sister dead in the eyes as he lies, “Are you?”

Pandora hums. “Kind of.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

The conversation dies, but the both of them know what each other is talking about.

Are you worried? Are you scared?

What if everything has changed?

What if there is nothing to come back to?

He spots his old elementary school from where he is, empty. Beside it, the playground appears, the same, but more rusty. More houses began to appear, kids biking around, the quiet shifting into chatter as the bus proceeded. The ocean is clearly visible now, and the scent of salty air coats his tongue in lead. 

The bus lurched to a stop, and Evan’s stomach dropped with it. Through the grimy window, he could see the familiar weathered sign: Welcome to Solana Bay! Population: 1,462, though he suspected that number hadn’t been updated since he was in middle school.

“This is us,” Pandora said softly, already reaching for her oversized tote bag. She’d packed light—just summer clothes and her sketchbook, the one filled with fashion designs their father would never understand. Evan had done the same, though his bag held a different kind of contraband: his camera, the one he’d bought with money from his part-time job at the university library. Hard-earned, untouched by his father’s reproaching gaze. The weight of it in his hands felt like both salvation and betrayal all the same.

The driver called out their stop, and Evan stood on unsteady legs. Two years of coffee jitters and sleepless nights had left him thinner, sharper around the edges. He wondered if anyone would notice.

Outside, the air hit him like a physical thing—salt and pine and something else, something that tasted like sixteen and reckless and the kind of stupid that felt like flying. He shouldered his bag and followed Pandora down the narrow aisle, past an elderly woman with grocery bags, past a kid with drumsticks, and a teenager with paint-stained fingers who reminded him uncomfortably of him at that age.

Their mother was waiting by the old blue Subaru, the same one she’d driven since their parents were still pretending to be happy. She looked smaller than he remembered, her dark hair shot through with silver that caught the afternoon light. When she saw them, her face crumpled into something between relief and… heartbreak, if it could be laced with joy.

“My twins,” she whispered, pulling them both close. She smelled like lavender soap and the faint cigarette smoke she thought no one noticed. “God, you’ve both  gotten so thin! And tall. Growing up so fast without me, huh?”

Evan let himself be held, let himself forget for a moment about GPA requirements and his father’s weekly phone calls asking about his “real” plans for the future. Film school was a phase, according to their father. An expensive detour before Evan came to his senses and transferred to business or law or something that mattered in the real world.

“We’re fine, Mum,” Pandora said, though her voice was muffled against their mother’s shoulder. “Just tired.”

“Get on, then,” she said, and without any fuss, they both went inside the backseat. Just as they were settling, their mother spoke. “Wait, no one wants to sit beside me?”

Pandora looks at him for a second, before going out to sit in the passenger seat. Evan shakes his head. Their father never wanted any of them to sit on the front seat for reasons untold. Doesn’t even want them to own a car even after he adamantly forced them to take driving lessons ‘just in case.’ 

The drive to their house took twenty minutes through streets that looked like photographs from his childhood—the same corner store where he’d bought candy with quarters, the same park where he’d learned to ride a bike, the same empty basketball field he practiced skating on, the same stretch of beach road where he’d first understood that wanting could be a wound.

Their mother filled the silence with updates: Mrs. Meadowes from the grocery store had asked about them, the lighthouse was apparently getting renovated, the summer festival was happening in two weeks. Safe topics, surface-level things that didn’t require him to explain why he’d stopped calling, why he’d let two years stretch between them like an ocean.

“Barty’s been asking about you,” she said suddenly, her eyes finding him in the rearview mirror. “He works at the seaside now. Fixing boats, I think.”

Evan’s chest tightened, his eyes hardening as the view blurs. For all of his tries to forget, that name stayed in the back of his head, as if tattooed, permanent. Barty.

Two months. That’s all it had been, that last summer before he left. Two months of stolen moments and careful touches and conversations that felt like confessions. Two months of two lips hovering around each other like a prayer masked with guilt. Two months of pretending it was just friends being friends when it felt like drowning even though they’re only sitting on the shore. Two months that had ended with Evan on a bus and Barty standing in the driveway, hands shoved deep in his pockets, not saying goodbye.

“That’s nice,” Evan said, his voice carefully neutral, not opening a portal to questions he’d rather die than answer. Pandora shot him a look, the kind that said she remembered exactly how those two months had ended.

The house appeared around the curve, to Evan’s relief—white clapboard with blue shutters, the porch swing still hanging crooked from that storm three summers ago. It still looks like home. Home, except it wasn’t, not really. Not after the years he didn’t spend time inside, or anywhere near at all. Home was wherever their father decided it should be, and right now that was a sterile apartment near campus where Evan measured his worth in letter grades and their father’s rare, grudging approval.

Inside, nothing had changed. The house felt like a museum of his former self. The same family photos lined the hallway, frozen moments from before the divorce papers and the custody battles and the slow, inevitable fracturing of everything they’d thought was permanent. Evan’s room was exactly as he’d left it—movie posters on the walls, books stacked on every surface, the old film camera he’d gotten for his fifteenth birthday sitting on the dresser like a relic. All of it feels like an artifact from a past life he only remembers through a documentary he watched half-asleep.

“I kept it the same, didn’t really touch anything except when I’m dusting,” his mother said from the doorway. “In case you wanted to come back.”

Evan swallowed the lump forming in his throat and nodded, not trusting his voice. He sat on the edge of his bed and looked out the window toward the bay. Somewhere out there, boats bobbed in the harbor, and maybe one of them had Barty’s hands on it, fixing something that was broken.

“I’ll be in the kitchen. Still like that cheese and garlic thing?”

It would be nice eating real food again, a change from his routine of fast foods and coffee. Evan nods, “Please. Thank you.”

“Okay, I’ll be in the kitchen. I’ll be back.”

His mother smiled lightly, leaving him alone, and Evan took his time observing his childhood room. On the nightstand, a photo in a frame stares back at him, from three summers ago—him, Pandora, Dorcas, and Barty,  at the lake, all sunburned and laughing. Evan remembered the exact moment it was taken, the weight of Barty’s arm around his shoulders, the way Barty had been looking at him like he was seeing something new.

He should throw it away. Clean slate, remember?

Instead, he traced the edge with his finger and tried to remember what it felt like to want something just because it made him happy.

“Evan,” Pandora said quietly, careful not to let their mother hear, settling beside him on the bed. She offers a small smile, “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

She meant more than just Barty, he knew. She meant the whole summer, the weight of expectation and memory and all the ways they’d both learned to make themselves smaller to fit into their father’s vision of success.

“I know,” he said, though he wasn’t sure he believed it.

His phone buzzed once—a text from his father asking about their arrival, reminding him about the internship applications that were due at the end of summer. Real opportunities, their father had called them. Not like this film nonsense.

Evan turned the phone face down and looked out at the water again. Pandora leaves without a sound. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear music drifting from the direction of town—guitar and drums and something that sounded like freedom. Staring at the window, the summer stretched ahead of him, vast and uncertain as the ocean itself.

“Evan?” His mother appeared on his door, wiping her hands on a dish towel. 

Evan blinks, unsure of how much time had passed. As he really looks at his mother, he notices at least two new lines of wrinkles on her forehead that weren’t there two years ago. She looked older, softer around the edges in a way that made his chest tighten. 

“Are you going to sit there all day, or are you going to come hug your mother? Dora already did.”

The embrace felt like coming up for air. She smelled like lavender, hints of cigarette smoke, and the vanilla candles she burned when she was anxious, and for a moment he let himself be twenty and tired and scared instead of the perfect son he’d been performing for two years.

“You’re too thin,” she murmured against his hair. “And you need a haircut.”

“Pandora said the same thing about the hair.” Evan mumbles on his mother’s shoulder.

“Your sister has excellent taste.” She pulled back to study his face, her expression growing concerned. She touched the bottom of his eyes, biting her lip in worry. “When’s the last time you slept? Really slept?”

“I sleep.” The lie came easily. He’d gotten good at those.

She didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t push. That was the thing about his mother—she knew when to hold on and when to let go. His father had never learned the difference.

“I’ll leave you to it, then. Sleep if you want to. You need to. We’ll wake you when dinner is ready.”

He nodded as he watched her walk away. When she was out of sight, he dropped his body on his bed. He had intended to unpack, maybe call his father to confirm their safe arrival, perhaps even venture downstairs to help his mother with dinner. Instead, he found himself horizontal on his childhood bed, staring at the ceiling where glow-in-the-dark stars still clung in constellations he’d mapped out at twelve. The exhaustion hit him like a physical weight—not just the bus ride, but two years of holding himself together with caffeine and sheer determination.

The last thing he remembered was the sound of waves through his open window and his mother’s voice drifting up from the kitchen, humming something soft and familiar, Evan couldn’t pinpoint exactly, but it sounded like a song from her wedding day.

When consciousness crept back, it came with voices. Low murmurs that seemed to float in from very far away, then closer, then right there in his room. His brain struggled to process the sounds—familiar cadences mixing with something new, laughter that made his chest tighten with recognition.

“Should we wake him?”

“He looks dead.”

“Don’t say that, Dorcas.”

“What? He does. All pale and—”

“Shh.”

Evan’s eyes fluttered open to find four faces peering down at him like he was some kind of exhibit. For a moment, disorientation made everything soft around the edges. The afternoon light had shifted to something golden and slanted, casting long shadows across his room. He must have been asleep for hours.

“There he is,” Dorcas said with a grin that was equal parts affection and mischief. Her hair was longer than he remembered, braided in a way that made her cheekbones look sharper. “Welcome back to the land of the living, first Rosier.”

“Hey! Just because I came in second doesn’t make him superior in the hierarchy.” Pandora sat cross-legged on his desk chair, spinning slowly, rolling her eyes at Dorcas. She turns to Evan and says, “Mum made your favorite food. You slept through it.”

Evan pushed himself up on his elbows, his gaze automatically finding the third familiar face. His heart almost stopped at the sight. Barty lounged against his dresser, arms crossed, looking like he’d never left this room, like the past two years had been a strange dream. His hair was longer, sun-bleached at the edges, and there was a new scar above his left eyebrow. But his smile was the same—crooked and knowing and dangerous in ways that made Evan’s stomach flip.

“Took you long enough, Rosie,” Barty said, voice carefully casual.

Rosie.

It has been a while since he heard that. No one has gotten close enough to create a nickname for him, not like Barty did. With his walls, he’s as closed off as he could be, except the time when someone took a leap and found a way around, entering his life with ease. 

“Hey,” The word came out rougher than intended. Evan cleared his throat and sat up fully, running a hand through his hair. “How long was I out?”

“Five hours,” Pandora supplied. “I checked on you twice. You were dead to the world.”

“Tell me you didn’t lick my eyes you mother—” Evan stopped mid-sentence as his eyes landed on the fourth person. A boy about his age, maybe a year younger, with sharp features and dark hair that fell across his forehead. He stood slightly apart from the others, hands shoved deep in his pockets, watching Evan with curious gray eyes.

“Oh,” the stranger said, straightening. “Hi, you’re awake. I’m Regulus. Uh, Black.” His voice carried a slight formality, like he was used to introducing himself to people who might not want to know him.

“Regulus Black,” Dorcas added helpfully. “Sirius’ little brother. He moved here the year you left.”

He moved here the year you left. The phrase rang in his ears a little loud for his liking. The name clicked, though. Sirius Black, James’ bandmate. The one who’d left home and never looked back, according to his mother, who got the information through Mrs. Evans, who got it from Euphemia Potter. 

“Right,” Evan said, still processing. “Nice to meet you.”

Regulus nodded, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Evan scrunches his nose. “All good things, I hope.”

“Mostly.” Regulus’ smile widened slightly, and Evan caught a glimpse of sharp humor that reminded him of his brother, until those gray eyes landed on his left and Evan realized who he’s trying to make laugh.

Oh. 

Of course.

“Don’t mind him,” Barty said, pushing off from the dresser. “He’s shy.”

“I’m not shy,” Regulus protested, but there was something soft in his voice when he looked at Barty. Something that made Evan’s chest tighten in a way he didn’t want to examine too closely.

He’d bet his entire academic career he also sounded like that some time in his life.

For Barty.

With his head clearing itself making its way for full consciousness to come, that’s when he really noticed it—the way Regulus’ pinky finger brushed against Barty’s as they stood side by side. Such a small gesture, barely there, but Evan had always been good at reading the spaces between things. The way Barty didn’t pull away, didn't even seem to notice, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The ache hit him unexpectedly, sharp and immediate. Not jealousy, exactly—or not just jealousy. It was more complicated than that. It was the recognition of something he’d never had, not really. Two months of stolen moments and careful distance, of never quite being able to reach for what he wanted. And here was proof that Barty had found it with someone else.

Someone who had been here while Evan was gone. Someone who hadn’t left.

“Earth to Evan,” Dorcas said, waving a hand in front of his face. “You’re spacing out again. Can you please stay with us for a second?”

“Yeah, sorry.” He forced himself to focus on her instead of the way Regulus had stepped infinitesimally closer to Barty. “Still waking up, I guess.”

“Mum saved you a plate,” Pandora said. “She made that pasta thing you used to love. The one with—”

“The cheese and garlic,” Evan finished. His mother’s version of comfort food, heavy on garlic and cheese. His stomach growled in response, reminding him that he’d barely eaten on the bus.

“Come on then,” Dorcas said, standing and stretching. “Before it gets cold. Again.”

They trooped downstairs together, a familiar parade except for Regulus, who moved through Evan’s childhood home like he belonged there. It shouldn’t have bothered him, but it did. Everything felt slightly off-kilter, like someone had rearranged furniture in a room he knew by heart.

In the kitchen, his mother fussed over reheating his dinner while the others settled around the worn wooden table. This had always been their spot during summers—homework spread across the surface, or board games that ended in arguments, or just talking until the sun went down and fireflies started blinking in the yard. Back when everything was okay and they didn’t have to worry about anything.

“So,” Dorcas said, stealing a piece of bread from the basket in the center of the table. “Tell us about the sophisticated university life. Are you very intellectual now? Do you wear scarves and discuss Nolan films?”

“I don’t wear scarves,” Evan said, rolling his eyes at how absurd it would have been, accepting the plate his mother handed him. The pasta was still warm, fragrant with basil and garlic. “And I’ve only seen two Nolan films.”

“Which ones?” Regulus asked, and something in his tone suggested genuine interest rather than polite conversation. Something Evan appreciates, as no one’s really interested in films the way he often needs them to.

“Interstellar and Oppenheimer. Classics.”

“Good choices.” Regulus leaned forward slightly. “Have you seen Beautiful Boy?”

“Groeningen? Not yet. It’s on my list, though.”

“I hope it’s a list of something decidedly not academic. You won’t feel it, I think.”

“Yup. It’s not. Why sometimes I can’t watch the films I really want to, really.”

“Well. You should. It’s…” Regulus paused, considering. “It’s about self-destruction and regret. About going home. I’ve taken unexplainable comfort with that film, to be honest.”

Their eyes met across the table, and Evan had the unsettling feeling that Regulus saw more than he was letting on. Before he could respond, Barty knocked his shoulder against Regulus’.

“Look at you two, being all film nerdy,” he said with a grin. “Reg has been working his way through the classics since he got here. Says he’s educating himself. Can’t even drop his phone doomscrolling on Letterboxd.”

“Someone has to have culture in this town,” Regulus replied dryly, but his cheek was pink where Barty’s shoulder had touched it.

The casual intimacy of it made Evan’s chest tighten again. He focused on his pasta, trying to ignore the way Barty’s attention seemed to orbit around Regulus, the way Regulus thrived like a cigarette lit for consumption.

“How long have you been here?” Evan asked Regulus, partly to change the subject and partly because he was genuinely curious.

“Two years in October.” Regulus’ expression grew more guarded. “Right after... well, after Sirius left home. Our parents weren’t happy about it.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Barty muttered.

Dorcas shot him a warning look. “Reg’s parents are—”

“Traditional,” Regulus interrupted smoothly. “Very traditional. They had specific ideas about what their sons should become. Sirius disagreed more vocally than I did.”

The careful way he spoke reminded Evan of himself—the practiced art of deflection, of making painful truths sound manageable. “But you came here anyway. That’s brave.”

“Sirius sent money for a bus ticket.” Regulus’ smile was small but genuine. “Said I could figure out the rest when I got here.”

“And did you? Figure it out?”

“I’m working on it.”

Dorcas reached across the table to squeeze Regulus’ hand. “He’s being modest. He got a job at the bookstore and his own apartment. Plus he’s the reason Barty actually reads now.”

“I read before,” Barty protested.

“Skimming motorcycle magazines doesn’t count,” Dorcas said.

“Says who?”

They fell into familiar bickering, the kind that felt like home. Like what they were doing since they were seven, like nothing had changed, like there wasn’t any strain. He’s happy. Contented. He does miss having real friends—people who don’t really care who his father is and what his surname entails. But even as Evan let the conversation wash over him, he couldn’t stop watching the small interactions between Barty and Regulus. The way Regulus’ eyes tracked to Barty when he laughed. The way Barty absently handed him the salt without being asked. The way they seemed to exist in their own small bubble of understanding.

It was beautiful, actually. And it ached in ways Evan hadn’t expected.

Because this is what Barty deserves. Something that isn’t… Evan.

“You’re quiet,” his mother observed, settling into the chair beside him with her own cup of tea.

“Just tired still,”  he said. “It's good to be back.”

She studied his face with the kind of maternal scrutiny that missed nothing. “Is it?”

Before he could answer, music drifted in through the open window—guitar and drums and something that sounded like controlled chaos. It was coming from the direction of town, probably from the old community center where local bands sometimes practiced.

“The Marauders,” Dorcas explained, catching his curious look. “They practice most nights. James’ band.”

James. 

The name hit him like a gush of wind, unexpected and sharp. It’s one of those names Evan had worked very hard not to think about over the past two years. Had deleted his number along with everyone else’s, had avoided social media, had built careful walls around the memory of dark hair and bright eyes and the kind of smile that felt like coming alive.

“They’re good,” Regulus said quietly. “Really good. Sirius says they could make it big if they wanted to.”

“Do they want to?” Evan asked, though he wasn’t sure why it mattered.

Barty shrugged. “James is pretty focused on the music. They all are, actually. They’re playing the summer festival.”

The music swelled slightly, carried on the evening breeze. Evan could pick out individual instruments now—the steady thrum of bass, the intricate guitar work that had to be Sirius, and underneath it all, something that might have been James’ voice.

“We should head out,” Dorcas said, glancing at the clock on the wall. “Early morning tomorrow. Beach, everyone. Including you, Aunt Francesca.”

“Oh, thanks, Dorcas,” their mother smiles, that maternal instinct to make it better even if the circumstances don’t allow it. “I have a workshop tomorrow, though. With your mother.” 

“Too bad, then. We’re gonna have to steal your twins tomorrow.”

Francesca laughed, “Sure. You’re heading out?”

“Yup,” Barty answers for Dorcas, popping the ‘p’ for emphasis. “Regulus here is also sleepy.”

“I’m not!” Regulus scrunches his nose, offering an apologetic smile at the three Rosiers. “But we really have to go, though. Thanks for having us, Aunt Francesca.”

“Already?” Pandora pouted. “Evan just woke up.”

“Evan needs sleep,” their mother said firmly. “Real sleep, not whatever he’s been surviving on. You lot take care, yeah?””

As they gathered their things and said their goodbyes, Regulus lingered by the door. “It was nice meeting you,” he said to Evan. “Maybe we can talk about films again sometime.”

“I’d like that.”

Regulus smiled, and for a moment he looked younger, less guarded. “Good.”

After they left, Evan helped his mother clean up, the familiar rhythm of washing and drying dishes a comfort after the strangeness of the evening. Outside, the music had faded to a distant hum.

“They’re good kids,” his mother said as they finished. “All of them. Even with everything they’ve been through.”

“What do you mean?”

She was quiet for a moment, considering her words. “Regulus had a hard time when he first arrived. Barty helped him settle in. They’re good for each other.”

The simple statement landed heavier than it should have. Good for each other. Present tense. Real and settled and everything Evan had never been able to offer or accept.

“I see.”

Later, alone in his room, Evan lay awake listening to the ocean and trying not to think about the way Barty had looked at Regulus, or the way his own chest had tightened in response. Somewhere in the distance, he could still hear faint traces of music, threading through the night air like a promise or a warning.

The summer stretched ahead of him, vast and uncertain as the ocean itself. And for the first time since coming home, he wondered if some things were better left in the past.

Evan woke to the sound of seagulls screaming bloody murder outside his window and the smell of bacon drifting up from the kitchen. For a moment, he forgot where he was—the ceiling looked wrong, too low, and there was sunlight streaming through curtains he didn’t remember owning. Strange. His room is always dark, effectively because of his blackout curtains. Then memories crashed back: Solana Bay, home, Barty’s crooked smile, Regulus’ careful distance, the ache in his chest that had followed him into sleep.

His phone showed 9:54 AM, which was practically sunset by his university standards. Back at school, he’d been lucky to drag himself out of bed before noon on weekends, fueled by nothing but spite and the anxiety of yesterday’s coffee. Here, his body seemed to remember older rhythms—summer mornings that started with his mother’s voice calling up the stairs and the promise of whole days that belonged to no one but himself. A day spent with only his choices and decisions.

Salt air infiltrated his nose as he found Pandora in the kitchen, already dressed and attacking a plate of scrambled eggs and fried rice like she hadn’t eaten in days. Their mother stood at the stove, hair twisted up in the messy bun she wore when she was actually cooking instead of just reheating leftovers. Her sundress sways together with the curtains, the wind coming from a window open. The kitchen smells… homely. Fresh. Lived in.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Pandora said around a mouthful of eggs. “Only twelve hours this time. Progress.”

“Twelve hours of actual sleep,” their mother added, not turning around but somehow knowing he was there. “When’s the last time that happened?”

Evan couldn’t remember, honestly. Sleep at university had become a luxury he couldn’t afford, something he stole in twenty-minute intervals between classes and study sessions. If he’s lucky, he would be tired enough to drift off the moment he closes his eyes. 

“Thanks,” he said instead, accepting the plate their mother handed him. The eggs were perfect—soft and buttery, the way she’d made them when he was little and thought his mother could fix anything.

“Dorcas called,” Pandora said, stabbing at her bacon. “She wants to know if you’re up for the beach today. Apparently it’s the first properly hot day of summer and she refuses to waste it.”

The beach. Where he’d spent every summer day for most of his life, where he’d learned to swim and caught his first fish and had his first panic attack about the vastness of the ocean and his own smallness within it. Where he’d sat with Barty on warm sand and pretended the way their shoulders touched was accidental and not at all intentional, like it’s something excusable because Dorcas always leaned her head on Pandora’s shoulders because they’re friends and there’s nothing about it but a friendly gesture.

“Sure,” he heard himself say. “Sounds good.”

His mother turned to study his face, eyes squinting, that same maternal scrutiny from last night. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, you know. If you need time to adjust—”

“I’m fine, Mum.” The lie came easily, practiced. “I do want to go.”

She didn’t look convinced, but she nodded. “Take sunscreen. You’re pale as a ghost.”

After breakfast, Evan dug through his dresser for swim trunks, eventually finding a pair from two summers ago that still fit, barely. Everything felt strange and familiar at once—the weight of the fabric, the way his reflection looked in his childhood mirror, the ritual of packing a beach bag with towels that smelled like the summer years ago, as if nothing had changed.

Dorcas picked them up in her ancient Honda, the same car she’d been driving since she turned sixteen, now held together by duct tape and sheer determination. The radio was broken, stuck permanently on a station that played nothing but early 2000s pop, and she sang along to Avril Lavigne with the kind of commitment that suggested she’d never heard the word “irony.”

“Hello there, hotties.” Dorcas winked from the car, smirking like she owns the world. 

Pandora hurries, running towards Dorcas with an excitement that stems from her own two years of missing out. “Yay! Beach!”

Evan bit his bottom lip to stifle a smile, rolling his eyes as he jogs towards them. He opens the door on the backseat, and before he could even sit, his sister turns towards him from the passenger seat and asks, “Evan, you brought the sunscreen Mum placed on the table?” 

“Yup,” he says, head nodding towards his backpack.

“God, I missed this,” Dorcas said, windows down, wind whipping through the car. “Summer, I mean. Real summer, not whatever academic year nonsense you’ve been doing.”

“Film school isn’t nonsense,” Evan protested, protectively. 

“I didn’t say film school was nonsense. I said ‘academic year’ was nonsense. There’s a difference.” She caught his eye in the rearview mirror. “You look better, by the way. Less like a sick Victorian child dying of flu.”

“Thanks?”

“You’re welcome.”

“Will we be picking up B and Regulus?” Pandora asks, opening the window to shove her hands outside, welcoming the burst of wind. 

“Nope, they’re already there.” Dorcas replies.

Pandora hums, and then, without Evan’s surprise, she tilts her body to let her head out, her hair dancing against the wind. She’s laughing, giggling, so, so happy.

The beach was already crowded by the time they arrived—families with small children building sandcastles, teenagers playing volleyball, the usual assortment of locals and tourists that made up Solana Bay’s summer population. Evan scanned the crowd automatically, looking for familiar faces, though he wasn’t sure if he hoped to find them or avoid them entirely.

They claimed a spot near the lifeguard station, close enough to the water to hear the waves but far enough from the crowds to have some privacy. Dorcas immediately stripped down to a bikini that was more string than fabric and sprinted toward the water like she’d been personally offended by dry land.

“Show-off,” Pandora muttered, but she was smiling. “I’ll be right there,” she pointed towards a spot away from people, secluded and  shaded. Evan nodded, already distracted by how much people were there. When he looked back, she was already settled onto her towel with her sketchbook, lost in whatever design was taking shape in her head. 

Evan lay back on his towel and closed his eyes, letting the sun warm his face. This was nice. Peaceful. He could almost convince himself that nothing had changed, that he was still eighteen and stupid and convinced that the world revolved around his own particular brand of heartache.

Then he heard voices approaching, familiar laughter that made his stomach clench with recognition.

“—told him it was a terrible idea, but does Sirius ever listen? Of course not! Now half the marina smells like gasoline.”

“To be fair,” came another voice, softer, more careful, “he did warn everyone to stay back.”

Evan opened his eyes to find Barty and Regulus walking across the sand toward them, both dripping wet from the ocean, both looking like something out of a magazine spread about Beautiful People Having Fun. Barty’s hair was slicked back from his face, and there was a new tattoo on his ribs that Evan didn’t remember—something dark and intricate that disappeared beneath the waistband of his swim trunks. Regulus was paler, more careful in the way he moved, but there was something about the way he held himself that suggested he was comfortable in his own skin in a way he hadn’t been the night before.

“Morning, sunshine,” Barty said, dropping onto the sand beside Evan’s towel without invitation. “You look less dead today. Good for you.”

“You got a new tattoo?” He replied, without thinking. 

Barty, who was about to say something, closes his mouth as he looks at Regulus, and Evan’s chest feels like a black hole with how constricting it is.

Idiot. 

“Sorry, was just surprised, is all.” He takes back, looking away, staring at the surfers from afar. 

“It’s new, yeah,” Barty replies, sitting up. “Last year, I think?”

“February,” Regulus supplies, sitting beside Barty in the sand, legs spread. 

Evan couldn’t help but notice the hand resting on his thighs. He felt like throwing up, but that would be rude, wouldn’t it?

February. Evan’s birth month. What was he doing then, while Barty and Regulus were in a tattoo shop?

“Anyway, your surfboard is still kept in that cave we found. It’s clean. I took care of it while you were gone.” Barty says, voice careful.

“Thanks. I think.” Evan tried not to notice the way water droplets caught the light on Barty’s shoulders, tried not to remember what it felt like to trace those shoulders with careful fingers in the dark. Swallowing, he turns to address them, “Having fun?”

“Reg here is secretly a mermaid,” Barty said, nudging Regulus with his elbow. “I swear he’s been underwater for twenty minutes straight.”

“I like swimming,” Regulus said mildly, settling onto Dorcas’ towel without invitation. “It’s quiet.”

“Quiet’s good,” Evan said, and meant it. At school, quiet was a luxury he couldn’t afford. There was always noise—lectures, roommates, study groups, his father’s calls, the constant hum of anxiety that had become his default state. Here, even with the beach crowds and Dorcas shrieking from the water, there was a quality of silence underneath it all that felt like coming home.

“So,” Barty said, leaning back on his elbows in a way that made his stomach muscles do interesting things in the sunlight. “Film school. Fancy.”

There was something in his voice that Evan couldn’t quite read—not mockery, exactly, but not entirely friendly either. “It’s not that fancy. Just school.”

“Just school,” Barty repeated, or, spat. Like the word is dirty. “Right. What do you even study? How to hold a camera?”

Heat rose in Evan’s chest, the familiar defensiveness he’d learned to carry like armor. He had this conversation with his father. A fucking lot . So his response comes out as rehearsed. “Film theory, mostly. History, analysis, some production work. It’s more complicated than—”

“I’m sure it is.” Barty’s smile was sharp at the edges. “Must be nice, having the luxury to study art.”

The word ‘luxury’ landed like a slap. Evan sat up, suddenly aware of the space between them, the careful way Regulus was watching the exchange. “It’s not a luxury. It’s—”

“What? Important? You saving the earth or something, Rosie?” Barty’s laugh had an edge to it, as if intending to mold his words into an arrow, landing straight to where it might hurt the most. “Tell that to the rest of us stuck here fixing boats and serving tourists.”

“Barty.” Regulus’ voice was quiet but firm. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Ask questions?” Barty turned to look at Regulus, something complicated passing between them. “I’m just curious about the glamorous university life. Can’t a guy be curious?”

But there was hurt underneath the sarcasm, Evan realized. Hurt and something that looked suspiciously like loneliness. He thought about what his mother had said the night before—they’re good for each other—and wondered what that actually meant. What had happened in the two years he’d been gone? What had Barty needed comfort from?

“It’s not glamorous,” Evan said quietly, resigned. He doesn’t even know why he needed Barty to understand. “It’s mostly just... work. Papers and deadlines and trying not to disappoint people.”

For a bit, no one spoke. The quiet Evan needed earlier became a blanket meant to suffocate. The water is too far from him and yet he feels like his throat is burning from suffocating for so long.

“Must be exhausting,” Barty said, but some of the edge had gone out of his voice. “All that trying.”

Before Evan could respond, Dorcas came jogging back from the water, breathless and grinning and wet. “The water is perfect,” she announced, shaking droplets from her hair. “And Marlene told me there’s a party tonight at the lighthouse. Summer kickoff thing. You in?”

“Depends,” Barty said, sitting up and reaching for the water bottle beside Regulus’ towel. “Who’s playing?”

“Local bands, I think. Maybe the Marauders.”

Evan’s chest tightened at the name, that familiar combination of anticipation and dread that had followed him home from university. Barty is one thing, this is another conversation.

James Potter, with his stupid perfect smile and his stupid perfect hair and his stupid perfect way of making everyone around him feel like they were part of something important.

He felt like fourteen, again. Back when his youth is about discovering he likes rougher hands and deeper voices and being fucked from behind or vice versa.

“You should come,” Regulus said suddenly, looking directly at Evan. “The music’s good.”

“Yup,” Barty supplies. “Everyone will be together again.”

There was something wistful in his voice that made Evan wonder what ‘everyone together’ had looked like for the past two years. How many parties had there been without him? How many summer nights had he missed while he was buried in textbooks and coffee shops, trying to become the person his father wanted him to be?

“I don't know,” Evan said. “I just got back. I’m pretty tired still—”

“Oh, come on,” Dorcas interrupted. “You can sleep when you’re dead. It’s summer! Live a little.”

“Says the girl who once slept for fourteen hours straight after homecoming,” Pandora pointed out, dropping her things beside Evan, sketchbook closed, reeking of accomplishment.

“That was different. I was seventeen and stupid. Now I’m nineteen and only slightly stupid.”

“Not true,” a newer voice comments, and Dorcas groans. 

Evan turns his head to find Marlene McKinnon, surfboard in her hands, blonde hair sticking on her shoulders, smirking at Dorcas. He’s not particularly friends with her, only knew her from his mother’s lips when she’s talking about gossip scoop. Apparently, Marlene stopped her second year of education degree to pursue Music, together with Lily Evans and Mary Macdonald. Probably took inspiration from James’ band’s choices, he surmises, as he knows the four of them took a gap year and never enrolled since.

“There goes my blondies,” she comments, grinning at Pandora and Evan. He nods at her, while his sister grins back, standing up for a high five.

They fell into easy banter, the kind of conversation that required no real thought or investment. Evan let it wash over him, watching the way Barty absently handed Regulus his sunglasses when the light got too bright, the way Regulus’ fingers lingered just a moment too long when he took them. Such small gestures, but they spoke of intimacy, of knowing someone well enough to anticipate their needs.

It should have hurt more than it did. Maybe he was too tired for proper heartbreak, or maybe two years had given him enough distance to see what he’d actually lost. Not Barty, exactly—he’d never really had Barty, not in any way that mattered. What he’d lost was the possibility of having him, the sweet ache of almost that had sustained him through that last summer.

Now that almost belonged to someone else.

“You’re thinking too loud,” Pandora said quietly, settling beside him on the towel. “I can practically hear the gears turning.”

“Just tired,” he lied.

“Uh-huh.” She studied his face with the same careful attention she gave her sketches. 

“What?”

“I notice, you know.”

Before he could ask what she meant, music drifted across the beach—someone had brought speakers, and the opening chords of a song he didn’t recognize filled the air. It was good music, the kind that made you want to move, and several people started dancing in the sand, uninhibited and joyful in the way that only came with summer and youth and the certainty that moments like this were infinite.

“That's them,” Regulus said, nodding toward the source of the music. "Marauders. They’re doing a sound check for tonight.”

Evan followed his gaze and felt his heart stop. There, maybe fifty yards down the beach, stood four figures clustered around a small setup of equipment. Even at this distance, he could make out James Potter’s distinctive silhouette—tall and broad-shouldered, dark hair catching the sunlight as he bent over a guitar. Beside him, Sirius Black was saying something that made James throw his head back and laugh, the sound carrying across the sand and hitting Evan like a physical blow.

Two years. 

It had been two years since he’d seen James Potter, and yet something in his chest recognized him immediately, like a favorite song from his teens rediscovered.

“We should go say hi,” Dorcas said, already gathering her things. “I haven’t seen Sirius in ages.”

“You saw him yesterday,” Marlene pointed out.

“That was work. This is social. Completely different.”

As if summoned by the mention of his name, Sirius Black looked up from the equipment and spotted their group. His face lit up with recognition, and he said something to the others before running across the sand toward them.

“Well, well,” Sirius said as he approached, grinning in a way that suggested he was genuinely happy to see them. He offers his hand to Evan, dragging him upward to bump their shoulders. He claps his hand on Evan’s back and says, “Look what the tide dragged in! Evan Rosier, as I live and breathe.”

Sirius mockingly bows, sending the group into laughter. From the corner of Evan’s eyes, he could see the other three walking towards them.

“What about me?” Pandora pouts, and Sirius dramatically falls on his knees.

“Is this real? Even the sweetest girl in town is here to bless me with her presence!” He says, hands held up high as if to worship his sister.

The whole group laughs as Pandora helps Sirius to stand up.

“Hi, Sirius.” Evan stood, when their eyes met again, suddenly aware of how he must look—pale and thin and probably still marked with pillow creases. “Good to see you.”

“You too, mate. Reg told me you were back.” Sirius’ eyes flicked between Evan and his brother, something passing between them that Evan couldn’t read. “How’s the big city treating you?”

“Can’t really complain.” Another lie, sure, but an easy one.

“Good, good. Listen, we’re doing a thing tonight at the lighthouse—you probably heard. You should come. The whole gang, proper reunion and all that.”

Before Evan could respond, James Potter appeared at Sirius’ shoulder, slightly out of breath from jogging across the sand. And fuck, by the gods, he looked good—tan and confident and exactly like the memory from his teenage phase of crushing on him. His hair was longer, curling at the nape of his neck in a way that suggested he’d been too busy with music to worry about haircuts. His eyes, when they found Evan’s, were the same warm brown that had haunted more dreams than Evan cared to admit.

“Evan,” James said, and his name sounded different in that voice, softer somehow. “You’re back.”

“That I am,” Evan confirmed, because what else was there to say?

They stood there for a moment, looking at each other across years of silence and all the words they’d never said. Around them, conversation continued—Sirius saying something about the sound equipment, Dorcas asking about the setlist for tonight—but Evan was only aware of James, of the way his presence seemed to fill the space between them with electricity.

“You look good,” James said finally, voice too low, like it’s more of a thought to himself than a conversation. “Different, but good.”

“Thanks. You too.”

It wasn’t enough, wasn’t even close to enough, but it was what they had. What they’d always had—careful words and careful distance and the weight of everything they weren’t saying.

What is Evan supposed to say? 

Oh, hey James, just want to let you know you’re the reason I learned I swing both ways. 

Hi, James! Did you know you were the only thought I had at 14?

James, are you still dating Lily?

“So,” James continued, shoving his hands in his pockets in a gesture so familiar it made Evan’s chest ache. “Tonight. You’ll be there?”

It wasn’t an invitation so much as a statement of fact, delivered with the kind of casual confidence that suggested James Potter had never been rejected for anything in his life. Which, knowing James, was probably true.

“Yeah,” Evan said, surprising himself. “I’ll be there.”

James smiled, the real one that crinkled the corners of his eyes, and Evan remembered suddenly why he’d spent the better part of his ninth year of school convinced that he was going to die from the force of his own feelings.

“Good,” James said. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

And then he was gone, jogging back toward the band setup, leaving Evan standing on the sand with his heart hammering against his ribs and the absolute certainty that coming home had been either the best or worst decision of his life.

“You okay?” Sirius asked quietly, and Evan realized he’d been staring after James for longer than was probably appropriate.

“Fine,” he said automatically. “Just... it’s a lot. Being back.”

Sirius nodded like he understood, and maybe he did. Maybe leaving home and coming back again left everyone feeling slightly dislocated, caught between who they used to be and who they were trying to become.

The music started again, louder this time, and James’ voice floated across the beach—rough and warm and perfect in a way that made Evan want to walk into the ocean and never come back up. Instead, he lay back down on his towel and closed his eyes, letting the sound wash over him like a promise or a threat.

Evan walks up to his sister, knowing what he needs to do before the clock strikes evening. When Pandora looks at him with questioning, he nods towards the direction of their house. “I need to organize my camera.”

Pandora nods. “Okay, sure. Take my bag home? I don’t want my sketchbook to be wet.”

“Yeah, sure.”

He turns to see Barty staring, as if waiting for him. He stares back, blinking. Was he watching Evan?

“Heading out?” Barty asks, and there was a hint of curiosity in there, like he wants to know.

Evan nods. “Gonna have to clean.”

“Oh. See you tonight?”

“Tonight?”

“The lighthouse party,” Barty said, “You said you’d be there.”

Right. James’ invitation on the beach, the way his own heart had leaped at the possibility of something real and immediate and his own choice. “Yeah,” Evan said. “I’ll be there.”

“Good,” Regulus said, chiming in. “Maybe save all of us a dance.”

Later that night, he makes his way downstairs to find his sister. He knows his cards are on her wallet, as he couldn’t be trusted with his own hard-earned money. Those would only go to film strips. All of it. But now he has better things to spend on. A beer, for example.

He found their mother instead, reading a newspaper by the window. 

“Mum, it’s 5 PM. Why are you not out?”

“Nah, too much socializing for today.” Francesca replies, setting her tea down. “Why are you not dressed? Pandora already went out.”

“Oh,” he replies, scratching his head, dumbfounded. He thought they were going together. Completely passed his mind she could already be reuniting with her girl friends.

“You should go get ready if you’re planning to head out later.”

Evan nodded, already thinking about what to wear, about whether James would really notice if he showed up or not. About whether it mattered.

Upstairs in his room, he’d just pulled a clean shirt from his dresser when his phone buzzed with an email notification. His father’s name appeared on the screen, and Evan’s stomach dropped before he even opened it.

He’s glad Pandora is already enjoying herself. She would have already received this email and they’ll both be miserable.

Subject: Summer Opportunities - Time Sensitive

Evan,

Per our conversation about your academic trajectory, I’ve compiled several internship opportunities that close soon. The Goldman Sachs position has particular promise; corporate communications track, excellent networking potential, real-world experience that will look impressive on graduate school applications.

I need your applications submitted by this weekend. We can’t afford to waste any more time on impractical pursuits.

Review the attached materials tonight. This is your future we’re discussing.

- Dad

Evan stared at the screen, his chest tightening. Seven attachments. Seven different paths that led away from everything he’d thought he wanted, everything he’d been working toward for two years.

He sat heavily on his bed, phone in his hands, and opened the first attachment. Goldman Sachs Corporate Communications Summer Associate. The description read like a foreign language: “synergistic marketing solutions,” “cross-platform brand integration,” “stakeholder engagement optimization.”

Just one look, he told himself. Just to see what his father was pushing.

But one became two, became three, became sitting on his bed at 8 PM reading through application requirements and trying to understand what “demonstrated leadership in high-impact environments” actually meant. The lighthouse party felt far away, theoretical, like something happening in another world where people got to choose their own Friday nights.

His phone buzzed again. A text from Dorcas: Party’s starting! Where are you?

Evan looked at the message, then at his laptop screen where he'd started researching the Goldman Sachs interviewing process. The responsible thing would be to finish reading, maybe draft an essay or two tonight while the motivation was fresh. Get ahead of the deadlines instead of scrambling at the last minute like he always did.

Another text, this time from Pandora: James keeps asking if you’re coming. You okay?

He started to type a response—on my way, be there soon, just running late—but stopped. The internship materials sprawled across his bed like evidence of his own inadequacy. If he couldn’t even commit to reading about real opportunities, how could he expect his father to keep paying for film school? How could he justify two more years of what his father clearly saw as expensive self-indulgence?

Something came up, he typed back. Tell them I’m sorry.

Pandora’s response came immediately: Evan what’s wrong?

But he’d already turned his phone face down, already opened his laptop to start outlining an application essay. The music from town drifted through his open window—guitar and drums and something that sounded like freedom—but he forced himself to focus on the screen in front of him.

“Describe a time when you demonstrated leadership in a challenging situation.”

Evan stared at the cursor blinking in the empty text box and tried to think of a single moment in his life when he’d led anything other than himself deeper into compromise. When he’d chosen what he wanted instead of what was expected. When he’d stayed instead of leaving.

He couldn’t think of any.

By midnight, he’d filled out basic information for three applications and written a terrible rough draft about “leading” a group project in his media theory class. His eyes were burning from screen glare, and the music from town had long since faded to silence. Everyone else was probably heading home from the lighthouse by now, flushed with sea air and good music and the kind of summer night that became the stories you told for years afterward.

Evan closed his laptop and lay back on his bed, still in the clothes he’d picked out for the party. Through his window, he could see a few distant lights from boats in the harbor, and he wondered if one of them belonged to someone who’d been looking for him tonight.

Someone who’d asked where he was and gotten sorry excuses instead of answers.

He fell asleep with his phone buzzing intermittently on the nightstand—texts he didn’t have the energy to read, notifications from a life he’d apparently decided he couldn’t afford to live.

Evan woke to his phone buzzing against the nightstand, insistent and angry in the pre-dawn darkness. For a moment he thought it might be a dream—the kind where your worst fears manifest as three AM phone calls—but the display showed 6:47 AM and his father’s name in stark white letters.

His stomach dropped.

Shit.

“Hello?”

“Evan.” His father’s voice cut through the morning quiet like a blade. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“Sorry, I was—”

“Sleeping. Yes. While the rest of the world works.” There was a pause, the kind his father used for maximum impact. “I had an interesting conversation with Dean Morrison yesterday.”

Evan’s blood turned to lead. Dean Morrison, who oversaw the film program. Who had probably mentioned Evan’s less-than-stellar performance last semester, the papers turned in late, the classes he’d barely scraped through on fumes and desperation because he was nursing a high fever he barely survived.

“He’s concerned about your academic trajectory,” his father continued, each word precise and cutting. “Apparently your grades have been... inconsistent.”

“They’re fine,” Evan lied, pressing his palm against his forehead where a headache was already blooming. “I passed everything.”

“Passing isn’t thriving, Evan. It’s barely surviving. I refuse to have an unexceptional son.” The disappointment in his father’s voice was familiar as breathing, heavy as gravity. “I’m beginning to think this film experiment has run its course.”

The word experiment hit like a slap. Two years of sleepless nights, of fighting for every credit, of believing maybe he could build something that mattered—reduced to an experiment that had apparently failed .

“It’s not an experiment,” Evan said quietly. “It’s what I want to do.”

“What you want.” His father’s laugh was sharp, humorless. “And what exactly has wanting gotten you? Mediocre grades, no clear career prospects, and a summer of wasting time in that nowhere town instead of pursuing real opportunities.”

Evan closed his eyes, feeling the familiar weight of his father’s expectations settling on his chest like stones. Outside his window, Solana Bay was waking up—seagulls calling, waves against the shore, the ordinary magic of a summer morning. It felt a universe away from his father's voice in his ear, from the sterile apartment near campus where success was measured in grades and networking opportunities.

Oh.

Oh, fucking fuck. Fuck.

“Evan.”

Startled, “I got into the program for a reason,” Evan said, but even to his own ears it sounded weak.

“You got into the program because I pay the tuition,” his father corrected. “And if your performance doesn’t improve dramatically, I’ll be reconsidering that investment.”

The threat hung in the air between them, unspoken but crystal clear. Fall in line or lose everything. Shape up or watch two years of work disappear like smoke.

“I understand,” Evan said, because what else was there to say?

“Good. I’ve sent you information about several summer internships last night—real ones, not this creative writing nonsense. Corporate communications, marketing, practical skills you can actually use.” His father’s voice softened slightly, taking on the tone he used when he thought he was being paternal. “I’m doing this because I love you, son. Because I want you to succeed. But success requires sacrifice.”

No, Evan thought, it requires obsession.

After his father hung up, Evan lay in bed staring at the ceiling until the sun was high and bright through his windows. The internship materials had already arrived in his email last night—corporate positions in soulless offices, the kind of work that would look good on applications for business school or law school or whatever path his father deemed acceptable. Not a single one had anything to do with film, with storytelling, with any of the things that made Evan feel like himself.

He thought about last night, about James’ invitation and the way his own heart had leaped at the possibility of something, anything, that felt real and immediate and his own choice. He’d been planning to go, had even picked out clothes, had imagined what it might feel like to stand in a crowd listening to music that mattered, surrounded by people who knew him before he became this anxious, hollow version of himself.

Instead, he’d spent the evening staring at internship descriptions and trying to calculate how many of his dreams he could sacrifice before there was nothing left of him worth saving, until he didn’t even know he was drifting off.

By noon, the house felt too small, too full of his mother’s concerned glances and Pandora’s careful questions about why he looked like death. He grabbed his camera—the good one, the one his father didn’t know about—and walked to town, needing movement, needing distance from his own thoughts.

Solana Bay in daylight was postcard-perfect, all weathered storefronts and flower boxes, tourists with ice cream cones and locals who moved with the unhurried pace of people who had nowhere urgent to be. Evan found himself documenting it through his lens—the way light fell across the harbor, the laughing children on the pier, an elderly couple sharing a bench and forty years of comfortable silence.

This was what he loved about filmmaking, about visual storytelling: the way a single frame could capture something true and essential about the human experience. The way light and shadow could say what words couldn’t. It felt like prayer, like meditation, like the only honest thing he’d done in months.

Because behind his lens, everything could be anything. Anything could be everything.

He was so absorbed in his work that he almost didn’t notice the familiar voices coming from the marina until it was too late to turn away.

“—completely wasted. James kept asking where he was.”

“Did he?” The voice was careful, neutral. Regulus.

“Yeah. I told him he probably had better things to do than hang out with us locals.”

Evan looked up from his camera to find Barty and Regulus sitting on the edge of the dock, legs dangling in the water. They hadn’t noticed him yet, too caught up in their conversation, and something about their body language suggested this wasn’t a casual chat.

“That’s not fair,” Regulus said quietly.

“Isn’t it?” Barty’s voice had an edge to it, the same one from yesterday at the beach. “He shows up after two years, acts like nothing’s changed, then disappears again the moment something more interesting comes along.”

“Maybe he had a reason—”

“There’s always a reason.” Barty laughed, but there was no humor in it. “There was a reason when he left. There was a reason he never called. And there will be a reason when he leaves again at the end of summer.”

Evan’s chest tightened. He should walk away, should pretend he’d never heard this conversation, but his feet felt rooted to the pier.

“You don’t know that,” Regulus said.

“Don’t I?” Barty pulled his legs out of the water, turning to face Regulus fully. “I spent two months thinking I meant something to him. Two months of—” He stopped, shook his head. “You know he was the only thing keeping me glued to myself. But he left me. It doesn’t matter. That was a long time ago. I really don’t care anymore. I have you now, don’t I?”

“Barty—”

“He made his choice, Reg. He chose his fancy school and his important future, and I chose to stay here. And that’s fine. It is. I just wish he’d stop acting like we’re still friends.”

The words hit Evan like a physical blow. He stumbled backward, camera clutched to his chest, but it was too late—the movement caught Barty’s attention, and their eyes met across the dock.

For a moment, nobody moved. Then Barty’s expression hardened, closing off completely.

“Evan.” His voice was flat, emotionless. Doesn’t hold any weight, like he was too unimportant of intention. “Didn’t see you there.”

“I was just—” Evan gestured vaguely with his camera, but the excuse died in his throat. “I should go.”

“Yeah,” Barty said, standing and brushing sand from his shorts. “You should. You always do.”

The dismissal was so casual that devastating isn’t even the right word to describe the way it punched a hole in Evan’s chest. He watched as Barty helped Regulus to his feet, Regulus sending him a grimace and an apologetic look as they walked away without a backward glance, as two years of careful distance crystallized into something sharp and final.

Like there wasn’t a time it was the softest thing to ever hold Evan.

He stood there long after they’d disappeared, camera heavy in his hands, trying to process what he’d heard. 

The casual cruelty of Barty’s words, the matter-of-fact way he’d dismissed their entire history. As if those two months had meant nothing. As if Evan had imagined the weight of Barty’s attention, the careful way they’d learned to exist in each other’s space.

I just wish he’d stop acting like we’re still friends.

But underneath the hurt was something uglier: recognition. Because Barty wasn’t wrong, was he? Evan had chosen to leave. Had chosen his father’s approval over whatever fragile thing they’d been building. Had spent two years convincing himself it was the mature decision, the practical one, the only one that made sense. Because he likes his degree. Loves it. He wants to be a professional in what he is passionate about. Wants this to work out, even if it takes fighting teeth or nails or claws just to attain it.

He’d just never considered what that choice might have cost anyone else.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a haze. Evan walked the streets of his hometown like a tourist, documenting a life he’d voluntarily stepped out of. He photographed the bookstore where Regulus worked, the garage where Barty fixed boats, the community center where the Marauders had played last night while he sat in his childhood bedroom staring at corporate internship listings.

By evening, he was raw and tired and looking for a fight. He found it at the corner market, where he went to buy dinner for his mother and ended up in line behind Barty, who was purchasing what appeared to be ingredients for a romantic dinner: wine, fresh pasta, the good cheese from the deli counter. He was also holding a bouquet of flowers.

“Special occasion?” Evan asked before he could stop himself.

Barty turned, surprised, then shuttered. “Something like that.”

“Let me guess. Regulus.”

“Yeah. Regulus.” Barty’s jaw was tight, defensive. “Problem?”

Everything about the interaction felt wrong—stilted and formal, like they were strangers making polite conversation instead of two people who had once known the exact shape of each other’s silences.

“No problem,” Evan said, but something in his voice must have suggested otherwise because Barty’s expression darkened.

“Good. Glad we’re clear on that.”

They paid for their purchases in tense silence, but instead of walking away, instead of letting it go, Evan followed Barty outside into the parking lot.

“So that’s it then?” he said, his voice louder than intended. 

Barty scoffed, exasperated. “What now, Rosier?”

Rosier.

Evan could have punched him in the face.

“Two years and you’ve just... moved on?”

Barty stopped walking, turned to face him with eyes like flint. “Moved on from what , exactly?”

“You know what.”

“No, I actually don’t. Enlighten me.” Barty set his grocery bag on the hood of his car, crossed his arms. “Tell me what exactly I was supposed to wait around for.”

The word ‘wait’ hit like a trigger, releasing two years of suppressed frustration and guilt and the bone-deep exhaustion of trying to be someone he wasn’t.

He scoffed, followed by something that resembles a chuckle. It doesn’t sound joyous, no. When you’re terribly disappointed by something you know won’t really work out in the end so you just laugh because you are so fucking right even with how badly you wanted to be wrong? That’s the closest thing to what he’s feeling right now.

“Don’t you use that word, Barty.” Evan whispers, like a plea, the words ripping out of his chest like a physical thing. “You didn’t even wait for me.”

For a moment, Barty just stared at him. Then his face crumpled into something raw and painful before reforming into anger.

“No, Evan. You don’t get to do this.” Barty snarls, his teeth grinding against one another. And Evan knows he reached it, he poked on that bubbling anger until it had no choice but to come out and hurt back in retaliation. “You don’t get to blame me for being loved the way I deserve. You left like I wasn’t worth staying for! Remember?”

“Barty, you don’t understand—”

“I don’t understand?” Barty shot back, voice cracking on the words. “You left like what we had was nothing, like I was nothing, like two months of—" He stopped, shaking his head violently. “You don’t get to come back here and act like I’m the one who fucked this up.”

“I didn’t have a choice—”

“Everyone has choices, Evan. You chose your father’s money over—”

“Over what? Over you?” The words came out harsh, desperate. “What the fuck were we, Barty? What were we really? Because I seem to remember a lot of ‘this doesn’t mean anything’ and ‘we’re just having fun’ and ‘don't make this complicated.’”

Barty flinched like he’d been slapped. Evan wishes he actually did. “That was—”

“That was you protecting yourself. Just like you’re protecting yourself now with Regulus.”

Barty laughs, a bit maniac, eyes sharp. “Do not fucking go there. Leave my boyfriend’s name out of your mouth.”

“Why? Because he’s safe? Because he’s not going anywhere?”

“Because he’s good for me,” Barty said quietly, and the simple truth of it hit harder than any accusation could have. “Because he sees me and doesn’t run away. Because when I touch him, he doesn’t flinch like he’s committing a sin. Because he loves me , Evan. He does.”

The words landed like physical blows. Evan remembered those moments—the way his own guilt had poisoned even the sweetest interactions, the way he’d pulled back whenever things got too real, too intense. The way he’d made Barty feel like something to be ashamed of instead of something to be treasured.

Barty wasn’t done. “You have no right to demand anything from me, Rosier. You left me alone. Face it. Everything was so fucking good until you came back, don’t you know? Regulus saw me, all of me, broken into pieces, do you know what he did, huh? He picked it all up even though he was broken himself! Do you know what that does to a person?”

Evan stared, lips tight. He deserves this. He knows he deserves to hear this. How much he fucked up by leaving. 

But oh, how it hurts.

Everything was so fucking good until you came back, don’t you know? 

“Fuck you, Evan. Do not go fucking teary-eyed on me now. You went up here reprimanding me for moving on. Is it my fault now that you’re stuck? If you only hadn’t left me, we could have been much more, you know? But no. You cut that loose thread to follow your daddy’s money.”

“That's not—” he started, but Barty cut him off.

“It’s exactly what it was. And you know what? I get it. I do. I understand why you left, why you chose the life that made sense over... whatever the fuck we were doing.” Barty’s voice was steady now, devastatingly calm. “But you don’t get to come back and act like I’m the villain for building something real with someone who actually wants to be here. With me.”

They stared at each other across the parking lot, two years of unspoken hurt finally dragged into the light. Whatever had existed between them two years ago—that complicated tangle of want and fear and possibility—it was there, humming beneath the surface like a live wire. Evan wanted to say something, anything, that might bridge the gulf between them, but every word that came to mind felt inadequate or cruel or true in ways that would only make things worse.

“I should go,” he said. Finally. What else was there to say?

“Yeah,” Barty agreed, picking up his grocery bag. “You should. You always do.”

Barty turned his back, opening the door of his car. Before Evan could move, he was speaking again. “You should probably apologize to Sirius and James, by the way, if you could grow a spine. They were looking for you all night.”

Evan pursed his lips, hands in his pockets. Yeah, that, too. 

This time, Evan didn’t watch him leave. He stood in the empty parking lot until the sun set and the streetlights flickered on, until his phone buzzed with texts from his mother asking where he was, until the weight of his own choices felt like it might crush him entirely.

When he finally made it home, he went straight to his room, ignoring Pandora’s concerned questions and his mother’s offers of dinner. He lay on his bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling where his childhood stars still glowed faintly, and tried to make sense of the wreckage of the day.

His phone buzzed with a text from his father: Did you look at those internship applications? The deadline for the Goldman Sachs position is Friday.

Evan stared at the message until the words blurred, until they became symbols without meaning. Then he turned his phone face down and closed his eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come.

Instead, his mind kept circling back to the same set of images: Barty’s face in the parking lot, raw with two years of suppressed hurt. Regulus’ careful kindness, the way he’d tried to defend Evan even knowing what it might cost him. James’ smile on the beach, warm and hopeful and completely unaware of how thoroughly Evan had already begun to disappoint everyone around him.

And underneath it all, the weight of his father’s voice in his ear, the systematic dismantling of every choice that had ever made Evan feel like himself.

He thought about the internship applications waiting in his inbox, about the path his father had mapped out for him: corporate communications, networking events, the slow strangulation of every dream he’d ever dared to voice. He thought about film school, about the professors who’d believed in his work, about the stories he’d wanted to tell before the weight of expectations made even holding a camera feel like an act of rebellion.

He thought about summer nights when he was seventeen, sitting on the beach with salt air in his lungs and Barty’s laughter in his ear, when the future felt like a thing to be excited about instead of endured. When wanting something felt like a gift instead of a weakness.

Now wanting felt like drowning. Every desire, every hope, every small rebellion against his father’s vision for his life—all of it felt like evidence of his own fundamental inadequacy. He wanted to make films, but his grades said he wasn’t good enough. He wanted to belong somewhere, but he’d burned every bridge that might have led him home. He wanted to be the kind of person worth staying for, but the evidence suggested otherwise.

The worst part was the recognition, sharp as a knife between his ribs: he’d become exactly what Barty had accused him of being. Someone who ran when things got complicated. Someone who chose the safe path even when it felt like dying. Someone who left like the people he cared about weren’t worth the risk of staying.

He rolled over, pressed his face into his pillow, and let himself feel the full weight of what he'd lost. Not just Barty—though that hurt in ways he couldn’t name—but the version of himself that had believed he could want things without apologizing for it. The version that had looked at a camera and seen possibility instead of another way to disappoint the people who mattered most.

Outside his window, the ocean continued its endless conversation with the shore, indifferent to human heartbreak, indifferent to the small tragedies of summer boys who’d loved each other badly and left each other worse. The sound should have been comforting, but instead it felt like a reminder of how vast the world was, how small his problems were in the grand scheme of things.

How small he was.

Dawn was breaking when Evan finally fell asleep, and when he woke hours later, his phone showed nine missed calls from his father and a text from Pandora asking if he was okay. He wasn’t, but that seemed like the kind of truth that would only create more problems.

So he got up, showered, and started crafting an email to the Goldman Sachs recruiter, because that was what good sons did. That was how you survived when wanting things was a luxury you couldn’t afford.

Even if survival felt suspiciously like the slowest possible way to die.

Chapter Text

The world is black.

Then a blur.

Evan blinks.

Sunrays seep from the dancing curtains, lighting up the room, blanketing it in the kind of gold that signals a new beginning. With how high his windows are installed, the sunlight reaches up towards his stack of unread books on his study table, together with his cameras, lined and untouched, as the rays stretched on the wall filled with polaroids from his teenage years. 

If he would just drag his eyes a little bit on the left of the window, he’d notice the peeling of the paint he picked when he was three; white. Clean, basic, stained with memories, and as it is, peeling off. Just small enough not to be noticed right away—but is there, waiting. 

He could hear the waves. He could smell the air.

He could feel the summer.

Evan stares upward, wondering when he last woke without the weight of it feeling like a chore.

The stars above his ceiling blink back at him, their  glow diminished from the absence of darkness. He thinks, as cringe as it is: to shine is to know where you belong, and if it’s in the darkest part of the world, then why won’t you stay?

If he had the energy to laugh, he would. He could really be hypocritical. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed about him, apparently. 

Instead, he shakes his head slightly, reaching to pull his childhood blanket (Spider-Man, because he was just a boy addicted to superheroes,) covering himself head to toe despite the heat. Instantly, the brightness of the day vanished, replaced with the kind of soft black that could make himself believe it’s fine to still sleep and block the world out. He  closes his eyes. 

Pretend.

His phone lies there, on his bedside table. He doesn’t know how many notifications he’s  successfully ignored since last night, but he does know it’s just a matter of time until his mother, or worse, Pandora, barges  into his room to ask .

He counts the second, the minutes that pass, spent in silence.

Is it still morning?

Fuck.

He groans, twisting his head upward until his eyes can  take a peek. The sun is  high up. Distinct chatter can  be heard from outside, probably locals or tourists strolling on the street, enjoying the sun. He feels his stomach drop at the sight of his phone from his peripheral, but he knows he can’t outrun everyone, can he? He’s only prolonging the inevitable.

Besides, he needs to update his father. 

He reaches out. The time from his screen glares at him. 10:53 AM. Below it, there are several text messages, emails, and missed calls, all dated yesterday night.

Pandora: I’ll be sleeping @ Dorcas’ later, but meet you up at 1 tomorrow?

Kingsley, from Film : bro when will you get back? 

Emmeline, from Film : enjoy your summer dickhead, i just sent our project in your email. happy editing LOL

Unknown Number: You said you’d come. Or did I not see you at the party?

Father: They told me you signed up. Good.

He sighs.

Yeah, that.

That, and that, and that.

Fuck.

His summer analyst internship in the finance department of Goldman Sachs is confirmed, according to the email from his notification, and his father’s one of his rare specialties: “ Good .” He probably got in that quick because of his surname, or whatever. The good thing is that Solana Bay is only a twenty–minute drive from the internship site, so he could still go home every night, but, it might as well be a different world with how much he dreads it. And he starts next week. Immediately. 

Yeah, fuck .

He sits up, rubbing his eyes. Monday looms, yes, but today is Thursday, and in a short amount of time—which is only the moment he saw his father’s text—he has decided he isn’t ready to think about schedules, commutes, or his father’s approving silence. Not yet.

God, not yet .

He takes a long look towards the wall where his childhood and teenage memories are plastered like a statement of permanence. He stares. Stares and stares and feels his stomach drop with how much he couldn’t hold .

That smiling kid so cool with anything he once has been… is reduced to this .

Well, for the most part, who even is he?

He looks , one last time, at the teenager he once was staring at his friend—a boy —with so much adoration in his eyes as they took that picture in the cave where they sought privacy. Or refuge, more like. 

He looks at the silver chain he wore, knowing what the pendant is even with it not being included in the frame. 

A fucking cross. 

Funny. He stopped believing in whoever He is ages ago, and still, he feels like his flesh is already rotting in hell while still being in his skin.

So maybe he’s asking the wrong question, no? It’s not about who he is. It’s always, always about what he was made to be.

Fuck his upbringing for making him turn out like this . Whatever this is. Fuck this, and fuck that, and fuck everyone. Maybe except his sister, but the point still counts. 

Fuck his father. Fuck everyone else. Perhaps, he could excuse his mother, too, if it really gets to a point of blaming, although he knows she isn’t the perfect mother he really hoped her to be when they were processing the divorce.

Whatever, really. 

What else could he do now? Mourn ? 

So, with a mind full of spite, he stands up, packs a bag, showers, presses a kiss on his mother’s cheek, avoiding her worried gaze with precision, and then he’s off, welcoming the breeze as he opens the door.

Despite the heat, he starts walking, letting the sunscreen he applied earlier do its job. He wanders mindlessly, capturing the scenery with his camera. The people, the seagulls, the palm trees, the blue sky, the sun, the sparkling water. Everything summer is made of. Or what he thinks summer is made of. 

Because two years ago, summer was always about freedom. Not in a sense that he could do whatever he wants, but the feeling of being scared to do something and still doing it anyway with a grin on his face. Recklessness: he couldn’t capture that with a camera. No matter how much he tried. Even with a muse.

Once he’d reached the seashore and observed how perfect the waves were, he decided to go first to the cave. The one he discovered with Barty, back when they were just teens wanting to have a bit of privacy because the thought of two boys being intimate publicly has made Evan tremble like he has just committed murder even though he knows he did nothing wrong. He sucks in a breath as he goes inside, all corners painted with memories that don’t really matter now. He locates his blue fish quickly—the one with the faded stickers from surf shops he can barely remember visiting, its edges dinged from too many close encounters with rocks and pier posts. Something twists in his chest at the sight of it. It looks so used. It looks so loved . And it’s been leaning against the same corner for years now, but without any signs of collected dust, proving Barty’s comment of taking care of it from their last conversation at the beach.

He blinks at the memory, and then he turns on his heel, dashing  away outside before shit could happen.

Not today.

He tracks a spot on the beach with fewer people, around the edge of a cliff. It’s far enough that it would be hard to spot him. From there, he could scratch the idea that someone he knows might see him and approach. 

Not today. 

He turns his head around the area, half-expecting someone to be there, but so far, there are no signs of anyone familiar. That’s a clear sign. 

The sea is restless. There’s foam scattering across the shore like torn lace, the air sticky with salt. The gulls wheel overhead, their cries thin against the heavy crash of waves. He stands at the edge of the water, surfboard tucked under his arm, feeling the push and pull of the tide at his ankles.

Evan sucks in a breath, staring ahead. There are a lot of people on the beach today, that is nothing new, but for once, there’s no one hovering. No one to perform for. No lingering stares of doubt. Just Evan, the sky, and the wide-open mouth of the ocean.

Still, the weight of his phone burns in his bag on the sand—unread texts waiting. The pull of the world refuses to fully release him.

He hesitates.

You said you’d come.

Yeah, well, fuck.

He dips his feet in. The water is perfect—cold enough to shock his system into wakefulness but warm enough that he doesn’t immediately want to escape back to dry land. He walks into the deeper part, swimming  first to get used to the water. 

He swims out past the break, letting the rhythm of the waves wash away the residual tension from yesterday’s disaster with Barty, from his father’s phone call, from the internship and all other things he really should forget about in the meantime.

He’s here to forget, but also, somehow , to remember. The waves crash against his face but all he can  think about is what he’s forgotten about summer, about home : the way the ocean can  make you feel simultaneously infinite and microscopic, the way salt water  strips away pretense until you are  nothing but skin and breath and the animal awareness of being alive in a world that is  larger and more beautiful than your problems.

After a while, he resurfaces, shaking his head to whisk away the water stubbornly pressed in his strands. He sits up in the sand, feet still on the water, until a shadow appears beside him. 

He looks up to find a group of guys about his age standing there, one of them holding a surfboard and grinning with the kind of confidence that came from spending entire summers in the water.

“You surf?” the one with the board asks, looking directly at Evan.

Evan thinks: he doesn’t know any of these people. Surely, there’s no harm in spending time with them. What do they know? His surname? His divorced parents? His fallout with Barty? They’re tourists—as far as he knows—with nothing against Evan.

“Used to,” he replies, a bit embarrassed. Shy . “It’s been a while.”

The guy grins, flashing his perfect white teeth that Evan can’t help but notice. “Waves are perfect today. You should get back out there.”

“I’d probably look like a fool.” He politely declines.

“Nah,” says the guy. “I’ll back you up.”

Sure, the guy is hot. Tanned and toned. But don’t get Evan wrong. There is  something appealing about the idea of surfing—the physical challenge, the complete focus required to stay upright on a piece of fiberglass in constantly moving water. The way surfing demands you to be present in your body instead of trapped in your head.

Needless to say, the perfect way to pass the time.

“Let me get my board, then,” he gestures towards the direction of his bag, where his surfboard lays.

“Sure,” the guy grins, brushing his dark hair with his hands. “Name’s Tyler, by the way. These are my friends from UCSC. Liam, Denver, and Francis. We drove down for the holiday weekend.”

University of California Santa Cruz. Evan had almost applied there, back when the future felt like a thing full of possibilities instead of predetermined disappointments. The film program there was supposed to be incredible, less theoretical than what he was studying now, more hands-on and practical and real.

“Evan,” he said, accepting the offered hand, nodding at the other three present guys who were smiling back at him. “And yeah, okay. Let’s do it.”

The surfboard felt familiar under his arm as he carried it to the water, muscle memory kicking in despite two years away from the waves. But familiarity doesn’t really cover unpredictability. Predictably , Evan’s first few attempts were disasters, wipeouts that left him tumbling through the whitewash with sand in places sand had no business being. 

With red cheeks and trembling lips, he persevered. He tried and tried until gradually, incrementally, something clicked. His body remembered how to read the water, how to paddle into position, how to pop up and find his balance before the wave moved on without him. Tyler turned out to be the kind of person who took teaching seriously, offering tips and encouragement without being condescending about it, and his friends were equally welcoming in the way that surfers often are—united by their shared understanding that the ocean was bigger than all of them and deserved respect accordingly.

The fifth wave was perfect—not too big, not too small, just clean and glassy and patient enough to let him find his rhythm. He rode it almost all the way to shore, screaming and laughing with the kind of pure joy he hadn’t felt in months, maybe years . When he finally kicked out and paddled back to the lineup, Tyler is  grinning like a proud parent.

“There it is,” Tyler said. “I knew it was in there somewhere.”

Evan just grins.

They surf for hours, until his arms feel like jelly and his face hurts from smiling. This was what he’d been missing, what university had somehow trained out of him: the ability to be present in moments that didn’t serve any larger purpose, that weren’t building toward anything except the simple joy of existing in time and space with other people who were doing the same thing. 

By the time they made it back to shore, the sun was starting to sink toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink that no camera could properly capture, though, of course he tried.

“You should come up to Santa Cruz sometime,” Tyler said as they carried the boards back up the beach, grinning at Evan. “Check out the breaks up there. The water’s colder but the waves are incredible.”

“Maybe I will,” Evan says, and is surprised to find he means it. The internship’s location is near. He knows. He’d looked it up.

“Got something to do later?” Tyler asks, sheepish, his hands scratching the back of his neck. Evan squints when the others clear their throat. 

Oh.

He’s not dense. He understands the implication of what is happening. 

Just as he was about to politely excuse himself, someone dangles their hands on his neck, choking him playfully. He coughs a bit, rolling his eyes when he sees Sirius, and then he sucks in a breath when he notices a silhouette from behind. 

James?

“Fuck off,” he nudges with his elbow, “Let go, Sirius.”

Sirius just laughs and removes his hands from Evan’s neck, which finally allows him to look sideways. He releases a breath of relief when he sees Remus, the bass player of their band. And which, according to his mother, is Sirius’ boyfriend. He nods at him, and Remus nods back, acknowledging each other.

“I’m Sirius, I don’t think we’ve met? Are you tourists?” He hears Sirius ask, and he looks back at the group of Tyler suddenly standing stiff. Uncomfortable. 

“Tyler, mate. These are my friends. And yeah, we’re not from here.”

“Cool, cool,” Sirius nods, but Evan can see him cataloging everything, the way he also does—Tyler’s lingering looks at Evan, the way Tyler’s positioned himself slightly closer than his friends. “Where are you from, then?”

“UCSC.” 

“Nice,” Sirius nods, as if that was the most interesting information he has ever heard. “Good waves up there?”

“Yeah, incredible breaks,” Tyler says, but his eyes drift back to Evan. “Actually, Evan, if you ever want to check it out... I mean, I could show you around. The campus is pretty amazing too.”

There’s something hopeful in Tyler’s voice that makes Evan’s stomach twist uncomfortably. The worst part is that he can feel Sirius practically vibrating with amusement beside him.

“Maybe,” Evan says noncommittally, stepping back slightly to reach for his bag. A while ago he thought he could, and would go, be with friends and share laughter together. That is, until Tyler’s intentions became apparent. 

“No pressure. Just, you know, if you’re ever up that way.” Tyler replies. “Do you wanna exchange numbers?”

“How sweet,” Sirius murmurs, just loud enough for Evan to hear.

Evan didn’t sign up for another responsibility. But it would be rude to outright refuse the guy, after their time earlier.. So he just nods his head and accepts the phone, typing his number.

“We’ve been looking for you, you know?” Sirius says, inquisitive and reprimanding, hands in his pockets. “Even your sister couldn’t reach you out.”

“Yeah, well,” Evan trails off, not really wanting to expand. “I’ve been busy.”

“Busy,” Sirius repeats, grinning now like a cat who caught the canary. “Right. Busy avoiding lighthouse parties where certain people might be looking for you?”

Evan’s face goes hot as he returns the phone, eyes hardening. “Shut up, Sirius.”

“I’m just saying,” Sirius continues, clearly enjoying himself, “James was pretty disappointed when you didn’t show. Kept asking if anyone had seen you. Very concerned about your whereabouts. Just wondering, Ev. No other reason. Why is that?”

Tyler glances between them, picking up on the undercurrent but not understanding it. He takes a small step closer to Evan. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Evan says quickly, shooting Sirius a warning look. “Sirius just likes to—”

“Be a good friend,” Sirius finishes innocently, blinking his eyes for more effect. “Make sure people don’t miss out on... important social opportunities.”

Remus finally intervenes, bless him , stepping forward. “Sirius.”

Sirius grins. “What? I’m being helpful.”

Evan rolls his eyes, grabbing his bag from the sand. “Yeah, right. I gotta go. Return my board.”

“I’ll come with you?” Tyler asks.

“No, thank you.” Evan replies respectfully, smiling a bit.

“Leaving us again, Rosier?” Sirius teases, his eyebrows rising repeatedly to mock him.

“Fuck off, Black,” Evan groans, raising a middle finger towards Sirius. “I think I like your brother more.”

Sirius gasps, that dramatic little asshole, “Take that back!”

Evan just rolls his eyes, walking away backwards, offering a salute to Tyler and his group of friends. He had fun. Kind of. But it’s time to go home. He’d committed enough offenses to his sister by not showing up. So he walks, navigating the path he had been taking since he was a kid.

The house smells like lavender when Evan pushes through the front door, his surfboard still tucked under his arm, salt water dripping from his hair onto the hardwood floors his mother spent years refinishing after the divorce. The scent hits him immediately—the candle she always lights when she’s stressed, the one that’s supposed to be calming but only ever reminds him of arguments and lawyers and the way their family fractured into neat, legal pieces.

She's in the kitchen. Of course she is. Standing at the island with her back to him, shoulders rigid in that particular way that means she’s been waiting, thinking, preparing for a conversation he doesn’t want to have. Her coffee mug sits abandoned beside her, probably cold by now, and there's a stack of mail she's been pretending to sort through for the past hour.

Shit.

“Hey,” he says, tentative. He leans his surfboard against the wall, hyperaware of the water still pooling at his feet.

She doesn’t turn around immediately. A bad sign. Evan can  practically hear the warning buzz in the air. 

If she was okay, he’d probably be embraced  tight right now, without any care for his breathing.

But she just stands there, one hand pressed flat against the marble countertop, the other fidgeting with her wedding ring—the one she still wears even though the marriage it represents has been legally dead for two years.

“Your father called,” she says finally, her voice carefully modulated in that way she’s perfected since the divorce. Neutral. Professional. The voice she uses with his teachers, with the lawyers, with anyone she needs to keep at arm’s length.

Evan’s stomach drops. Plummented down the drain. Fuck, fuck, fuck . 

“Mum—”

“Goldman Sachs.” She turns around now, and her eyes are bright with unshed tears, which somehow makes it worse than if she were just angry. “An internship. Starting Monday.”

He sets his bag down slowly, buying time he doesn’t have. “I was going to tell you.”

Liar.

His plan was to pretend to be on the beach for those eight hours a day just for his mother not to worry. But of course it won’t really be that easy. That’s far-fetched. Considering who his father is.

“When? After you’d already started? After you’d already committed our entire summer to your father’s agenda?” Her voice cracks on the last word, and she presses her lips together, trying to pull herself back together.

“It’s not his agenda. It’s mine.”

The lie tastes bitter in his mouth, but what else can he say? That he signed up because his father’s disappointment is louder than his own dreams? That he’s tired of being the son who doesn’t measure up, who studies film instead of business, who spends his time taking pictures instead of building a resume?

Fucking hell.

Wait, did his father touch Pandora’s summer plans, too? He dearly hopes not. Rather be him than his sister. Where is she, anyway?

And he really, really doesn’t want the day to end like this. 

“Mum, I’m tired. Can we have this conversation later?”

His mother laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “I didn’t raise you to run away when things get hard, Evan.”

Evan shakes his head, averting his eyes. “I wanted it, Mum. It’s not just dad’s idea.”

“Really?” Francesca scoffs. “Evan, honey, when have you ever wanted anything to do with finance?”

“Things change,” Evan says, but even he can hear how hollow it sounds.

“Things change, or fathers manipulate?” She moves closer, and he can see the exhaustion in her face, the way this conversation has been wearing on her since the moment his father’s call came through. “Evan, please. Talk to me. Really talk to me. I’m your mother. I’ll understand.”

He looks away, focusing on the window that faces the ocean. He can see the waves from here, white-capped and endless, and part of him wants to turn around and walk right back out, grab his board, and disappear into the water until this conversation becomes someone else’ problem.

“You won’t,” he says. 

“Then help me understand.”

The desperation in her voice makes him look back at her, and for a moment she doesn’t look like his mother—the woman who held their family together through his father’s long absences, who fought for custody, who raised them with love and laughter and connection and availability. She just looks like someone who’s tired of losing pieces of her children to a man who was never fully present even when they were married.

“He said I was wasting my potential.” The words come out flat, matter-of-fact. “Said film school was a hobby, not a career. Said if I was serious about my future, I’d take advantage of the opportunities his name could provide. And he’s right, Mum.”

“And you believed him?”

“I don't know what I believe anymore.” He runs his hands through his still-damp hair, frustrated with himself, with her, with the whole fucking situation. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe he just cares. Maybe I am just... coasting. Taking the easy path because I’m scared of real responsibility.”

His mother steps closer, close enough that he can smell her perfume,  lavender—the same scent she’s worn since he was little, back when his parents still shared a bedroom and Sunday mornings meant pancakes and family beach trips and his father’s daily mathematics pop quiz and the illusion that they were unbreakable.

“Evan, look at me.”

He doesn’t want to, but he does. Her eyes are blue like his, and they’re filled with the kind of fierce love that makes him want to curl up and disappear at the same time.

“Your father has many strengths,” she says carefully, “but understanding what makes you happy isn’t one of them. He sees the world in terms of numbers and achievements and things that look good on paper. But that’s not who you are.”

“Maybe it should be.” He replies, without thinking. An afterthought. 

“Says who?” Her voice is sharper now, more like the woman who went toe-to-toe with expensive lawyers and won. “Evan, you’ve been taking pictures since you were eight years old. You see the world in a way that most people can’t. You find beauty in places other people don’t think to look. That’s not a hobby. That’s not wasting potential. That’ s a gift.”

The surfboard is still leaning against the wall where he left it, and he can see his reflection in the window—sun-bleached hair, salt-stained shirt, the slight sunburn across his nose that he’ll have tomorrow. He looks like someone who spent the day doing something they loved, something that made them feel alive. He looks like himself.

But Monday is coming anyway.

“The internship is already confirmed,” he says quietly. “I signed the papers. I can’t just... back out. Father would be so mad.”

“You can do anything you want. You’re twenty years old, Evan. Your life is not a contract your father signed on your behalf.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?”

Because his father’s approval feels like oxygen sometimes, even when he hates himself for needing it. Because disappointing people is exhausting, and it’s easier to just do what’s expected than to fight for something that might not work out anyway. Because he’s scared that maybe his father is right, maybe he isn’t talented enough or driven enough to make it in a field where success isn’t guaranteed and connections only get you so far.

But he can’t say any of that. Not to her. Not when she’s looking at him like he's still the little boy who used to bring her flowers from the garden and beg her to let him stay up late to watch movies.

“I made a commitment,” he says instead. “I have to follow through.”

She stares at him for a long moment, and he can see the exact moment she realizes that this conversation isn’t going the way she hoped. Her shoulders sag slightly, and she looks older than her forty-three years.

“This was supposed to be our summer,” she says quietly. “The first real summer we’ve had since we separated. I thought... I thought we could spend time together. Go to the farmers market on Saturday mornings. Have dinner on the deck. Watch terrible movies and argue about the cinematography.”

The image she’s painting is so appealing it physically hurts. Lazy mornings, no schedule to keep, no expectations to meet. Just the three of them—him and his mom and Pandora—figuring out how to be a family in this new configuration.

“We can still do that,” he says, but they both know it’s not true. Goldman Sachs doesn’t believe in work-life balance, especially not for interns trying to prove themselves worthy of their nepotistic advantages.

“When? You’ll be gone ten hours a day, minimum. You’ll come home exhausted and stressed and probably resentful, and I’ll be here wondering when I lost my son to his father’s version of success.”

The tears she’s been holding back finally spill over, and she wipes them away quickly, angrily, like they’re a betrayal of her own composure.

“Mom—”

“I know it’s not fair of me,” she continues, her voice thick. “I know you’re not responsible for my happiness. But Evan, honey, I’m scared. I’m scared that you’re going to disappear into that world the same way your father did. I’m scared that you’re going to wake up in ten years and realize you’ve been living someone else’ life.”

Her words hit too close to home, striking all the fears he’s been trying not to acknowledge. The image of himself in a suit, sitting in meetings about things he doesn’t care about, climbing a ladder he never wanted to be on—

It makes his skin crawl.

God. What has he gotten himself into?

“I don’t know how to say no to him,” he admits finally, the words coming out in a rush. “I don’t know how to be the son who disappoints him again. I’m already enough of a failure.”

“Failure?” She looks genuinely shocked. “Evan, you’re in college. You’re talented and kind and passionate. You have friends who care about you. You’re figuring out who you want to be, which is exactly what twenty-year-olds are supposed to do. How is any of that failure?”

“Because I’m not him. I’m not the son he wanted.”

“Oh, thank god for that.”

The vehemence in her voice surprises them both. She looks away, toward the ocean, and when she looks back her expression has shifted into something harder, more resolute.

“Your father is brilliant,” she says. “He’s successful and driven and he’s built an empire that will probably outlast all of us. But he’s also the loneliest person I’ve ever known. He missed your first steps because of a conference call. He missed Pandora’s school play because of a meeting. He missed most of your childhood because there was always something more important demanding his attention.”

She steps closer again, reaching out to touch his face the way she used to when he was little and needed comfort.

“I don’t want that for you, baby. I don’t want you to wake up at fifty and realize you spent your whole life chasing someone else’ definition of success while your own dreams gathered dust.”

The touch of her hand against his cheek nearly breaks him. He choked on a sob, unwillingly.

When was the last time someone touched him with such uncomplicated love? Love as it is, without conditions? And when was the last time he let himself need it?

“I’m scared too,” he whispers. “I’m scared that if I don’t take the internship, I’m just being a coward. I’m scared that film school is just an excuse to avoid growing up. Mum, I’m scared that I don’t actually know what I want.”

“Being scared doesn’t make you a coward. It makes you human.”

They stand there for a moment in the kitchen that smells like lavender and coffee and the salt air drifting through the open windows. Outside, he can hear the waves, constant and patient, the same sound that’s been the soundtrack to his entire life. 

“What would you do?” he asks, thoughtful. “If you were me?”

She smiles sadly. “I can’t make that decision for you, honey. That’s the whole point. It has to be yours.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“I know.” She drops her hand from his face but stays close. “But I will say this—I’ve never seen you as happy as you were today when you came home. Salt in your hair, exhausted from surfing, clearly socialized. That’s who you are when you’re not trying to be anyone else.”

The front door slams, making them both jump. Heavy footsteps echo through the hallway, followed by Pandora’s voice: “I’m home! And I brought sustenance!”

Evan and his mother look at each other, both recognizing the interruption for what it is—a temporary reprieve from a conversation that doesn’t have easy answers.

Pandora appears in the kitchen doorway carrying plastic bags from the local market, her blonde hair pulled back in a messy bun, wearing a sundress that's seen better days and flip-flops that are practically falling apart. She takes one look at their faces and stops short.

“Oh,” she says. “Are we having a moment? Should I come back later?”

“No, sweetheart,” their mother says, wiping her eyes one more time. “Perfect timing, actually. What did you bring us?”

Pandora sets the bags on the counter, her eyes moving between Evan and their mother with the kind of perceptive awareness that makes her dangerous at family poker games.

“Apples,” she says slowly. “And that sourdough bread you like. Some of that fancy cheese that costs more than my entire wardrobe, but worry not because Dorcas bought it for us,” She pauses, still studying their faces. “Also, I may have accidentally bought enough fresh lemonade for a small army, but that’s neither here nor there.”

Despite everything, Evan finds himself almost smiling. This is so typical Pandora—showing up at exactly the right moment with exactly what they need, even if she doesn’t fully understand the situation.

“Lemonade sounds good,” his mother says, and there’s something almost like relief in her voice.

“Lemonade  sounds perfect,” Evan agrees, and means it.

Pandora grins, but there’s still concern in her eyes. “Excellent. But first, someone needs to explain why the kitchen feels like a therapy session and why Evan looks like he’s been dragged through an emotional torture wheel like in the Inquisition from Rennaisance.”

“Pandora,” their mother warns gently, no real hint of anger in her voice.

“What? I’m just saying, the tension in here is thick enough to cut with a knife. Also, Evan, you smell like the ocean, which means you’ve been surfing, which you only do when you're avoiding something important.”

Evan looks at his sister—really looks at her. She’s two minutes younger but sometimes seems decades wiser, with an ability to cut through bullshit that both impresses and terrifies him. If anyone deserves to know what’s happening to their carefully reconstructed family dynamic, it’s her. And he trusts her more than anyone else in this world.

“Dad got me an internship,” he says simply, like it’s no big deal, like it’s not actively ruining his life. “At Goldman Sachs. Starts Monday. I’m so fucking happy you’re unaware, by the way. Means he didn’t plague you.”

Pandora’s expression doesn’t change for a long moment. Then: “Fuck.”

“Pandora,” their mother says automatically, but there’s no real heat in it.

“No, seriously, Mum. Fuck.” Pandora leans against the counter, processing. Then she speaks, face contorting into something as close as disgust at the end of her sentence. “So let me get this straight. We finally get a summer where we can just... be a family. No custody schedules, no awkward handoffs, no pretending everything is fine for the lawyers. Just us, figuring out how to be normal people who happen to live in the same house. And Dad decides to ruin that by turning you into his mini-me ?”

“It’s not that simple,” Evan starts, but Pandora cuts him off.

“Isn’t it, though? Isn’t exactly that simple? Also, why is it only you? He should have called me too.” She turns to their mother. “Did you know about this?”

“I found out when your father called to inform me it was already done.”

Pandora’s jaw tightens. “Of course he did. Because god forbid he actually communicate with his ex-wife about decisions that affect their children.”

The anger in her voice is familiar—it's the same anger Evan feels but has never known how to express. Pandora has always been better at being furious on behalf of the people she loves.

“I should have told you both sooner,” Evan says, voice low. “I just... I didn't know how.”

Pandora looks at him for a long moment, and he can see her calculating, weighing her words the way she does when she’s trying to figure out how to fix something that feels broken.

“Are you excited about it?” she asks finally.

“What?”

“The internship. Are you excited? Does the idea of spending your summer in corporate America make you want to jump out of bed in the morning and seize the day?”

He wants to lie, wants to find some way to make this easier for everyone, but something in her expression stops him.

“No,” he admits quietly. “It makes me want to hide under my blanket and pretend the world doesn’t exist.”

Pandora nods like this confirms something she already knew. Then she walks over to him and wraps her arms around his waist, pulling him into the kind of fierce hug she’s been giving him since they were kids.

“Then don’t do it,” she says simply, her voice muffled against his chest.

“Pandora—”

"No, I’m really serious.” She pulls back to look at him, her hands still on his arms. “Evan, we’re twenty. You’re twenty. You’re supposed to be making mistakes and figuring out what you want and probably doing some mildly stupid things that you’ll laugh about later. You’re not supposed to be locked into a life plan that makes you miserable.”

“It’s not that simple,” he says again, but the words feel weaker now, lacking conviction.

“Why not?”

It’s the same question his mother asked, but coming from Pandora it feels different. More challenging. Like she genuinely can’t understand why anyone would choose misery over uncertainty.

“Because Dad—”

“Is not here,” she finishes firmly. “He’s not the one who has to live with the consequences of this decision. You are. We are. This family that we’re trying to build—that’s going to suffer if you spend the summer stressed and exhausted and resentful.”

“It’s just nine weeks,” he argues. Weakly. Because nine weeks sounds exhausting. Nine weeks sounds like a journey to hell.

She turns to their mother. “Mum, back me up here. Tell him he’s being an idiot.”

Their mother smiles despite herself. “I can’t tell him he’s being an idiot. I can only tell him that whatever he decides, we’ll support him.”

“Even if it means disappointing Father?” Evan asks, tentatively.

“Especially if it means disappointing your father,” she says without hesitation. “Evan, your father and I may not have worked out as a couple, but that was never about you or Pandora. You don’t owe him your dreams as payment for his support.”

Pandora nods emphatically. “Besides, Dad’s going to be disappointed no matter what you do. No matter how well we do in college. That’s just who he is. He’s never satisfied, never proud, always looking for the next thing you could be doing better. So why kill yourself trying to please someone who’s fundamentally unpleasable?”

The truth of this hits Evan like a physical blow. How many times has he achieved something—good grades, an award, recognition for his photography—only to have his father immediately shift the focus to what comes next, what he should be aiming for instead?

“I already signed the papers,” he says.

“Papers can be unsigned,” Pandora says matter-of-factly. “Commitments can be uncommitted. It’s called changing your mind, and it’s a fundamental human right.”

“It’s not that easy—”

“It literally is, though.” She moves to the bags she brought, pulling out the lemonade with the efficiency of someone who’s clearly thought this through. “You call them tomorrow. You say, Thank you so much for this opportunity, but upon reflection, I’ve decided to pursue other options this summer,   Done. Finished. Problem solved.”

“And then what? I just... don’t have a plan? What if father calls?”

“Then you have a summer,” their mother says softly. “You have time to think and breathe and figure out what you actually want instead of what other people think you should want.”

Pandora is already opening the lemonades, because of course she is. “Plus, you’d be here. With us. Dad’s calls mean nothing here. Don’t answer. We could actually do all those things Mum was talking about—farmers market, terrible movies, family dinners where we argue about everything except anything that actually matters.”

The picture they’re painting is so appealing it makes his chest ache. 

No schedule, no pressure, no performance. Just time to exist without constantly measuring himself against impossible standards.

“What if I’m making a huge mistake?” he asks.

“Then you’ll make it,” Pandora says, handing him a glass of the lemonade. “And then you’ll learn from it and make different mistakes next time. That’s how life works.”

“And we always got you. I always got your back.” His mother added.

“What if dad never forgives me?”

His mother and Pandora exchange a look that’s full of things Evan doesn’t quite understand yet.

“Baby,” his mother says gently, “your father’s forgiveness isn’t something you can earn by sacrificing your happiness. If it was, I’d still be married to him.”

The lemonade is good—just the right amount of sweet and sour. Evan takes another sip, letting it warm his chest, and for the first time in weeks, the knot of anxiety in his stomach starts to loosen slightly.

“So,” Pandora says, settling onto one of the bar stools with her own glass, “tell us about the surfing. And don’t think I didn’t notice you came home looking like you actually enjoyed yourself for once. Saw your surfboard before I saw you, even.”

Despite everything, Evan finds himself smiling. “There were these guys from UCSC…”

And as he tells them about Tyler and the perfect waves and the way it felt to remember why he used to love being in the water, he realizes that this is what he’s been missing. This feeling of being known, of being accepted exactly as he is, messy and confused and uncertain about everything.Maybe that’s enough for now. Maybe it’s enough to be twenty and scared and surrounded by people who love him regardless of what he achieves or fails to achieve. Maybe it’s enough to just be here, in this kitchen that smells like lavender and possibility, with his mother and his sister and a whole summer stretching ahead of them like an unwritten story.

The internship can wait. Goldman Sachs can wait. His father’expectations can wait.

For now, this is enough.

Evan’s phone buzzes at 11:57 PM.

He’s lying in bed, staring at the ceiling where those glow-in-the-dark stars still cling to the plaster from when he was twelve and believed in making wishes. His conversation with his mother and Pandora replaying in his head like a song stuck on repeat. 

The phone buzzes again.

He reaches for it reluctantly, expecting a message from Tyler or maybe Pandora sending him some ridiculous meme she found on Instagram. Instead, his heart does something complicated when he sees an unknown number on the screen.

Unknown Number : you up?

James.

He knows it is him. Even with his number unsaved, he knows. And he will never admit this to anyone, but he’d stared at that same number for hours to the point of memorizing it when he was 14, crushing over a stupid, silly guy who lives next door.

And also, it’s the same number who texted you said you’d come like an accusation. It has to be him.

Evan stares at the message for a full minute, his thumb hovering over the keyboard, mind whirring, asking dumb questions. 

Why did James  text him? Why at midnight? What does he want?

Yes. Why?

The response comes immediately, like James was waiting for him to reply.

sirius said you were at the beach instead

surfing with some college guys

Of course Sirius told him. Sirius tells James everything, has done since they were kids, and Evan should have expected this. Should have prepared for the inevitable moment when James would reach out, casual and friendly like he hadn’t just ditched the party James invited him to.

needed to clear my head

how was the lighthouse?

boring without you there to complain about the music

Evan finds himself almost smiling despite the knot in his chest. This is so typical James—deflecting with humor, making everything seem lighter than it is. It’s one of the things Evan has always loved and hated about him in equal measure.

And maybe it’s time he acknowledges who James really is to him. Maybe it’s high time he let his walls drop and admit that James was never just a gay awakening. 

Being neighbors, around two houses away to his left, they saw each other grow up. James saw Evan’s mishaps: him falling on a bike, him soaked by the rain, him sunburnt, him crying over his father leaving, him wrecked over the divorce.

Evan saw James’ life, too, in his own lens. He saw him scrape his knee when he ran around, saw Sirius moving in, saw James in a prom suit, saw him crash Sirius’ motorcycle on a tree, saw him take a girlfriend  home.

At 14, he harbored a crush towards the guy who waves at everyone, who is always being flocked by birds and ducks and cats and dogs alike. Had a crush on the most likeable guy in town. And worst of all, he had a crush on a friend, a friend he exchanged music, film and book recommendations with, a friend who was straight as fuck, with no tendency to lean sideways.

So at 16, he’d let his feelings go. Especially when the word spread around the town. James and Lily are dating! I need to be at their wedding! Euphemia and Erlinda must be so happy their children are dating!

At 18, he committed the same mistake of falling for a friend. Only this time, it was reciprocated. Only this time, he was the one who broke a heart.

im sure you managed to find someone else to annoy

tried

but lily just laughs at my jokes instead of rolling her eyes

its not the same

The mention of Lily makes Evan’s stomach twist. Lily Evans, with her red hair and her laugh that makes everyone in the room turn to look at her. Lily, who James has been in love with since they were fifteen, who finally started dating him at sixteen, who is everything Evan will never be—bright and uncomplicated and exactly the kind of person who makes sense in James's life.

poor you

i know right

speaking of lily

she asked about you

what about me

wanted to know if you were okay 

said she knew you were back from marlene and yet you still hasn’t shown your face to the only party ever

i told her you were probably just stressed about school

Evan closes his eyes. Of course Lily noticed. Of course she was concerned. She’s the kind of person who pays attention to other people’s moods, who remembers birthdays and asks follow-up questions and probably has never intentionally hurt anyone in her entire life.

im fine

are you though

The question sits on his screen, simple and direct, and Evan doesn’t know how to answer it. Is he fine? He’s twenty and confused and still figuring out who he wants to be. He’s avoiding his father’s calls and second-guessing every decision he’s ever made. He spent the afternoon surfing with a guy who clearly wanted something more from him while trying not to think about the person he actually wants but can’t have.

So no, probably not fine. But how do you explain that to someone over text at midnight? How do you explain that to James Potter, specifically, who represents everything complicated about Evan’s life?

define fine

lol

okay fair point

are you catastrophically fucked up or just regular summer existential crisis fucked up

Despite everything, Evan finds himself laughing out loud in his empty bedroom. This is the James he remembers—the one who could make him laugh even when everything felt impossible.

somewhere in between

leaning toward catastrophic

want to talk about it?

over text?

or we could meet up tomorrow

if you want

no pressure

Evan stares at the message for a long time. Meeting up with James feels dangerous in a way he can’t quite articulate. Not physically dangerous—James is probably the safest person Evan knows, would never hurt him intentionally. But emotionally dangerous, the kind of dangerous that leads to conversations they shouldn’t have and feelings that can’t go anywhere productive.

lily wouldnt mind?

why would lily mind me having breakfast with a friend

Friend. Right. That’s what they are, technically. What they’ve always been, officially. The fact that Evan wants more—has always wanted more—is his problem to manage, not James’.

breakfast sounds good

cool

i’ll bring coffee  

the good stuff from that place you like when we were kids

or have you changed your mind and became a tea promoted individual from college?

you remember my coffee order?

salted caramel extra espresso shot no sweetener  

you’ve only ordered it a thousand times

The fact that James remembers makes something warm and painful bloom in Evan’s chest. It’s such a small thing, but it feels significant in a way he doesn’t want to examine too closely.

what time

8? too early?

perfect

my mom will probably make you eat actual food too

she thinks everyone is too skinny

your mom is a saint

and i am too skinny

you’re really not

The message is sent before he can stop himself, and immediately he wants to take it back. It’s too much, too revealing, crosses the line from friendly observation into something that might be interpreted as flirting.

aw rosier

you think im handsome

i think you have an ego the size of united states of america

true

but you still think im handsome

goodnight james

LOL

goodnight evan  

see you at 8

Evan sets his phone aside and tries to fall asleep, but his mind is racing.

James is coming over. James wants to have breakfast and talk, just the two of them, like old times. Like before everything got complicated and Evan started wanting things he couldn’t have.

He lies awake until almost three, replaying their text conversation and trying to figure out what it means, if it means anything at all.

His alarm goes off at seven, but he’s already awake, staring at his phone and second-guessing everything. Maybe he should cancel. Make up some excuse about feeling sick or having family obligations. It would be easier, safer, less likely to end with him making a fool of himself.

Instead, he drags himself out of bed and into the shower.

By 7:45, he’s sitting on the front porch steps, wearing jeans and a t-shirt he’s changed three times, nursing his first cup of coffee and watching the street for James. His mother poked her head out earlier to ask if he needed anything, took one look at his face, and retreated back inside with a knowing smile that made him want to disappear into the ground.

Pandora, of course, had been less subtle.

“So,” she’d said, appearing in the kitchen while he was making coffee, “who’s the breakfast date?”

“It’s not a date.”

“Right. That’s why you’ve been checking your reflection in every shiny surface for the past twenty minutes.”

“I have not—”

“Mirror in the hallway, coffee pot, your phone screen, the window…” She’d ticked off each item on her fingers, grinning. “Very subtle.”

“Shut up.”

“Just saying, whoever it is must be pretty important for you to be this nervous about breakfast.”

She’s not wrong, which is the most annoying part. Evan can’t remember the last time he cared this much about how he looked for something as casual as breakfast with a friend.

At exactly eight o’clock, James is in the driveway. Evan watches through the window as James gets inside the gate, balancing two coffee cups and what looks like a bag from the bakery downtown. He’s wearing shorts that show off his legs and a faded t-shirt from some band Evan doesn’t recognize, his dark hair messy in a way that probably took him twenty minutes to achieve.

He looks good. He always looks good, which is part of the problem. Even with the motherfucking glasses..

“Morning,” James says, and his smile is so bright and genuine that Evan feels something in his chest loosen slightly. “Coffee delivery as promised.”

He hands over one of the cups, and their fingers brush for just a second. Evan tries not to read anything into it.

“You didn’t have to bring pastries,” Evan says, nodding toward the bag.

“I know. But your mom mentioned last time that she likes those almond croissants from Mrs. Meadowes’ bakery, so…” James shrugs, like it’s no big deal, but Evan knows those croissants cost five dollars each.

“She’s going to love you forever now.”

“That’s the plan.”

“As if she doesn’t already. You probably courted her when her kids were away.”

James laughs, shaking his head. “My lips are sealed.”

The sound of it—James’ laughter had made Evan’s breath hitch. He tried to cover it as fast as he could, of course, by rolling his eyes. “Stay away from my mother.”

“Sure. I’d stay with you if you want,” James says with a grin.

They stand there for a moment, just looking at each other, and Evan wonders if James feels it too—this strange tension, like they’re both waiting for something to happen.

“Should we eat outside?” Evan asks, having nothing to say. “It’s nice this morning.”

“Perfect.”

They settle at the small patio table his mother bought last spring, the one that overlooks the garden she’s been working on since the divorce. James immediately starts asking questions about the selection of flowers, which makes Evan’s chest tight because of course James remembers that his mother loves gardening, remembers all these small details about his family that shouldn’t matter but somehow do.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come to the lighthouse party.” Evan apologizes quietly.

James looks at him with kind eyes, “It’s okay. Doesn’t matter. There is always a next time.”

His mother appears with plates and napkins and an expression of barely contained delight that makes Evan want to hide under the table.

“James, honey, how are you?” she asks, and Evan can hear the genuine affection in her voice. His mother has always loved James, probably more than she’s ever loved any of his other friends. James’ unfair advantage is that he lives next door, so there’s really nothing more to it.

“I’m good, Mrs. Rosier. Thank you for letting me crash breakfast.”

“Please, you know you’re always welcome here even without my kids around. And I told you, you could drop the ‘Mrs. Rosier’ because it makes me feel older than I am!”

James grins. “Yes ma’am.”

“How’s the band?”

“Amazing. Really the best decision of my entire life ever.” James says, beaming. Evan observes the pride hinted in his voice, and that’s the sound of a person content and in love with what he’s doing.

“That’s wonderful to hear, James. You do sound amazing.”

Evan watches this interaction with a mixture of fondness and something that might be jealousy. James fits so easily into his family, and has always been the kind of person parents love immediately. Polite and charming and interested in other people, remembers details and asks follow-up questions and probably has never had an awkward conversation in his entire life.

“Mom,” Evan says when it becomes clear she’s prepared to chat all morning, “weren’t you meeting Mrs. Macdonald for yoga?”

“Oh! Yes, you’re right.” She glances between them with barely concealed interest. “You boys have fun. James, take some of those flowers home for your parents.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind.”

She disappears back into the house, and James turns to Evan with raised eyebrows.

“Subtle.”

“She has no boundaries when it comes to people she likes.”

“I’m flattered to be in that category.”

They eat in comfortable silence for a while, and Evan tries to relax. This is just breakfast. Just two old friends catching up. Nothing complicated or dangerous about it.

“So,” James says eventually, “want to walk down to the beach? Work off these croissants?”

“Sure.”

They walk in silence, but it’s the kind of silence that didn’t really warrant small talk just so it wouldn’t be uncomfortable. The beach is only a five-minute walk from the house, down a narrow path that winds through sea grass and weathered wooden steps. It’s early enough that they mostly have it to themselves—just a few joggers and dog walkers and an elderly man with a metal detector who’s been coming to this stretch of sand for as long as Evan can remember.

They find a spot near the water and sit in the sand, close enough that Evan can smell James’ cologne mixed with salt air and coffee.

“So,” James says, “tell me about the catastrophic summer crisis.”

Evan laughs, surprised by the sudden inquisitive tone. “You don’t waste time, do you?”

“Life’s too short. Besides, you look like you need to talk to someone.”

“What makes you think that?”

James gives him a look. “Evan, I’ve known you since we were kids. You get this specific kind of rigidness when you’re overwhelmed. Like you’re holding yourself together through sheer force of will. It practically exuded from your replies last night.”

The accuracy of this observation is unsettling. Evan draws patterns in the sand with his finger, trying to figure out how to explain the internship situation without sounding like a complete disaster.

“My dad got me an internship,” he says finally. “At Goldman Sachs. It starts this Monday.”

James is quiet for a moment, processing. “And you don’t want it.”

It's a statement not a question, like he already knows the answer.

“I don’t know what I want. That’s the problem.”

“Bullshit.”

Evan looks up, surprised by the firmness in James’ voice.

“You know exactly what you want,” James continues, “You’ve known since we were seventeen and you spent that entire summer making a documentary about the local fishing industry. You want to make films. You want to tell stories. You've always wanted that.”

“Wanting something and being good enough to actually do it are different things.”

“Says who?”

“Says reality. Says my father. Says everyone who’s ever asked what my backup plan is.”

James shifts in the sand so he’s facing Evan more directly. “Your father doesn’t know shit about what makes you happy.”

“He knows about success. About building a career that actually pays the bills.” He finds himself defending, which leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

“There are lots of ways to be successful, Evan. Money isn’t the only metric that matters.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re a trustfund son. And everyone respects your chosen profession.”

“And you think everyone’s going to respect you more if you’re miserable in a suit forty hours a week?”

The question hangs in the air between them, and Evan doesn’t have a good answer. He draws more patterns in the sand, focusing on the repetitive motion instead of the way James is looking at him with those stupidly perceptive eyes.

“Your mom seems upset about it,” James says more gently.

“She is. She wanted us to have this summer together, just the three of us. First real summer since the divorce where we could actually be a family without lawyers and custody schedules.”

“That sounds nice.”

“It does, doesn’t it? But I’ve already signed the papers. Already committed.”

“Papers can be unsigned.”

“That’s what Pandora said.”

“Pandora’s smart. You should listen to her more often.”

Despite everything, Evan smiles. “You sound like her.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. As established, she’s smart.”

They lapse into silence again, watching the waves roll in and out with mechanical precision. A group of seagulls has gathered near the water’s edge, squabbling over something one of them found.

“Can I ask you something?” James says after a while.

“Sure.”

“What happened with Barty?”

Evan’s entire body tenses. He should have expected this question. 

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just wondering. You two were always inseparable. Never saw one without the other. But then you left, and came back, and I got you here alone. It doesn’t make sense. What happened?” James pauses, and Evan could see he’s thinking very deeply, like it’s a fundamental scientific loophole that must be answered. “And I’m sure it’s not Regulus, the boyfriend. You and Barty were always attached to the hip. Most importantly, friends . I don’t know. Saw you once with him, and that’s it?”

Evan considers lying, deflecting, changing the subject. But something about the way James is asking—genuine curiosity, no judgment—makes him want to tell the truth.

“We kind of… broke up,” he says quietly.

James goes very still beside him, but when he asks, there was no surprise in his voice. “When?”

"Two years ago. The day after yesterday. I don’t know, really. Why are you not surprised there was more to it, by the way?”

“You two weren’t really that subtle as you think you were.” James replies, a fond scoff leaving his lips.

Evan considers. “Well. Yeah. That. And somehow I fucked it up by leaving him alone two years ago.”

“But you did love each other?”

“Yeah,” Evan says wistfully, “Maybe. Maybe we did.”

Evan looks back to the whole two months spent with Barty two summers ago. Fleeting kisses, running around the beach barefoot, eating together anywhere, touching and cuddling and kissing in his room, the cave.

“And?”

“And it was a mistake.” Evan admits, and he feels his heart break into pieces as he speaks. “We both knew it immediately. It didn’t mean anything, but it changed everything, you know? Made everything weird between us.”

“Why was it a mistake?”

The question catches Evan off guard. He was expecting judgment, maybe some comment about how he should have known better. How it was his fault. Not this calm, almost clinical curiosity. 

“Because... because we’re friends. Were friends. And now we’re not.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Evan looks at James, trying to figure out what he’s really asking. There’s something in his expression that Evan can’t quite read, something careful and deliberate.

“I don’t understand.”

“Why was being with him a mistake? Was it because you still like him, right now, and you want to take him back? Or because you think you’ve fucked your friendship with him altogether?”

The question hits like a physical blow. Evan feels his cheeks burn, his chest tighten with panic and something that might be bitter.

“I…” He stops, takes a breath, tries again. “It’s complicated.”

“Most things are.”

“James—”

“I’m not judging you, Evan. I'm just trying to understand.”

There’s something in James’ voice that makes Evan look at him more closely. Something patient and careful and maybe a little vulnerable.

“I don’t know how I feel about Barty,” Evan says, voice small, letting the confession hang in the air. “I know I loved him two summers ago. I know I lost him. I know I can’t bring that summer back, among other things.”

James hums, “Do you regret it? Him?”

“God, no,” Evan’s response is immediate, no need to think. “I will never regret him.”

James nods. “Do you think you’ll get another chance? With other people, I mean.” 

Evan laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “You really want to do this? Right now? Here?”

“Only if you want to.”

“I don’t know what I want, remember? That’s my whole problem.”

James reaches over and touches his arm, just briefly. “You’re allowed to not know, Evan. You’re twenty. You’re supposed to be figuring things out.”

“Everyone else seems to have it figured out.”

“Do they? Because from where I’m sitting, most people our age are just really good at pretending they know what they’re doing.”

“You seem to have it figured out. You and Lily.” 

Something flickers across James’ face at the mention of Lily—too quick for Evan to interpret.

“Lily and I are good,” James says carefully. “But that doesn’t mean everything is simple.”

“What do you mean?”

James is quiet for a long moment, staring out at the water. When he speaks again, his voice is softer, more uncertain than Evan is used to hearing from him.

“Can I tell you something? And you promise not to make it weird?”

Evan’s heart starts beating faster. “Okay.”

“Lily and I broke up. Two years  ago, actually.”

“What?” Evan turns to stare at him, shocked. “Why?”

“Because we’re not what people think we are.”

Evan doesn’t understand. Two years ago. Two years ago? 

What the fuck happened that year and why did it all happen while he was away?

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s not... it’s not a bad thing, exactly. We just realized we want different things. We’re both good people, but we’re not necessarily good together.”

Evan doesn’t know what to say to this. James and Lily have been the golden couple since high school—everyone assumed they’d get married, have beautiful babies, live happily ever after in suburban bliss. 

And Evan had accepted that, wholeheartedly. Let his silly feelings go and let James have his happy-ever-after. Because that’s what it was, from the looks of it. The perfect girl for the perfect boy. A match made in the stars. Evan has long accepted that he has no place in that. There’s nothing bad to be said about Lily, in the first place. If James had to be with someone, Lily was the obvious choice.

“Are you okay?” 

James considers this for a moment, staring ahead at the ocean.  “Yeah, I think I am. It’s been so long. Anyway, it’s weird, you know? You think you want something for so long, and then you get it, and you realize maybe it wasn’t actually what you wanted at all.”

“What did you want?”

“I thought I wanted the whole package. The girlfriend, the plan, the future mapped out in neat little boxes. But lately, I’ve been wondering if I was just following the script I thought I was supposed to follow.”

There’s something in the way he says this that makes Evan’s skin prickle with awareness. Something loaded and careful and maybe significant.

“What script?” Evan asks quietly.

James looks at him then, really looks at him, and there’s something in his eyes that Evan has never seen before. Something vulnerable and scared and maybe hopeful.

“The one where I date the pretty girl and make my parents proud and never question whether there might be other things I want.”

The words hang in the air between them, and Evan feels like he's standing on the edge of a cliff, not sure whether he's about to jump or be pushed.

“James—”

But James just looks at him, wide-eyed, the dilation of his pupils refusing to be unseen by his glasses. They’re sitting closer now, close enough that Evan can see the flecks of gold in James’ eyes, can count his eyelashes if he wants to. The air between them feels charged, electric with possibility and terror in equal measure.

Evan’s chest hurts . His heart pounds and pounds and pounds and he feels like he’s about to throw up. Dizzy, and unstable, he averts his gaze, staring at the sky. 

“I don’t know how to do this,” Evan whispers.

I don’t know how to have hope anymore, is what he should have said.

“Do what?”

“Any of it. The internship, my parents, this conversation. I don't know how to want things that scare me.”

“Maybe you start small,” James says softly, like he understands . “Maybe you make one choice that’s yours, not your father’s or anyone else’s. Maybe you see what happens.”

“What if I make the wrong choice?”

“What if you make the right one?”

Evan is about to respond when he sees movement in his peripheral vision. Someone walking along the waterline, still distant but getting closer. He glances over automatically and feels his entire world tilt sideways.

Barty.

Walking alone, hands in his pockets, dark hair catching the morning light. He hasn’t seen them yet, but he will. Any second now, he’ll look up and see Evan and James sitting close together on the beach, seeing everything that’s been building between them for the past hour.

“Shit,” Evan breathes.

“What?” James follows his gaze and goes rigid when he spots Barty. “Fuck.”

They scramble apart, putting distance between themselves like they’ve been caught doing something wrong. Which, Evan supposes, maybe they have been. He doesn’t know what this conversation was leading to, doesn’t know what would have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted, but it felt important.

It felt like the beginning of something.

Barty looks up then, scanning the beach like he’s looking for someone, and his eyes land on them. Even from fifty yards away, Evan can see the moment Barty recognizes them, can see his entire posture change.

Their eyes meet across the sand, and Evan feels like he’s been punched in the chest. There’s something in Barty’s expression—surprise, anger, then indifference—that makes Evan want to run in the opposite direction.

Instead, he stands up, brushing sand off his jeans with hands that aren’t quite steady.

“I should go,” he says to James, who's still sitting in the sand, looking between Evan and Barty like he’s trying to solve a puzzle.

“Evan, wait—”

But Evan is already walking away, moving parallel to the water so he won't have to pass directly by Barty, won’t have to see that look in his eyes up close. He can hear James calling his name, but he doesn't turn around.

He needs to think. He needs to process what just happened with James, what it means, what he wants to do about it. He needs to figure out how to handle seeing Barty and how to navigate the complicated mess of their friendship.

Most of all, he needs to decide whether he’s brave enough to want the things that scare him most.

The beach stretches out ahead of him, empty and endless, and Evan keeps walking.

Chapter Text

The garage hums with noise and heat, and it smells like sweat and electricity combined. The breeze doesn’t help ease away the heat that clings on Evan’s skin, his shirt sticking to his back. The sun set almost an hour ago, the sky turning pink and purple. Fairy lights sag from the beams overhead, courtesy of Pandora, taped up by Dorcas in a burst of spontaneous energy, half of them already flickering like dying stars. The strands cast everything in amber and shadow, turning faces into impressionist paintings, all warm edges and golden blur.

Sirius is shouting the wrong lyrics into a plastic microphone, which is Dorcas’ hair comb, really—something about flying cars and broken hearts that bears no resemblance to the actual song—while James’ guitar cuts through the air slightly out of tune but is played like it’s the most important performance of his life. His fingers find chords that shouldn’t work together but somehow do, the way James himself shouldn’t work but somehow always does. The sound bounces off concrete walls and comes back transformed, rougher and more real.

Everyone is sweating, laughing, spilling cherry soda on the oil-stained floor, and no one seems to care. The garage has become its own ecosystem tonight, separate from the world outside where summer is ending and responsibilities wait like patient predators. 

They’re sixteen. And here, in this pocket of stolen time, they’re immortal.

Evan stands half in the doorway, half out, where the evening air cuts through the heat and reminds his lungs how to work. He’s always been good at edges, at existing in doorways and margins, close enough to belong but far enough to escape. It’s safer here, in the space between inside and outside, between participant and observer.

He watches James throw his head back mid-laugh, throat exposed and vulnerable, hair a disaster of dark curls that catch the fairy lights like a crown. There’s something magnetic about James when he laughs—not the careful, practiced charm he uses on adults, but this raw, unguarded joy that makes everyone else want to laugh too, even when they don’t know why.

Sirius pushes James with the heel of his hand, still singing nonsense into the microphone, and James stumbles but keeps playing, grinning like Sirius just handed him the world. They move around each other with the fluid grace of people who have learned each other’s rhythms, who know exactly how far they can push before something breaks.

Across the garage, Peter sits behind Sirius’ drum kit, sticks balanced on his knees, trying and failing to hide his grin behind a curtain of sandy hair. He’s the steadiest of them all, the one who remembers to bring water bottles and counts them in when they get carried away. But even he can’t resist the pull of this moment, this perfect chaos that feels like flying.

Remus is sitting near Evan, eyes twinkling, lips curling upward, sipping his own soda at his own pace. His bass is leaning on the wall beside him, just waiting to be played, but it seems Remus has no such plans. He’s just there, existing in the moment, beaming at Sirius’ antics like it’s a natural body reaction.

Beside Remus is Lily, grinning at James and Sirius, leaning her head on Remus’ shoulder. She’s been James’ girlfriend for a year now, and for a while, it had hurt. Evan had liked James since he was fourteen, but now, seeing the happiness he and Lily shared, Evan is at peace. What truly matters now is the joy of seeing James smile.

In the corner, Pandora is sketching in a battered notebook, pencil moving in quick, confident strokes. Dorcas leans over her shoulder, both of them smiling like they’re keeping secrets, like they know something the rest of the world hasn’t figured out yet. Dorcas says something that makes Pandora snort with laughter, and the sound cuts through the music like silver bells. 

And there, sprawled on an old couch that’s seen better decades, is Barty.

He’s not participating in the chaos, not singing or playing or laughing. Instead, he’s watching everything with those sharp, dark eyes, cataloguing details, collecting moments like other people collect coins. His gaze finds Evan across the garage, catches and holds like a fishhook in skin.

There’s something predatory in the way Barty watches—not malicious, but always intentional Like he’s solving puzzles no one else knows exist. Like he sees things in the spaces between what people say and what they mean. His mouth quirks upward at one corner when their eyes meet, not quite a smile but close enough to make Evan’s chest tighten.

It’s too much, all of it. Too alive, too bright, too perfect in its imperfection. The fairy lights pulse like heartbeats, the music swells and crashes like waves, and everyone is beautiful in the way that only exists in memory later, when time has worn the sharp edges smooth.

Evan feels the moment slipping already—like water through his fingers, like sand in an hourglass, like he’s going to blink and lose it forever. The garage will empty, the lights will come down, and this perfect bubble of summer and sound will pop like it never existed at all.

But that’s what memory does, isn't it? It takes and takes until you’re left with fragments, impressions, the ghost of how something felt rather than how it actually was. And Evan has never been good at letting go, has never learned how to hold something lightly enough that it doesn’t break in his grip.

And as he watches, he thinks: he can’t lose this. He just simply won’t.

His phone appears in his hand without conscious thought, muscle memory and instinct taking over. No hesitation, no second-guessing. Just need, pure and simple, to make this moment permanent, to trap it in pixels and light before it can escape.

A click. A frame. A still.

The sudden flash of light from his phone cuts through the moment for just a second, but it’s enough. James pauses mid-chord, Sirius lowers the microphone, and suddenly everyone is looking at Evan. Not accusingly, not annoyed—just aware, suddenly, that they’ve been seen. Captured.

The photo on his phone screen shows them all: James mid-laugh, blurred at the edges with motion and joy. Sirius with the microphone halfway to his mouth, caught between words. Peter behind the drums, sticks frozen in mid-air. Remus smiling, hands in his chin. Lily clapping her hands. Pandora and Dorcas with their heads tilted together, caught in that second of shared conspiracy.

And Barty, eyes locked on the camera like he’d been waiting for it, like he’d known exactly when Evan would need to press the button. There’s a challenge in his gaze, even captured in pixels—a question that Evan doesn’t know how to answer.

What are you gonna do?

The garage returns to life around them, the moment of stillness breaking like a spell. James strikes up a new chord, Sirius grins and raises the microphone again, and the chaos resumes. But something has shifted, some invisible line has been crossed.

Evan looks at the photo again, at all their faces caught in amber light and eternal summer. It’s not perfect—the lighting is wrong, the focus soft, half of them blurred with movement. But it’s real, and it’s his, and it will still exist tomorrow when this night is just another story they tell themselves about who they used to be.

He slips the phone back into his pocket and steps fully into the garage, letting the heat and noise swallow him whole. The fairy lights flicker overhead, Dorcas laughs at something Pandora whispers, and James starts a new song that sounds like promises they’re too young to keep.

Later, much later, when everything has gone wrong and the garage feels like ancient history, Evan will look at this photo and remember exactly how the air tasted that night—like possibility and cherry soda and the particular sweetness of time running out. He’ll remember the way Barty watched him, patient as gravity, and wonder if he was already falling then, already caught in an orbit he wouldn’t understand until it was too late to escape.

But for now, he just steps forward into the light and lets himself be part of the moment instead of just its keeper. For now, the photo is enough, and the night stretches ahead like an open road, full of music and laughter and all the beautiful disasters they haven't made yet.

The fairy lights pulse overhead, keeping time with hearts that don’t yet know they’re breakable.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

That is a line from a film he remembers watching when he is around twelve. He’s really naive then, but that has to be expected for a boy trying to be smarter than their age. So, he truly is clueless about what it really entails, not understanding it to the best of his capacity. It stuck, though, the line. He’d grown up, seen things, written essays on mise-en-scène and narrative economy, but the line had moved under his skin and settled there like a quiet accusation: seize the day. And when he had watched that film again for a class paper, it was safe to say that the line had consumed him, pierced his heart into pieces, and mended itself just so he could apply the echoes of its meaning to the way he would live his life.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Carpe diem, in Latin. 

Seize the day.

Dead Poets Society has been haunting Evan in ways he’d never confess to anyone. (Except for that night when he and James stayed up until 3 AM talking about theater on the Potter’s rooftop at fifteen, and Neil Perry’s name slipped from his lips before he could stop it.) He’s learned to stay quiet when his classmates debate their favorite films, cringing inwardly as they toss around the title like it’s just another movie. Their casual discussion strips it of meaning, reduces it to something ordinary. 

But for Evan, Dead Poets Society transcends good acting and brilliant cinematography and amazing score—it’s something that lives under his skin, something too sacred for casual conversation.

And he’s not talking about technicalities and analysis even as a film major. No, it’s more. 

Because right now, as he ignores his father’s incessant calls, he’s reminded of all the things only Dead Poets Society made him feel: dread and passion all tangled up together in one, messy catharsis.

His phone rings again, lighting up, vibrating on his bedside table, and all he can really do as he stares at it  is think about dying.

But that’s the thing. He doesn’t want to die without even being alive. He doesn’t want to have to argue his way to his own life.

So he just stares at his phone, debating with himself. He knows what the call is about, and 8 AM is a little too early to be a reprimanding time. He’s been expecting his father’s reaction since he cancelled his internship, and now that it’s there, something still sinks in his stomach just the same way even after knowing it would. Inevitably.

“Evan?” his mother calls from below. “Your phone has been ringing for ten minutes. Are you awake?”

Something hollows in his chest. Despite the distance—a floor away—he can still hear the careful neutrality in her voice, the way she’s trying not to betray her own anxiety about what this call might mean. She knows too. Of course she knows. Evan should have expected it—his father probably called her first, probably demanded to know if she was enabling Evan. 

“Yeah, I’m up,” he calls back, his voice hoarse from sleep and dread.

“Can you come down? Please?”

The ‘please’ gives it away. His mother never has to ask him twice for anything, never has to add that soft plea to her requests. Never had to beg for Evan’s obedience. Even when she fought tooth and nail against his father for custody, she never pleaded for Evan and Pandora to choose her. She simply just asked what her kids wanted to do, and fought for it to happen. Yet here they are, with her adding a reluctant ‘please’ because this only means one thing.

She’s already talked to his father. She’s already heard whatever tirade he unleashed about the internship, about Evan’s irresponsible decisions and lack of direction.

Evan drags himself out of bed, pulls on yesterday’s t-shirt, and makes his way downstairs. His mother is sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop open, probably trying to look busy, trying to pretend this is just another morning. But her coffee mug is full and cold, and she’s wearing that expression she gets when she’s bracing for impact. Her bottom lip bitten, eyes a bit narrowed.

“Morning, sweetheart,” she says, too bright. “Coffee?”

Before he can answer, his phone erupts again. The same ringtone, the same name flashing across the screen: Dad.

His mother’s shoulders tense. “Maybe you should—”

“No.”  But even as he says it, he knows he’s just delaying the inevitable. His father isn’t the type to give up after ten calls. He’s the type to drive over, to show up at their door with that particular blend of disappointment and rage that has followed Evan since childhood.

The phone stops ringing. The silence stretches for exactly thirty seconds before it starts again.

“Evan,” his mother says quietly. “Just answer it. Get it over with.”

He looks at her—really looks at her—and sees the exhaustion there, the way this whole mess is wearing on her too. The divorce was supposed to make things easier, supposed to stop moments like this where she’s caught in the middle of their dysfunction. But some things never change.

With trembling fingers, he swipes to answer. “Hi, Dad.”

“Don't ‘hi Dad’ me.” His father’s voice is sharp, clipped. Evan prefers if he was shouting, because at least then, he wouldn’t have to hear the disappointment dripping from his voice with such clarity.  “What the hell is this about the internship? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Evan closes his eyes. “I can explain—”

“Explain? You cancelled a position at Goldman Sachs. Do you know how hard I worked to get you that opportunity? Do you know what strings I had to pull?”

“I didn't ask you to—”

“You didn't have to ask! That’s what fathers do, Evan. They open doors for their children. They create opportunities. They don’t sit back and watch their kids throw their futures away for some—some fantasy about being an artist.”

The word artist drips with disdain, like it's something distasteful he’s found on the bottom of his shoe. Evan’s grip tightens on the phone.

“It’s not a fantasy. I can handle it.  It’s what I want to do.”

“What you want?” His father’s laugh is sharp, humorless. “When I was your age, I didn’t get to think about what I wanted. I thought about what I needed to do to build a life, to support a family, to be a man. This is about responsibility, Evan. Something you clearly know nothing about. Seeing that I am the person paying your tuition.”

Evan’s mother is watching him now, her own phone buzzing with what is probably an email. She glances at it, and her expression hardens.

“Dad, can we just—”

“Can we just what? Talk about this reasonably? There’s nothing reasonable about what you’ve done. You’re in your third year, Evan. I’ve supported it enough. This was supposed to set you up for a real career, not whatever pipe dream you’re chasing with that theater degree.”

“Film,” Evan says quietly. “It’s a film degree.”

“Same difference. Both useless. Both guaranteed to leave you living in your childhood bedroom when you’re thirty.”

That’s when his mother reaches for the phone. “Give it to me.”

Evan hesitates, but she’s already extending her hand, her jaw set in a way that means she’s done being diplomatic.

“Algernon,” Her voice is ice-cold professional, the tone she used during the divorce proceedings. “This is how you want to handle this? By bullying our son into submission?”

Evan can hear his father’s voice through the speaker, raised and defensive, but his mother cuts him off.

“No. You listen to me for once. Evan is twenty years old. He’s an adult. And if he doesn’t want to spend his summer in some soul-crushing corporate internship, that’s his choice to make.”

“His choice?” His father’s voice is loud enough now that Evan doesn’t need to strain to hear it. “He’s still a child, Francesca. He doesn’t understand the real world. He doesn’t understand that life isn’t about following your passions, it’s about—”

“About what? About becoming as miserable as you are? About spending forty years in a job that makes you bitter and angry and resentful?”

The silence on the other end of the line is deafening. Evan has never heard his mother speak to his father like this, not even during the worst fights before the divorce.

“How dare you—”

“How dare I what? Tell the truth? Evan is talented, Algernon. He’s smart and creative and passionate about something that matters to him. Why can’t you see that as a gift instead of a problem?”

“Because gifts don’t pay rent! Because passion doesn’t put food on the table! Because I’ve seen what happens to kids who think they can make it as artists—they fail, Francesca. They fail and they come crawling back, begging for help, expecting someone else to fix the mess they’ve made of their lives.”

“Is that what you think of me?” Evan finds himself saying. Both of his parents fall silent. “Is that really what you think of me? That I’m going to fail? That I’m not good enough?”

“Evan, that’s not—” his mother starts.

But Evan is already shaking his head, a cold chuckle leaving his lips like smoke. “No, I want to hear him say it. I want to hear you say that you think I’m going to fail, Dad.”

The silence stretches. Evan can hear his father breathing, can practically feel the war happening in his mind between honesty and damage control.

“I think,” his father says finally, “that you’re making a mistake that you’ll regret for the rest of your life. I think you’re throwing away opportunities that other kids would kill for. And I think you’re doing it because you’d rather live in a fantasy than face reality.”

“Algernon—” his mother warns.

“No, Francesca. Someone has to say it. Someone has to be the adult here.”

That’s when something snaps in Evan. Maybe it’s the condescension in his father’s voice, or the way his mother’s face crumples with disappointment, or maybe it’s just that he’s tired of being caught between them, tired of being the rope in their endless tug-of-war.

“I’m done,” he says, loud enough that both of them stop talking. “I’m done with this conversation, I’m done with both of you fighting about my life like I’m not even here, and I’m done pretending that any of this is actually about me.”

He’s moving toward his room before any of them could respond, grabbing his camera, and bolting to the door.

“Evan, wait—” his mother calls after him.

But he’s already outside, already breathing the cool morning air that tastes like freedom and possibility. 

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

Maybe it’s time he started listening to that quote in his head.

The salt air hits Evan’s face as he stumbles down the weathered wooden steps to the beach, his sneakers sliding slightly on the sand-dusted planks. His hands are still shaking from the argument, from the way his father’s voice had cut through him like glass, from the look of defeat in his mother’s eyes as he walked out. He needs space, needs the endless expanse of ocean to swallow up the anger coursing through his veins.

He doesn’t notice the figure on the bench until he’s already collapsed onto the one beside it, dropping his head into his hands and letting out a breath that sounds dangerously close to a sob. It’s only when he hears the soft clearing of a throat that he looks up, startled, to find gray eyes watching him with something that might be concern.

Regulus.

Of all the people to run into when he’s falling apart, it has to be Regulus Black. Barty’s boyfriend. The same Regulus who, up until this moment, Evan had mentally catalogued as an stranger who had somehow managed to take his place at Barty’s side.  Is now really the time? Evan knows well within himself that he doesn’t have enough energy to maintain his composure in front of someone he has no fixed opinions about.

He shot a look at the person sitting beside him. His dark hair is messy, falling across his forehead in a way that looks almost vulnerable, and he’s wearing an old green t-shirt that’s definitely too big for his slight frame. 

“Sorry,” Evan mutters, starting to stand. “I didn’t see anyone was here first. I’ll just—”

“Don’t.” The word comes out sharper than Regulus probably intended, because he immediately softens his expression. “I mean, you don’t have to leave. The beach is big enough for both of us.”

Evan hesitates, still half-standing, caught between his desire to be alone and something in Regulus’ voice that sounds almost... lonely. He settles back onto the bench, but keeps his distance, staring out at the waves that are painting white foam across the sand.

They sit in silence for several minutes, the only sounds are the rhythmic crash of the ocean and the distant cry of seagulls. Evan finds himself stealing glances at Regulus, trying to reconcile this quiet, almost fragile-looking person with the sarcastic boy he’s seen just a few days ago, the one who always seemed to have a cutting remark ready for anyone who dared to speak to him.

“So,” Regulus starts with a small smile. “You are a film student, right?”

“Yes,” Evan answers politely.

“Barty did say you do have a good taste in films. Felt like watching something today, do you have any suggestions?”

Evan’s lip quirk, finding it absurd how random the question is with his current emotional state. He asks, though. Better this talk than any, because at least in this he’s good.  “Any genre in particular?”

“I don’t know,” Regulus replies, a finger scratching his chin. “Maybe something in academia?”

“Have you seen Maurice?”

“The book, yes.”

“You might want to try the film. 1987. Directed by James Ivory.”

“Wow,” Regulus huffs a breath, and it’s close to what might be a laugh. “Memorized.”

“Well,” Evan grins, “Hugh Grant.”

Regulus laughs, and nods. “Yeah. I get it.”

Silence envelopes them again. Evan could hear the nonsensical chatter on the streets near the beach, and the waves crashing against the shore. Heat clings to his skin, and he regrets not bringing sunscreen. He wonders where Pandora is. He breathes deeply, then sighs. He needs her sister. He wishes he brought his phone so he could text her.

“Rough morning?” Regulus asks eventually, his voice now carefully neutral.

Evan lets out a bitter laugh, nodding. “You could say that. Family drama. The usual shit.”

Regulus nods like he understands, and maybe he does. Everyone knows about the Black family, after all. The old money, the expectations, the way they seem to eat their own children alive in service of maintaining their pristine reputation.

“Parents?” Regulus asks, though his tone suggests he already knows the answer.

“Father, mainly,” Evan replies, “though my mom got dragged into it too.” 

Evan runs a hand through his hair. Somehow, it really is easier to talk to strangers about some things. “I cancelled an internship. Apparently that makes me an irresponsible child who’s throwing his life away.”

“Ah.” There’s something knowing in Regulus’ tone, and Evan doesn’t know what to do with it. Too personal. Too honest. “Let me guess. The internship was something practical and exhausting, and you want to do something creative instead?”

Evan turns to look at him more fully, surprised by the accuracy of the assessment. “Film. I want to make films. My father thinks that’s equivalent to announcing I want to be homeless.”

“Parents have a way of making their fears about your choices,” Regulus says quietly, after a beat. “Sometimes the thing they’re most afraid of isn’t that you’ll fail—it’s that you’ll succeed at something they never had the courage to try.”

There's something in his voice, a weight that suggests personal experience, and Evan finds himself studying Regulus’ profile as he stares out at the water. Sirius ran away when he was fifteen, and has lived his life like the Bon Jovi song since.

“What about you?” Evan asks. “Are you running from family drama too?”

Regulus’ smile is thin, brittle around the edges. “Something like that.”

They lapse into silence again, but it’s different now, less awkward and more accommodating now that the core reason for a meltdown has been laid on the table. Evan finds himself relaxing despite himself, the tension in his shoulders beginning to ease as the ocean breeze carries away some of his anger.

“Can I ask you something?” Evan says after a while.

Regulus glances at him. “Sure.”

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

“What happened with you and Barty? I mean—” Evan stumbles over the words, not sure how to phrase what he’s trying to ask. “Before you guys got together, Barty was... I don’t know how to describe it. Different. He was… angry. And then suddenly you were around, and he seemed—”

“Happier?” Regulus suggests, but there’s no smugness in it, just a quiet sort of sadness. And Evan doesn’t understand how that could be possible. 

Someone being the reason Barty is happy should be celebrating their life every day.

“Yeah. I guess I never understood how that happened. You two seem so…” Evan trails off, realizing how his words might sound.

“Different?” Regulus finishes, as if he knew these questions would come. “We are. But maybe that’s not always a bad thing.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, and Evan thinks that might be the end of it, but then Regulus starts talking, his voice soft enough that Evan has to lean in slightly to catch the words over the sound of the waves.

“The day you left this town,” Regulus begins, “I ran away from home.”

Evan’s eyebrows shoot up. He remembers that day—the rushed goodbyes, the excitement of heading to London with his sister for their chosen programs, the way Barty had seemed unusually subdued during their farewell party.

“I’d been planning it for weeks,” Regulus continues. “Had a bag packed, money saved up, even had Sirius lined up to let me crash at the Potter’s place, though he didn’t know why I was suddenly so eager to visit. But then that morning, my father—” He stops, his jaw tightening. “Let’s just say he made it clear that my continued residence was contingent on certain expectations being met. Expectations I had no intention of meeting.”

Evan thinks about the rumors that have always swirled around the Black family, the whispers about their old-fashioned values and iron-fisted control over their children. He’s never paid much attention to gossip, but looking at the tension in Regulus’ shoulders, he’s starting to think maybe those rumors weren’t exaggerated.

“So I left,” Regulus says simply. “Took my bag and walked out. Didn’t even leave a note. I thought I was being dramatic, thought I was making this grand gesture of independence.” He lets out a hollow laugh. “I felt so free walking to the Potter’s house. Like I was finally taking control of my own life.”

“I’m sensing a but,” Evan prompts gently.

“But,” Regulus says humorlessly, nodding. “When I got there, Sirius wasn’t home. James said he’d gone to Remus’, and wouldn’t be back until late. And suddenly I was standing in their kitchen with nowhere to go and the reality of what I’d just done crashing over me.” Regulus’ voice gets even quieter. “I panicked. I thought about going back, thought about apologizing, thought about pretending it never happened. But I couldn’t. I just... couldn’t. I couldn’t go back there again and experience the same usual shit over and over.”

Evan can picture it—seventeen-year-old Regulus, probably still half a kid despite his sophisticated exterior, suddenly realizing that dramatic gestures have real consequences.

“So I ended up here,” Regulus continues, gesturing toward the beach. “I figured I’d sit and think and maybe work up the courage to call Sirius. To let him know I ran. Like he did. That I’m finally brave like him. But when I got to the beach, I found Barty.”

The way he says Barty’s name is different—softer, with a tenderness that Evan has never heard from him before.

“He was sitting right here, actually,” Regulus says, patting the bench they’re on. “Now my favorite spot. He had a crystal tumbler full of what I later found out was stolen whiskey from the Meadowes’ convenience store, supported by Dorcas. And he was absolutely falling apart.”

Evan’s chest tightens. He knows Barty well enough to know that his best friend doesn’t fall apart easily, doesn’t let people see him when he’s vulnerable. The fact that Regulus had found him in that state feels significant in a way Evan can’t quite articulate. 

“At first I thought maybe I should leave him alone,” Regulus continues. “I mean, we barely knew each other then. That was the first time I’ve seen him. But he looked so…” He pauses, searching for the right word. “Broken. I couldn't just walk away.”

“What was wrong?” Evan asks, though he's starting to suspect he knows.

“You,” Regulus says firmly, but also not as an accusation. He said it like it’s just a simple fact found in textbooks. Like it’s just how the universe works. “You were wrong. Or rather, you were gone, and that was wrong for Barty.”

He expected it, yes, but the words still land like a physical blow. Like someone just carved a hole in his chest and dug the deepest parts of it, left to scar. He’d known that leaving for his program had been hard on his friends, but he hadn’t realized—hadn’t let himself realize—how deeply it had affected Barty specifically.

“He was drunk,” Regulus says, eyes glassy, as if reliving that day. He’s staring ahead at the water, and Evan follows, looking at the endless blues and the vastness of it. “Rambling about abandonment and how everyone always leaves in the end. Said his parents had basically written him off years ago, that no one really disturbs his phone, and now his best friend had fucked off to another continent.” Regulus glances at Evan. “His words, not mine.”

Evan swallows hard, his throat dry. “I had no idea he felt that way.”

“How could you? Barty’s not exactly the type to talk about his feelings. But that night, with enough whiskey in him, it all came pouring out. Years of feeling like everyone he cared about eventually decided he wasn’t worth sticking around for.”

The guilt hits Evan like a wave, crashing so hard it’s not merciful. He remembers being so excited about the London program, so focused on the opportunity his father tolerated and what it would mean for his career, that he hadn’t really considered what his absence would do to the people he was leaving behind. He’d assumed they'd be fine, that they’d barely notice he was gone.

“So what did you do?” Evan asks, his voice sounding like salt in the air. To the wound. Not for the summer.

“I sat down next to him,” Regulus says. “I didn’t say much at first. Just sat there while he drank and talked and occasionally cried. It was... intense. I’d never seen someone be so raw, so honest about their pain. It was terrifying and fascinating at the same time.”

Evan tries to imagine it—Regulus, who always seemed so composed, so in control of his emotions, being confronted with Barty’s complete emotional breakdown.

“When he finally passed out,” Regulus continues, “I couldn’t just leave him there. So I called James, told him where we were, and we managed to get Barty back to the Potter’s house. I stayed that night, partly to make sure he was okay, and partly because I still had nowhere else to go.”

“And that’s how you ended up living there?”

“Temporarily,” Regulus clarifies. “Though temporarily has a way of becoming permanent when you’re happy." His expression softens. “James and Sirius were incredible. And especially Effie and Monty. They didn’t ask questions, didn’t make me feel like a burden. They just made space for me like it was the most natural thing in the world.“

Evan thinks about the Potter house, about how it has always been a refuge for strays and misfits, how James’ parents seem to have an infinite capacity for taking in lost kids and making them family.

“And Barty?”

“Barty was mortified the next morning,” Regulus says with a small smile. “Kept apologizing for dumping all of his trauma on me, kept insisting he was fine and that I should forget everything he’d said. But I couldn’t forget it. And more than that, I didn’t want to.”

Regulus shifts on the bench, turning slightly to face Evan more directly.

“I started coming to the beach every day around the same time, hoping I’d run into him again. And I did, most days. He was always here, always with that same tumbler, always drinking alone. At first he tried to pretend everything was fine, but eventually he stopped putting on the show. We’d sit here and talk—really talk, about everything and nothing. About parents who don’t understand us, about feeling like we’re disappointing everyone just by existing, about being afraid that we're fundamentally unlovable.”

The honesty in Regulus’ voice catches Evan off guard. This is not the calculated, almost cold person he thought he knew. This is someone who has been just as lost and scared as the rest of them.

“It wasn’t romantic at first,” he says, shaking his head in amusement. Disbelief. “We were just two fucked up kids who had both found someone who understood what it felt like to be abandoned by the people who were supposed to care about us. But over the weeks, it became something more. Barty would bring coffee instead of whiskey some mornings. I’d bring books to read to him when he was too hungover to focus on the words himself. We started meeting other places too—late night walks around town, movie marathons that were more talking than watching, stolen moments where we could just be ourselves without worrying about what anyone else thought.”

Evan finds himself smiling despite the heaviness of the conversation. He can picture it now—Barty and Regulus finding each other in their mutual brokenness, building something beautiful out of their shared understanding of abandonment and fear.

“When did you know?” Evan asks. “That it was more than friendship, I mean.”

Regulus is quiet for a moment, a soft smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“There was this night, maybe a month after I’d moved in with Sirius. Barty had shown up at the Potter’s house at like two in the morning, completely soaked from the rain. He’d had another fight with his father—something about his grades, or his friends, or his general existence. I can’t remember the specifics. But he was standing in the doorway dripping wet and shaking, and all he said was ‘Can I stay here tonight?’”

Regulus’ voice gets even softer, and Evan has to lean in to catch the words.

“I didn’t even hesitate. I just pulled him inside, got him dry clothes, made him tea, and let him curl up in my bed while I took the floor. And as I was lying there listening to him breathe, listening to the rain against the window, I realized that I would do that every night for the rest of my life if he needed me to. That somewhere along the way, taking care of him had become as natural as breathing.”

Evan feels something shift in his chest, a loosening of prejudice—jealousy?—he didn’t even realize he’d been carrying.

“And when he kissed me the next morning,” Regulus continues, “it didn’t feel like a surprise. It felt like something that had been building for weeks, something inevitable. It felt like coming home, Evan.”

They sit in comfortable silence for a moment, the weight of the story settling between them. Evan finds himself reassessing everything he thought he knew about Regulus, about his relationship with Barty, about the nature of their connection.

“I’m sorry,” Evan says finally.

“For what?”

“For leaving the way I did. For not realizing how much Barty needed someone to stay. For thinking you were just some shallow pretty boy who was using him for entertainment or social status or whatever fucked up narrative I had in my head because you were new and had stolen my best friend..”

Regulus’ laugh is genuine this time, not bitter or defensive.

“I don’t blame you for that,” he says. “I worked pretty hard to cultivate that image. It was easier to let people think I was shallow than to let them see how desperately I needed to be loved.”

The admission hangs in the air between them, raw and honest.

“Besides,” Regulus continues, “you weren’t entirely wrong. I was using Barty, in a way. Not for social status, but for the same thing he was using me for—proof that we weren’t as unlovable as we’d been taught to believe."

Evan considers this, thinking about the way Barty had changed since he’d been back, the way he seemed more settled, more at peace with himself.

“It worked, though,” Evan observes. “Whatever you two have, it’s good for both of you.”

“It is,” Regulus agrees. “We’re still fucked up kids with abandonment issues and complicated relationships with our families. But we’re fucked up together, and somehow that makes it bearable.”

Evan thinks about his own loneliness, about the way he’s been carrying the weight of his parents’ expectations and his own fears without anyone to share the burden.

“I envy that,” he admits. “Having someone who understands your particular brand of mess.”

“You have that too,” Regulus states. “Maybe not romantically, but Barty would do absolutely anything for you. Your sister, Pandora. Dorcas, and add me, if you want—we’re all ride or die for you. The fact that you were gone for a few months doesn’t change that. Your Barty’s best friend, and by association, I want you to be mine, too.”

Evan smiles, a sad, sad smile. “But I hurt him. By leaving.”

“You hurt him by leaving without really understanding what your friendship meant to him,” Regulus corrects gently. “But you’re back now. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Barty, it’s that he’s incredibly good at forgiveness, especially when it comes to people he loves.”

The word love settles over them, and Evan realizes that’s what they've been talking about this whole time—different kinds of love, different ways of showing up for each other, different ways of healing from the wounds that life leaves on all of them.

“Can I ask you something now?” Regulus says, after a moment.

“Sure.”

“What are you going to do? About the internship, about your parents, about the film thing?”

Evan considers the question, thinking about the argument that had driven him to the beach in the first place. The anger has faded now, replaced by something that feels more like determination.

“I’m going to make films,” he says simply. “I’m going to apply for grants and internships that actually align with what I want to do, and I’m going to stop letting my father’s fear dictate my choices. And I mean it. I mean it with all my fucking existence, Reg.”

“And if you fail?”

“Then I’ll fail doing something I love instead of succeeding at something that makes me miserable.” Evan pauses. “Besides, I don’t think I will fail. For the first time in my life, I’m actually excited about my future instead of just terrified of disappointing people.”

Regulus nods approvingly. “That's very Dead Poets Society of you.”

Evan startles. “How did you—?”

“James mentioned it once. Said you have this thing about a certain Neil Perry. And besides, you’re not the only cultured film freak in this town, Rosier.”

Evan laughs, despite himself. The fact that James had talked to Regulus about something so personal, something Evan had only ever shared with him in moments of vulnerability, feels significant. 

“I should head back,” Evan says, though he’s reluctant to leave. This conversation has shifted something fundamental in how he sees Regulus, and by extension, how he understands his friend’s happiness.

“Me too,” Regulus agrees. “Barty’s probably wondering where I am.”

They stand together, brushing sand off their clothes and squinting in the brightening sunlight.

“Regulus?” Evan says as they start walking toward the beach steps.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. For taking care of him when I couldn’t. And for... this. For helping me understand.”

Regulus’ smile is soft, genuine.

“Thank you for letting me. And Evan? For what it’s worth, I think you’re going to make incredible films. The world needs more people who understand that art can save lives. Words and ideas could change the world, I quote.”

Evan smiles, feeling a bit lighter. As they reach the top of the steps, Evan realizes they're walking in the same direction.

“You heading to the Potter’s?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Regulus nods. “You?”

“To my mother. Home. Just two houses down from James.”

They fall into step together, the conversation flowing more easily now that the initial awkwardness has dissolved. Evan finds himself genuinely enjoying Regulus’ company, appreciating his dry sense of humor and the way he seems to see through social pretenses.

As they round the corner onto Godric Street, the sound of music drifts toward them from the Potter house. Not polished music, but the kind of rough, enthusiastic sound that comes from friends jamming together in someone’s garage.

“Sounds like they’re practicing again,” Regulus says with a fond smile.

They pause at the end of the Potter’s driveway, the music clearer now. Evan can make out James’ voice, enthusiastic if not entirely on key, layered over what sounds like Remus’ bass, James’ own guitar, Peter’s keys, and drums that are probably Sirius’ domain.

“They’re actually not terrible,” Evan admits, surprised.

“Don’t tell them that. Their egos are big enough already.” Regulus’ expression softens as he watches the house. “But they’re happy. And after everything that’s happened this year, that feels like enough.”

Evan feels something shift in his chest—hope, maybe, or just the recognition that the people he loves are finding their own ways to gather their rosebuds, to seize their own versions of the day.

“Want to go listen?” Regulus asks. “I’m sure they’d love an audience.”

Looking at the Potter house, hearing the music and laughter spilling out of it, Evan realizes that maybe this is what he’s been missing. Not just the courage to follow his dreams, but the understanding that dreams are better when they’re shared with people who love you enough to cheer you on, even when you’re slightly off key.

“Yeah,” he says.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

The Potter’s garage has been transformed into something resembling a makeshift recording studio, though “studio” might be generous. Christmas lights are strung haphazardly across the ceiling, casting everything in a warm, golden glow. James’ guitar is plugged into an amp that’s seen better days, Sirius’ drum kit looks like it was assembled from parts found at three different garage sales, and Remus sits cross-legged on the floor with a bass guitar, looking like the only one who actually knows what he’s doing.

James stands at the center of it all, microphone in hand, hair even messier than usual from running his fingers through it. He’s wearing an old Nirvana t-shirt and jeans with holes in the knees, looking nothing like the polished boy who usually graces the covers of the school newspaper. This is James in his element, uninhibited and electric with creative energy.

“Okay, from the top,” Remus calls out, adjusting his guitar strap. “And James, for the love of all that’s holy, try to stay in the same key as the rest of us this time.”

“I was in key!” James protests, but he’s grinning. “You’re just jealous of my natural talent.”

“Natural disaster is more like it,” Peter mutters from behind his piano, earning a laugh from Remus.

“Alright, children,” Remus says, fingers finding the opening chords. “Let’s show this song some respect.”

“Let’s hide,” Regulus smirks. 

Evan raises an eyebrow, following Regulus on the side of the garage out of eyeshot. They have the full view of the four from where they are, but they can’t see them. Evan’s camera is at the ready unconsciously.

The music starts, and despite their joking, they actually sound good together. James’ guitar work is more polished than Evan expected, Peter keeps a steady rhythm that anchors everything else, Sirius’ drums doesn’t try controlling the song, and Remus’ harmonies add a richness that transforms the simple chord progression into something almost professional.

But it’s James who steals the show.

His voice, when he’s not trying too hard or showing off, has this raw, honest quality that cuts straight through you. He closes his eyes as he sings, completely lost in the moment, and there’s something magnetic about watching someone be so utterly, fearlessly themselves.

The song is one Evan recognizes—a One Direction track that probably shouldn’t work as a rock ballad but somehow absolutely does in James’ hands. The way he delivers the lyrics transforms them from pop confection into something deeper, more personal. There’s longing in his voice, vulnerability, and a kind of desperate hope that makes Evan’s chest tight.

“I might never be your knight in shining armor,” James sings, his voice breaking slightly on the note, “I might never be the one you take home to mother…”

Evan finds himself holding his breath, transfixed by the sight of his childhood friend pouring his heart out in his parents’ garage. This isn’t the James who performs for crowds at school events, calculated and charming. This is James stripped down to his essence, singing like his life depends on it.

The instrumental bridge gives James a moment to catch his breath, and he opens his eyes, scanning the garage like he’s seeing it for the first time. His gaze lands on Sirius, who’s lost in his own world, fingers dancing with the sticks and drums with surprising skill. Then to Peter, tongue poking out in concentration as he navigates a particularly complex rhythm. Finally to Remus, who’s watching James with something that looks like pride and affection mixed together.

When James closes his eyes again for the final verse, his voice is stronger, more confident. “But if you just give me one chance, I can love you like that…”

The last note hangs in the air for a moment before fading, leaving behind the kind of silence that feels sacred. Nobody moves for several heartbeats, as if they’re all processing what just happened.

“Fucking hell, James,” Sirius says finally, lowering his drumsticks. “Where did that come from?”

“I don’t know,” James admits, running a hand through his hair. “It just felt... right?”

“Right is an understatement,” Remus says quietly. “That was beautiful.”

Peter, never one for sentiment, just grins. “We sound like an actual band.”

“We are an actual band,” James declares, that familiar confidence creeping back into his voice. “The Marauders are officially—”

Click.

Moment taken permanently.

Regulus steps through first, followed by Evan, and suddenly the intimate atmosphere of the garage feels charged with new energy.

“Don’t stop on our account,” Regulus says, but there’s warmth in his voice that wasn’t there during their beach conversation. “That sounded incredible.”

Evan, meanwhile, feels like he’s been struck by lightning. Watching James perform like that—so raw, so passionate, so completely himself—has awakened something in him that he’s not quite ready to name. It’s not just admiration, though that’s part of it. It’s something deeper, something that makes his pulse race and his mouth go dry.

“Evan!” James’ face lights up when he sees him, and the genuine joy in his expression makes Evan’s heart do complicated things in his chest. “You’re here! How long have you been here?”

“Long enough,” Evan manages, hoping his voice doesn’t betray the way he’s feeling. “You guys sound amazing. Really.”

James beams, and Evan realizes he would probably do just about anything to keep that expression on his face.

“We were just messing around,” Sirius says, though he looks pleased.

“It’s working,” Evan says, and he means it. “James, your voice—I had no idea you could sing like that.”

The praise makes James duck his head, suddenly shy in a way that’s completely at odds with his usual bravado. Regulus and Sirius raise an eyebrow at the same time, exchanging a look Evan can’t quite decipher. Or maybe that’s just a brother thing.

“Thanks. I’ve been working on it.”

“You should keep working on it,” Regulus says, settling onto an old couch in the corner. “All of you. There’s something special happening here.”

Peter grins. “Hear that? We’re special.”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Remus warns, but he’s smiling too.

Evan finds himself unable to look away from James, who’s still holding the microphone like it belongs in his hands. There’s something different about him in this space, something electric and alive that Evan has never noticed before. Or maybe he has noticed, but he’s never let himself really see it.

“Play another one,” Evan says, his voice slightly hoarse. 

James looks at him for a long moment, and Evan swears he sees something flicker in his eyes—recognition, maybe, or hope. But then Sirius is launching into another song, and the moment passes.

As the music swells around him, Evan settles onto the couch next to Regulus and lets himself just watch. James singing, Sirius lost in his drums, Peter and Remus holding down the rhythm section like they’ve been playing together for years. This, Evan realizes, is what happiness looks like. This is what it means to gather your rosebuds—not just pursuing your dreams, but sharing them with the people you love.

And maybe, just maybe, falling in love with a friend’s voice along the way.

The streets feel hollow at this hour. Evening bleeds slow into night, the air clinging to Evan’s skin with the weight of the day’s heat gone stale. He doesn’t remember when his steps turned toward home—if it was choice or muscle memory—but here he is, cutting through the familiar streets with the sea’s distant hush pulling at him like gravity.

His mind is the louder thing.

James.

It shouldn’t matter, not now, not after everything. He’s supposed to have outgrown this—the heart beating too loud when James laughs, the disorienting warmth when their shoulders brush, the unbearable lightness of James existing as though he’s been painted in colors Evan will never quite manage to capture in his own head. He thought he had dulled that edge, buried it under cynicism, tucked it neatly into the drawer of mistakes he refuses to open.

But today—today it slipped. A glance, a word, a smile too soft to be accidental, and suddenly the drawer was wide open.

The realization hits somewhere between a lamppost and the corner shop, the thought unfurling sharp and unwelcome: it’s back. Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Shit.

Whatever he had strangled inside himself is breathing again. His feelings for James, unruly and merciless, clawing for space.

Oh,  no.

The thought leaves him dazed, each step heavier, his body moving while his head swims. He doesn’t notice how near he’s gotten until the shape of home looms ahead—the worn door, the windows lit faintly against the dark. He doesn’t notice the figure on the front step until it speaks.

“Finally.”

Evan startles. His eyes snap up, landing on Barty leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, cigarette dangling unlit between his fingers like he couldn’t decide if lighting it would make him stay or leave. His expression is unreadable, sharp edges dulled only by the lamplight, but his voice is steady, too steady.

“Do you want to talk?”

The question sits heavy between them, heavier than the sea breeze, heavier than the silence that rushes in when Evan doesn’t answer right away.

The last time they spoke, it had ended in shouting. Accusations hurled like knives—Evan spitting about betrayal, about Barty not waiting, about the cruelty of being so easily replaced. Barty, in turn, had thrown back words just as cutting, about Evan leaving without explanation, about silence being its own form of cruelty. They hadn’t looked each other in the eye since.

And yet here Barty is, at his door, asking.

Evan swallows, the taste of salt thick on his tongue.

He doesn’t answer right away. He just stands there, staring at Barty like the sea itself has washed up onto their doorstep—unavoidable, inevitable, carrying both ruin and relief in its tide.

“Come on,” Barty says, softer this time, flicking the unlit cigarette into his pocket. “Not here.”

It’s not a request. But it isn’t a command either.

Evan exhales through his nose, a shaky thing that feels like surrender, and nods once. He doesn’t know if it’s the exhaustion or the weight of James’s name still rattling inside his ribcage, but he follows.

They don’t take the streets. They cut straight past the houses, down the sloping path where the air shifts—warmer, salt-sweet, heavy with the sound of waves beating against the shore. Evan’s shoes sink into the sand, the rhythm of his steps catching awkwardly with Barty’s until they fall into something like sync. Not perfect, but not clashing either.

The silence stretches. Not the comfortable kind they used to share, but brittle, like glass straining under pressure.

Evan’s mind keeps circling back to the last time. The yelling, the rawness in Barty’s face, the way his own words had come out sharper than he intended. That’s it then? And Barty, eyes blazing, spitting back: Everything was so fucking good until you came back, don’t you know? 

It echoes now, in the rhythm of their walk. Evan thinks he prefers the shouting than this silence.

The beach is near empty, just the hush of the waves and the far-off flicker of lights from the pier. The sky is bruised purple, the moon low, the kind of night that feels half-unreal. Somehow, the atmosphere is perfect for a whirlwind romance, and not this… what’s about to happen. Evan doesn’t know what to expect, but he’s sure he’s not gonna like it wholeheartedly.

Barty shoves his hands into his pockets. “Been a while since we—” He cuts himself off, jaw tightening. Swallowing the words. “Since we were down here.”

Evan knows what he means. This stretch of sand, this path, the cave at the far edge of the beach—it’s carved into them, their history tucked into every grain. That summer when things blurred, when just friends tipped dangerously into something else, when they discovered the cave like it had been waiting for them. The secret place that belonged to no one but them.

Evan swallows, his throat raw. He doesn’t trust himself to speak yet, so he just hums non-comittally, a sound that could mean anything.

Barty doesn’t push. Doesn’t speak any more. They walk with mouths shut, fearful of what might spill out, their shadows stretching long across the sand, until the dark mouth of the cave comes into view.

And suddenly, it feels like standing at the edge of something inevitable.

The cave yawns open like a secret. The tide has drawn back just enough to reveal the jagged rocks at its mouth, slick with salt and seaweed, but the inside lies dark, waiting.

Evan pauses at the entrance. For a moment he’s eighteen again—barefoot, breathless, following Barty into this very cave with the thrill of discovery beating in his chest. They’d laughed then, the sound ricocheting off the stone walls, too loud and too alive to be contained. They’d sat pressed close together, salt drying on their skin, pretending the world outside didn’t exist.

Now the memory sits on his tongue like blood.

But Barty doesn’t hesitate, and Evan envies him, how he ducks inside like he’s not haunted, the shadows swallowing him whole until only the scrape of his shoes against rock remains. Evan follows, more slowly, each step an act of will.

The air inside is cooler, the sound of the sea muffled. Barty is already sitting in their old spot, on the flat ledge where the rock smooths out into something almost comfortable. He looks smaller here, framed by darkness, his sharpness dulled by memory.

For a long time, neither of them speaks. Just looking at each other briefly, simultaneously avoiding each other’s eyes after a contact. Evan sits opposite him, arms folded tight, the space between them feeling wider than it should.

His heart thumps against his chest too, too forcefully. He thinks, anytime my heart will come out of my mouth and you will catch it with your bare hands but I don’t know if you will cradle it gently like you used to and that’s what is scaring me, Barty.

Finally, after a long time of deafening silence, Barty breaks it with a scoff, followed by a sentence that shatters not just only the quietness between them, but also the insides of Evan’s chest. Barty’s voice is rough, like he’s been rehearsing and hating every word of it for so long in his head.

“You made it sound like I—” he says, staring directly at Evan, “Like I chose it. Like I wanted to hurt you.”

Evan’s jaw tightens. “You didn’t exactly try not to.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.” Barty leans forward, elbows on his knees, eyes catching what little light slips in. “You disappeared, Evan. You left me standing there like I was supposed to wait forever without knowing if you’d even come back. Do you know what that does to a person?”

The words land heavy, heavier than the cave air. Evan stares at the damp stone floor, at the faint traces of sand clinging to it, as if answers might be etched there.

“I thought,” he says slowly, the syllables dragging, “that leaving was the only way to stop being cruel. That if I pulled back, you’d—” He cuts himself off, shakes his head. “Forget it.”

Barty lets out a sound, half laugh, half scoff. “Newsflash, Rosier. It didn’t work. It was cruel anyway.”

The cave holds their words like confessions, bouncing them back until there’s no escaping them.

Evan finally looks up, meeting Barty’s gaze. There’s no anger there, not anymore—just something raw, an old wound still tender.

Evan hates the silence after Barty’s words—because it’s not empty, it’s full, brimming with everything he doesn’t want to face. His pulse thrums in his ears, louder than the waves outside.

“You think I left because it was easy?” His voice cracks sharper than he intends. “You think walking away from you was fucking simple?”

Barty doesn’t flinch, but when he speaks, his voice sounds like a sword in the air, ready to land on their target with lethal precision. “You didn’t exactly make it complicated, Rosie.”

“Because you never saw—” Evan cuts himself off, swallowing hard. His nails dig into his palms. He opens his mouth, softening his voice into a whisper. “I didn’t know how to stay without wrecking both of us.”

For once, Barty doesn’t immediately fire back, like he didn’t expect what’s been said like the last sentences Evan spoke. He leans back against the rock, eyes tracing the shadows above them like he’s trying to pin down something slippery. When he finally speaks, his voice is low.

“You could’ve told me that. You could’ve trusted me with that instead of vanishing like I meant nothing. You never even called.”

The words land with brutal precision. Evan wants to argue, wants to defend himself, but the truth is there: the day he walked away, the silence that followed, the deliberate cruelty of absence.

“I thought silence would hurt less than saying it outright,” he admits, voice like broken glass. Evan looks up, shaking his head in disbelief.  “Turns out I was wrong.”

Barty huffs out a humorless laugh. “No shit.”

The cave fills with the echo of it, sharp and bitter. Evan almost wants to leave, to escape back into the open air, hide under his covers, but his body stays rooted, anchored by something heavier than pride. He looks at him, at Barty, who has been there with every milestone and obstacle that Evan has experienced. Barty, who never left. Barty, who stayed and is willing to talk it out. 

“I’m sorry,” Evan says quietly. 

The cave goes still. Outside, the waves crash, steady and relentless, like they’ve been keeping time for this very moment.

Barty presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, like he’s too tired to keep the sharp edges up any longer. When he speaks again, his voice has shifted—softer, stripped down.

“Evan, I can’t do this without you,” he says. Not desperate, not dramatic—just true. “This life thing. Not the way I did before. So if it can’t be that—” His hands drop, and he looks at Evan directly, eyes dark and clear. “Then at least be my friend. I don’t care how messy it is. I just—” He breaks off, shakes his head. “I just need you in my life.”

The offer hangs there, heavier than any demand.

Evan feels it catch in his chest, a tether pulling taut.

The word friend feels too small. Too ordinary. It rattles around Evan’s head like a stone in a tin can, clumsy and unsatisfying. He wants to laugh at the absurdity of it—after everything, after the way their edges cut so deep into each other, how could they possibly flatten it into something as plain as friendship?

But then Barty is watching him like the answer matters more than air, and Evan’s throat dries.

“You think we can just… call it that?” Evan says finally, his voice thin. “Like those two months two years ago didn’t happen? Like I didn’t—” He stops himself before the word wreck comes out. “Like we didn’t burn it down?”

Barty shakes his head. “No. I’m not asking you to pretend it didn’t happen. I’m asking you to stop acting like it means we’re strangers now.” His tone sharpens, but it’s not cruel. Just urgent. “You’ve been my constant since we were kids. Don’t take that away because we couldn’t—because this didn’t work.”

The echo of this lingers in the cave. The unnamed thing between them, the blurred summers and late nights, the half-touch that almost tipped over into permanence.

Evan lets the silence stretch. He can feel Barty’s impatience pulsing beside him, but also something else underneath—fear. The kind Barty never lets anyone see, the kind that makes Evan’s chest ache because it’s real.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” Evan admits, the words pulled from him like teeth. “Sit beside you and not think about… everything.”

Barty tilts his head back against the rock, eyes closing. “Then don’t. Think about it. Remember it. Just don’t let it be the thing that kills us.”

It’s almost funny, how simple Barty makes it sound. But there’s no mockery in his voice, no bravado. Just the honesty Evan has always both craved and feared from him.

The waves outside crash and retreat, steady, steady. Evan focuses on the sound, like it might tell him what to do.

“You made it look easy,” he says after a while, his voice nearly drowned out by the surf. “Moving on.”

Barty’s eyes snap open, flashing in the dim light. “It wasn’t easy. It was survival that turned into something gentle. There’s a difference.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees, gaze locked onto Evan. “You leaving broke me in ways I don’t even want to say out loud. I love Regulus, Rosie. More than anyone else. But when I was… unwhole, I still wanted you there. I still needed you. And I—” His jaw clenches. “I still do.”

The words slam into Evan with the force of a wave. He should turn away, should build the wall higher, but instead he feels himself cracking.

“I hate you sometimes,” Evan whispers. It slips out unfiltered, the truest thing he has. “For knowing exactly how to get to me. For never letting me stay gone.”

Barty’s mouth quirks into something small, almost sad. “Yeah. Well. I hate you too. For the same reasons.”

For the first time all night, something like a laugh escapes Evan, low and shaky. It doesn’t fix anything, but it softens the space between them.

The tide rolls in again, closer now, as if nudging them forward.

Evan stares at his hands, at the faint scars on his knuckles, at everything he’s carried alone. Finally, he exhales.

“Fine,” he says. Not dramatic, not surrendering—just tired truth. “Friendship. I’ll take it.”

The words don’t feel small this time. They feel like a lifeline, stretched taut between them.

Barty’s shoulders drop, like he’s been holding his breath for months. “Good,” he says simply. Then, softer: “Thank you.”

They sit in the cave a while longer, the salt air filling the spaces between their words. It’s not a clean resolution, not a neat bow. But it’s something—fragile, imperfect, alive.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

“I love you, B. You will always be my Barty. But not like that.” Evan grins, remembering his conversation with Regulus earlier, “Not anymore.”

“Love you, Rosie.” Barty grins back, teeth catching light.

Evan’s heart doesn’t thump too much like it was before, so he laughs, and he feels it echo in the cave. “Stupid fucking idiot.”

“You are!”

“Yeah,” Evan agrees, smiling. “Come here.”

Barty scoots closer, and Evan pulls him by the hand, effectively shoving him in his chest. He hugs him around his neck and Barty groans, laughing. After a while, Evan loosens his grip, and Barty sits closer, letting Evan dangle his hand around his shoulder. They sit like that for minutes they didn’t bother to count.

“Regulus is such a catch,” Evan says, “Fuck you, B.”

“Yeah?” Barty chuckles, “Like I don’t see you staring at his brother’s best friend on the beach a few days ago.”

“Fuck off.”

They stayed there, until the moonlight entered the cave, telling stories of mundanity. When they leave, it is with hearts that are lighter, minds clearer. 

It’s a long way before things get back to normal again, but this is a start. 

This is a rosebud. And Evan is determined to  gather them, bit by bit.