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Oscar was willing to go along with his parents' wishes when they told him there would be no phones or games or anything powered by electricity while they were away for the holiday. His dad says it's good for them to bond like a family; his mom says you can't enjoy nature if you're staring at your phone all day.
His mom has a point, anyway. Still, Oscar had set his foot down on letting them letting use his phone in the car at least, which had made them grumble but ultimately concede.
"God, Chris, this car is making a lot of noise. Didn't you say you were gonna trade it in for something better?"
"I said I would, and I will. I'm just waiting for the Christmas bonus to come in."
"You said that about the security system, and look how that turned out," his mom ripostes sharply.
It's just a shame he'd ended up forgetting his earbuds in his bedroom anyway, the realization coming only after subtly checking all of his pockets and coming up empty handed. It's a two hour ride to the campgrounds his parents find an excuse to run off to every year. There's an edge in his mom's voice that makes Oscar feel as nervous as it does exhausted.
"Nicole, honeybun—"
"Don't honeybun me, Chris, you always start with the honeybun—"
"—Nicole, we've talked about raising your—"
"You get to talk about it! I never get to get a word in! All you do is insist you're right while I—"
Oscar turns his head to roll his eyes at the world outside the car window, inhales a long breath and lets out a short, bored sigh through his nose. He should really just start keeping an extra pair in the car.
~
Oscar had only stepped out for a smoke break.
It's a Wednesday today, which means the bar is only a quarter as full as it is on the weekends. Inside is a sports match happening on a television hanging above the foosball tables at one end of the room, but Oscar had just been nursing his drink while idly switching between watching the colors change on the TV screen and mindlessly scrolling his phone in his lap.
Stepping back inside, Oscar's eyes feel like rocks as he raises them to assess the bar. There's only a few other people here and they've all come in pairs. Oscar had been approached by a nice looking guy at the park a few months ago, but he hadn't been able to follow it up. He had no reason not to, really. Sometimes it's hard to decide if he's even lonely or not.
He ponders it while he returns to his seat at the bar again; waves down the bartender for a refill and returns back to his phone. Briefly the sound of passing cars pours into the bar before it's cut off and muffled by the door again. The newcomer's footsteps pause before passing behind him—his figure in the corner of Oscar's eye finds a place a few seats to his left.
Oscar has no reason to turn his head and look. He focuses on sipping his drink and chewing through his thoughts aimlessly. He's been able to save up quite a bit since his last promotion. Maybe he could get a nicer car or a bigger apartment. He's trying to focus on the future more, these days.
Something exciting happens on the television screen and he lifts his head—but instead of the football match that has others in the bar gasping, Oscar finds himself met with pale eyes and curly hair he hasn't seen in years.
"Oscar?"
Oscar's heart is so committed to disbelief that it's a long, long couple moments for it to realize who's speaking to him. When it does, the coldness in his stomach feels palpable.
"H-hey," Oscar stammers, completely stunlocked by the sight of a face he hasn't seen in over five years.
~
Oscar's friend from the year before, Logan, casts him a pitiful look when he's paired with Lando Norris for a presentation in Biology. Lando is blank-faced, fidgety, and exclusively wears hoodies two sizes too big for him, so Oscar already resigns himself to doing most of the work.
They exchange numbers though, and meeting up at the library Oscar finds an entire afternoon wasted away with Lando while he jokes and smiles and makes Oscar laugh far more than he thinks anyone has ever made him. When they agree to try again somewhere more reserved a few days later—a solemn cafe with seats for about five people max—the same thing happens except this time they've spilled tea all over their laps in their goofing around.
The third time around, Oscar learns that what Lando lacks in spelling and punctuation he far more than makes up for in thoroughness and a good aesthetic eye. The presentation is beautiful, and though he stumbles on half the jargon and blushes through everything else, they both get full score and are proud of it.
Graduation is just nine months away now. Their first meeting in Biology class an entire four years ago. Oscar reminisces on how far they've both come while he waits outside of the detention room on campus and wonders what life holds in store for both of them.
He's so out of it that he doesn't even realize when Lando filters out with the other miscreants; he passes a hand in front of Oscar's face, who jumps before realizing who it is.
"How was camping, rich kid?" Lando teases as they leave together.
"Glamping," Oscar corrects. "And you're in the same tax bracket as me. Anyway, it was nice, actually. Forgot how nice it is to be in nature."
"Take any photos?" Lando asks, and Oscar knows how he gets on days like this: Obsessing over Oscar's life to draw attention away from his own. But Lord knows Oscar's never had a break all the times he's needed it. To be able to give that to Lando in the form of badly framed photos of trees and bugs and rocks he'd had to hide from his parents feels like healing a part of himself.
It's Lando's birthday today, and despite the dress code violations and vandalism and unwarranted rebellious streak that had landed him in detention, his grades were as good as any parent could hope, and thus his parents awarded him one sleepover at a friend's house—but he absolutely must be home by noon the next day.
Lando doesn't care for the rules his parents set for him, so Oscar doesn't, either. They spend all of Friday night playing video games and gorging themselves on pizza, and on Saturday they waste away time scarfing down the leftovers and watching video essays on Youtube. It's 2pm when Lando's parents come knocking at the door, both of them nothing but giggles while their parents glare and scold and apologize to each other.
"I raised you better than this," his mom tells him angrily while she cleans up their mess anyway.
Oscar doesn't listen to her because he knows that what she means to say is you're better than him, and both he and Lando are well aware that parents never know anything about anything.
~
The dentist his family has been going to since he was a kid is in Lando's neighborhood. He always gets a little internal spark of excitement when they pass by the stone wall that runs along his community; Spring Breeze Residential Community in large cursive letters engraved into the placard at the main entrance.
Oscar is only going to get his teeth cleaned, but he'd borrowed Lando's DSi and some games a while back and kept forgetting to bring it to school. Next Thursday is the last day of classes though, and Lando has been absent for the last two days—he hasn't been answering any of Oscar's texts, either.
He doesn't worry about it. Lando knows how to get himself out of trouble. But Oscar joined an early-bird program for the summer before he heads off to university proper and he doesn't know when he'll be able to give it back. If they're in the area, he figured, a short house call to check in on him wouldn't hurt.
His parents wait in the car while he walks up Lando's driveway and to his front door. He glances back at the car—his parents are silent, but they both look bored and vaguely irritated. They've never liked Lando. Oscar thinks they're a little dramatic.
He doesn't have to wait very long after ringing the doorbell for Lando's parents to appear at the door. They're surprised to see him, but their surprise is hiding some kind of malaise. Maybe they had been arguing, too.
"Is Lando home? I came to return some of his games. He isn't answering my texts."
Cisca brings a hand to her mouth and dashes back into the house; Adam sighs and steps outside fully to speak to him.
"Lando's away for a little while," he says sadly but firmly. Oscar doesn't understand.
"Where'd he go?"
Back in the car, his parents don't ask how Lando or his parents are doing. Oscar sits motionless in the back seat stunned before he takes the plunge and pulls out his phone.
Nature getaway is what Adam had said to him at the door—something like long term camping to relax the mind. All of the related text that pops up when Oscar looks it up uses words like probation camp and youth prison.
He feels sick. He won't even be around when Lando gets back. And Oscar won't have anyone to talk to about his dorm or his classes or his professors or how nice it is to be away from his shithead parents for once.
How could you fucking leave me alone here? he thinks angrily, feels tears burn at the back of his eyes. He doesn't mean it, of course. It wasn't Lando's choice to be sent away. But parents are unreasonable creatures and no amount of blame they swallow will ever change their behavior. It's all he has left to be angry at the one person who doesn't deserve it, all because there's no where else for it to be offloaded.
Guess I'd make a good parent, Oscar thinks as he shuts his eyes. The rumbling of the car tires beneath him as they get going again don't do anything to help his nausea. He supposes he must deserve it.
~
Dating Lando is a lot like being his classroom rival in their highschool math classes, if only in that wherever one went, so too could you find the other. If there were two perfect test scores, everyone already knew who they belonged to; if one was absent, the other likely knew exactly where they were, when, and why.
It's funny to Oscar, because it's not like they're clingy. He doesn't wake up to good morning texts and Lando's social life doesn't revolve around Oscar's class schedule.
He's aware, though, that a large part of Lando's cleaning himself up has to do with Oscar's absence. Lando tells him often how insecure he feels that Oscar is in school as a mechie while he's bussing tables and trying his best not to steal from the cash register. Oscar knows he'd never do it, but he understands that it's hard for Lando, who truly does see the world as his oyster and struggles to remind himself that he's sharing it with others.
He doesn't need to steal, anyway. Lando is charming and makes a ridiculous amount of money in tips—half of which he saves, and half of which he finds some way to spend on Oscar, even if it's just a bag of chips from the corner store or a new pair of socks because all of his are ten years old with holes in them.
In the case of Oscar, he doesn't really have any reason to lie. Lando had been Oscar's only friend in highschool, and nearly three years into university, not much about his social life has changed. He leaves Lando in the morning and comes home to him in the evening; they share their finances, plan their grocery shopping, visit their parents during holidays. There's nothing Oscar does that he does without Lando—not because he just can't stand to be apart from him, but because that's just how their lives turned out together.
So yes, even though they grew in different directions in the end, Oscar doesn't mind that their roots ended up so tangled up together beneath the surface.
Their first apartment is shitty and small and they have to have a fight with the landlord about the mold in the air conditioning unit, but Oscar doesn't care because it's theirs and theirs alone. And Lando hadn't laughed or frowned or done anything when Oscar had cried in his arms with joy and relief on their first night there; relief that he was finally free to start his life, and joy that he still had Lando here to enjoy it with. Lando had just held him and rubbed his shoulders until all the tears ran out, and then it was just them.
Oscar isn't religious or anything, but if a memory could be a prayer, he thinks it'd be the weight of Lando against him while their empty refrigerator hummed in the kitchen, of that first taste of freedom both inside and out, and knowing that no matter what happened then or will happen in the future, he could be happy right there in that moment for nobody but himself.
~
When his mom peeks in his room to tell him that he has a visitor, he doesn't know what to expect. He isn't really close enough with anyone at school besides Lando to get housecalls.
When he meets Cisca and Adam standing at the door, both of them trying not to frown but failing, Oscar doesn't know what to think.
"Hey, Oscar. We're sorry to bother you. Do you—are you free to talk for a moment or two?" Adam greets him carefully. Oscar glances back into his house and finds himself alone. Naturally.
He takes them to the back patio and makes sure the glass doors are closed shut before joining them in the deck chairs. Cisca looks a bit more comfortable in the shade but the wobble of her lower lip is as obvious as anything. Adam keeps an arm around her shoulders while she holds back her tears and speaks on their behalf.
"Lando's run away," he says, and Oscar has to bite down on his tongue hard to keep himself from smiling.
"They're out looking for him, but Oscar, honey, you don't know anything, do you?" Cisca adds on.
"Um," says Oscar, glancing again at the living room through the glass doors and finding his parents nowhere they can help him. As usual.
"He's such a good boy," Cisca's voice wobbles but she doesn't seem as embarrassed about it as her husband.
"Love," he comforts her quietly but she pushes on anyway.
"We don't know where we went wrong," she sniffles. "He's such a good boy, he used to cook breakfast for us sometimes—where did he go?"
"Dear, Oscar's just a twelfth grader," Adam hugs her close while she dabs at her eyes with a napkin.
"I know. I know. I'm sorry, hun. It's not—I shouldn't have…"
Loved him so much, maybe. Oscar lifts his drink to his lips carefully and casts his eyes down to the table.
"It sounds like you're really worried about him," he says.
"Is he okay, Oscar? Has he told you anything?"
Sure he has. The copy of Coping with the Troubled Teen he'd found in Cisca's purse. The medication that doesn't help him any. The people who bullied him out of the only sport he enjoyed. The low marks, the special ed classroom, the scissors he'd lodged in the thigh of his latest tormentor.
And hadn't Oscar been part of it, too? For years he'd thought of Lando as nothing more than a series of misfortunes and displays of poor character. He would have sided with his bullies every time. That they'd ended up becoming friends was just chance—knowing that, would Lando even want someone like Oscar to defend him now?
"He seemed okay," he says noncommittally. "I mean, when we hung out he seemed alright. Sometimes he's a little sad, but…"
"Oh, God," Cisca trembles again and covers her face with the handkerchief.
Oscar feels bad. He knew they'd invited him here to talk about Lando, but he hadn't expected anyone to be crying, let alone the parents of his best friend.
"I'm sorry about this, Oscar. It's been hard for us."
Harder than Lando has it, I suppose? Oscar thinks to himself bitterly. But he knows how it is with adults. The last thing they'll ever do is admit that they've made a mistake.
~
They've both been a little burnt out lately, so it's Lando who picks up takeout for dinner today. It's the same thing they always get from the Chinese place near Lando's community college—two plates of rice and two plates of chicken, hold the chopsticks, please.
Their second apartment is slightly bigger than their first, this one having enough room in the kitchen for a small dining table. It's where they sit eating now, Lando chewing silently and staring down at the phone in his lap while Oscar waits and waits to meet his gaze for the first time all evening.
"How have your classes been?" he asks when he accepts that it won't be happening any time soon.
"Fine," Lando says with his eyes aimed at his lap.
Alright. They're still not talking to each other, he supposes. Oscar doesn't mean to make a sound but his sigh comes out through his mouth pointedly and that makes Lando upset.
"What are you sighing for? It's been fine," he defends himself irritatedly.
"I know. It's nothing."
"It's not nothing, Oscar, you're sighing like you're mad at me but you won't even tell me what's wrong."
"Lan, look—"
"Don't Lan me, you always start with the pet names—"
And when they raise their voices at each other, to Oscar it feels normal, natural. He knows all the right things to say to get Lando riled up, words that have been carved into his skull to hold all the wrath to unleash in moments of selfishness like these.
Because Lando's parents were kind to one another, thoughtful and sensitive and clearly still holding a lot of love for the other. He doesn't stand a chance against the things Oscar has picked up from his family.
It's an unfair fight, so it's Oscar who relegates himself to the couch on nights like these usually, but today Lando doesn't even finish his food before he's storming out of the apartment with his coat and his car keys and walls shaking from the force of the door slamming.
Oscar finishes eating and wraps up Lando's leftovers to store in the fridge. In bed alone he stares at the ceiling and wonders if it's the ring Oscar had wanted so badly to see on Lando's finger that has him lashing out like an animal in a cage every other night.
~
Oscar knows it's several months far too early to be working on his university applications, and definitely far too late in the night for him to be staring at eligibility requirements and dormitory options like he's packing up and leaving tomorrow.
He wishes he was, though. And he wishes he could decide on something to study for four years so that the path out of this house could be more concrete in his vision.
"Lucky bastard," Oscar intones into the night before shutting his laptop screen and putting his face in his hands. Every day is a headache, lately. If it's not his parents it's school, if it's not school, it's college applications. And if it's not college applications, it's the fact that his dog, Daisy, seems to be losing her sight, and his parents don't seem to care about at least getting her checked out at all.
Lando, though, doesn't have to deal with any of it. He's off traipsing God knows where either dead in a ditch or building a hut out of sticks and leaves probably as happy as a bumblebee.
Oscar can't remember the last time he's actually cried, but more and more often lately he feels the urge coming on. He's worried one day the dam will break at the worst time possible.
"Psst," a voice sounds sharply, breaking him from his thoughts. "Knock knock, are you in there?"
Oscar's heart thuds in his chest as he rushes to his bedside window—and there indeed stands Lando's form in the darkness, vaguely lit by the lamp posts from the road with his bright eyes darting here and there around Oscar's face.
"Dude," Oscar says pointedly.
"Hey!" Lando greets him cheerfully—and loudly for a fugitive. "Look, long time no see or whatever but I got a fire going back there and I can't let it sit without keeping an eye on it—do you wanna come for a walk through the woods? If you're free, I mean."
Oscar blinks a few times, bewildered and unsure how to respond, how he should or how he wants to.
"Mate, you know they're looking for you, right?"
"Well yeah," Lando has shame enough to look at least a little sheepish. "Maybe they'll find me then. Or maybe they won't. But right now I'm free, so—I'm just enjoying it, you know?"
Oscar doesn't respond. Lando just stares at him hopeful and completely guileless. It's always that look that gets him.
"Just let me get my shoes on," Oscar sighs.
In the yard Oscar's dog Daisy tilts her little head up at him in wonder, unused to seeing him out so late and completely disinterested in the intruder on their property.
"You're a godawful guard dog," he says heatlessly, leaning down to ruffle the fur on her head before picking her up to tuck under his arm.
"Don't be mean," Lando whispers from the treeline. "Is she coming?"
"Do you want her to?" Oscar says. He holds her out to lick Lando's face, who squeals and laughs and tries to dodge Oscar chasing him down.
"It'd be kind of funny if she did, wouldn't it?" Lando says. "Fuck it. The more the merrier."
His parents will be annoyed with him, he thinks, but they'll be perplexed more than anything else.
And Oscar supposes that's another luxury he has that Lando doesn't. His parents are too distracted to care too much about what he does and where. Any of his faults are just quirks of character, one-offs that won't be counted in the grand scheme of things—not if it made their lives more complicated, anyway.
Lando's parents, on the other hand, treated him like a nutcase just for being a bit restless and flighty. And violent, occasionally, but Oscar just thinks that if Lando really wanted to hurt people, he wouldn't tear up whenever he tries to tell Oscar about the things he's done.
And Oscar sympathises with his friend, he really does—but God, what he wouldn't give for someone to obsess over his own flaws like that.
~
"Sorry, I—I didn't think you'd still be here."
"You're sorry I'm here?" Oscar says meanly. He knows what Lando meant. He doesn't know himself to be spiteful.
"No," Lando smiles at him anyway. "I'm quite glad to see you, actually. I was thinking of you."
"Oh yeah?" Oscar tilts his head away slightly. Something over Lando's shoulder that he pretends to be interested in.
"Yeah," says Lando. "Pleasant surprise."
~
It had been fun riding in the police car to their headquarters, honestly. He thinks it would have been even without Lando snickering in handcuffs beside him.
His mom won't even talk to the police. She paces the lobby outside with her hands crossed tightly over her chest, her head tilting up while she mutters to herself angrily and then down when she sighs and has nothing more to say to herself.
Oscar doesn't have to watch her through the window to know that's what she's doing. His dad is stern and nods through all the chatter with the police—he gets on their good side because that's what he's good at doing. Oscar always hoped to inherit his charm. He thinks he's about to start giving up that dream, honestly.
It takes a little longer for Lando's parents to arrive at the station—Oscar knows their house is farther away. The first thing they do when they see him is embrace him in full body hugs and tears and blubber over how they were wrong to send him away and they're sorry he got lost on the way home and they're sorry for how hard it must have been for him. Oscar's dad watches them disdainfully, shaking their head like he can't comprehend having a runaway child.
But anyway, he's still a minor and the police can't see anything wrong with him or his family, so they skip the paperwork and let them go home after they scold Oscar lightly but meaninglessly.
He can't get through to Lando with his parents fawning over him. He tried hard to catch his eye, but he's smiling and laughing with them while the police unlock his handcuffs, so he assumes he'll be alright without him.
~
"No, no. My son is heading back to university tomorrow. He isn't going to be around to see us."
Oscar perches himself halfway down his staircase and listens to his dad in the living room. He can't see Oscar and Oscar can't see him, but the house is quiet enough for his voice to carry clearly through the corner wall between them.
"I just haven't found the right thing to say. Honestly, I think she already knows."
In our own house? Oscar is appalled. He can hear a distant blathering on the other end of the speaker but he can't make out anything at all.
"Sure. I'll see you tonight, love. Wait for me."
Oscar's mother is a heavy sleeper, which she always said is convenient because Chris' snoring never woke her up in the night.
Oscar, on the other hand, wakes up at the slightest sound and struggles to get back to sleep after the fact. Though he hears his dad hang up the phone, there's no motion of him standing to return to bed, no sound of the couch cushions shuffling or the floorboards creaking.
His dad is a moper, he knows. Oscar thinks that's where he gets it from. He's almost certainly just sitting there now, eyes half closed while he ponders the disarray of his life. From his parent's bedroom is complete silence, his mom blissfully unaware of the scheming happening under her own roof, a cross that only the men in the family have to bear, apparently.
I'll be out of this house soon, Oscar comforts himself as he slips back into his bedroom. I'll graduate and be out of this house and will never have a reason to come back ever again.
~
"And how have you been?"
Oscar shrugs. "Fine. Just. You know. Still working at the same place. Got a few promotions."
"Yeah?" Lando brightens a little. "Make a lot more money now? Are you still in our old apartment?"
"No, no. Mum keeps asking me why don't I upgrade a little, but…I don't know."
"Sure. Familiar, I guess," nods Lando. "And the work, how's that been?"
Another shrug. Oscar opens his mouth to say one thing but his heart, the devil, beats him to the finish line.
"Started smoking again, so. Not great."
Oscar Piastri you absolute fucking moron, he admonishes himself inwardly. Because Lando's gaze turns gentle, turns pitying, and he has no right to feel that way about him. Oscar's life isn't any of his concern anymore.
"Oh yeah?" Lando says, painfully neutral. Oscar feels all his nerves buzzing at the tips of his fingers and he can't really lift his eyes to meet his gaze anymore.
"Not like before. I'm—it's just one a day. That's my limit."
Because they both know how it had been before. Lando had clung to weed like it was life or death and neither of them could help that his preferred dispensary sold so many other colorful things to take the edge off. Oscar had set himself a goal and wouldn't accept a resume that wasn't at least two pages long by graduation—a nicotine addiction in exchange for an honors degree and a job right out of school was more than worth it, in his opinion. Lando loved him enough not to press it but Oscar knew it made him unhappy.
But he'd been younger then, and in any case his life isn't Lando's business anymore. It's Oscar's fault for volunteering the information.
"That's good," Lando tells him anyway.
"What about you? Still with, uh—what's his name?"
"Carlos?" Lando's smile widens as he says the name, not like he's happy to say it but like he's all but bursting out into laughter at the sound of it.
"Yeah. Him."
"It didn't work out. He wanted to get married a year in—when I said I'd rather wait, he acted like I'd broken up with him then and there."
"Huh," Oscar replies.
"Then he tried to buy me—sorry, that's why I'm laughing. He said he'd buy me a mansion in Monaco if I stayed—he wanted me to be, like, his stay at home trophy wife. That's how I knew he wasn't right for me."
Everything Oscar knows about Carlos Sainz are things he wishes he didn't. Blabbed too much to one coworker, who looked up some names on Instagram and couldn't get over the fact that Oscar had been dumped for a Spanish pornstar.
And model, he reminds himself. And business owner and clothing designer. With nicer hair than Oscar will ever have and a trillion dollars of generational wealth to round it all off. Lando used to say he liked Oscar's accent; the few times Oscar has met Carlos face to face, he'd wondered if maybe the funny way he formed his sentences sometimes is what had charmed him.
"Not much of a settler, are you?" Oscar muses. He doesn't say it to prod but Lando's face falls anyway.
"Yeah. I guess you know how I am. Just can't sit still."
Silent for a few moments. Oscar appraises the condensation on his emptied glass and wonders where they go from here.
"But you're over it now?" he tries.
"Yes, definitely. I've got different tastes, now. I'm all over it."
Good. That's good. Oscar lets out a breath and wonders what the hell he's so tense for. Lando isn't starting a fight just by wanting to talk to him. Their divorce hadn't been on bad terms. Oscar could do civility.
~
Emotionally charged wouldn't quite describe the strange atmosphere in the living room when Oscar peeks in before dodging into the bathroom to brush his teeth.
His mom and his dad were both not just sitting on the couch, but sitting beside each other. As if they'd agreed on something and felt good enough about it to warrant physical proximity. Either something good has happened, or something terrible enough for them to forget how much they hate being around each other.
The brunch thing is new, too. They don't do brunch, and they most certainly don't do it together. With the mousey nervousness his mom had peeked into his room just moments after he'd woken up, he can tell it's serious. She's only scared to upset him when it involves her, too.
"Will you come with your dad and I for brunch, honey?" she had said lightly, and his heart racing in his chest is making it hard to even grip his toothbrush properly.
"We're getting a divorce," his dad tells him at the restaurant booth halfway into their food being eaten. Oscar looks at his dad and then his mom and then back at his dad again. He picks up a french fry from their share plate.
"Alright," he says through his food, in just the way they both think is rude and unbecoming of him. Internally, he's ecstatic with relief—he thought they'd found his cigarettes or something—but his parents wouldn't like to see that in him. He holds his ground.
"We'll be signing the papers over the weekend," his mom continues. "Your dad's already found a new flat—you know the new apartments by the pool? There's a bus stop not far from it."
"Yep," Oscar says over another french fry. His mom's apprehension is slowly morphing into disgust at his eating habits. His dad picks up where she leaves off.
"There's a room for you there—not that you'll need it, since you'll probably want to be moving out soon, but…"
"Okay," he says. Fry number three is crunchier than the others. A muscle in his dad's jaw twitches at the sound of his chewing.
"We know it's a lot for you," his mom tries to keep her voice calm and soothing despite how hard Oscar is trying to hold back a smile. "Is there anything you want to ask us? Say to us?"
The fourth fry is on the way to his mouth when a dreary thought occurs to him.
"What about Daisy?"
~
Daisy trudges slowly to the door to see Oscar off, who is just tucking his heels into his shoes and grabbing the keys from the wall hook. A thought crosses his mind as he looks into her beady black eyes that she might still remember Lando's scent—but then he thinks she definitely wouldn't if Lando is still wearing weird cologne he never used to.
When Lando had reached out to him again, it hadn't been via Instagram but by phone number.
The intimacy of it irks him, and then he's irked for reading so much into it. He's all but quit social media by now. Lando always used to tell him how jealous he was that the cycle of scrolling and tapping didn't get its hooks into Oscar like it had him. If anything the directness is thoughtful of him.
The thoughtfulness still makes him anxious. He already knew Lando could be sensitive if he wanted, but that's just the catch. When he wanted. And when Lando wants something, no matter how embarrassed he is, he finds a way to ask for it.
Daisy is looking at the keys in Oscar's hand like he's confused. He doesn't usually leave the house before noon on weekends, he supposes. He's a little confused at himself too.
"Wish me luck, bud," he says, and then he's out the door.
The place Lando had chosen for them to meet up is an unassuming cafe that used to be a donut shop that used to be a weed dispensary that Lando preferred. He hadn't been around for the donut shop part, but Oscar remembers going along with him to buy cigarettes back when they were in their early twenties and being so ridiculously in love with Lando that he'd do anything he did if it meant they could do it together.
Oscar feels shy. He has to admit it. Lando's seen a lot of the world since he left. Most of it accidentally and a lot of it on his new boyfriend's dime. It's a big assumption to make, maybe, but his English degree couldn't have afforded month long vacations in Ibiza or wherever it is he had been posting about on his Instagram story.
It hadn't been stalking. Lando kept his account open. Oscar has never had any more self control than Lando did. To this day he still doesn't understand why he seemed to get away with it while Lando didn't.
But that's from when Oscar was younger. He hasn't quite reached thirty yet, but Lando has, and when he waves Oscar down just as he enters the cafe he thinks that that youthful smile will fit him perfectly no matter how old he gets.
"Hey," Oscar greets, taking a seat in the booth across from Lando.
"I'm glad you could make it. Thought maybe you'd flake," says Lando humorously.
Oscar shrugs and looks down at his lap shyly.
"Yeah, well. I'm here."
It's fine, mostly. Catching up with each other. They both get coffees and Lando is still fidgety, still keeps turning his head towards the window to catch the sunlight on his face before turning back to smile at Oscar. And it's fine but it just feels a little unfair. Because of course Lando gets to do everything wrong and still be effortlessly attractive. It makes Oscar's heart curdle.
And so he doesn't mean to sound frustrated, to sound hostile, when Lando finally says what it is he wants to say to him, but he can't help it. It feels like his 25-year-old self is rising from the ashes and stealing Oscar's voice for himself.
"I wasn't good enough for you back then. That's basically what you said, isn't it? Why should I think that anything's changed?"
Because the Lando in front of him may as well be a stranger. The version of Lando that Oscar still loves is the version he knew inside and out, ups and downs, ins and outs. The Lando sitting in front of him now is five years removed from that; why would Oscar want anything to do with him?
Lando shakes his head, shrugs.
"You don't have to believe me. I loved you, then I didn't. Now I want to again. You don't have to try if you don't want to. I'm just saying I'm willing."
Oscar is frustrated. Lando always knows how to get the upper hand in arguments by acting all wise about it, like Oscar's hurts don't matter because he's already found a way to internalize and get over them before Oscar can even figure out what words he wants to say. Like he's already dug up and appraised and shelved his feelings behind his back and Oscar just has to deal with whatever Lando decided for both of them.
It's the same fucking thing. It's the same fucking thing as before—why would anything have changed? Lando runs through life like everyone will forgive him for all his mistakes no matter how destructive and they always fucking do. Oscar's witnessed it firsthand enough times to know how it goes. He isn't going to play his games anymore.
"I'm sorry, Lando. We had a good thing going, but if it was going to last, it would have lasted. I can't do it a second time."
Lando's face falls a little. He casts his eyes down at the table, raises them again and sits back in his seat.
"Okay. That's your decision. I'll respect that."
So he does. He doesn't mind changing the subject after that, filling in the gaps where Oscar feels confused or blindsighted or unsure of what Lando even wants with him after being rejected. He still smiles at Oscar and asks about him, slouches in his chair and laughs with all of his teeth showing like he's just completely comfortable with Oscar even after all this time.
They part on good terms because they're older now, the flames of youth quietened and forgotten for the sake of peace. Oscar sits in his car quietly and stares at his hands in his lap feeling completely at a loss.
I loved how my last name sounded on him once, he thinks to himself. There's no swell of emotion that comes with it, none of the anger or grief or misery or anything that he always associates with their memories together. It was all he could think about back then; having a husband he could call his, having a husband to show off, having a husband to prove that look, I can do better than my parents ever did, just watch me.
That's your decision. I'll respect that.
In bed once night has fallen, Oscar replays their conversation in his head over and over and over again. He hadn't known back then how badly he wanted to hear those words from Lando. Now that he has, they don't elicit anything in him at all. He sort of wants to, he thinks—he wants to feel angry or patronized or something, but he can't place why at all. Maybe he'd wanted Lando to talk down to him. Maybe he needs the disrespect to feel confident in himself. Maybe he hasn't changed nearly as much as he thought.
He turns over on his back and presses both of his hands into his eyes hard, clenches his jaw to keep himself from screaming his lungs out like he wants to. It's always so fucking complicated with Lando. With himself. He wishes Lando had just cheated on him like his parents had with each other, because at least then the rejection would be clear cut and less muddled with ifs and feelings and sorries.
They aren't living in that world, though. They'll both just have to live with their decisions.