Work Text:
Jerome didn't make it to Mai's house that night.
He went home instead.
Missed three days of classes.
His heart felt like it'd been torn out of his chest.
So, his mom let him stay home, took him to the doctor when he had a nosebleed on the second day, and overall, left him to rest.
"We need to talk about this," Jan's voice is gentle as she steps into his room.
"Mom, look," Jerome sighs as he sits up, pulling his knees to his chest. "I figured out that I'm in love with Jinn, and apparently, I confessed between opening my door after the crash and waking up in the hospital. He wants nothing to do with me, and I refuse to allow your punishment to make him uncomfortable. I won't drive. I'll even work to be able to pay my friends gas money to make it to campus from here. But I can't stay with him."
"You've made this decision without talking to Jinn," Jan's voice is quietly knowing. "Are you certain that's a good idea?"
"It's the only good idea I've had since I met him," replies Jerome as tears slides down his cheek slowly. "He deserves better than the hell I've brought into his life, and I refuse to make him uncomfortable in his own home. Even if it would mean getting to have his attention 24/7 like I want, glares, pinched expressions, half-smirks that twist into pouts, all of it. I can't do that to him anymore."
"You were a brat because you're in love with him, and you were too slow to realize that's what it was until you couldn't hide from it any longer. But that doesn't mean there's not a chance for you to find happiness with him," Jan speaks softly, so soft that he honestly wonders if he's hearing things for a minute, but then her hand lands on his arm. "Have you looked at your phone at all?"
"No, of course not," replies Jerome seriously as he drops his chin on his wrists. "I told them what was going on, emailed the professors, then I shut my phone off. It died yesterday when I turned it on. I can't talk to him, or anyone else, not yet."
"Then I guess you're in for a surprise tomorrow," says his mom with a soft grin that he looks away from with an eye roll. "Get some more rest. I'll yell when dinner's ready."
Jerome hums as his mom leaves, then he turns to look at the phone he's left sitting on his side table for three days. Before he lays down, Jerome puts his phone on the charger. Then he curls away from it, yanking the blanket into place. He'd let the phone die the day before, needed it to because of the number of notifications that popped up every time he turned it back on. Jinn's number wasn't there in the list, and his heart kept breaking because of it.