Chapter 14 Careful Truths #2
“Were you planning to run?” he asked finally.
“Honestly? Yeah. Maybe. I don't know.” I threw another handful of crackers, harder than necessary. “Everything here is so... familiar. Like stepping back into a life that doesn't fit anymore, you know? But also like the only life that ever did fit, and I'm just too fucked up now to see it.”
“You're not fucked up.”
“I'm twenty-four, living in my childhood bedroom, with a photography degree that's apparently worth less than the paper it's printed on and enough debt to buy a small car. If that's not fucked up, I don't know what is.”
“It's temporary.”
The certainty in his voice made me want to believe him, but believing things hadn't worked out so well for me lately.
“It feels pretty permanent. Like maybe this is just who I am now—the guy who had big dreams and spectacular failures in equal measure.”
Evan turned to look at me then, really look, with those hazel eyes that had always seen too much.
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you're so busy being disappointed in yourself that you can't see what everyone else sees.”
“Which is?”
“Someone who was brave enough to chase something impossible. Someone who spent six years in a city that chews people up and spits them out, and came home whole. Different, maybe. Older, definitely. But whole.”
The words settled into my chest like warm honey, sweet and soothing in places that had been raw for months.
“I should have called,” I said, voice rough with honesty I probably should have kept to myself. “All those years. I should have picked up the phone and... I don't know. Told you I was thinking about you. Asked how you were. Something.”
“Why didn't you?”
“Pride, mostly. And fear. What if you'd moved on? What if you didn't want to hear from me? What if I called and realized that whatever we'd had was just... high school bullshit that felt important at the time but didn't mean anything in the real world?”
“And what if it did mean something?”
The question hung between us like a bridge I wasn't sure I was brave enough to cross.
“Then I was an even bigger idiot than Jonah said I was.”
“Jonah's right about a lot of things,” Evan said. “But he's wrong about you being an idiot. Scared, maybe. Human, definitely. But not an idiot.”
A duck paddled close to the edge, eyeing my depleted cracker supply with the kind of optimism that suggested he believed in miracles. I scattered the last of the crumbs, watching them disappear in a flurry of feathers and competitive quacking.
“I'm sorry,” I said.
“Nate.” Evan's hand covered mine, warm and solid and real in ways that made my throat tight. “Stop apologizing for following your dreams. Even if they didn't turn out the way you planned.”
“But I hurt you.”
“Yeah,” he said simply. “You did. But that doesn't mean it was wrong. Sometimes people hurt each other by doing what they need to do. That's just... life.”
“I don't know how to do this,” I admitted. “How to be here. How to figure out what comes next. How to... be around you without feeling like I'm eighteen again and completely out of my depth.”
“One day at a time,” Evan said. “One conversation at a time. We don't have to figure everything out right now.”
“What if I run again?”
“Then you run. But maybe this time, you'll know what you're running from instead of just running to something you think you want.”
The distinction hit me like a revelation, cutting through six years of confusion to something clearer and more honest underneath.
“When did you get so wise?” I asked.
“When I had to learn how to live without you and still function like a normal human being.”
The honesty in his voice made my chest ache with all the time we'd lost, all the conversations we'd never had, all the ways we'd both learned to be whole without the other half of whatever we'd been together.
“For what it's worth,” I said, “I never learned how to live without you. I just got really good at pretending I had.”
Evan's smile was soft around the edges, sad and hopeful in equal measure.
“Maybe that's something we can work on together.”
I was about to respond with something equally profound and emotionally significant when a particularly aggressive mallard decided that our conversation had gone on long enough without proper tribute.
The duck—who I immediately dubbed General Quackers based on his apparent leadership qualities—waddled out of the water with the determination of someone collecting overdue rent.
“Uh, Evan?” I nodded toward our approaching feathered dictator. “I think we're about to be evicted.”
General Quackers stopped directly in front of us and unleashed a series of quacks that sounded distinctly like threats. His backup—a motley crew of ducks, geese, and what looked like one very confused pigeon—formed a semicircle behind him.
“I think they want more crackers,” Evan said, trying not to laugh.
“I think they want our souls,” I countered. “Look at those eyes. That's not hunger. That's judgment.”
As if to prove my point, General Quackers stepped forward and pecked at my shoelace with the focused intensity of someone who meant business.
“Okay, okay!” I held up my empty hands. “I'm out of crackers! This is all I've got!”
The duck gave me a look that clearly conveyed his opinion of my inadequate snack provisions, then turned to Evan with what I swear was hope.
“Don't look at me,” Evan said to the duck. “I didn't bring anything either.”
General Quackers quacked once, sharp and accusatory, then turned and waddled back toward the pond with the air of someone who'd been personally betrayed by the universe.
His followers dispersed with varying degrees of disappointment, except for the pigeon, who lingered long enough to give us both a judgmental stare before flying away.
“Well,” I said, watching the avian drama unfold. “That was humbling.”
“I think we just got told off by a duck.”
“Not just any duck. That was clearly the duck equivalent of a drill sergeant. Did you see the way he organized his troops?”
Evan was grinning now, the heavy emotional weight of our conversation temporarily lifted by absurd waterfowl politics. “Maybe we should come back tomorrow. With better offerings.”
“What do you think the duck mafia prefers? Bread? Corn? Artisanal crackers?”
“Probably something organic. These look like sophisticated ducks.”
I snorted with laughter, the sound echoing across the water and earning me another reproachful look from General Quackers. “Right. Sophisticated ducks who just staged a coordinated shakedown operation.”
“Welcome back to Hollow Pines,” Evan said, standing and brushing cracker crumbs off his jeans. “Where even the wildlife has opinions about your life choices.”
And for the first time since stepping off that bus, I felt like maybe I could do that. Maybe I could figure out how to be Nate Harrington in Hollow Pines again, older and scarred but not broken. Not completely.