Chapter 26 #3
But Nevan is still beside me, and Lennon is on the other side of my wall, and Paul is somewhere in this town being careful and deliberate about everything except himself.
I couldn’t live with myself if I took what he offered.
And I’m already struggling to live with myself on a good day.
Nevan is standing with the chalk still in his hand, staring at the space where the blackboard was, still in his underwear.
I study him for a moment, then dress him in sweatpants and a hoodie, because it costs me nothing, and some minimum standard of dignity seems like the least I can offer someone whose worst nightmare I accidentally walked through.
The moment the clothes appear on him, he looks down at himself, then up, and sees me.
“Ridge?”
Is he lucid?
“Nevan.” I straighten. “Long time no see.”
“Really long time.” He looks around at the clouds but is not particularly stressed about us standing around in them.
Not lucid then.
His brow furrows, confusion mixing with what appears to be concern. “I was worried about you.”
“You were worried?” I huff, caught off guard.
“Yeah.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I liked working with you, man. You actually talked to me like I wasn’t an idiot, you know? Showed me stuff. Made the shifts go faster…” He pauses. “I even came by the Wells building to check on you, but nobody answered.”
Shit.
This kid, this guy, isn’t the bad guy. He’s probably a good guy. Way better than I am. But I’m here for a reason. Even if This Man derails said reason, I still want to know while I’m here.
I think Lennon into existence beside us, the best dream projection I’ve ever built, because I know exactly what she looks like now. Every detail. The blonde hair, the blue eyes, the beauty marks, the way she scrunches her nose, even the yellow nails.
Nevan turns, and his whole face lights up.
“Lemon?” He steps toward her immediately, reaching out. “You’re here too?”
What is it with men and their need to rename her stupid things?
He pulls her into a hug, and I watch his shoulders relax. “God, it’s good to see you,” he says into her hair. “Everything’s been so strange today.”
“Strange how?” I ask, keeping my voice casual.
He pulls back from Lennon but keeps one hand on her shoulder, like he needs the anchor. “I don’t know. Wrong. But now…” He looks at her again, smiling. “Now it feels better.”
“She does that,” I say, watching him carefully. “Makes things better.”
“Yeah.” His voice is soft, genuine. “She does.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Not long enough.” He laughs, running a hand through his hair. “But you know those people you instantly click with, and you’re like… yeah, you’re mine.”
I ball my hand into a fist.
She’s mine, my tether.
The projection-Lennon doesn’t speak. She’s not advanced enough for that, not without more concentration than I’m willing to give right now, but Nevan doesn’t seem to notice. He’s looking at her like she hung the moon.
“She’s special,” he continues, and my jaw tightens.
“I mean, she doesn’t see it, but she is.
She’s been through hell, and she’s still kind and caring.
Still trying to help people even when she’s barely holding it together herself.
” He grins. “And she makes these terrible jokes. She’s my best friend. ”
“Best friend,” I repeat, letting the words hang there.
“Yeah.” He looks back at me, defensiveness creeping into his posture. “Why?”
“Seems like a lot of feelings for a friend.” I unwrap a lollipop that appears in my hand and stick it in my mouth. “The way you’re looking at her. The way you talk about her.”
His ears go pink. “I don’t… what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that you just spent thirty seconds listing all the things that make her special.”
“That’s just…” He stops and swallows roughly. “That’s what friends do. They appreciate each other.”
“Sure.” I study him. “But do friends usually look at each other the way you’re looking at her right now?”
He glances down at projection-Lennon, then quickly away, his face flushing deeper. “I’m not—”
“You are.”
“She needs a friend,” he argues, and there’s an edge to his voice now. “She just got here, she’s dealing with… she needs someone who’s not going to complicate things.”
“So you’re what, martyring yourself?”
“I’m being a good friend.” His jaw sets stubbornly.
“By lying to yourself about what you want?”
“I’m not…” He stops again, and I watch the shift behind his eyes. The defensiveness cracks, just a little. “I don’t want to fuck it up, okay? She’s the first real friend I’ve had in… God, I don’t even know how long. And yeah, maybe I—” He cuts himself off, looking away. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe you what?” I push the lollipop to my other cheek.
“Maybe I think about her more than I should. Maybe I notice things like how she scrunches her nose when she’s thinking, or how she smells like lemonade, or how her laugh makes everything feel less heavy.” He swallows hard again. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything about it.”
I look at his pink ears and the hand still resting on her shoulder as if he doesn’t know he’s doing it. How he keeps glancing at her and then away.
The subconscious doesn’t lie.
He came to her apartment at midnight because she needed him.
He showed up.
I pull the candy out with a pop and think about what I did tonight, which was lie on the other side of a wall and listen to her cry and not move.
I think about what I’m capable of giving her in waking life, which is, if I’m being honest, which I apparently am tonight, at least with myself, not much.
I have a personality that most people find exhausting, and whatever I am to her in dreams, in the daylight, I’m just the asshole next door who doesn’t open his door for her.
She needs someone who notices and shows up, who can hold her when she’s falling apart. She needs someone warm, someone I am not.
I know what I am.
I’m a cold asshole.
But the dreamscape, that’s mine. That’s the one place I’m actually useful to her. I can keep her safe from This Man here. I can teach her, build with her, stand between her and whatever that thing is planning with Tessa.
I can be what she needs when her eyes are closed.
And Nevan can be what she needs when they’re open.
It’s a rational division of labor. It makes complete sense. It has nothing to do with the fact that thinking about him holding her in the dark while I lie on the other side of a wall is producing a feeling in my chest I’d like to remove with a spoon.
I stick the lollipop back between my teeth.
“Well, I know Lennon, too, and I know that she likes you. So why won’t you do something about it?”
“Because she’s dating someone!” The words burst out of Nevan.
Wait, he’s not talking about me, is he?
“And because she deserves someone who has their shit together, not someone who barely has a second of free time and lives in a cottage with his little brother and sick mom and has to work two jobs just to make rent. She deserves better than…” He stops, closing his eyes. “Better than me.”
Well, if that doesn’t sound familiar, but I’m still stuck on the dating part.
I pull the lollipop out of my mouth and point it at him, asking the new question that is way more important now that the other one is answered. “She’s dating someone?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, they went on a date, he picked her up with flowers and everything, but she hasn’t told me how it went yet, and I don’t think it went well, but still, I—”
“Who picked her up?” I cut him off.
“Paul Bennett.”
Oh, fuck me.