Chapter 9 #2
Finn sat there until the light through the window shifted from afternoon to early evening, the shadows lengthening across the floor, the radiator ticking without producing heat.
He thought about the Kinesiology guy from last spring, whose name he’d already started to forget.
He thought about Ashley and the “See you around” and the clean exit and how easy it had been to let someone go when you’d never held them with both fists.
He thought about the hallway and Evan’s voice not changing and the word Holloway in that flat operational tone, and he pressed his thumb into his own thigh hard enough to leave a mark because the sting was better than the alternative.
Then Finn got up and made coffee because his fists needed something to hold.
Evan knocked that evening.
Finn heard it from the kitchen. He was standing at the counter with the French press, the water just off the boil, steam rising between his palms. Finn finished the pour, set the kettle on its base, and walked to the entrance.
Evan was standing on the other side. Coat on, collar up, no clipboard.
No folder. No phone in his grip. Every other time Evan had come to this entrance he’d been carrying something, some piece of the professional infrastructure that justified his presence in Finn’s building, some prop that said I’m here for a reason that has nothing to do with you.
Tonight Evan’s palms hung at his sides with nothing in them, and the hallway light caught one side of his face and left the other in shadow, and his jaw was tight and his lips opened, closed, opened again.
He said nothing. He looked like a man who had driven here without deciding to and was now standing in the result of it.
Finn stepped aside and let him in.
Finn didn’t close the gap. He went to the kitchen, pressed the plunger on the French press, poured two mugs, and set one on the table. Sat down. The chair scraped.
Evan followed him in. Stood in the kitchen entrance for a moment with his gaze on the two mugs, the chair pulled out for him. Then Evan sat.
The apartment was cool. The radiator ticked without producing heat. The coffee was too hot to drink and they both had their palms around their mugs anyway, and steam rose between Evan’s fingers while his thumbs pressed into the ceramic.
Finn set his mug down. The noise of it on the table was loud in the small room.
“I heard you.”
Evan went motionless. His grip locked on the mug, his shoulders frozen mid-breath, his gaze fixed on Finn’s face.
“The hallway. After the game. Your dad’s office.”
Evan’s jaw tightened before anything else on his face changed. His lips opened and whatever he’d been about to say died before it reached them.
“He asked about me. Whether I seemed distracted.”
Evan’s knuckles went pale on the mug.
“And you said I was fine. Nothing to worry about.”
Finn let the pause sit. The radiator ticked. The coffee steamed. The overhead light buzzed at a frequency that had been there all evening and that Finn was only hearing now because the room had nothing else in it.
“Your voice didn’t change, Evan.”
Evan’s shoulders dropped. His jaw went rigid, the tendon standing out in his neck. His chest caved inward, a collapse that started at the sternum and worked outward, like he’d taken a hit from a direction he hadn’t been guarding.
“I’m not asking you to hold my hand in the hallway. I’m not asking for an announcement. I know what the situation is.”
“Finn—”
“I’m asking you to know I exist when your father says my name. Not logistics. Not something to handle. Just exist.”
“You do exist. That’s not—”
“Your voice didn’t change.”
The words landed in the kitchen and sat there. Evan’s lips closed. His gaze was wet, the gloss of it catching the overhead light, and his palms pressed flat on the table, fingers spread, like he needed something solid underneath him.
“I’ve been patient. I’ve given you every out. I’ve waited every time you ran. I don’t regret any of it. Not the film room. Not any of it.”
Evan’s inhale shuddered.
“But I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep being something you only let yourself have when no one’s watching. I can’t be something you erase the second someone says my name out loud.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t mean to.” Almost a whisper. “That’s the problem.”
Evan made a noise that wasn’t a word. His fingers curled on the table, scraping the wood, and his head dropped forward, chin to chest. Finn looked at the top of Evan’s head and the silver at his temples and the way his shoulders were shaking and he held himself in his chair with every muscle in his body because if he reached across the table and touched Evan right now he would take it all back, and he couldn’t take it back, because taking it back meant going on like this and going on like this was killing him by inches.
Finn stood up. “I’m not angry. I just can’t keep doing this.”
Finn walked to the entrance and opened it. The corridor air was cooler, carrying the faint smell of the neighbor’s cooking and the hum of the elevator somewhere below.
Evan stood. The chair scraped. Evan crossed the apartment in steps that landed heavily and stopped in the doorway with his fingers pressed into the frame. His lips were open. His gaze was wet, the fluorescent light from the corridor caught it, and Finn received it without looking away.
Evan walked out. He didn’t say goodbye. Finn closed the entrance.
Finn stood with his palm on the knob. The apartment behind him, the corridor on the other side, the coffee on the table that neither of them had finished. His throat was raw, his ribs ached, and he held the knob for a long moment.