Chapter 20
Allan couldn’t stay in the house a second longer, not with the sound of Robby’s footsteps down the front steps still ringing in his ears.
Ten years of practice, apparently, at watching someone walk away from him, and it turned out he still had none at all for being the one who’d made someone else do the walking.
He told himself he was going to the cinema to apologize. He was fairly sure that was true.
The lobby light was on when he got there, and for one held breath he thought Robby might still be inside, until he pushed the door open and found Ver instead, alone at the little folding table, a spreadsheet of wedding seating charts open in front of him that he was very obviously not looking at.
“You missed him,” Ver said, not glancing up right away, giving Allan the same option to deflect that he was clearly extending to himself. “By, I don’t know, twenty minutes.”
“Where’d he go?”
“Home, probably. Or to go stare at the sea and pretend he’s not upset, which is basically the Castaneda family hobby.” Ver finally looked up. “You look terrible, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
“You want to know what he said?” Ver asked, and continued without waiting for permission, same as always.
“Not everything. Big brother privilege only extends so far. But I’ll tell you this much: he’s scared you’ll take the job.
Not because he thinks you don’t love him.
Because some part of him still expects people to leave, even now, even after everything, and I don’t think that part’s going to fully believe you’re staying until you actually don’t go. ”
Allan sat down heavily in the chair across from him, the mural looming behind Ver’s shoulder, the two small painted figures under their storm, hand in hand, a future Allan badly wanted and was, for the first time in weeks, genuinely afraid he might talk himself out of.
“I didn’t tell him for two weeks,” Allan said. “I don’t even fully know why.”
“I think you do,” Ver said. “You just don’t like the answer.”
“Enlighten me, then, Kuya Ver, resident expert.”
“You wanted to see if it would feel like something first. Before you had to decide what to do with it,” Ver said, unbothered by the sarcasm.
“A Director title, after they basically threw you out. That’s not nothing, Allan.
That’s proof, or it looks like proof, that the last ten years weren’t a waste.
I get why you’d want to sit with that quietly for a while before you let anyone else touch it. ”
“That’s annoyingly accurate for someone I only ever see with a wedding folder under his arm.”
“I’m a man of many talents,” Ver said, entirely serious, and set the folder down like evidence.
“Speaking of, I have a draft of my best man speech. There’s a whole paragraph about you in it too, actually, about the two of you, since apparently I get a bonus little brother out of this wedding whether I asked for one or not. You want to hear it?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Fine. I’ll just tell you now: I’m going to cry harder than my own bride at this rate, and it’ll be your fault as much as his.”
“Get out of your own cinema,” Allan said, and it came out almost like a laugh, some small fraction of the night’s weight easing loose despite himself.
Ver stood, gathering the folder, then paused with his hand on the door.
“So what do you actually want, Allan?” he asked, and for once there was no joke riding underneath it. “Not what proves something. Not what would make Ma proud, or the old you proud, or whatever ghost you’re still answering to. What do you want?”
“I don’t know yet,” Allan admitted. “That’s the whole problem.”
“Then go find out,” Ver said. “Properly. Not scared, not half-deciding before you even land. And Allan—whatever you come back choosing, you’ve got me. I’m actually your brother, not just pretending for the free rent. You know that.”
“Free rent, sure,” Allan said, “that’s definitely why.” It came out thinner than he meant the joke to land, and he found, for the first time since the fight, that hearing it said plainly had actually helped.
He sat alone a while longer after Ver left, under the half-painted mural, tracing the shape of the storm he’d given them both, and let himself hope, carefully, deliberately, the way he was still learning to do most things now.