Far From Home - Chapter 36: Chapter 36

Early December
It only took McKenna two rings to pick up, and Jake hadn't been expecting it.
"You're an asshole." Her voice cut over the phone before he could even muster up a 'hello'.
"Um... why?" Jake leaned his head over as he stared off into Andre's side of the room from where he was sitting on his own bed.
"You haven't talked to me in over a month." She went off on the rant Jake already knew was coming. "Do you know how much shit I had to figure out on my own?"
"What?"
"I had to put my own windshield wipers on yesterday! Nobody told me there were different sizes."
Jake would have dared to laugh if he didn't think his sister would drive down right then and there to kill him.
"And then, I broke a nail carrying all that stupid ass firewood up from the woods–"
"You're such a baby." Jake cut her off.
"And you're a dick! I'm absolutely serious, you're a piece of shit, Lee." McKenna's voice was not nearly angry enough to mean what she said.
"Whatever."
"Are you ignoring me for a reason, or are you just a massive douchebag?"
Jake considered himself impressed with the amount of names he had been called less than two minutes into a conversation. His sister was certainly as crafty as he was with the English language that was for sure.
"I'm sorry, I was busy."
"Uh-huh, I'm sure you were." She sounded accusatory, but didn't expand much on it.
"Are you just going to bitch me out, or are we actually going to talk?"
She mocked his response with perfect apathy. "I'm sorry, I was angry."
"Yeah, okay." Jake rolled his eyes at his sister's attitude, deciding to throw it back at her. "How's Chad?"
"How's Connor?" She retorted.
Jake smacked his hand down over his leg as he glared out at Andre's empty bed in ridicule.
"Who the fuck told you?"
This seemed to satisfy her more than anything.
"Kaylee." She answered in a seemingly innocent way.
Jake could practically see her fake smile as she shrugged her shoulders to mock him, daring him to tell her she was wrong.
"You still talk to her?" He mumbled seriously.
"Sometimes. She's been helping me figure out college shit."
College shit? What the hell did I miss?
"College?" Jake blinked.
"What am I not allowed?" McKenna dared him to challenge her.
"No, I– that's a great idea. I didn't know you wanted to."
"Yeah, well... I've been looking into programs. I think I want to be a lawyer."
"No shit. Really?"
Jake knew his sister would be a great lawyer, but it didn't help him from questioning why she came to that conclusion. McKenna was fiercely smart and way too argumentative for her own good, but she had never talked about a future that didn't involve sticking around town. He figured seeing Kaylee's first year at Yale had probably sent her into doing some digging on what exactly it would take to end up just like her. Kaylee was a social justice warrior through and through, taking on Political Science as her undergraduate major so she could work her way up the ranks to attend Harvard Law a couple years from now. But where Kaylee was devoted to changing the world for the people in it, McKenna had never seemed too concerned with the same type of work. It made him wonder what type of law she would even want to go into.
"Yeah, like criminal defense or something."
There it is.
He figured he should have seen it coming with her crime show fascination.
"That's cool. Where are you looking?"
She took a deep breath in preparation. "Well... Duke, George Mason, Stanford and UC Berkeley."
Shit.
Jake worked his fingers around his familiar silver necklace as he swallowed down the right to tell her what to do. She wanted to get out, that much was clear by the list she had just given. It wasn't that she didn't deserve it, because if anyone did, it would be her... but the feeling that the only family member he wanted close by would be hours away was a little jarring.
"Those are all coastal." He mumbled.
"I know. Will you visit with me this summer? I don't want to tell mom yet, but I really wanna do tours."
You'll break her heart if I haven't already.
"Sure." Jake whispered as the feeling set in like a bad dream.
What would next summer even be like? Where would he be the next time the humid heat made him want to take an ice bath and call it quits? Would he be home? In the city? Mowing grass with Aaron, or working some minimum wage job nearby so he could afford to stay in campus housing? He had no clue what another summer would be like when he had spent so long trying to get over what came with the last one.
He just hoped wherever he was Connor would be there with him so they could finally have a summer together that Jake's anxiety hadn't fucked up.
"How's mom?" He found himself asking despite the feeling that he already knew the answer from his last phone call with Aaron.
"Mmm..." She hummed in contemplation. "Not much better than the last time we talked. She goes to church and helps with almost every possible thing she can, but other than that she's super vacant. She just comes home and goes to bed most days."
"Did she get back to baking?"
That would be the real tell-tale sign.
"Only when she has to. Never for fun. I tried it with her like you said, but she just got mad at me..."
She got mad at you?
"Why?"
"I'm not you, Jake." McKenna's voice bordered sadness if she would allow herself to be so vulnerable. "She has to think I'm trying to replace you or something... It used to make her cry when I offered to do things with her, but now it just pisses her off."
"You did the best you could, Ken." Jake whispered a reassurance that was more for himself than her.
"Then why do I feel like shit?" She grumbled.
"It's not your fault."
It's mine.
"No, but it still sucks ass. Dad's fucking worthless and mom can't even get out of bed. I just started going to work every day because it makes no difference if I'm home or not."
"Sorry."
I know how you feel.
"Are you coming home soon?" She wondered, a little too hopefully.
"Well, not exactly." He wound the small chain on his neck around his finger until he couldn't feel it anymore. "I'll be at Aaron's for break... I don't... I don't think I'm ready to see them again. Sorry."
"Makes sense." His sister sighed. "You'll just have to come see me at work, right?"
"What so I can waste all my money on you? No thanks."
"Jackass."
Jake rolled his eyes. "Yes, I'll come see you shithead."
"Hey, you can come pick up a couple shifts if you're bored."
"Right, because what screams 'all the rumors are true, Jake Holmes is gay' more than working in a diner full of teenage girls?"
McKenna scoffed. "You don't have to be a prick. It was a genuine offer."
"Yeah, alright."
"How is Connor though? Like, really."
Jake allowed himself a small smile that no one else was there to see. He felt like he was right back home sharing gossip hour with his sister and Katherine over what newest boy McKenna had decided was worth a shot. They would talk for hours about the little things like what he smelled like, or how hot he was doing x, y, and z, and Jake and Aaron would pretend to be annoyed while they listened just as intently. He couldn't imagine sitting around that same circle now talking about Connor, but this was probably as close as he was going to get.
"Good. It's... really nice. It's too nice, I keep waiting to see when I'm gonna fuck it up."
"Not everything ends in a blazing fire of fuck up, Jake."
"You sound like Aaron."
"Aaron is actually really good with all that emotional shit. He gave me a hug the other day and I didn't even ask for it!"
Jake laughed at his best friend's growth. Dating Katherine had turned him 'soft' as Hunter would say, but Jake loved seeing the subtle change. Aaron was never a hard-ass, he was always a lover at heart too blinded by his own feelings to make rational decisions, but he was never so welcoming of the little affectionate things until recently. There was a day when Aaron would recoil from anyone but Jake who had touched him—and even Jake on occasion—but now he dished out shoulder grabs and adoring smiles like he had been deprived of them his whole life.
"All jokes aside, I'm glad it worked out." She added.
"Me too." Jake smiled softly at the floor. "Everything is just so... open and honest and great. I've never had something this good before... it's so..."
"Normal?" His sister filled in his sentence.
"Yeah... yeah, it is. So normal it's scary."
"It'd be scary if it wasn't normal. You two have been through some shit, I think you deserve the break."
It was nice to hear someone else acknowledge it.
"I think so too."
Jake's phone buzzed in his ear with an incoming text message, but he couldn't be bothered to pull down his phone to read it.
"Chad and I have officially been together three months as of last week." She nonchalantly threw out.
"Red flag Chad?" Jake joked back.
"You and Aaron made up the red flags. He's good, okay?"
"Mmm, I'll believe it when I see it."
"Well he's going to Hawaii for Christmas so you probably won't get to meet him, but just trust me on this one."
"Sounds like a convenient excuse for me not to beat his ass."
"Can you and Aaron put your dicks away for five fucking seconds?" McKenna grumbled like she'd had this conversation before.
"Oh come on, we've gotta have a little bit of fun... He's a sophomore."
"And I'm a junior, what's your point?"
Jake raised a brow. "You taking him to college with you?"
"Fuck off, Lee. You took your boyfriend to college. I don't even want to hear it."
Point taken.
"Technically, he applied first."
"Technically, you moved in first."
"That don't mean shit." Jake laughed.
If there even were to be an argument about who followed who, Jake knew he would lose. Even though they didn't know each other at the time Connor was accepted, Jake technically only signed on after he knew Connor was going there. It was convenient at the time, but they both would have been going whether they knew the other was or not. Just because Connor had decided long before Jake even opened his letter, didn't mean that Jake needed to know Connor was going just so he could go too. It was just another one of those tricky fate things that Jake thought long and hard about on the nights where Connor was stuck in his brain.
The door to the dorm room opened unexpectedly and Jake nearly threw the closest thing at whoever came in. It would have only been a pillow, but it could have distracted him enough to give him time to grab his knife from his jacket slung over his desk chair. Andre wasn't supposed to come home tonight, so Jake had expected to do nothing but call his sister and cram in the different types of biomes for the enviro exam tomorrow, but the door had opened, completely derailing all of those plans in one second. His heart was sent racing in his chest, but he allowed himself to breathe again when all he saw was Connor closing the door behind him—meanwhile looking pissed as ever.
Speak of the fucking devil.
Jake loosened his death grip on the phone in his hand as he watched Connor watch him. Something about it was unsettling, but he couldn't quite figure out why.
"Hey, Riley..." He mumbled into his phone as he furrowed his brow at Connor's glare. "I gotta go."
McKenna scoffed. "Really?"
"Sorry, love you."
"Yeah, yeah." She hung up on him, unimpressed.
To be fair, he wasn't impressed with himself either, but he was even less impressed by the look he saw on Connor's face. Connor wasn't just pissed, he was raging. He walked in the door with discontent plastered on every single one of his features, but none of it hadn't softened since then. Jake had seen frustration, but this looked borderline murderous and he prayed to God it wasn't something he had caused for fear of what it meant to make Connor look that angry.
Connor raised a brow in question. "Who's Riley?"
Jake blinked as his eyes scanned Connor's for an answer to his own question.
"What?"
"Who is Riley?" He asked again, this time with less patience than the last.
Why do you sound like that?
Are you mad at me? Why are you mad? What did I do?
"My sister." Jake didn't know what was happening, but he scrambled for an answer. "I– we... it's her middle name."
Connor's brow relaxed, but the rest of his body didn't. The irritation wore on his face as clear as day, but Jake couldn't figure out why. He had only seen Connor this tense once, and it was a day he tried desperately scrubbing from his mind. Connor's voice had been angry then, but justifiably so—in fact, Jake thought it only right for Connor to lash out at him then, he nearly welcomed it as his own punishment. This wasn't that. Jake didn't start this argument, but he was still caught up in it anyway. Connor stared at him as he tried to decide what to feel.
Did your mind really go to me cheating on you?
"It's McKenna, Connor." Jake was quick to unlock his phone. "Do you want to see?"
Connor didn't ask, but Jake pulled up his call log anyway, turning it in his direction with an agitated glare. If Connor was going to be mad at him for no reason, then Jake figured he had a right to throw it back. His eyes didn't find Jake's phone, but they did find Jake, searching for when his tone had turned south as if his own wasn't something worth starting a fight over. He seemed to come up with an answer.
Connor shook his head as his eyes settled on something on Jake's desk. "No."
While his voice sounded just as pissed as it did earlier, this time it seemed to be directed inwards instead of at Jake. For the first time in a long time, Jake couldn't tell what he was feeling. He was unreadable and confusing, and somehow it made Jake's heart beat a little bit faster in his chest in anticipation of something that wasn't coming. It felt too much like waiting for the shoe to drop.
"Fuck." Connor's jaw clenched in frustration, trying desperately to shake off his own agitation.
Jake swallowed thickly as he set his phone out on the bed beside him, devoting all his attention to the verge of a breakdown happening in front of him. He knew one when he saw it, and that seemed to be the only thing he knew about Connor's condition right now. Something is wrong. Something is so deeply wrong.
"Connor–"
Connor motioned a hand out to stop him, cutting off his words at the source like Connor had worked some sort of magic on him to make him incapable of thought. Jake sealed his lips into a flat line as he watched Connor take a deep breath—closing his eyes into it like he needed it to consume him whole.
It was a long, painful, minute before he dropped his hand back down to his side.
"I'm sorry." He tried to pull himself together. "That was a dick move. I don't know what I was thinking."
Jake didn't believe the calm that once was a constant, but now seemed faker than ever. He could tell it was a façade because Connor's hands were still much too tense for 'calm' and he refused to meet Jake in the eye the entire time he talked.
"What's going on?" Jake mumbled, angling himself towards where Connor was standing next to his desk.
Connor shook his head, but didn't answer.
"What's wrong?" He repeated himself because Connor couldn't ignore him twice.
"Nothing."
Connor had been quick to cut him off this time, not even bothering to think about his answer before it left his mouth. Jake didn't want to wear his shock on his face, but he felt it in his soul.
You just lied to me. Why would you fucking lie to me?
"Bullshit." He scoffed, a little pissed off that Connor was even capable of such outward dishonesty.
Annoyance returned on his features quicker than he was able to whisk it away. He didn't look at Jake, but Jake could see the fiery glares he was giving a textbook on his desk like it had just killed his entire family. Those eyes looked somewhere caught between full-on rage and falling apart. It looked so painful Jake wanted to look away, but he couldn't.
"You just lied to me." Jake mumbled softly, trying to bring his tone down so he didn't upset Connor any further. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Connor scrunched up his nose in anger and his hands went to find his own hair, but they stopped before they reached it.
"Fucking... everything." He nearly hissed. "I feel like I'm going crazy."
You're stressed. Okay.
"Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines... and fucking Ricky..."
"What about Ricky?" Jake asked as calmly as he could.
"He's being fucking loud, and I can hear him just clicking his pen all fucking afternoon..." Connor's hands shook next to his face like he was seconds away from clawing it off. "I can't fucking focus, and I've got so much shit to get done..."
"Okay, well–"
"Fuck!" Connor interrupted him. "I can't fucking get anything done! It's all due tomorrow, I don't know what to do, and I–"
Jake watched the intakes of each one of his breaths carefully, waiting for the point where Connor ventured into unsafe territory. He was getting damn near close to a panic Jake was all too familiar with, and it was unsettling him to no end.
"Connor–"
"Shit!" His hands pulled at his hair.
The breaking point came faster than expected for someone Jake had always seen so painfully collected.
"Connor!" Jake's voice found the uncomfortable bite that reminded him of his own father.
But it worked. Jake hated it, but it had worked once to break Connor out of panic on those tracks, and it had worked now to stop him from entering it again. Connor glared at him with enough shock in his eyes to sober him back to reality, and Jake let the unsettling feeling of sounding like his father pass as he reached out with his own eyes to pull Connor somewhere safe.
"Take a deep breath." Their eyes locked as Jake talked like he had managed to put him in a trance. "We're going on a walk."
"I–" Connor blinked him away. "No... I don't have time–"
"We're going on a walk." Jake repeated slowly this time to let the certainty of it sink in. "You can kill me tomorrow for wasting your time. Right now, I'm calling the shots."
If Connor's eyes could have killed him right then and there, he might have. He squinted to furrow his frustration into the glare he gave Jake, but Jake made sure he put on his most convincing poker face and took it like it meant nothing to him. Confused by Jake's lack of reaction, Connor gave in, rolling his eyes with a dissatisfaction Jake didn't miss.
He snatched Jake's favorite black jacket from the chair and slipped it on, all while looking like a pissed off two-year-old who was told they had to put on pants to play outside. His fingers moved roughly to zip it up to his collarbone, and then fell away to his sides with an overdramatic flaunt that said 'you happy now?'. Jake gave a single nod before Connor turned into the closet with the same pissy attitude and pulled off the next jacket in line—the Carhart that would be a little too warm for what they were about to endure. Connor pulled it off the hanger gently however much his hands warranted him to act the opposite, and then tossed it over to Jake with an eyebrow raise for him to put it on.
Are we done using words now? Jake wondered, but didn't dare ask out loud as he fumbled the thicker jacket in his hands.
Putting the jacket on without question, he slipped his phone inside to acknowledge he was ready to leave. Connor threw him his keys from off the desk, landing in Jake's hand with a clatter as he slipped those too into the other pocket. Without saying a word, Connor turned away, not bothering to wait for Jake to stand before he found himself at the door, pulling it open to stalk off into the hallway where he knew Jake would eventually follow.