Far From Home - Chapter 37: Chapter 37

Early December
The first week of December had been exceptionally warm, but the temperature was dropping quickly tonight. Jake had nearly been sweating in his jacket when they started out, but he kept his hands in his pockets anyway for something to do while he kept a slow pace next to Connor. He half expected it to snow soon. It was weird knowing they were in the middle of exams week and the next week wouldn't be Christmas like it had ended up falling on winter breaks in high school. There were still weeks left between now and his least favorite holiday, but Jake couldn't wrap his head around not having anything to do in that time when he would have been going to school every day of it last year.
Time is weird.
It didn't feel like high school was that long ago, yet it somehow also felt like the furthest thing away. This week last year, the boys were playing their last football game—a failed shot at being state champions before they left the game behind for good. Jake had remembered the long bus ride there, Aaron and Hunter smacking each other across the aisle in the seats in front of him as Jake tried to drown them out with his AP Chemistry homework that he ended up discarding when Aaron smacked Hunter a little too hard and hit his head on the window. They were all so stupid back then. Jake knew they were stupid—himself included—but he couldn't fight the feeling that he almost missed it. On bus rides to football games when Aaron and Hunter wanted nothing more than to fuck with him, he could leave all his responsibilities at the doorstep back home and join them in their stupidity, even if only for one night. He never really liked football much. The sport itself always left him beaten and bruised, but being on the field with the two people he would have called his brothers knowing they would have each other's backs every play was a feeling of comradery that Jake missed dearly.
It almost made him miss Hunter. Almost.
Hunter wasn't always bad. At one point he had been one of Jake's most beloved friends. It was hard to say Jake could ever truly hate him, even after everything he had done. Did he want to kill him sometimes? Absolutely, but what brothers hadn't quarreled to the point of death threats at one time or another? Jake didn't know that he hated him that much now. He almost felt a little disappointed in himself for cutting him off completely, knowing that Hunter was a lot more complicated than he thought and that he might be the one person able to understand him if he would only give him the chance to work towards an apology.
Maybe.
More and more, Jake had been considering meeting him at the diner over break... but only if he would step down off his high horse for one goddamn second to apologize to Connor. He had to apologize, he had to say it, and he had to mean it. Hunter was incapable of admitting he was wrong, but if Jake saw him do that, he might have been convinced. But at the end of the day, if Connor didn't think he was worth redemption, Jake wouldn't give him the chance. It wasn't his apology to accept. Connor could call the shots on that one.
But then again, it was fantastical to think Hunter would even want to be seen out in public with Connor in a manner that seemed civil at all. Jake had to shake away the idea of redemption before he got too hopeful it could actually be possible.
The evening was quiet despite the traffic in and out of campus that typically drove Jake mad to walk around in. Sunlight burned orange on the horizon, casting shadows over everything that it managed to touch from where it peaked out behind buildings that covered the campus like its own little city. Sirens could be heard off in the distance and people passed by them in a hurry to get places Jake would never know, but somehow it didn't seem to have the hustle and bustle of a normal day. It was as if the entire campus had decided finals week was the end of everything and barricaded themselves into the library and their dorm rooms to save themselves the trouble of being members of society for the few days it took to get through it all. Jake should have counted himself among them, but here he was instead, watching life unfold around him with each step he took and each breath he held just to see how slowly his heart was beating under the steady rhythm of each intake. The world seemed calm. Busy, but calm.
Surprisingly, so did Connor.
Jake didn't dare stare, but he did allow himself to sneak glances over to the boy beside him just to make sure he was still alive under all that rage. It fell away layer by layer, crosswalk by crosswalk, pieces of Connor that Jake had rarely seen melting away like ice on a spring day. They left behind puddles, the aftermath of all that frustration wearing in deep exhaustion on his face, but puddles were harmless as much as they were inconvenient. Ice could be carved into daggers that sought to cut anyone who touched them, but when they melted they were as benign as the water that once forged them, returning back to their original form in natural order.
Connor's natural order was tranquility. He may have chided himself on coming off as an asshole sometimes, but that didn't mean that he had a temper. His personality was rough around the edges, but he didn't want to cut anyone with it. Most of the time, Connor was apathetic to the things that really pissed him off—pacific until provoked. He didn't flip a switch and decide to be a bitch, if he was acting like a bitch, there was a very, very good reason for doing so. That made his sudden outburst tonight a rare spectacle, and one that Jake didn't like to see at that.
It wasn't scary, Jake knew better than to be scared of something so erratic. His father's rage was always predictable, he knew when it was coming most days and tried to find himself as far away as possible. The inevitability of it all was what made it so terrifying. It was almost certain that Jake was right when he calculated how many steps he had until his father lunged at him, how many drinks it would take to snap, or how many words he could say before they were taken from him. There were none of those signs with Connor. Jake didn't feel like there were any of those same risks on the line when he stared into Connor's eyes and saw pain behind the fires that fronted them. His father's eyes were always so empty—so void and so cautionary about the character of the person that sat behind them. Connor's held his soul. Jake looked to them for answers, and most times, he found them.
The only thing Jake was scared of was the depth of Connor's pain, and how much it would take to finally break him for good.
Jake built walls around his own torture with the most rigid materials he could find. They were much too easy to break, a single crack in the side sending the whole palace crumbling on top of him. He didn't know how to adapt quite like Connor did. Connor built a house around his affliction with pliable means, strong yet adaptable, bending but never breaking. Survival was evolving, something Connor must have had ample experience with to have never given in to any number of the things thrown his way. Jake knew Connor liked to keep his fight on the outside—he had made that clear the first day they met. He had once said that he would rather have other people hate him than to hate himself, and Jake still thought it was one of the smartest things he'd ever admitted to him. In fact, a part of Jake was always jealous of that strength. Connor's army stood outside the wall protecting his fortress of peace or to die trying, whereas Jake's army was too busy fighting itself inside to notice when an outside threat had thrown the first rock that shattered the glass.
Internalized conflict was a threat far harder to assess. It made it all the more difficult when Connor found himself falling victim to it. Feelings were hard. Connor didn't like the uncertainty of not knowing how he felt when his greatest enemy had become himself. It was unfamiliar and messy and left him frustrated with himself for falling out of line. Jake couldn't even begin to understand what kind of rabbit hole Connor had spiraled into when the future of his own uncalculated failure had taken ahold of his mind, but he was plenty capable of throwing him a rope and waiting on the sidelines for the moment he climbed out.
And he did climb out.
It took him twenty minutes of dreadful silence that made Jake want to talk about the weather just to have something to say, but at the end of it all, Connor finally came back to Connor and Jake was grateful that he had kept his damn mouth shut.
"You've gotta be my soulmate or something."
Those first words left Connor's lips as gentle as the kisses that sealed Jake's fate.
"Yeah?" Jake asked back, looking over just for a moment to appreciate the soft look on Connor's contemplative face as the sunset painted it gold.
He nodded, but didn't look over. "Yeah."
"Didn't know you believed in anything like that."
"I don't." Connor's eyes worked thoughts that Jake wanted to absorb like the rays of faded sunlight on Connor's face. "But I think if it was going to be anyone, it would be you."
I love you.
Jake knew he couldn't say it, but it didn't stop him from wanting to, once again.
It was important to Jake that Connor got to decide if and when he wanted that. There were a thousand different ways he could show it, but the words had to be Connor's first. Jake wouldn't dare rob him of something so important, or taint it by saying it too soon and moving too fast for Connor to feel a sense of control over it. Those kinds of things were set at Connor's pace. The careful give and take of where to draw the lines and which ones Jake wouldn't bring himself to question. This was one of them. Jake had decided it when he stayed up that night thinking about everything Connor had gone through and all the things Jake wanted to do to make sure he never felt like that again. Connor had always given him so much leeway to make moves for himself on his own terms and his own time, but this time Jake would return the favor. He had to.
"Why?"
Why out of everyone in this world am I your soulmate?
Connor didn't smile, but Jake could tell he felt like it.
"You didn't even bat an eye." He squinted at the horizon. "I acted like an absolute dick, and it didn't even faze you."
"You didn't mean it." Jake shrugged.
"But how would you know that?" Connor shook his head.
"I pay attention."
How could I not have known? You wouldn't have lied to me unless you were desperate for me to catch you in one.
"That's..." Connor seemed lost for words, his brow furrowing in thought. "Really fucking nice."
Will you ever get used to people being nice to you?
"You do the same for me."
"That's different."
Jake bumped into his shoulder on purpose. "No, it's not."
While it seemed like he wanted to, Connor didn't argue. He had to have known Jake was right to a certain extent, even if he felt like their styles of breakdowns were not the least bit comparable. Relief seemed to settle on his features even if he didn't care to admit it. There was a smile beginning to form on his face when he nudged his shoulder back out against Jake's—the tiniest confirmation that maybe Connor liked what he said enough to acknowledge it.
Jake leaned back into him as they turned a corner to the road their dorm laid at the end of. Connor dug his hands out of his jacket pockets to shove him off as a grin broke out across his face that looked one-hundred percent like the Connor that Jake knew. It made him want to lean over and kiss the stupid thing right off his face, but he wouldn't dare do something so ridiculous on a wide-open sidewalk in the middle of campus. An action like that could come with consequences, but an action like pushing Connor back came with none.
"You little shit." Connor tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and came back to balance by nearly pulling Jake over with him.
His hand was firm on Jake's arm, but through the thickness of his jacket, Jake couldn't feel it. Even when he found his balance, Connor didn't let go—he left his hand there lingering for the couple of moments Jake would allow before the gesture got to be too much to handle in a public space. Jake gave him that. He gave him those few seconds of normalcy before he noticed his own eyes darting to check behind him, and realized those few seconds were coming to an end quicker than either of them would have liked.
Attempting to redirect Connor's attention, Jake looked down to his hand, noticing the chipped black nail polish that had been neglected from a week spent shut in his room with nothing to keep his sanity in check.
"You gonna wear that at home?" Jake asked out of his own curiosity.
He hadn't really thought about what it meant for Connor to be at home over the break too. Of course he planned to spend time with him, but under what means and in front of whom he hadn't quite figured out yet. Navigating home again was going to be a slippery slope and Jake just hoped he could maintain at least a little bit of the confidence in himself that he had gained from being away from it. Connor never had problems with confidence, but he still knew which battles were worth picking and which ones were best to leave alone. Apparently his nail polish battle had been one he decided to leave alone until college, and Jake was almost grateful for that for Connor's sake.
"Oh what..." Connor took his hand off Jake's arm, only to flip him off with a flirty smile. "This?"
"Yes, asshole." Jake grumbled, but he smiled all the same.
"Hadn't thought about it."
"Mmm."
"Do you... want me to?" Connor's hand returned to his pocket, but he still angled himself towards Jake for the answer.
"It's not about me." He shook his head in return. "It's your body, Connor."
"Okay." There was a disinterested glare at the street in front of them that made Jake feel like he had just pulled some sort of Aaron-style comment. "I'm asking your opinion, dumbass."
Jake blushed from the matter, even though he cursed himself for being so easy to fluster.
"I think it looks good on you."
"It does." Connor was quick to agree. "But... is it a good idea?"
Do you really have to ask? You seemed to know it wasn't before. Has anything really changed now?
Jake didn't have to ponder it before he knew the answer. "No."
You know it's not. Don't you dare put yourself in danger again over a nail color.
He didn't want to sound pressing, but he prayed Connor wouldn't need convincing.
"Yeah, probably not." He shrugged it off. "I should have Kris lend me pink just to piss people off."
"Connor, don't–"
God, please don't.
"Chill." Connor cut him off with an elbow nudge. "I'm not stupid or suicidal."
"I don't want anything to happen to–"
"Stop thinking about it."
Jake took a deep breath, but settled for Connor's willingness to cut off his own intrusive thoughts. "Sorry."
As he blew out the rest of his breath, the air in front of his face clouded with the newly set temperature of a winter night. The last time he and Connor were together back home, the weather felt anything but cold, and now it would be even more tempting to curl up in bed with him all day long and pretend like nothing else in the world existed besides staying warm. Jake might have disliked Christmas for a number of reasons—including how draining it was to keep up with all the town's events and the people that attended them—but he rather liked the colder weather. Winter was his favorite season because it was the easiest to dress for. He could layer on any combination of clothing he wanted and it wouldn't look weird like the days where he wore jeans in the summer or boots with shorts in the spring. Given Connor's love for layering as well, Jake figured they shared an adoration for the season in common.
"Did you ever do that thing as a kid..." Connor looked over at him, "where you would pretend like you were smoking when it was so cold you could see your breath?"
"Is that a universal experience?" Jake smiled as he watched Connor do it just for show.
"We used to do it all the time because we thought it made us look like hard-asses in front of the older boys."
"Who is 'we'?"
Connor smiled in remembrance of a life once lived, and Jake couldn't help but watch it dawn on him with a sense of adoration.
"The boys I grew up with." He mumbled. "Back in Cleveland."
Cleveland.
"Ah." Jake nodded. "Were you an extrovert at one point in time?"
Connor laughed. "Fuck no. They were all so annoying, but they were like family, you know?"
"Yeah."
Absolutely.
"I even had my own Aaron Keller once upon a time."
Jake was surprised with the offering of a story, so he decided to take it. "Did you?"
"Yep... Jamal Osman." Connor smiled. "He was my best friend since kindergarten. Lived next door until the day we moved... kinda wonder how he's doing."
"You don't talk to him?"
"Well neither of us had a phone when I moved, so I guess I never really thought about it."
"Do we need to take a trip up there to find him over break?" Jake suggested it half as a joke, but Connor shook his head like he was serious.
"Better not." His smile faded ever-so-slightly. "Might make me want to stay."
Tell me why. Jake wanted to ask a million questions if they wouldn't all overwhelm Connor at once. He wanted to know everything. All the little pieces of Connor's past before he ended up in their hometown where Jake knew the majority of the rest. There was a Connor Morgan that existed in the world before Jake knew him, and while it never seemed to intrigue him before, now Jake wanted to see what that Connor was like. Was that the Connor that was vulnerable with people like he had nothing to lose? Was that the Connor who trusted everyone without question and smiled at strangers? Was that the Connor that learned to fight for his life, or was that a result of a life lived in the middle of nowhere? Wondering about it burned a hole in Jake's mind, but the only question he allowed to leave his tongue was the only one that mattered.
"What do you miss the most?"
"The block we lived on." Connor's eyes watched the last blazing flame of the sunset on the horizon with solace. "I mean, our house was a real shit-hole, but the people were chill."
Jake nodded like it would have been a satisfying answer, but Connor always liked to overshare when Jake prompted him to, so he shouldn't have been surprised when he kept talking.
"On Tuesday nights we would play soccer out in the street. Over the summer it was a big thing—like some parents would actually bet on it just for shits. It was all the kids on the block that wanted to play, but we knew between all of us who was going to be out there when the money started floating around."
Connor nodded with a smug smile that told Jake exactly which side of the sidewalk Connor was on during said games.
"It got aggressive too. Only game rules were no weapons, but we tripped and shoved the shit out of each other until our knees were too bloody to play anymore... And those were the best games, you know? You went home with scraped up knees, but the bus-stop banter the next day was all worth it."
So you have been in fights your whole life.
"Jamal was a hell of a goalie too. No one ever touched him... it was like an honor code. Hands off the goalies. There were four of them that rotated each week: Jamal, Princeton, Eric, and Debby."
He listed off each name like a roster he had memorized for years.
"Debby liked to start shit, but it was all talk. She just antagonized us because she knew we wouldn't hit a girl. I fucking hated her so much." Connor shook his head with malice.
Jake had to hold back a laugh.
"Princeton should be graduating college by now, but who knows the hell where... and last I heard, Eric was moving to Florida to live with his cousins after his mom passed."
"You seem to know a lot about them for not keeping in touch." Jake threw out an observation.
"Yeah, well my mom did. Kind of." Connor weighed the words with a tilt of his head. "She was back and forth a lot the first year we moved trying to sort out all the shit with my aunt."
"I thought she died?"
Connor's eyes looked to the ground.
Really, Jake? Close your fucking mouth next time.
"She did... but... it was kind of a legal mess. It's a long story."
Jake couldn't tell if he was deflecting or waiting for the push to tell him, but Jake was willing to throw his curiosity on the table and let Connor decide.
"I've got time."
"You want to hear it?" Connor looked at him curiously, meeting his eyes after he was done hiding his own away.
Jake shrugged. "If you want to tell it."
"Well..." He sighed, shoving his hands further into the jacket he had borrowed from Jake. "She overdosed on heroin... but she wasn't the only one. There was also this dude with her who was apparently convicted for child pornography or something... pretty much he wasn't supposed to be around kids, but I was there, so it broke his parole or whatever."
Connor shrugged like it was inconsequential, but Jake only hoped his surprise didn't wear plainly on his face.
"He died, so it didn't matter in the end, but it mattered to the cops. I was home with them when they died, but it wasn't like I found the bodies or anything... that would've been really fucked up..."
Yeah, no shit, Connor. Thanks.
"My mom, actually, was the one who found them when she came home from work. I wasn't up for school yet. Obviously she called the cops, but once all the original mess was over, CPS started looking into me for neglect. They didn't like that I was home when it happened and the whole sex offender thing, but it wasn't like I was ever abused or anything..."
Connor didn't have to look up for Jake to know what he meant to say. 'I wasn't abused or anything... not like you.'
"It took a couple years for it to all get sorted out to where we could move again without it looking like my mom was just trying to take me and leave. They didn't really want to take me away, I think. It was more just making sure I actually had competent adults in my life. Regardless, it was all shit, and it made us stick around a lot longer than we needed to."
If moving took so much effort that time, Jake didn't have to wonder why Connor would have been reluctant to jeopardize his new home for the sake of being honest about his assault. Connor was a big boy... he could handle his injuries, regardless of how he got them. What he couldn't handle was risking looking ungrateful after everything his mother had been through to get him to that point. If she had really struggled for custody of him over something accidental like her sister's death, what would it have said that Connor was assaulted while he was supposed to be at home with her, but she likely hadn't been there to watch over him again? Did Connor think she would have blamed herself for that too? Or maybe that fear that someone else would was enough to keep him quiet.
Fuck, Connor.
Jake wished it all didn't make perfect sense.
"It sounds like shit. I'm sorry."
"It is what it is." Connor shrugged with a frown. "I just didn't like how people talked about her, you know?"
"Your mom?" Jake guessed.
"No, Cass."
They were approaching the dorm building quite quickly, but Jake didn't want to cut Connor off in any way, so he slowed down enough to prolong the inevitable.
"Everyone acts like addiction is this subhuman thing..." He shook his head. "But it's not, it's just real people going through real shit. Like, my aunt was a person... she was my favorite person. She wasn't just an addict, she was like my second mom. I mean, she packed my lunches, she took me shopping, she watched movies with me to put me to sleep... like... that was real."
Connor didn't look upset like Jake had expected him to, but Connor was too good at concealing any signs of perceived weakness anyways. Jake knew under that composure there had to be something upsetting about the words as they left his mouth.
"But because I was there when she died, everyone acted like she was the fucking devil. It was so confusing... I didn't know why they were saying such terrible things about her when she took better care of me than my own fucking mom did for eleven years."
Jake knew Connor was right about the addiction thing, but something about her inviting a pedophile into the house with Connor as a child still didn't sit right with him. Maybe she didn't know, was all he could tell himself to be convinced that maybe Connor's image of her was as pure as she really was. She just didn't know, right?
Not that either of them would ever find out.
"It just pisses me off sometimes."
Understandable.
"I think you're allowed to feel pissed off about it." Jake looked to him with a half smile for reassurance as they came up to the stairs of their building.
"I guess so."
They climbed each step one by one, and like cutting off one world from another, Connor fell silent the minute Jake opened the front door. The lobby was void of the usual crowd of movie watchers or video-game tournament attendees as they walked through it to the staircase to their floor. It was a little unusual for the ground floor to be so quiet, but the 'quiet hours' signs posted on neon pink paper at every floor door were a reminder that finals hell was something they were all facing together.
Not that Connor needed any more reminders of that.
Jake hoped he didn't think about it too hard as they passed by each floor on their way up the stairs. For how long it had been since either of them had any athletic conditioning—especially Connor—the two of them seemed relatively put together by the time they reached the third floor. Some days when the trek across campus had been especially excruciating, Jake found himself succumbing to taking the elevator, but his general discomfort with the thought of being trapped in one led him climbing the stairs on nearly every other occasion. Tonight was no exception.
The door opened with the familiar click of a digitized lock coming undone and the two of them walked into the hall as silent as when they left it, this time without the animosity that Connor carried when he nearly slammed the floor door on himself trying to prove a point about how pissed off he was. Jake wouldn't have dared to laugh at him, but he did take the door from Connor as gently as he could and let him take his aggression out on the stairs instead—glaring at each one of them like they were the reason there was a new hole in his favorite Vans that he would never get rid of for all the money in the world.
The Connor that walked down the hall now was different. Jake couldn't help but feel a bit satisfied that he knew exactly what would work when he essentially told Connor to get his shit together and clear his head. When he originally proposed leaving, he really didn't know if it was going to backfire. A part of him thought Connor might have gone off on him for trying to tell him what to do, but instead he had been convinced enough by Jake's composure to allow the challenge. At least it all worked out. He made a mental note of what it took just in case there was ever an unfortunate 'next time.'
As they approached the Cobella-Morgan door, Jake could hear Ricky inside playing something out loud on his laptop that sounded like a soap opera, but truly couldn't be distinguishable from any one of Ricky's conversations with girls downstairs. It made Connor roll his eyes as he stopped in front of the door, a bit of that initial annoyance crawling on to his features once more as he shuffled off the sleeves of Jake's jacket. Jake found his hand resting on the small of Connor's back as he handed it back to him, his original blue flannel brushing underneath Jake's fingertips as the weight of the pocketknife in the jacket's pocket made the jacket fall heavy in Jake's other hand.
Connor wouldn't have dared to kiss him in a place like this, but Jake could read the will to do so in his eyes. He could offer Connor something smaller, a gift of sorts to tell him it would be okay. Jake's fingers uniformly tapped out twice on where they sat on Connor's back and through a bit of initial confusion at the silent question asked, Connor nodded. It was annoying to himself that he looked down the hall before he reached out for Connor, but it gave him a bit of comfort that they were alone as he wrapped his arms around his back and pulled him in.
The hug was short, and not nearly enough to give him any sort of real relief, but Connor needed it, and even if it wasn't enough, Jake could give him something.
"Thank you." Connor mumbled as he knocked his knuckles out twice on Jake's back.
Jake didn't have to ask what for, he knew exactly what it meant.
Thank you for calling me out on my shit.
Thank you for having my back.
Thank you for asking questions and accepting answers.
Thank you for everything.
Jake wanted to tell him 'thank you' back, but it didn't seem like that's what Connor wanted to hear. So Jake pulled him just a little bit closer and placed a kiss to the side of his head. There was no mistaking them for friends if anyone saw them now, but Jake didn't really care as much as he should have. All of those worries he had stored away on reserve waiting to be used at home.
"Go get your work done." He whispered into Connor's hair.
The dark hair underneath him shifted in a nod before breaking away. A tender moment gone far too soon, but just enough to recharge Connor for the long night ahead. Jake needed to get his own work done too, but that seemed like a problem to deal with in the morning when he had at least six hours of sleep under his belt and a phone he could throw in a drawer and ignore instead of staying beside it in case one of his many idiots called in an emergency.
Connor opened the door and the movie Jake caught on Ricky's screen was definitely too soapy for Connor's taste if the sound of their voices alone didn't make him want to slam his head into the wall first. Jake hadn't intended to come in at all, but he did push the door open from Connor's hand as he trailed into his room, and stood behind him in the doorway waiting patiently for Ricky's attention. When he didn't get it, he got inventive.
"Hey," He called into the room, catching the attention of both roommates in a bit of surprise from hearing his voice. "Put some headphones on man. What are you, twelve?"
Ricky paused his screen immediately and looked up to Connor with a bit of a disbelieving smile, which got him an unfazed shrug in return. As Ricky seemed to follow the request and dig into a desk drawer for something to plug in, Connor watched Jake in the doorway with something caught between 'I'm impressed' and 'I adore you.' Jake returned it with a wink.
"Goodnight."
He closed the door behind him before he got to catch Connor's reaction.
It came seconds later in a text that buzzed in his pocket as he dug his keys out to unlock his own door. Jake waited until he got himself in the door before he pulled it out.
marry me. The first message on his screen read.
It was a statement, not a question.
Some day. Jake typed back.
It was a promise, not an aspiration.