Far From Home - Chapter 41: Chapter 41

Early December
The sun went down two hours ago, but Jake didn't care. He stared off at the wall and watched the shadows and shades change, but the time passing didn't bother him like it should have knowing he had just spent eight hours in bed doing absolutely nothing.
In the middle of the afternoon, Jake had decided he was going to try to feel like a person again, but that effort was curtailed before it even began. He tried catching up with his notifications—the messages from his sister about coming home, the messages from Connor about how much he hated getting ready in the morning before he left, the emails from professors calculating final grades, and finally the posts he was being tagged in from boys he went to school with back home. Every post was the same. There were pictures of Hunter everywhere, people he barely knew with so many kind things to say about how much they would miss him. Jake and Aaron were tagged left and right on athletes' posts, but the more he looked at them, the more it made him sick. It seemed as if everyone in the world had something to say about Hunter Anderson except the people who actually knew him best.
Jake, Aaron, Katherine, even McKenna and his ex Alyssa. Radio silence.
Nobody knew what to say.
What the hell was he supposed to say? He didn't even know what to think. Hunter hadn't been the easiest of friends to deal with, but for a while, he was one of the best friends Jake had ever had. There were so many days that Jake spent laughing with Hunter and Aaron when he didn't feel like seeing anyone else in the world. The days where one or all of them would end up with some bodily injury from doing something ill-advised, but seemingly none of them learned from their mistakes and would do it all again the next week. Hunter was cocky, he was arrogant, most days he made Jake roll his eyes and shake his head, but he was also a friend, and when they got along, a good friend. Hunter was the smack on the back of Jake's head when he was being a stuck-up asshole, he was the wide smile that voiced bad ideas, he was the pat on the back after a good practice, and the explosive personality that would have taken someone to the ground for laying a finger on Jake or Aaron. Hunter was bad, but he was also good.
It was almost unfathomable to think that now Hunter was dead.
Jake was grateful for the knock on his door that forced his mind to surface from underneath the memory haze that had trapped him all day. He knew it was Connor—that much he could guess from the texts he watched come in over his screen in the past hour, but didn't bother replying to. Connor would be pissed off at him for not responding, but Jake couldn't respond to anyone right now that wasn't Aaron, and even then, only if it meant answering a call. His energy was at an all time low—which was quite surprising given the hell of a ride this semester was—but his feet wound up going through the motions of finding his way to the door anyway.
He wasn't surprised that he was right.
Connor's eyes met his the second he opened the door, his expression falling softly when he was able to catch a good look at how Jake was feeling. Jake's eyes were red—he could feel them strain to stay open with the burn that wanted to force them closed—but he knew absolutely nothing else about his appearance besides that. He figured he looked somewhere between 'haven't slept in days' and 'potentially homeless,' but distinguishing between the two would be essentially useless when all Jake wanted to do was crawl back into bed.
For the first time in his life, Jake actually wished Connor wasn't there.
"Hey." Connor tried to smile, but it fell entirely short of comforting.
Jake let him into the room without saying a word, letting the gesture pass as a question of whether or not he was allowed to come in. When he closed the door after Connor, he had to consciously fight down the urge not to just go lay down, and instead stood in the middle of the room aimlessly staring at Andre's desk instead.
"I heard what happened." Connor's voice cut through the dark room to meet Jake where he stood. "I'm sorry."
Although he was only the first to utter Jake's least favorite condolence, he was certain Connor wouldn't be the last. Jake dreaded how many times he would hear the words, and dreaded even more the few times he would have to say them. If Aaron was the first person Hunter's sister called, then there was no way his family knew the extent of their falling out. Facing the Andersons again like nothing had happened over the past year would be harder than dealing with Hunter's death itself, but Jake knew he would have to at some point. It would be rude for someone who had been so close to their son for so many years not to.
Taking his silence with a grain of salt, Connor continued.
"How are you doing?"
Jake couldn't manage an answer, so instead he just shrugged. It was a pissy response, but he couldn't have been bothered to care enough to find his words. Connor didn't take it personally. He stood with the same calm composure as before, his eyes gentle and his expression warm. Jake noticed Connor always looked at him like that in his worst moments, where Connor could tell conversation would be hard and anything but compassion would send him spiraling. But this time that look just made him feel weird. It didn't make him feel safe and comforted like it usually did, it made him feel guilty that he was capable of mourning someone who had done so much damage to Connor right in front of his face.
It was odd.
Jake felt entitled to his own sadness if he would allow himself to feel it, but somehow he couldn't allow himself to feel it, because if he did then he would have to admit to Connor that he was in fact feeling it. How was Connor supposed to offer him comfort about the loss of someone that he had resented every day of his life stuck in that damned high school with him? Hunter tormented Connor every time the occasion arose, and while Jake understood the twisted ways why Hunter did it, it didn't take away that pain from Connor, and it didn't make it any more justifiable. It filled Jake with an immense amount of guilt that he felt such incredible confliction about mourning his friend in front of his own boyfriend. Connor didn't need to see him upset over the death of the asshole that spent years harassing him. It was selfish for Jake to think he was owed Connor's comfort over something so insensitive.
I don't want you to see me like this.
You don't need to feel sorry for me.
Connor read him so clearly sometimes Jake wished he was capable of blinding him. He saw the turmoil written on Jake's face and reached a hand out to smooth away all those concerns that etched into the deep furrow of his brow in thought. Connor had once said that there was a specific face Jake made when he was lost in his own mind, and although Jake could never consciously catch exactly what that expression looked like, Connor did every single time. Underneath the hood that Jake still had pulled over his head, Connor's fingers pushed away messy strands of wavy blond hair from his forehead, clearing the pathetic comfort of feeling like a train wreck from Jake's control.
"Don't." Jake whispered a quiet plea to make him stop offering out consolation in the form of silent touch.
Connor's eyes sparked surprise only for a moment before he was quick to cover it up. His hand fell still on the side of Jake's face, and then—only after he had looked into his eyes for a moment to read his mistake—retreated back to his own devices.
It was a little late to say anything else, but Jake felt too much like an asshole not to add a soft "please" as Connor watched him carefully for signs.
"Okay." He nodded.
Connor shoved both of his hands into the pockets of a charcoal-colored jacket that Jake had never seen him in before—something nicer than what he usually wore and suitable for the colder weather that had been rolling in the past couple of days. It made him look older, and with it, more put together than the boy who wore flannels in the summer and the same pair of shoes with every outfit. He had those same black Vans on now, but the jeans he wore with them were a dark denim, cuffed at a perfect length, partnered with a thin black sweater and his staple leather watch. Jake had never seen him look so casually nice.
If he could have mustered up the strength to start casual conversation, Jake might have told him how his struggle getting ready that morning had paid off, but instead he kept his mouth sealed shut. The last thing he wanted was for Connor to think he was deflecting his feelings elsewhere. Connor hated nothing more than when Jake tried to convince him he was fine when he wasn't.
"Have you eaten?" Connor rerouted their interaction to more questions Jake wouldn't answer. "We should go get something, I'm starving."
Jake's silence was an answer in and of itself.
"Or if you don't feel like going out, we can order in. I've got Ricky's DoorDash account... his parents don't give a shit what we buy as long as we have good taste." Connor smiled to try to bring Jake to a verbal answer.
Thank you for trying.
Connor was so genuine, it made Jake feel incredibly guilty for the lie he was about to tell.
"Already ate."
He didn't, and he had no plans to, but Connor didn't need to know that, and he didn't need to feel bad that Jake starved his feelings. There was nothing Connor could do. If he hadn't brought himself to eat something already, he wasn't going to for the rest of the night. It would be a small miracle if he managed to eat something tomorrow, and even then it would likely only be because Aaron sat down and watched him do it. Aaron learned his lesson the last time Jake didn't eat for days, and he wasn't such a fool now to take his word for it.
"You want to keep me company then?" Connor suggested with a pitiful smile that Jake all but cried at the sight of.
Jake knew Connor didn't need the company. Connor enjoyed being alone just as much as he enjoyed sleep. If he didn't have enough of either aspect in his day, his world would crumble and his attitude would go to shit. It wasn't that Connor was worried about eating alone, but more that Jake had spent the whole day alone, and apparently spent the whole time digging himself into a hole he wasn't climbing out of any time soon. Connor's enthusiasm was fake, but his heart was in the right place. Jake couldn't tell him no, but fortunately, he didn't have to.
Connor's smile faded back to his serious resolution, and Jake was grateful for it.
"Do you want to be alone?" He set all those optimistic questions aside for the one that really mattered.
Jake didn't know if it would have made him feel worse to tell the truth or to lie about it. He had been on a lying streak so far, not even bothering to give Connor one answer worth acknowledging as genuine. It made him feel shitty, and angry, and sad, but nothing more than what he already felt dealing with the day's events. Connor didn't deserve his indifference, he knew he didn't, but Jake couldn't stop the natural urge to climb inside his own mind and deal with his problems himself. That's how he had been his whole life, and he didn't see himself stopping anytime soon. He had been getting better about sorting out the little things with Aaron, and being more open with Connor, but even then something this big was his, and his alone, to deal with.
He shrugged again.
Connor understood.
"I'm gonna go." He mumbled. "But you'll answer my texts, right?"
Jake allowed himself to look Connor in the eyes and nod, because if there was one answer he could give him, it was that one.
"I'll be here all night... if you need anything."
It felt weird to have someone say the words to him—to offer him the world if he needed it. Jake was used to it being the other way around. Give and give and give until he was exhausted but couldn't show it. He anticipated tomorrow would be the start of one of those cycles, and while he couldn't bring himself to accept Connor's help now, he knew he might come to need it then, when the reality of the loss had become too real to shake and the weight of home wanted to pull him down before he even had the chance to find his footing in that world again. Jake knew he would miss Connor like hell those first few days when he wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed with him and let him whisper stories of lives past into his ear to put him to sleep without thinking of his own. But right now, he couldn't feel anything but the dull ache in his chest to be alone, swallowed whole by the night that felt so much different than it had only hours before.
He knew he wouldn't sleep, but his body wanted nothing more. When he closed his eyes he knew the nightmares would come back—maybe this time with a different scene—but they would only serve as an unsavory reminder of the hell waiting for him when he stepped foot back in his hometown when he opened his eyes once more. Today was only a preparation for the rest of what was coming, and he was glad to have spent it by himself where he didn't have to manage his reaction for others. The rest of his waking hours would be spent the same, and he was glad Connor understood that enough to leave him be.
When Connor left, Jake sulked back over to his bed and laid face down into his pillow, muting words he mumbled to himself to help him think through it while the tears that dried on his face put him to sleep.