Far From Home - Chapter 42: Chapter 42

Early December
Jake didn't know how, but the only full hour of sleep he got was in the passenger seat of Ricky's Maserati. Something about the mix of cigarette smoke, leather seats, and a cologne that probably cost more than his tuition had lulled Jake to sleep the minute Ricky's playlist on the dash had switched from Nirvana to Queen. Before he fell asleep on the edge of the city, Jake had allowed himself to regret turning Ricky down all those nights he offered to take him along on drives, wondering how fast the car went where there was no one else out on those darkened roads and what the wind would've felt like as it hit his face through the rolled-down windows.
Jake missed driving so much, he almost shocked himself when his body remembered the familiar routes of home. They had passed the tracks by Connor's house and it pulled Jake straight out of a dream and back into reality like being abruptly woken up by an alarm. The GPS on the dash screen read off four minutes left to Aaron's new place, and Jake couldn't help but wonder how long it would take him to walk to Connor's house on the nights that Aaron annoyed the shit out of him—which he anticipated were going to be many to come. Aaron and Connor lived on the same road now, just on completely different ends of it. Now Jake had no reason to go anywhere but County Road, and a part of him hoped that simplicity would be enough to keep him from wandering back to the other side of town he was from, where the roads were more dirt than asphalt.
Ricky grinned as he looked over to Jake for a moment, before turning his attention to the road. "Ah, he lives."
"Can't get rid of me that easy." Jake mumbled looking out at the familiar trees that lined both sides of the road.
"Sure hope not. Connor would kill me if something happened to you on my watch."
The comment brought a smile to Jake's face.
"Probably."
"He scares the shit out of me sometimes, dude." Ricky shook his head with wide eyes. "One of these nights I think he's going to slit my throat while I'm asleep."
"Nah..." Jake grinned. "He'd disagree with that on principle."
"Oh, good."
"He'd have to wake you up first." He added. "Can't kill you without your consent."
Ricky shook his head unimpressed. "Sometimes you're just like him."
"You're the one who said I was too nice."
"I think I'll need to reevaluate where I stand on that one."
Jake shrugged. Fair enough.
The short rest of the drive was spent listening to 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' a song that Jake had never quite heard in its entirety but still seemed to know half of the words to from various occasions where the song played over speakers in the locker rooms or where his sister sang along in restaurants. He had come to find out the song was a staple of sorts—one of those tunes like 'Livin' on a Prayer' or 'Don't Stop Believin'' where everyone knew the words even if they didn't know exactly how or why they ever obtained that knowledge. It was such a universally American experience, Jake knew if he traveled anywhere across the nation right now and heard one of those songs playing on a radio, at least three of the strangers nearby would be humming along. Community. Songs that brought people together just as much as they tore them apart.
In a distant memory, Jake remembered Hunter getting his ass handed to him when coach found out he was playing Lil Wayne and Kendrick Lamar on the field speakers when the assistant coach for the track team had to fill in for practice and couldn't figure out how to shut it off. Music had been such an integral part of football for their team, Jake didn't know if he could ever listen to Eminem again without imagining how they all faced off to see who could actually complete the 'Rap God' verse in the middle of the locker room before their first away game senior year. It had come down to Hunter and a daring new freshman, but the freshman won and Hunter bowed down to him like a king for the duration of the night. They called him Emmy for the rest of the year and Hunter took it upon himself to push the kid to get more play time that season.
He was a good captain.
I'll give him that.
Pulling into a gravel driveway sobered Jake back to reality. Aaron's new house sat off the road about an acre back. It was a seemingly modest ranch, freshly painted a shade of white, with bay windows and a small concrete landing—the kind of house that reminded Jake exactly of the girl who lived inside of it. Ricky pulled in behind Aaron's truck in the driveway, and to no surprise, Aaron was walking into the front yard before they had even stopped all the way.
"Hey, thank you, again." Jake turned as he grabbed for his bag in the backseat.
"Oh no problem, I love an excuse for a long drive." Ricky spun his key fob around his finger. "Don't tell your boyfriend though. We're friends right now, I'd like to keep it that way."
"He doesn't know you came up here?"
"Uh, nope."
I don't think he would mind you being nice to me, but okay Ricky.
And with that, they were both out of the car. When Jake slammed his door shut, Ricky's closed only seconds behind him, putting his hands into the pockets of his double-breasted coat as he came to stand at the front of his car.
"Jesus, Ricky." Aaron pointed at the car. "The fuck is that thing?"
Ricky squinted like he didn't know whether to be offended and then answered. "It's a Ghibli?"
"You really drivin' a Masi 'round here?"
"Uh..." Ricky seemed confused. "Yes?"
Aaron snorted. "Be careful."
Jake smiled and raised his eyebrow to join Aaron's warning.
"What, do you guys not like foreign cars? Should I have brought the Tesla instead?" Ricky shrugged to join in their banter.
"How many you fuckin' got?" Aaron shook his head.
"Three, but the other two are back home."
Jake's smile turned more into ridicule as he stared off at Connor's roommate. "Home like campus, or...?"
"Brooklyn."
"Oh, fantastic." Aaron shrugged theatrically like it meant anything.
"What the fuck, Ricky? What the hell do your parents do for a living?" Jake glared at him.
Ricky's grin looked as pleased as it did entertained, but just shook his head and diverted the question. "You don't want to know."
Mafia. They've gotta be in the mafia.
Jake almost let himself be convinced of his outlandish theory until he thought about how problematic it would be for the son of a mafia member to be scared of the 5'9" Pre-Vet major, whose 'type' was the literal embodiment of sunshine, and had a soft spot for Taylor Swift. Connor—while threatening—could never be a match for a 6'1" mafia child with enough money to buy an island and enough looks to charm the president into doing his bidding for him. The mafia theory hadn't been wiped off the table, but if Jake was right, he was sure Ricky had disappointed his family in one way or another.
My lack of sleep has officially driven me crazy. Connor's roommate is not in the mafia.
"You stayin' around, or you gotta go?" Aaron let Ricky off the hook from Jake's curiosity.
"I should probably head back. I've got some packing left to do."
"A'ight. Thanks for comin' up, man. Let us know when you get there."
"Will do." Ricky nodded, shrinking back away towards his door.
"Thanks, Ricky."
"See ya next year, Jake."
"If Connor doesn't kill you first." Jake joked back.
"Keep him in line, would you?" Ricky tilted his head over as he leaned onto his open door.
"He's not my bitch." He put his hands out in surrender. "He makes his own decisions. Good and bad."
"A lot of bad ones."
"Not my problem." Jake grinned.
"God, you two are a match made in heaven." Ricky scowled. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to your worse half."
Better half, Jake corrected him silently.
"Have a nice drive back." He offered out instead.
"I will." Ricky nodded like he was proving something and then climbed back into the driver's seat where he started the car immediately with the gentle roar of an engine coming to life.
Jake shrugged his bag further up his shoulder as he watched Ricky back down the driveway, not throwing his hand over the other seat like Jake instinctually did watching the back window of the truck. Fucking backup cameras. He cursed Ricky's good fortune, but perhaps he was only a bit jealous he had never gotten to try one.
"College kids, man." Aaron threw out.
"Something like that." Jake mumbled as he watched Ricky make it out onto the road.
When the familiar black car finally started off down the south route to Columbus, Jake allowed himself to turn to Aaron, looking at his friend for the first time since he had stepped outside. He didn't even have to ask how Aaron was doing—he could see the bags under his typically lively hazel eyes as a telltale sign. Great, so you slept like shit too? It wasn't a comfort knowing he wasn't the only one who hadn't been able to sleep through the night, but it made him feel a little less guilty for being consumed in that grief because someone else had been too.
Aaron fumbled with a rubber band on his wrist while Jake took a deep breath and prepared himself for how serious things were going to be when they both sank into those feelings together. Ricky had offered them a moment of lighthearted conversation, but now the Cobella boy was gone, and so was any hope that they could start a new day ignoring what had happened the day before.
"How are you doing?" Jake broached it with a gentle demeanor instead of turning it into a joke.
Aaron looked away. "I don't even know."
"Me neither."
It wasn't much, but at least it was a start. An honest start, at that.
Aaron stared off at something past Jake's shoulder like he couldn't afford to meet his friend in the eye. Jake did it when he felt the most vulnerable—ignoring eye contact whenever his father got too close, or whenever Connor asked him something he was afraid to answer. It hurt to know Aaron was vulnerable because that meant he was already hurt, and Jake had spent so much of their lives together trying to make sure that was never the case. Now the only person he thought would never harm Aaron was the one who had broken him down the most. Another person Hunter ended up maiming, even in death.
"I know we ain't into all that touchy-feely shit, but..." Aaron shrugged it off like he didn't know what to say.
Jake still knew what he meant.
He let his bag slip to the ground as he moved in for a hug. It was a once in a lifetime thing to be so close, but Jake figured now was as good a time as any to let their stupid guards down where no one could see and torment them for having emotions. If their fathers would have seen them now, Jake knew they'd both be in trouble, but he didn't give a shit—they were both adults out on their own trying to make sense out of something incomprehensible, the fragile construct of masculinity be damned.
Aaron didn't seem tense when Jake grabbed ahold of him, but he didn't melt into the gesture like Jake was used to Connor doing. It was easy for Jake and Connor because they were nearly identical in size, but with Aaron's height charting four inches above his own, Jake had to pull him down to be at the same level. Despite it all, Aaron did his best to work around it. He wasn't delicate and soft, but rather urgent as he pulled his best friend closer over one of his shoulders, tightening his grip on Jake like he was scared to lose the one friend he had left.
I'm still here, Aaron. Jake thought about telling him as he tapped a closed fist across his back. You're stuck with me forever, bud.
Aaron seemed to breathe in Jake's affection with a great deal of concern. "Are you o–"
"I'm fine. Don't worry about me." Jake deflected it.
It only made him hold onto him tighter.
"Bullshit." Aaron whispered, and if his face wasn't right next to Jake's ear, he might not have heard it.
Don't worry about me. That's my job.
"Don't you ever do this shit to me..."
Jake hated hearing the strain in Aaron's voice. He hated that it was a real concern. He hated that he wasn't always as convincing as he needed to be when shit hit the fan. Do you really think I would ever leave you like that?
Little to his best friend's comfort, there had actually been one point where Jake had thought about it. It was a fleeting idea that didn't gain much ground when he was at his lowest point and didn't think he could get much lower. He was wrong of course, because 'low' was less of a bar on the ground at this point, and more of a tolerance he raised every time something new was added to the tab of his life. Regardless, he hadn't given it enough thought to count. At that point in his teen years, he figured McKenna needed him so much more than he needed his own pain to end. His guilt had stored it away as a bad idea and he never thought about it again.
"I won't."
"Fuck, man. Sometimes I thought it could've been you, but... God... not Hunter." Aaron's voice wavered off. "I don't what I would've fuckin' done if it was you, Hunter's hard enough–"
"It's not me." Jake tapped out on his back again to make sure he knew he was there.
"I know... yeah, I know."
"Hey." A much higher voice came up behind Aaron with a gentle hand on his lower back that brushed by Jake's hand only for a second. "Thought I heard y'all out here."
"Hey Kath." Jake mumbled as Aaron was quick to break away, wiping away a single tear before his girlfriend managed to see it.
"You hungry? I'm heading to the store if you want me to pick something up."
She pointed her keys out towards her car in the driveway with the hand that wasn't still on Aaron's back. Aaron left the response up to Jake, so he met his other friend's gaze with a smile.
"Oh, uh... no, I'm good. Thanks."
Aaron sent him an annoyed look, but Jake pretended not to catch it out of the corner of his eye.
"And thanks for letting me stay... means a lot." He tried catching up with Katherine instead.
She swiped her hand out, her keys clanging together between her fingers as she did.
"Please. You don't even have to ask."
"Told you." Aaron mumbled under his breath.
Shut the hell up. Jake glared at him.
"I'll be back in a few. You two behave, okay?"
"I'm sorry, do you know your boyfriend? 'Behave' is not a word in his vocabulary." Jake shook his head.
"Just smile and tell me you two won't catch the house on fire." Katherine all but rolled her eyes at the boy's stupidity.
"I, personally," He pointed to himself. "Will not be catching the house on fire."
"Thank you, Jake. Appreciate it." She pulled Aaron into her side using the hand on his back. "Try your best, honey, okay?"
"Yes ma'am." Aaron said shyly as he leaned in to give her a short kiss.
Jake broke out with a grin, but Aaron seemed not to look at him for the exact reason that he knew what face Jake would be giving him. If Aaron saw him right now, he'd push his face away, telling him to 'shut the fuck up' before he got to torment him, or perhaps denying that Jake saw him being soft at all. It was rather adorable—Jake had to admit—to see someone take all of Aaron's walls down so fast, and seemingly without question. He turned to mush right in front of her feet like the hopeless romantic he was. Jake would have to give her credit where credit was due, she had accomplished quite the feat.
It would be nice, Jake thought, to spend winter break with the two of them like this. Even if he had felt a shiver go up his spine the second his eyes woke up to being right back in the town he had spent months trying to escape, Aaron and Katherine were a comfort to come back to. One month was all he had to manage. Only one month. He figured he could keep to only seeing them and Connor for one month if it meant saving him the trouble of his own return.
Like the universe preparing him for a long road ahead, Katherine smiled—a comfort that didn't match how Jake felt about the words she called out on her way towards the driveway.
"Welcome home, Jake."