Jack glanced at his phone and furrowed his brow.
“That you have a hard time talking? Well...yeah, I guess.” He shrugged. “Why do you?”
Simon’s face heated. In the question he couldn’t help but hear the echo of years of words.
I’m not... Simon deleted. There’s nothing wrong... Simon deleted.
He sent, I don’t know. I get really nervous and I just can’t make words come out.
Jack nodded. “Has it always been that way?”
Simon nodded miserably.
“Fuck. That really sucks.”
Simon choked on an unexpected chuckle.
“Is it like that with everyone? What about your friends, or family?”
Simon rolled his eyes. Friends. Yeah, right.
I’m fine talking with my family, Simon wrote. But I don’t see my parents much anymore. It’s better that way. They just want me to be someone I’m not. My sister’s cool and I can talk to her but she always wants to invite me to hang out with her friends or set me up. My grandma’s my best friend.
He sent the message and instantly felt awkward. What twenty-six-year-old man’s best friend was his grandmother? Then guilt swept through him at how hurt his grandmother would be to hear he felt that way.
“That’s cool about your grandma. Nice she bakes you cookies and stuff.” Jack sounded wistful.
Do you have a grandma?
He shook his head. “Well, I mean, I do, of course. But they’re dead. Everyone’s dead.”
Simon reached for his phone but before he could respond to that rather bleak pronouncement, Jack said, “Why does your sister invite you to do stuff she knows you don’t want to do?”
Simon snorted.
I know, right? Well...selfishness, I guess? She wants for me what she’d want for herself and she isn’t quite willing to imagine that I might be different and want different things.
Jack said nothing, apparently waiting for more. Simon felt his pulse flutter, but not from anxiety; from pleasure.
She’s my parents’ ideal kid, Simon went on. Ambitious, outgoing, confident. Everything I’m not.
He added a grimacing emoji but accidentally hit the scream emoji instead and sent it before he noticed.
Jack smiled.
“You’re not ambitious?” he asked.
Simon blinked at him, thinking about that, and for an unguarded moment, they were looking at each other—really looking at each other.
I guess my ambitions are just different. Less ambitious. Well, less...idk, career-y?
Jack nodded.
Mine are more like “Order a coffee without stammering” or “say ‘thank you’ at louder than a mumble when the pizza’s delivered.”
Simon couldn’t quite look at Jack to see his response to that.
“That sounds so damn hard,” Jack said, voice gruff.
Unexpected tears prickled in Simon’s eyes to hear the empathy there. Not his abhorred pity; not scorn; not embarrassment. Just empathy.
It is.
From the corner of his eye, Simon saw Jack’s phone light, knew he’d seen the message. But he still couldn’t look up.
So why don’t you draw when you can’t sleep anymore? he added.
“Ugh,” Jack grunted, and pushed back from the table with powerful arms, leaning his chair on its back legs. Simon looked up, startled, and Mayonnaise, who had crept in through the window cat door without Simon noticing, lifted her head at the disruption, but Jack was already levering his chair back down to earth. “Sorry,” he muttered.
Simon sat very still, except for his left hand, which spasmed against his will. He shoved it back under his thigh.
“I illustrate children’s books—well, I did.” And that was all he said.
Simon hadn’t given much thought to what Jack did, but if he had he’d have thought carpentry or lumberjacking—something physical and outdoorsy; something that would’ve honed the magnificent physique of the man sitting next to him.
But the image of Jack, powerful shoulders bent over paper, strong fingers wielding a pencil to bring a children’s tale to life made something snaky happen in the pit of his stomach.
The questions came too fast for him to type them: What’s your art like? What kind of stories did you illustrate? How did you get into that work? Are they published? Are you famous? Can I read them? Have you always wanted to do that? And, louder, bigger: What happened???
He fumbled his phone in frustration and familiar prickles of anger and humiliation crept up his spine. So many times he’d wanted to scream, “Why are you making me do so much work when it’s so fucking hard for me and it would be effortless for you!?”
One-handed, he typed, Just tell me everything!!! and shoved his phone at Jack rather than sending the message.
He had his eyes fixed to the table, so he didn’t see Jack’s expression, but after a moment, Jack said, “Sure. Sorry.”
It was kind, but the humiliation that came with relief was still humiliation.
“Do you want more coffee?” Jack asked.
Simon shook his head. More than a cup and he’d be buzzing.
“Okay. Um. I met my friend Davis in college. We were on the same freshman hall. I hated my roommate so I was always in the common room, and his room was right next to it. I didn’t really want to be there. College, I mean. I thought—Anyway.”