An engine of certainty was driving out the fear and heartbreak. This was all he had to do. Convince Jack this was doomed and neither of them would suffer any longer.
So he gave voice to his deepest fear as if it were an obvious truth.
“You’ve been bored out of your mind and I was here. You were interested in me because you had n-nothing else. But now you do again, so I know I won’t s-s-seem as sh-shi-shiny.”
“Wha... That’s what you think?”
Simon set his jaw and stared. He nodded once. He watched the moment when the man he had fallen in love with winced as his words hit home. Then, with as much dignity as he could muster, Simon got his coat and left.
Chapter Sixteen
Jack
When Charlie drove up, Jack was sitting outside on a stump, walking boot in place, Pirate perched on his shoulder. She jumped down as Charlie approached and rubbed against Charlie’s leg. Jack pouted.
“Traitor,” he muttered.
“Can’t believe you’re not out doing everything the doc said you can do yet,” Charlie said. He held up a paper bag. “Brought some sandwiches. I got one for Simon too. Not sure what he likes, so I got three different and figured he could choose first.”
“He’s not here.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, you can just save it for him for later if you—”
Jack pushed himself up and stormed into the house before Charlie could finish his thought. He imagined Simon’s tuna salad or turkey or ham sandwich waiting, neatly wrapped, in the refrigerator for a man who never came back. Jack’s throat tightened.
Charlie closed the door behind him.
“What’s up?”
His voice was infuriatingly gentle; inviting.
“Don’t do that thing,” Jack snapped. He wanted to rip the world to pieces, beginning with himself.
“What thing?”
“That thing you do where you sound like I can tell you anything and you know everything. Just...don’t.”
Jack closed his eyes.
“You can tell me anything,” Charlie said, low and soft so Jack instantly felt like shit for being mad.
Jack banged around the kitchen, putting food in the animals’ bowls and wiping up imaginary spills on the counter. The plastic of the walking boot made his right leg longer than his left so he had to stay up on his left toes a bit, making them ache. He wondered if he could get a shoe insert or something to even it out.
Charlie sat silently at the kitchen table and pet each animal as they ran to get their dinner. The bag of sandwiches lay untouched on the table until Mayonnaise jumped into Charlie’s lap and, smelling something she liked, tried to crawl inside the bag. Charlie scooped the cat up with one hand and chucked the bag into the fridge.
Finally, when all the animals had eaten and there was nothing more Jack could pretend to clean up, he put the sponge down, took a deep breath, and said, “I think I fucked up.”
* * *
They ate all three sandwiches (tuna, turkey, and ham; Jack had been right) and Jack told Charlie what had happened.
When he finished, Charlie frowned.
“What do I do? How do I convince him he’s not some...some distraction?”
It hurt Jack to even say the word. Was that what Simon had been thinking when they kissed? When they touched each other? When they laughed together? That Jack was momentarily entertained. The sandwiches lurched in his stomach.
“I don’t think that’s the part to focus on,” Charlie said slowly. “That’s the thing he told himself because of the part you should focus on.”
“And that is?!” Jack prompted when Charlie paused. He had a flash of Simon and himself sitting at this very table and Simon irritatedly instructing Jack to tell him everything.
“The part about how you want different things for the future. If you want a boyfriend who will go out and do things with you all the time and he doesn’t want to go out and do those things, then it makes sense he’d tell himself that you would lose interest.”
Anger sluiced through Jack, thick and hot.
“I would never do that; who the fuck do you think I am?”
“Bro, losing interest isn’t something you do on purpose. It isn’t something you do at all. Listen to what he was telling you: he cannot give you the things you told him you want. You told him you couldn’t wait to not be stuck in the house. The house is where he feels safe. That’s facts.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
Irritation flared Jack’s nostrils and he felt fidgety and overheated.
“Stop,” Charlie said. He put a heavy hand on Jack’s arm.
“What?” Jack snapped.
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m asking. Would you want to be in a relationship with Simon if he could not go out to dinner with you or to a basketball game or to the market?”
“Well, yeah, of course,” Jack said, barely containing his eye-roll.
“Yeah? Because Simon is worried that you won’t. And—No, shut up, I’m not done. Simon is worried that you won’t. Not because you’re a bad boyfriend or a bad person. He’s worried because he thinks you have an unrealistic understanding of what future you’re choosing if you choose him. Do you get that?”