“I was annoyed that I had to listen to someone,” he says, because it’s not a lie. It’s a small truth attached to a bigger truth, one that he knows he can’t yet stand to look at. Evan sighs. “I didn’t mean for you to get fucked up over it for so long. If anything, I’m offended you feel that bad.” The corner of lip curls into a wry smile. Evan’s voice tightens. “If I’m good at anything, it’s taking a fucking hit.”
The corn maze is looking a lot larger, a little more off view, which means they’re getting closer to the ground. The ferris wheel slows. Evan takes a drag of the cigarette. That the smoke burns his throat produces the realization that it’s the first he’s had in about six years. The human body isn’t so used to its warmth yet.
Evan stares at Connor, face blank, trying to process his words. There’s absence where empathy should be. His rational mind attempts to assemble a substitute, but all it seems to build is resentment. Against Connor, but mostly against himself. Evan’s brows furrow. Is he so self-absorbed that he can’t even produce a morsel of sympathy for someone whose life was worse than his? Why does he envy Connor?
It’s strange that the other wolf can allow himself to be so open. It’s not something Evan thinks he can do. Perhaps there has too long been a shroud of lonesomeness wrapped around his being, a byproduct of assembling layers and layers of new selves to keep the real one safe, and it’s grip on his heart now keeps the truth from falling out. Now, he wonders what it feels to put it all down. He tries to imagine himself in Connor’s place, a child in a playground waiting for a soft pair of hands to carry him back home, and before anything else, it angers him, because all he can think is you’re lucky she left before you got to meet her properly.
But wills his mind to wander away from old wounds. He thinks of Diego. Their house, and the troubled people that live there, and how much it must strain him to shoulder the demands and needs and burdens of every erratic man that lived there. Shouldn’t Evan try as hard? He meets Connor’s eyes. If he scours his buried heart he can dig up something that almost resembles compassion. Is it enough? Is it enough? Maybe not, but it’s a relief to know, at least, that he doesn’t need real empathy to tell a person it’s safe to place their grief in his hands. “How old were you?” Softly, he adds, “When she left, I mean.”
It’s easier this way. Easier to hear someone else’s fucked up story so he can bury his own into the dirt. He doesn’t fight Connor. Doesn’t argue that missed winters could hardly hold a candle to his six missed years. Evan tries to school the look of pensiveness that threatens to sweep through his features, but then Connor says you’d still be someone to me, and a flood of wistfulness crashes through his whole being, making it impossible for his face not to fall.
Evan blinks. He’s not sure what to do about Connor’s kindness. It’s strange and unfamiliar. There’s a joke waiting at the tip of his tongue, about babysitters and money or his lack thereof, but he doesn’t say it, instead letting this strange ache settle into his chest. The corner of his lip curls into a smile, small nervous and wry, but still realer than anything he’s shown Connor. The ferris wheel comes to a stop.
Connor is close to laughing when Evan tells him that he shouldn’t feel bad. He’s close to telling the other not to be ridiculous, that no matter what may have prompted it, it was still his own choice to hit Evan in the end and that he’s still at fault for it. But the words are lost as soon as he hears Evan’s -- and the sudden, unfortunate realization that there may have always been a reason behind why the man is the way he is.
But he can’t assume anything more than what he’s been told, and he’s not sure if he should pry -- he doesn’t trust himself to say the right things, so he bites down on his lip and then bites at the end of his cigarette, then sucks the smoke back in again.
And perhaps he shouldn’t have shared so much -- he feels bad, taking up all this space. He is far past the point of needing other people to pity him. Secretly, he prays Evan won’t say anything, because he certainly doesn’t need anyone else to tell him that everything will be okay when they have nothing to back that up. Because his life hasn’t been okay, and neither has Noah’s, ever since they were left right there at the playground.
It’s such a silly thing to hold onto. Pathetic that he still tethered to something that was done to him over twenty years ago.
Evan speaks, and Connor is silently thankful it’s not empty advice, as he’d somewhat expected. He shrugs, even laughs a little.
“Young enough to not remember what she sounds like. Five or six. Something like that. It’s not -- it’s not really a big deal,” he lies, “not anymore, anyway.”
Odd to think that Evan is one of the few people who know now. And for now, it feels okay that Evan’s not quite willing to tell him the whole story. He’s not sure if the other ever will, but this feels something a little akin to friendship. The way Evan smiles -- it’s something he’s never seen before, even after all this time, sharing a room, sharing a home. It feels like a small privilege, and it makes him feel a little warmer in this winter chill as they make their way off of the ferris wheel and back out into the real world.
“Hey,” Connor begins when they’re back on festival grounds, and tries to put on a smile, too. “Next time anyone hits you, hit them back harder. They probably deserve it.”
