Page 85 of We Are Just Us

“This is what I do. Something gets hard and I look for the exit. Not just with you. With everything. My whole life.” He wasn’t looking at Rory now. He was looking at his hands, at the cold coffee, at the table between them. “I didn’t want to see it. But you said it on the driveway and Emory said it on the phone and I almost didn’t believe it until I was sitting in my car at two in the morning looking for my dog and you were already out there. Looking for him. After I told you not to.”

He stopped. Took a breath.

“And I made your grief about me. You told me the worst thing that ever happened to you, and I was a selfish asshole, thinking about how it made me feel. Like I had some right to your pain.”

He met Rory’s eyes.

“You don’t owe me your grief. I know that.”

Rory didn’t move. Then he nodded slowly. “What about San Francisco?” he asked. His voice was careful. Not accusatory.

“I told them I wasn’t interested.”

Rory studied him for a long moment. Then he leaned back in his chair. “Are you staying, Kieran?”

The question was simple. But the weight behind it was seven years of loss and every casual thing Kieran had ever said about not having a plan.

“Yes,” Kieran said. “I’m staying.”

“Okay,” Rory said.

“I’m probably going to be bad at it sometimes. I’m going to get scared and do something stupid. But I don’t want to be the person who runs anymore.”

Rory nodded. He was looking at the table. His hand was wrapped around the cold mug and Kieran could see the knuckles whiten, the tendons standing out. “I should’ve told you about Britt,” he said. “Before you had to find out from…”

His voice broke. Not cracked. Broke.

He put his hand over his face.

Kieran didn’t know what to do. He’d seen Rory angry on the driveway, seen him shaking, seen the composure fracture and the raw thing underneath come through. But he’d never seen this. Rory’s shoulders were shaking and he wasn’t making any sound and it was worse than crying, somehow.

Kieran got up. Came around the table. Crouched down beside Rory’s chair and put his hands on Rory’s knees. Didn’t say anything or try to fix it. Just stayed there, low and close, so Rory didn’t have to look up to find him.

Rory’s hand came down from his face. His eyes were red and puffy. He looked at Kieran crouched there in front of him, trying to understand what it meant.

“I’m sorry,” Rory said. His voice was ragged. “I’m not…I don’t usually—”

“Stop,” Kieran said gently.

Rory shook his head. “You shouldn’t have had to find out like that. I knew it and I kept putting it off and then it was too late and I didn’t know how to…” He stopped. Pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I couldn’t just say it.”

But he was trying. Even now, exhausted at a kitchen table, he was trying to get there. He just didn’t have the words yet.

Kieran put his hand on the back of Rory’s neck. “You don’t have to figure it out right now.”

Rory looked at him. His face was a mess, nose running, none of the steady warmth Kieran was used to, just a tired man who had nothing left to hold up.

They stayed there for a while, Kieran crouched on the kitchen floor, one hand on Rory’s knee, the other on his neck. Not comfortable exactly.

“We’re kind of a mess,” Kieran said.

Rory wiped his face with the back of his hand. “Yeah. We are.”

“Is that okay?”

“I think it has to be.”

Kieran almost smiled. “That’s not exactly reassuring.”