Page 2 of Splintered
Ben padded into the bedroom, sliding between the sheets into his side of the bed. He stared at the ceiling, then rolled to his side, staring at the empty space beside him.Where are you? It’s too soon for you to leave.
Though, if the end was obvious, did it matter when Evan cut the cord? When he just… didn’t come home? That’s what leaving was, right?
Rumbling made the walls, the floor tremble. The sudden opening of the garage door deafeningly loud in the silent house.Evan.
Ben threw back the covers and darted from the bedroom, hurrying downstairs as he listened to Evan’s shuffle through the garage and into the house through the laundry room.
“Evan!” Despite the last month, he smiled—no, beamed—seeing Evan’s silhouette in the darkness of the house, haloed by the lone light in the kitchen.
Evan tossed his keys into the red glass bowl they kept by the front door, a catchall for keys and mail and wallets. He sighed. “Hey.”
Ben hesitated on the last step as if there was a barrier he couldn’t cross separating him from Evan. The force of Evan’s distance carving a furrow in the earth, like a bulldozer had smashed through the hardwood floors and then deeper, digging into the dirt and foundations of their house. He swallowed. “You’re kind of late. I thought you’d be home earlier.”
“What are you talking about?” Evan whipped around, scowling. Half his face was hidden in shadow. The lone light seemed to fall into Evan’s eye and whirl away. An ugly twist to his face marred his usual cheer, the quick smile that had melted Ben’s heart from day one.
“Your flight landed five hours ago. I waited for you.”
Evan stomped into the kitchen and jerked open the refrigerator door. He ignored Ben as he pulled out the milk, popped open the carton, and drank straight from the spout.
Ben rolled his eyes. “You could have at least said something if you were going to stop somewhere.”
Evan put the milk back and grabbed the lunch meat. He tossed it and a slice of cheese on the counter. He moved around the kitchen, making himself a sandwich while avoiding looking at Ben. He said nothing, and his face was locked somewhere between a scowl and a grimace.
“How did it go?” Ben finally asked. Maybe Evan was in a shit mood because of the interview. He hated the tiny spark of hope that flared, like a lighter flicking on in some dark part of his soul.
Evan finally looked at him. Ben couldn’t read his expression, the almost perfect neutrality. “Thought you didn’t care.”
“I care.”
Evan finished one sandwich and started making another.
“There are leftovers in the fridge—"
“I’m fine.”
“Did you eat tonight? Or at all today?” Evan had left Manhattan that morning. He always had a horrible habit of waiting until the last minute to race to the airport, playing roulette with the security checkpoints and then running down the concourse to catch his flight. He never had time to even stop at Starbucks. Once upon a time, Ben had made him lunches and in-flight snacks and hid them in Evan’s briefcase whenever he traveled. The smile on Evan’s face, the selfie with the lunch bag he’d sent that first time, complete with marker-drawn smiley face, was his phone background for an entire year.
He couldn’t bring himself to make Evan a travel lunch when Evan’s trip to New York was splintering them in two.
“I’m starving,” was all Evan grumbled back. He munched on his second sandwich and downed a glass of water like he’d just been rescued from the desert.Where the hell were you? Why didn’t you eat tonight?
Maybe he did eat. Just not food. Ben bit back the voice that chewed on his brainstem, that fed his worries and his anxieties. He didn’t need to wake that voice up tonight. It was already pulling double duty, leading parade after parade through his life.Evan is leaving you. Evan doesn’t love you anymore.
See? What more proof do you need?
“Are you coming to bed?”
“In a minute.” Evan rinsed the plate in the sink, taking longer than two sandwiches’ worth of crumbs should take.
Ben’s teeth clamped down on his ragged lip, slicing into the barely formed scab. He jerked, the pain a sudden, sharp thing. “I know you think I don’t care,” he said softly, hoping his voice could cross the continental divide that bent space and gravity between them. “But I do. And I just want you to be happy. If New York is what will make you happy, then—” His voice sliced off, quick as a knife cutting out his vocal cords. His lips pressed shut. He tasted copper again.
Evan froze. The water in the sink continued to run, slipping over his hands and the plate. Slowly, Evan looked over his shoulder, staring at Ben.
A month’s worth of arguments filled the house, rattled the windows and suffocated the air, choked every claustrophobic room, from the hardwood to the molded ceiling. He felt the ghosts of their shouts in the space between their bodies, lines of lightning like telegraphs, echoes of accusations hurled back and forth. Like every other time, every other argument, Ben stood his ground.
He wasn’t going to move to New York. Not even for Evan.
Evan could go. Evan wanted to go. It was an amazing opportunity for his career.
