“No, fuck you, Flynn!”The curse spat out.“Wake the hell up.Did I screw other guys?I sure fucking did, because at least they weren’t emotionally-stunted little robots, going through the damn motions every day.You think you’re easy to live with?”
Another smash, punctuation to William’s venom.
“I know I’m not always...the easiest...”
William’s sigh was more like weaponized exhalation.“You know what, you were fun for a while.You even had me convinced, with all the big talk about your plans, and your ambitions, and how it was gonna be different.I should’ve known that was all bullshit, the first time I saw you sitting in that fucking corner.Nothing to you but a grubby little voyeur, forever living vicariously through everyone else.”
“You stuck around, though.”Flynn sounded angry now, too.
“Well, shit,” William said, “I guess I like putting on a show, then.But the curtain’s coming down now, asshole.You’ll have to get your kicks from porn, like all the other losers.”
“That’s not...”
“Save it!”Practically a screech.When he spoke again, William’s voice was shaking with emotion.“There’s literally nothing inside you that I want to hear, can you understand that?”
Another crashing sound, and then the line went dead.
#
Istared out of thewindshield at the asphalt spooling ahead of me.Hands still tight on the wheel, eyes almost unblinking.Trying to process what I’d heard, while simultaneously recoiling from it.Nauseous, even, at the sense that I’d eavesdropped on something private.Yes, that had been unintentional, but I could’ve hung up, could’ve switched off the phone.
I watched the highway and thought about that final smash I’d heard.What might’ve happened, after the call ended.
My fingers were reaching for the turn signal even before I consciously registered the exit.Acting on autopilot: the pause at the stop sign, blinker clicking; driving across the overpass; and then another left turn, down the ramp which would undo all the progress I’d made toward home.No plan in mind and no ideas, really.Just the echo of that last, loud shattering.
Chapter Seventeen
Flynn’s address wasstill in the mapping app, and there was a part of me that was grateful for the city’s confusing system of one-way roads and odd intersections as I inched my way between red lights and stop signs.Focusing on what lane I was meant to be in, and not inadvertently colliding with death-wish pedestrians, meant there wasn’t much brain capacity left to think through what I was actually doing.
Or, more accurately, what the hell I thought I could achieve when I actually made it to Flynn’s place.
Rationally, I should’ve just kept heading home.He’d made it abundantly clear, after all, that anything between us - any friendship, anything more - could only be within the framework of what he and William had.Just because I’d heard an argument, eavesdropped on a few broken glasses or whatever, didn’t mean I needed to leap in like some wannabe knight in shining armor.
I was still telling myself that I’d turn back around, retrace my steps, as I fed coins into the parking meter.Was still weighing the merits of both routes out of the city - one longer, true, but often the traffic was freer-flowing - as I stood outside Flynn’s apartment building.Still halfway across the state, the city gone from my rearview mirror, as I reached out to thumb his doorbell.
It was a sharp buzz, a grating one.Rough edges scratching.Though not as awful a sound as the faintly-crackling silence that came after it, as I waited to see whether he’d even answer.
