Page 177 of The New Place

Slowly he draws his hand back. Perhaps—perhaps Ned does need to do this. Or Abbot needs Ned to. “But I appreciate it,” he says. It sounds so small in the face of Ned’s clear terror.

Ned manages a tiny smile. Abbot wants to scale the distance between them and wrap Ned tight in his arms to wipe that tremulous look from his face.

“I gotta do my part here, and I haven’t been, and I can’t be okay with that. Not if I really want this to work between us.” Ned pauses, then lets out a low laugh. “Shit, I don’t want to do this, but here it is. Okay, ready? I’m not. Fuck. This is what I owe on my student loans still, which should frankly be impossible given how much I’ve paid already. Um, and this is the loan I took out to pay for my lawyer when I was getting divorced, and what I took out to cover child support when Jen mostly had Peggy. And then the other lawyer when I moved back last year and had to redo the custody arrangement. And at Adams I make more than I ever did at Callahan, so this is what I pay now in child support, which is yeah, a lot.” Ned’s voice rises on each item he lists, and his hands work rapidly, spinning the papers to face Abbot so they’re a blur of totals and interest, and on some, a red Past Due notice. “And I know I’m not paying rent, but I still have this for monthly bills, and this is the health insurance Adams doesn’t cover. I’ll figure out a new number with Newbury, I guess. And the car I wasn’t planning to buy, and my phone and all that. And that’s my credit card bill. Because for a while there I was putting basically my entire life on it. Yeah. Um.”

Abbot slowly gathers the papers as Ned fidgets. They’re organized, each sheaf neatly stapled together. Each page Abbot turns spells out another set of troubles for Ned. Abbot knows, at least generally, what Ned makes at Adams, and this is—it’s a lot.

Ned’s been sitting with these bills? For how long? Before Abbot really knew him, clearly. Back to his college days, and since then, what he owes has only grown.

“I did pay that,” Ned says. He does this, speaking quickly and talking more than he needs to when he’s nervous, words spilling out, each an indication of how uncomfortable he is. “That last bill. I know it looks like I didn’t, but I did.”

“Ned—”

“I guess I thought we’d talk about this someday, but that turned into now all of a sudden. And I was hoping I’d have everything a little more under control when we talked, and that also I’d be, I don’t know, less freaked out telling you this? But you’ve got everything figured out, and I’m a bad credit score with a nonexistent retirement account. So clearly, I’m not in a state for anyone to want to join finances with me. And—and I didn’t want you to know that. So if you don’t want this—me, I mean—I don’t blame you, but at least now you have an idea of what’s going on and why a house is so far out of reach.”

“Ned,” Abbot says, but he keeps talking.

“I don’t think in Massachusetts you’re legally on the hook for any of this,” Ned says, talking somehow even faster. “Or maybe we can sign something to make sure it stays that way? So I can keep working on this? But I could barely buy my car, and I certainly can’t afford to move out of my parents’ if I ever want to pay those balances down. My dad offered me some money? Which I don’t want to take, but I can, I guess. And I talked to Steve, because I know you want to, and…” Ned’s pale, and when he speaks again, it’s a whisper. “It’s terrifying. Thinking about marriage again. Being totally dependent on someone else, and having all of our finances and our lives totally entwined. I won’t pretend I’m ready for it and that I’m not scared out of my mind that you’ll leave me and I’ll be right back where I started.”

“You think I’d leave you?” Abbot’s voice is loud in the quiet of his office, the question sharper than he meant it to come out, but—but. Ned thinks that? This is what worries him? Along with all the financial concern he’s been carrying?

“No. Yes. I guess that’s what I’m freaked out about, because if I could trust that you won’t, that you’d really support me and everything that comes with me, Peggy and Baxter and all these bills, then—hell yes, Abbot, let’s buy a house, and fill it with kids and travel to Switzerland and just, I don’t know, live and be happy and everything we both want together.”

“I thought…” Abbot’s fingers are tight on the papers. His mind is buzzing. This is so much to sort through, and he wishes suddenly for a chance to write it all down, to tackle one variable at a time. “I thought you didn’t want to come to visit.”

“Oh. Fuck. No.” Ned leans forward in his chair. “I can’t buy a ticket. Even if I have the space on my card, I can’t look at Peggy and know I’m building up more debt for a vacation.”

“Why didn’t you let me buy it?” Abbot asks.

“Because—” Ned laughs and turns away, staring at Abbot’s bookshelf. “Because look at you, Abbot. You drive a car I can barely afford to touch, and you own your house—outright, apparently. I’m living paycheck to paycheck, and I thought that’d be over when I got hired at Adams, but this year has been more of the same. I can’t—we have to order less takeout. Or I do, at least.”

Abbot shakes his head. “I’ll pay for dinner.”

A car. A house. A life together.

“But you shouldn’t have to,” Ned says. “I want to have my life together, and it’s not. You can just waltz into Newbury and you have this amazing career, and I’m barely able to keep up. I—I sometimes feel like crap around you. Like I’m dead weight you’re dragging around.”

“You do?” Abbot asks softly.

“I can’t live up to you. I want to be worth you, and I don’t think I ever will be.”

“Ned, do you think I want that?”

“Don’t you?” Ned asks. “You could have anyone, and look at me.”

“Look at you.” Abbot wants to laugh. Or cry, perhaps. “Ned, I don’t care what you do for work. And even if I did, you’re a wonderful professor.”

“I’m about to look like a fucking muppet in front of students who are smarter than me as soon as classes start next year.”

“You’re going to be a breath of fresh air to them,” Abbot says. “And even if not—why would that matter to me?”

“You’re you, Abbot,” Ned says. “And I’m me.”

“Yes, and I love you.”

“I’m broke and barely on my feet. I can’t really support myself or my kid, let alone start a life with you.”

“But I can. And I want to.”