almon_d
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“Have you considered the possibility that Neil has chosen you, but believes you have not chosen him?” Renee says. "Have you ever explicitly told him what you want?”
“Neil knows what I want,” Andrew snaps. This is not Andrew’s fault.
“How do you know?”
Because Neil always knows. He is as fluent in Andrew’s micro-expressions as he is in German and French. He knows which head tilts mean “go on” and which ones mean “shut up.” Without ever asking, he learned what it meant to see Andrew wearing double layers of long sleeves, or taking multiple showers in a day, and learned to hand Andrew the car keys.
That has always been the most terrifying thing about Neil — his patience to wait, watch, listen, learn. The prospect that if Neil were given enough time, there would be no part of Andrew that was just Andrew’s anymore.
“He has to know,” Andrew says.
“Does he?” Renee says. “Have you ever known Neil to assume that he is wanted?”
Five times Neil tells someone that he and Andrew aren’t dating, and one time Andrew uses his words to set the record straight.
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Andrew spends most of his childhood thinking he is a psychopath. He is not. Andrew is, and always will be, just Andrew.