Chapter Text
To love someone is firstly to confess: I am prepared to be devastated by you.
— Excerpt from “An NDN Boyhood” by Billy-Ray Belcourt, in A History of my Brief Body
Evan wakes to tapping at his window.
When he blinks his eyes open, the room is dark, muted and quiet under the cloak of night. He frowns, twisting in the sheets to check the clock on his nightstand. It’s almost two a.m.
For a moment, he thinks that he might have dreamt the sound, but then it comes again, a soft rap rap rap against the windowpane.
Evan throws back the covers and pads across his room, pushing his curtains out of the way. There Eddie sits, crouched low on the small roof ledge that juts out beneath Evan’s window.
Evan asked once how Eddie managed to get up there. Eddie simply shrugged and said nonchalantly, “I climbed the storm drain.” Now, Evan has long since accepted Eddie showing up at his bedroom window at all times of the day.
He likes it. He likes feeling needed. He likes knowing that Eddie will come to him when he needs something. Not that Eddie always shares what that something is, but Evan’s willing to keep him company while he figures it out on his own.
Evan slides open the window. Eddie’s face is in shadow, haloed by the silvery moonlight behind him. He says nothing, his breaths quiet.
“Did you want to…” Evan trails off, tipping his head in the direction of his bed. It wouldn’t be the first time Eddie’s invited himself over for an impromptu sleepover, wordlessly slipping himself in next to Evan and falling asleep in minutes.
Eddie shakes his head. He thrusts his hand forward, the dim light reflecting off his keys. They sway gently in the warm Texan air; Eddie’s hand is shaking. “Will you drive?”
“Yeah,” Evan agrees instantly. It doesn’t matter that he woke up less than two minutes ago—if Eddie needs him, he’s there, no question. “Of course.”
He doesn’t take the keys immediately, instead stepping away from the window to snag a t-shirt from the foot of his bed. The old gym shorts he’s wearing as pajamas are probably less than socially acceptable, but given Eddie’s state, he doubts they’re going anywhere extravagant, especially at two in the morning.
Evan moves back to the window and takes the keys from Eddie, who is still crouched on the roof like a stone gargoyle, stiff and silent. “I’ll meet you outside,” Evan tells him, and Eddie nods once before leaning back, letting Evan slide his window closed.
Leaving the house in the middle of the night has always been a careful dance of stepping between the creaky floorboards and only opening doorways partway to avoid whining hinges, but it’s a lot easier now that Maddie’s gone. She never caught him in the act, but she watched him the next day like she knew where he’d been and who he’d been with.
It was Eddie. It was always Eddie.
The first time he snuck out after Maddie left, Evan held his breath, wondering if his parents knew he hadn’t slept in own his room that night. Days passed, but they said nothing. When Evan snuck out in the following weeks or Eddie snuck in, Philip and Margaret Buckley were none the wiser.
He was so desperate for their attention as a kid, but now, mere weeks away from graduating high school, he’s happy to fly under their radar. They don’t ask and he doesn’t tell, and he’s okay with that.
Evan meets Eddie down the street, because Eddie’s truck is old and backfires more often than not, so he’s careful to park far enough away so it won’t wake his parents. He’s leaning against the truck, arms and legs crossed, his unfocused gaze trained somewhere near where the grass meets the sidewalk.
Something in Evan’s chest twists uneasily. The last time Eddie was like this was when his abuelo died, and even then he wasn’t this out of sorts.
Evan palms the keys in his hand, hoping the sound will jar Eddie out of his stupor. It doesn’t. Eddie stares on.
“Ready?” he ends up asking.
Eddie blinks, finally looking up. Under the faint fluorescent streetlight from a few yards away, Evan sees the empty, lost look in Eddie’s eyes. The skin underneath looks darker than normal, worse than the time Eddie pulled an all-nighter cramming for that history test last semester. He looks like he’s barely holding himself together, shoulders slumped in defeat like he fumbled the ball at their last football match and just knows he’s about to get chewed out by the coach.
Evan has to stop himself from staring. Even half-awake and clearly stressed, Eddie is still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
Choosing to remain silent, Eddie simply opens the passenger door and climbs inside.
Evan slides into the driver’s seat. “Where are we going?”
Tipping his head back against the headrest, Eddie lets his eyes slip closed. “Anywhere but here,” he says.
Evan fires up the ignition, the engine rumbling to life beneath them. He drives.
Half a tank of gas burns under Evan’s foot like no one’s business, the truck whipping down Patriot before he steers it towards I-10. Eddie says nothing the whole time, seemingly content to let the silence wash over him—not that Eddie’s hand-me-down clunker is very quiet. The engine roars and clanks ominously as Evan pushes it to its limits, but he’s pushed it further before, so he doesn’t let up. Once, Evan tries to turn on the radio and Eddie shuts it off without even opening his eyes.
Silence it is.
Eventually, Evan loops back around and eases off the highway, driving straight to a place he knows always cheers Eddie up.
Eddie cracks an eye open as he registers the car slowing down, but he says nothing as he spots the glowing red and yellow sign, simply raising an eyebrow at Evan as if to say, seriously?
Unrepentant, Evan cranks the window down just as the bored McDonald’s worker on the other side of the speaker says, “What can I get for you?”
He doesn’t have to look at the menu before saying, “Two McDoubles, a large fry, and a chocolate shake, please.”
“That’ll be eight seventy-nine at the next window.”
Evan drives up, pays with the crumpled bills that Eddie keeps in the little compartment next to the steering wheel for this exact reason, then takes the bag they hand him. After a quick glance in the bag, he asks, “Can I get another straw?” and the woman passes one over without even looking at him.
He parks in the deserted lot, as far away as he can get from the nearest streetlamp, figuring Eddie might appreciate the darkness. Only once he turns off the ignition does he realize how quiet the air really is between them.
Evan drops one of the cheeseburgers in Eddie’s lap, humming in satisfaction as he eats the fries that have fallen to the bottom of the bag before unwrapping his own burger.
Eddie still doesn’t say a word, fingers fiddling with the yellow wrapper in his lap.
“C’mon Eddie,” Evan coaxes. “If you don’t unwrap that burger, I won’t be able to take your pickles.”
With a huff, Eddie unwraps the burger, holding it out open face so Evan can liberate it of the dreaded pickle slices. Evan puts two onto his own burger and eats the last one as is just so Eddie will wrinkle his nose at him and call him disgusting. Except when he looks over, Eddie’s not even looking at him, instead staring at the ketchup and diced onions on his burger like they hold the answers to the universe.
“Okay,” Evan says, twisting in his seat so he can face Eddie head on. He wasn’t planning on prying, but he isn’t going to stay silent when something is obviously wrong. “What’s going on?”
Eddie presses his lips together in the way he always does when he’s trying not to cry. He chokes out, “I don’t know what to do.”
Evan frowns, confused. “About what? What happened?”
A strangled noise claws its way out of Eddie’s throat—Evan’s not sure if it’s a humorless laugh or a mangled sob. He puts his burger back together and shoves it on the dashboard before scrubbing a hand over his face, letting out a long, shaky exhale.
Evan is expecting that it’s something to do with school, like stress over finals or who he’s taking to prom. A little hopeful part of Evan even wonders if maybe Eddie’s finally gotten it, if he’s finally looked at Evan and thought oh the same way Evan did a year after he met Eddie at football tryouts almost four years ago.
What he’s not expecting is for Eddie to open his mouth and say, “Shannon’s pregnant.”
Evan blinks.
His throat closes like all the air in the truck has been sucked out through the window Evan left open. Blood roars in his ears, the thump thump, thump thump, thump thump of his heartbeat drowning out the distant sounds of the highway.
Evan didn’t even know Eddie and Shannon were that close. Sure, they’d gone out on a few dates—some Evan had even attended with one of his own sort-of girlfriends—but.
A baby?
A baby.
Okay. Alright. Evan can—he can handle this. It’s not like the news makes him want to curl up under his blankets and cry, or anything. His fingers already itch to dial Maddie even though he knows she probably won’t answer.
The thing is, Evan’s always kind of held out hope that maybe Eddie would start to feel the same way as him. Because there’s part of Evan that wants to pull Eddie closer when he climbs under Evan’s sheets in the middle of the night, or hold Eddie’s hand over the console as he drives, or kiss Eddie senseless when he yanks his helmet off on the field after practice.
But now Shannon is pregnant.
Evan doesn’t ask about the possibility of other options because he’s not an idiot—he’s met Eddie’s family. He knows what they’ll say in response to this, and he’s fairly certain Shannon’s parents won’t be much different. If she’s pregnant, she’s having the baby, and she’s keeping it.
“Okay,” Evan says like his heart hasn’t just shattered into tiny, unsalvageable pieces. The kind of pieces one would sweep into the dustpan rather than put back together.
“Okay?” Eddie looks over at him, eyes wide and terrified and a little bit wild. He rakes a hand into his hair, making it stick up in odd directions. “Nothing about this is okay!”
“Yeah,” Evan replies quietly, not sure what else to say. When the silence stretches on too long, he asks, “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know!” Eddie exclaims, but he sobers quickly, eyes bright as he chews on the inside of his cheek. “I’m gonna have to marry her.”
“Whoa.” Evan wraps up his burger and puts it back in the bag, already resigned to congealed cheese and cold French fries. “Why do you have to marry her?”
Eddie snorts humorlessly. “You have met my parents before, haven’t you?”
“Of course I have, but dude, what do they have to do with you marrying her? What do you want to do? You’re the one that’s going to be married to her, not them.”
Eddie shakes his head like he’s trying to physically deflect Evan’s words. “I should marry her. It’s the right thing to do.”
He can picture it now—Shannon walking down the aisle with a gorgeous bouquet balanced on her swollen belly, Evan biting his tongue at Eddie’s side as the priest says speak now or forever hold your peace.
Because he’s apparently a masochist, Evan waits until Eddie meets his gaze before asking, “Do you love her?”
At the question, Eddie’s parted lips snap closed, his jaw working. He looks away as he replies, “I don’t know.” He shrugs. “Maybe.”
“You shouldn’t marry someone you don’t love,” Evan tells him.
“She’s going to be the mother of my child,” Eddie points out like that simple fact hasn’t taken a sledgehammer to Evan’s still-beating heart.
He might be selfish, but he’s been in love with Eddie for three years now—all he wants is for Eddie to be happy. So if Eddie wanted to get married to Shannon, Evan would support him. But he clearly doesn’t want to, feeling only the pressure of his parents and probably a healthy dose of Catholic obligation.
“You can be a–” his voice cracks, and he hopes Eddie doesn’t notice, “–a father without marrying her.”
“My parents will crucify me,” Eddie whispers.
“Would you rather be crucified or married?” Evan asks.
That startles a laugh out of Eddie, a real laugh, one that shakes his shoulders and leaves him gasping, a touch hysterical. It quickly dissolves into sobs, and Eddie hunches in on himself, hands covering his face.
It’s not the first time Evan’s seen Eddie cry, but the occasion is still rare enough that for a moment, Evan isn’t sure what to do. He thinks about the way Eddie held him the night after Maddie left and does the same for him now, awkwardly pulling him sideways over the console, tucking Eddie’s face into his shoulder. Eddie cries harder, gripping the back of Evan’s shirt so tight it’s a wonder he doesn’t rip the fabric.
Evan holds him until the tears subside, then a little bit longer after that.
Into his chest, Eddie mumbles, “I’m not ready to be a dad.”
“You’d be a great dad,” Evan says immediately.
It’s something he’s thought a lot about, actually, not that he’d ever tell Eddie that. He’s seen how Eddie acts with his baby cousins during family events—he’s not a natural, not like people say Evan is, but he’s patient with them, gentle and sweet.
“I don’t know the first thing about parenting,” Eddie says, finally pulling back, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.
“You’d learn,” Evan tells him. “Besides, we kind of lived the manual on how not to parent. I think we’d be able to do it the right way.”
Eddie freezes, staring at him.
“What?” Evan asks.
He raises an eyebrow. “We?”
Evan flushes. Shit. Way to be glaringly obvious, idiot.
He shrugs, trying to play it off. “My best friend has a baby and you don’t think I’m gonna help? C’mon, man. You’re going to have no clue what to do!”
“You said I’d learn!” Eddie laughs.
Evan grins, pretending that he can’t feel it wobble. “We’ll learn together.”
Eddie’s laughter tapers off, leaving a soft smile in its place. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Together.” But then he looks away as if remembering something, his smile dropping away in less than a second.
“What?” Evan asks. “What is it?”
Eddie picks at the skin around his fingernails. “After we graduate, I’m going to enlist.”
“En–?” The word doesn’t register for a second. “Wait, enlist? Like in the military?”
Eddie still won’t meet his eye. “How else am I going to support them?”
“Um, get a job?” he answers wildly. “You could work at your Pops’ garage.”
“You know my family,” Eddie says. “If I start working there full time when we’re done school, I’ll be stuck there the rest of my life.”
He sputters, “But that doesn’t mean you should join the army!”
“You can’t talk me out of this, Ev.”
“But–”
He wants to say that makes no sense, or you hated your father being gone when you were a kid, but all of that is cut off by Eddie’s firm, “I’m enlisting.”
Evan is barely thinking straight when he says, “Then I’m coming with you.”
“No you’re not,” Eddie says immediately.
“Yes I am,” he replies stubbornly.
“No you’re not,” Eddie repeats harshly. “You have a full-ride football scholarship!”
“I don’t care about that,” Evan tells him. It should scare him, how true those words are, but it doesn’t. If Evan has two choices and one of them is Eddie, he’s always going to choose Eddie.
“Evan,” Eddie says sharply. “This is my decision, not yours.”
“It’s your decision to enlist and it’s my decision to go with you,” he fires back. “How am I supposed to have your back if you’re not even around for me to watch it?”
That brings Eddie up short—he rears back like Evan slapped him. He’s clearly remembering the same day Evan is, the moment on the football field where they decided to be best friends instead of petty rivals. The moment that, in hindsight, was the spark in a dry field that set Evan’s crush ablaze.
It’s a full-blown forest fire now, with no hope of being put out anytime soon.
“I’m coming with you,” Evan says, and that’s that.
The day after they graduate, they enlist. Their background checks clear, they take the aptitude test, and pass their medicals. Less than a month later, they ship out to Fort Jackson.
Basic combat training takes ten weeks. Evan hates almost every second of it.
Reception and Red Phase are the worst, because Evan has never been great at listening to authority figures. It started with rebelling against his parents—if his mom forbade him from climbing the tree in the neighbor’s front yard, Evan was already planning how to reach the top. When his dad told him he couldn’t join the football team, Evan forged his signature and tried out anyways. (And he ended up getting a scholarship for it—suck on that, dad.)
It evolved into talking back to his teachers, or even straight up ignoring them. They thought he could do better in math and were disappointed that he wasn’t applying himself? He tried to do even worse. Stop talking during class? Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear you over the conversation I was having. Evan’s lost count of the number of times he’s been sent to the principal’s office.
So maybe it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that when a drill sergeant yells in his face, it ignites the part of him that snarls and bites, that wants nothing more than to step forward and yell back.
But this is the army. And here, that shit has consequences.
The first and only time he fights back, not only are his phone privileges revoked, but punishment also gets doled out to his entire platoon. He gets the stink eye from everyone except Eddie for an entire week and Evan learns pretty quickly not to do it again.
But god does he want to. He wants to fight back until he’s red in the face, until that snarling feeling quiets under soothing words that ensure he’s wanted here, that he’s doing the right thing. But kind words reminiscent of Maddie’s gentle touch don’t exist here—especially not in the early weeks of Basic.
Every time a sergeant orders him around or yells at him to go faster, do better, it feels as if he’s slowly being chipped away, like someone’s taken a chisel to him, intent on carving him into a person he was never meant to be. He doesn’t know how to deal with it. So he turns to Eddie.
Eddie’s different from Evan. He barely even blinks when the drill sergeant barks questions at him, so close that spittle hits Eddie’s cheek. His firm replies of yes sir! and no sir! don’t waver in the slightest and he keeps his gaze respectfully over the sergeant’s shoulder. If that were Evan, he’d be three seconds from pushing the man out of his space, glaring daggers right into his eyes.
Somehow, Eddie can take it. The verbal abuse does nothing more than wash over him like water off a duck’s back. He snaps to attention, he follows orders, and when the sergeant tells him he needs to smarten up, Eddie gives him nothing more than a sharp nod and quick yes, drill sergeant!
If Evan was the one who talked back to his teachers, Eddie was the one who stuttered out apologies that it wouldn’t happen again. If Evan was the one who pushed his parents’ boundaries until they broke, Eddie was the one who saw the line his parents drew in the sand and never once crossed it.
So when the urge to be anything other than a perfect soldier with red eyes gets to be too much, Evan seeks out Eddie. He’s never too far away nowadays, sticking close enough to Evan that the other members of their platoon don’t even bat an eye when they see them together anymore, either sitting in the chow hall so close their elbows bump or silently egging each other on during their morning drills. Them? Oh, that’s just Buckley and Diaz.
Eddie does what he can with the time they have—they don’t get much rest outside of meals and sleeping, so he’ll curl a hand around Evan’s bicep before stepping away, or nudge their shoulders together in solidarity, or whisper encouraging words when Evan craves it most.
It’s the only thing keeping Evan sane.
It doesn’t help that Eddie seems to get letters from loved ones practically every day and spends the time between dinner and lights out writing back. Evan hasn’t received a letter once, not from his sister and definitely not from his parents. But he needs to keep himself occupied, so he starts writing letters to Maddie. He gets none back, but that doesn’t deter him from sending them—at least they’re making him feel like more of a person, like a human being who has thoughts and feelings outside of training.
White Phase is better. Evan finally gets to take his anger out at the range.
It doesn’t take long to determine who is good at shooting and who isn’t. As it turns out, Evan’s pretty good, so he doesn’t get nearly enough time staring down a drill-sergeant-shaped target as he would like. Instead, he gets stuck at the sidelines loading and reloading a rifle as the ones who need more training shoot round after round.
Eddie glances up from where he’s been pushing bullets into a cartridge, rolling his eyes as he gives Evan a fond smile like he knows exactly what he’s thinking. And he probably does. Eddie knows him that well.
In White Phase, Evan learns that grudging approval from the drill sergeants means more than their anger ever will, so he stops merely accepting the dressing downs and starts working to actively avoid them. He makes friends other than Eddie—like Lee and Mills and Sybil—and starts to realize that he can do this. He can make it through Basic.
Blue Phase is fucking fun. Don’t get him wrong, it’s still the most exhausting thing he’s ever had to go through, but it’s fun. He learns how to throw a grenade properly and even gets to shoot a rocket launcher, but his favorite parts are the squad training drills. They learn how to patrol, attack, maneuver, and engage targets, navigating a ten mile square of woodland forest together as a team.
After weeks of training and eating and living with his squad, Evan finally understands that it’s not just Eddie he has to look after—he has eight other brothers and sisters now. He’s got their backs, and they’ve got his.
Blue Phase is also when people start getting brave—sneaking in contraband and selling the snacks their family members send them at a 300% markup.
One evening during mail call, Eddie walks into their bunk room and sidles up next to Evan, handing him a tiny packet of Sour Patch Kids.
“Oh my god,” Evan says, sitting up to take the packet with a reverence that would have been ridiculous outside of Fort Jackson. “Where’d you get this?”
Eddie shrugs nonchalantly, like he hasn’t just handed Evan the best thing he’s seen in weeks. “Sanchez sold it to me for ten bucks.”
“What?” Evan exclaims, eyes widening. He presses the candy back into Eddie’s hand. “You should have it.”
“No, I got it for you,” he insists, refusing to take the packet. “You know I prefer chocolate.”
“But–”
Eddie’s hand slides onto his knee, squeezing briefly before he uses it as leverage to push himself to his feet. “It’s yours, Ev. Enjoy.” And then he’s gone.
Evan is left with a crinkled packet of Sour Patch Kids cradled in his hand, a knee permanently branded by Eddie’s warm palm, and a heart that’s suddenly beating double time.
From the bunk over, Mills—who always ends up hanging out with Evan during mail call, maybe because she also never gets any letters—lets out a stifled snort.
“What?” Evan asks, and he sounds defensive to even his own ears.
“Nothing,” she says innocently, which Evan knows isn’t innocent at all.
He ignores her, tearing open the packet. She doesn’t know shit.
A week later, it’s time for the Forge. It’s a ten mile jog there and afterwards, when the platoon is running drills, Evan and Eddie are chosen to shoot paintballs at their teammates as they go. They can’t stick together the entire time, but the moments where they join forces at the very end when everyone converges is practically electric, the two of them working in perfect sync without having to say a word.
When there are a few hours of rest before they go to the nighttime range, their squad splays out over a patch of grass in the shade, chests heaving and smiles wide.
“Diaz!” Fieghry yells as he emerges from the tree line. The front of his combat uniform is splashed a brilliant orange, and he doesn’t even bother gesturing to it when he asks, “What the hell is this?”
Eddie snickers from above Evan, who is trying not to think too hard about how his head is comfortably pillowed on Eddie’s thigh. It’s not like Eddie pushed him off when he first stretched out. In fact, Eddie gently nudged a few sweaty strands off Evan’s forehead—he’s going to need another buzzcut soon—before they were joined by the rest of their squad.
“I wish I could take credit, man,” Eddie says, “but my paint color was blue.”
Fieghry makes an outraged sound, his gaze landing on Evan, who lifts two fingers in a lazy salute. The squad erupts in peals of laughter and Fieghry grudgingly joins in once he realizes everyone except Evan and Eddie are covered in a mixture of orange and blue paint.
“Good shot, Buckley,” Fieghry says eventually, holding out his fist to bump.
Approval from drill sergeants is few and far between, so it’s a good thing that respect from his fellow battle buddies is just as rewarding. Evan grins and connects their fists, all without lifting his head from Eddie’s lap.
After spending the early hours of the morning shooting at targets in the dark, they ruck to where they’re sleeping for the night, another four miles away. Dead on his feet, Evan falls into the closest bunk to Eddie’s and is asleep in seconds.
The second day is mostly medical field training, an exercise that Eddie excels at. As much as Evan jokes with the rest of the squad, it’s a genuine pleasure to watch Eddie work like this, from the easy confidence in his movements to the gentle voice he uses on the fake wounded.
The afternoon brings another rest period, which everyone uses to take a nap before whatever is planned later in the day. If Basic has taught Evan one thing, it’s how to utilize every second of downtime to squeeze in as much sleep as possible.
NIC at Night is something else. Evan isn’t quite sure what he was expecting at the Forge, but it wasn’t crawling two hundred meters in sand with barbed wire above him, grenades and laser sights and bullets whizzing over his head. The explosions are so close that sand sprays into his face, his eyes, his mouth; he can hear the tracer bullets whistling in the air and he swears they’re only missing him by a few inches.
He wishes he could see Eddie in the middle of this chaos just to know how he’s doing, but here in this moment it’s every soldier for himself. Evan crawls on.
After that, they’re practically done. They jog back to base at two in the morning and when they arrive, Evan can’t help it—he cries. He’s done with Basic. He made it to the end.
Through all the commotion, Eddie finds him and crushes him into a hug. Evan tucks his face into Eddie’s neck and clings, in disbelief that it’s actually almost over.
Eddie slides a hand over Evan’s head, palm brushing against the bristles. It’s extremely gentle compared to the shouts around them. “You did it.”
Pulling back, Evan’s tears are instantly overpowered by the wide grin splitting his face. “We did it,” he corrects.
Eddie smiles and agrees, “We did it.”
Caught up in the exhilaration, Evan has to consciously stop from kissing him. With considerable effort, he releases Eddie’s uniform and takes a step back, losing himself in the crowd.
No one sleeps that night. After receiving their patch, rank, and beret, everyone is too keyed up to rest, too excited that they made it through Basic. When their victory breakfast is served, Evan fits himself on the bench next to Eddie and digs in. Eddie smiles proudly over at him through bites of bacon and pancakes and Evan swears nothing has tasted as good as this.
Evan rides that high straight through graduation prep, all for it to come crashing down the moment families come racing onto the field to greet their loved ones after their Family Day ceremony. He watches as Lee’s parents scoop him into a crushing hug, as Sybil jumps into her boyfriend’s arms. The moment he sees Shannon with Eddie’s family, searching for Eddie, Evan fights the urge to throw up.
Because she’s showing. Almost four months along and she’s already showing. It doesn’t help that she’s wearing a dress with a waistline that perfectly accentuates her growing belly.
“Shannon!” Eddie calls, and she waves excitedly. He rushes over to embrace her, spinning her in a circle so wide that her foot accidentally catches on the pockets of Mills’ fatigues.
“Sorry,” Mills says quickly, stepping out of the way.
“My bad,” Eddie says, setting Shannon down, arm resting comfortably around her waist. “Mills, this is my girlfriend, Shannon. Shannon, this is Mills—Anita.”
Shannon sticks out her hand, glossy lips pulling into a picture-perfect smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”
After a beat, her eyes flicking between Eddie and Shannon’s stomach, Mills takes her hand. “You too.”
She hastily retreats, catching Evan’s eye immediately. What the fuck? her eyes say.
Evan frowns, unsure what she means.
She sidles up next to him, hissing out of the side of her mouth, “Eddie has a girlfriend?”
“Yeah,” he says slowly. “Who do you think he’s been sending all those letters to?”
Mills shrugs, still looking deeply unsettled. “She’s pregnant.”
On the end of a deep sigh, Evan says, “Yup.”
Eddie’s moved on to hugging his parents. Helena is dabbing at her eyes with a tissue and Ramon is sizing up one of the commanding officers across the field. Adriana and Sophia are predictably fighting over who gets to hug Eddie first.
Mills side-eyes him, brows drawing down. “Huh.” She looks like she knows more than she’s letting on, like she can see how much Evan hates watching this. “Interesting.”
Evan doesn’t get to know what she finds so interesting, because it’s then he sees that Abuela has come for Family Day too. Once she gets to squish Eddie’s cheeks, she looks Eddie right in the eye and asks, “Where’s Evan?”
“Uh,” Eddie says, pulling back to scan the field. Evan lets him look until Eddie’s eyes land on him, and the smile that overtakes his face is so bright Evan smiles back automatically. “Ev, c’mere.”
“Evan!” Abuela calls. “What are you doing over there?”
Mills squeezes his shoulder and slips away, letting him walk over and sink into one of Abuela’s famous hugs. Evan hasn’t seen her since she moved to LA to be closer to Eddie’s tía Pepa after Eddie’s abuelo died.
“Where are your parents?” she asks once Evan lets her pull away.
Lifting one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, he lies, “They were busy.”
Eddie manages to catch his gaze, and it’s heavy. He knows Evan didn’t bother inviting them, figuring they wouldn’t come anyway. During his half-hour on the phone a month ago, he invited Maddie, but wasn’t surprised when she ultimately told him that she wouldn’t be able to make it.
Abuela pats him on the cheek, her expression eerily similar to Eddie’s. Evan almost expects her to make it a big deal, but she lets it go and tells him, “You should join us today.”
“Oh no,” Evan refuses. “I couldn’t.”
“C’mon, Ev,” Sophia needles, “you must be dying to get out of here after all these weeks.”
He looks over at Eddie, who nods encouragingly, but if Evan has to spend the entire day watching him and Shannon hold hands and smile sickeningly at each other, he’s going to go insane. As much as he loves Abuela and Sophia and wants to spend time with them, he won’t be able to stomach it. He’s spent over two months alone with Eddie—whatever tolerance he built up from seeing Eddie and Shannon together back in high school has dissolved completely.
“I can’t,” Evan says. Abuela opens her mouth to protest and he knows he’s not going to get out of her offer without a legitimate reason, so when he sees Mills walk back into view he blurts, “I actually have plans with Neets.”
At the sound of Evan’s nickname for her, Mills’ head snaps up. Evan widens his eyes at her, a silent plea for help.
“We, uh, are hanging out today,” he continues on, not so subtly gesturing for her to come closer.
Reluctantly, she trudges over and pastes on a wide smile. “Sorry to drag him away, we’ve had plans to go to laser tag for a month now.”
Laser tag? his raised eyebrow says.
Go with it, her fake smile shoots back.
“Oh,” Abuela says, surprised. But then her expression slides into something knowing, looking between the two of them conspiratorially. “I see. Well, I hope you two have fun.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Evan hums, his smile tight. He doesn’t like lying to Abuela at all, but it’s necessary in this case.
After Sophia gives Evan a skeptical look, she turns back to Eddie, changing the subject completely. “Well? Are you going to give us a tour of where you’ve been living for the past ten weeks?”
Eddie’s frowning at Evan and Mills but snaps out of it at his sister’s question. “Yeah,” he says. “Of course.” He leads his family away, only looking back at Evan once, confusion written all over his face.
Evan doesn’t like lying to Eddie either, but if it was necessary for Abuela, it’s definitely necessary for him. Eddie doesn’t know that Evan is stupidly in love with him and that’s the way it’s going to stay.
Once Eddie’s family is out of earshot, Evan waits for Mills to demand what that was all about, but she doesn’t. Instead, she looks up at him and asks softly, “Your family isn’t coming?”
“Nope.”
“Yeah.” Her tone isn’t sad, but it’s a little empty, a little lost. “Same.”
“So,” Evan begins, hooking an arm around Mills’ neck and leaning heavily into her side. “When do you want to go to laser tag?”
She pushes him off, but he can see the edge of her smile before she looks away. “I need lunch first.”
“Hey, that can be arranged.”
So they go out for lunch, ordering three dishes and splitting it between them. It’s a mountain of food but they easily pack it away, chatting and laughing the entire time. They go shopping at the city center and watch the new Iron Man movie in theaters, splurging on buttery popcorn they absolutely should not be eating.
Mills somehow convinces him to visit the South Carolina State House, which leads to her pulling out her camera and taking photos of Evan in increasingly ridiculous poses throughout the city. When they finally make it out to play laser tag, they end up getting obliterated by a bunch of eight-year-olds at a birthday party. It’s the most fun Evan’s had in ages.
They make it back just in time for curfew, evidently the last ones to return. He and Mills are still laughing over something or other, an inside joke that’s been repeated so often it’s lost its meaning but not its hilarity.
When they separate to go to their different bunk rooms, Evan sees that Eddie’s already back, standing near their shared bunk. Evan’s bed is the one on top, but he sprawls over Eddie’s bottom bunk, arms wide.
“Hey,” he says, groaning as he stretches out.
Eddie doesn’t even look at him. “Hey,” he says flatly. “How was your day with Mills?”
“So good,” Evan replies, grinning automatically. “We got lunch, she bought sunglasses at the city center, we saw the new Iron Man movie and oh my god, Eds, it’s so good. You need–”
“What about laser tag?” he interrupts. The words are pointed and jagged, thrown at him like knives.
Evan narrows his eyes, stopping short. “It was really fun. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he bites out.
“Did you have a fight with your parents?” Evan asks, because Eddie can’t be mad at him. Even when Evan was being an insecure dick when they first met and wanted nothing more than to get a rise out of Eddie, he never got mad at him.
Eddie gets angry, sure, but not at Evan. Never at Evan.
But when Eddie finally looks at him, there’s anger sparking in his dark eyes. “You’d know that if you bothered coming to Family Day with us, wouldn’t you?”
The bottom of his stomach drops out. “I–”
“I had to find out day of that you weren’t coming? When you apparently had it planned for a month? What the hell, Evan?”
Evan sits up and gapes for a moment, heat flooding his cheeks. He glances around at the other guys in their bunk room who have witnessed Eddie’s outburst. The three of them instantly turn away from where they’ve been openly watching, busying themselves with whatever is closest to their hands.
“Are you mad at me?” Evan asks quietly.
“What?” Eddie replies incredulously, but then he consciously deflates, his next words softer. “No! Of course not. That’s—ridiculous. I just…I thought you’d be there. You know how my parents are. I graduate Basic tomorrow and somehow they’re still finding reasons to make me feel like shit.”
“I’m sorry,” Evan says, because he does know how Eddie’s parents are. He’s been happy to be used as a buffer through many family dinners—without Evan there today, Eddie probably sat through barbs disguised as compliments that even Abuela couldn’t deflect.
Eddie sighs, pushing his fingers through his hair, an old habit from when the strands used to be longer. He looks exhausted. “I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me.”
How does Evan say that he couldn’t have told Eddie beforehand because he didn’t have plans with Mills at all? That it was a lie thought up on the spot all because Evan couldn’t bear to spend the day with Eddie and his pregnant girlfriend?
He doesn’t, that’s how.
“We made the plans ages ago,” Evan lies. “Family Day was so far away at that point—I didn’t see any need to tell you. But then all of a sudden the Forge was over and we were prepping for graduation and then…I guess it slipped my mind.”
“It slipped your mind,” Eddie repeats.
It sounds like such a weak excuse when echoed back at him. “Yeah,” he says, because he’s stuck with it now, then adds, “I’m sorry.”
Eddie shakes his head, finally sitting down next to him. They’re close enough that their shoulders brush, knees knocking. “No, don’t apologize. When you decided not to invite your parents and Maddie said no, I assumed you’d come with me. But I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for snapping, it’s not you I’m angry with.”
“What happened with your parents?” Evan asks, gentle so Eddie knows he doesn’t have to answer if he doesn’t want to.
“The usual,” Eddie says, resigned. “Digs at me for not proposing, digs at Shannon for supporting me through Basic, digs at us both for not planning properly for the baby.” He flutters a hand like there’s more but doesn’t want to get into it.
Before Evan can even reply, Matheson turns around and asks, “Who’s Shannon?”
“My girlfriend,” Eddie tells him.
“You have a pregnant girlfriend?” Matheson sounds like the entire concept is confusing to him.
“Uh,” Eddie replies. “Yeah?”
“But I thought–”
“Dude,” Lee interrupts, elbowing Matheson hard in the ribs and sending him a pointed glare.
Matheson clearly doesn’t understand Lee’s unsaid communication, because he exclaims, “Ow, what gives!”
For reasons that Evan can’t parse out, Lee looks over at Evan then back to Matheson, raising his eyebrows meaningfully.
“Ohhhh,” Matheson says, realization dawning. He hooks a thumb over his shoulder towards the dorm room exit. “Hey, I just remembered, didn’t you want to show me and Davis–”
“Yes,” Lee replies. “I did.” And then both Lee and Matheson walk straight out the door, quickly followed by Davis.
When Eddie and Evan are both suddenly alone, they look at each other confusedly.
“That was weird, right?” Eddie asks.
“Super weird,” Evan agrees, and then they’re both laughing.
“I’m sorry about your parents,” he says as the laughter fades and the defeated slope to Eddie’s shoulders returns. “It’s why I didn’t bother inviting mine.”
“I did not have that option,” he replies wryly. “They were coming whether I wanted them to or not.”
Evan’s not sure what makes him say it—all he knows is that the words are out of his mouth before he realizes he made the choice to open it. “Surely you’re glad you got to see Shannon, though?”
“Yeah.” Eddie says it immediately, but Evan thinks he detects a bit of hesitancy. He chalks it up to wishful thinking. “Of course. It was great to see her.” But then his face lights up and he turns to Evan excitedly. “She brought sonograms of the baby for me. Do you want to see?”
All Evan hopes in that moment is that his face doesn’t betray how thoroughly the words gut him. “Sure,” he croaks, because he can’t say no, not when Eddie’s face looks like that.
Eddie rockets to his feet and reaches for his jacket pocket. He pulls out a bundle of black and white photos that accordion down, five pictures stacked on top of one another.
“Look,” Eddie says, shoving them into Evan’s hands.
“Oh my god,” Evan breathes, fingers ghosting over the glossy finish.
He knows what sonograms look like. Once, when he was younger, he found one in his mother’s nightstand drawer. It didn’t seem like much at the time, just a blurry black and white photo that Evan couldn’t made heads or tails of. But the photos he holds in his hands now—the usual amorphous blobs actually look like a baby. A small baby, for sure, but the head and arms are clearly definable, as is the tiny nose.
Eddie’s having a baby. Evan knew this, of course, but holding the pictures of Eddie’s future child makes it seem suddenly, heartbreakingly real.
“Isn’t he adorable?” Eddie asks, leaning into Evan’s space to see the pictures better.
Evan snaps his head up. “It’s a boy?”
“Oh no, we don’t know yet,” he tells him. “Shannon thinks it’s going to be a boy.”
Unbidden, images of Shannon telling Eddie about the baby while pulling Eddie’s hands to her belly, both of them smiling like mad, spring up in his mind. Evan swallows the lump in his throat. “He’s so small.”
“A little over two inches,” Eddie says proudly. “He’s bigger now, this was taken a few weeks ago.”
“Wow.” Eddie’s going to be father. “He’s beautiful, Eddie.”
“He is, isn’t he?” His grin is so wide his eyes have gone all squinty. “Cutest kid on the planet and he’s not even born yet.”
Embarrassingly, Evan’s eyes begin to sting. “I’m really happy for you,” he says, because he is. Eddie is happy, so Evan is happy. He just wishes it didn’t hurt so much to be happy for him.
Eddie nudges their shoulders together, taking the photos as Evan holds them out, folding them back up carefully. “Thanks,” he says softly.
The room is getting blurry. Evan stands up before Eddie can catch sight of whatever is happening on his face. “I, uh, forgot that I still have Mills’ debit card,” he lies. “I was holding it for her. I’ll be right back.”
“Oh,” Eddie says, and Evan can feel his gaze on his back as he stands up. “Okay.”
Evan walks right out of the dorm room and down the blessedly empty hallway. He silently lets the tears fall, throat burning from holding in his sobs. He allows himself the time it takes for him to walk from here to the end of the hallway to get it together.
Because it’s stupid. The moment Evan realized he was in love with Eddie, he knew it would never work out between them. Eddie never once gave any kind of indication he thought about Evan that way, so he knew that this would happen eventually. He knew that one day, Eddie would fall in love with someone who wasn’t Evan, someone who he could build a family with.
Evan wasn’t strong enough back then to detach himself from Eddie. He still isn’t, but he’s mostly come to terms with it. If he can’t be Eddie’s partner one day, he can at least have Eddie’s back like he promised. He can still be Eddie’s best friend.
If only being Eddie’s best friend wasn’t slowly ripping him to shreds, one thin layer at a time.
So Evan walks down the hallway. The end comes much too soon and he stumbles into the bathroom, blinking through his tears. The cold water tap squeaks as he turns it on, cupping his palms under the water before splashing his face with it. His eyes are rimmed in red when he finally meets his own gaze in the mirror, leaning heavily on the counter.
“Get it together, Buckley,” he tells his reflection, the words dragging painfully up his throat. He watches the water drops coalesce on his skin until they’re heavy enough to drop off his chin. They darken the casual shirt he wore out on the town with Mills, three stains in the fabric that cling to his skin.
He stands there, counting his breaths—one, two, three, four—until his shirt dries. Then he smiles, but his cheeks feel funny, so he lets it drop. He tries again, and this one comes more naturally. He says, “I’m really happy for you,” and he almost believes it.
The rest of graduation week flies by.
The next day, Evan dresses in a crisp white shirt and blue trousers, flattening his starched collar and arranging the beret on his head just so.
“Lookin’ sharp,” Lee says, whistling obnoxiously.
Evan laughs. They’re wearing the same exact outfit. “You too, man.”
“Can’t believe it’s finally happening,” Lee says as he buttons his shirt.
“It was a breeze for you, what are you talking about?” Evan asks with a frown.
Lee smirks. “I wasn’t talking about me, I was talking about you. When you told Drill Sergeant Beam off in Red Phase I thought, ‘wow, this kid has a death wish.’ Never thought you’d make it to the end.”
Shoving Lee playfully away at the teasing tone, Evan says, “Fuck off.”
Lee’s laughter is loud and bright as he snags his beret from his locker. “See you out there.”
He passes Eddie on the way out, who’s already dressed and ready to go. He looks a little too formal, a little too straight-backed to be the Eddie he first met in Texas, but he still has those same kind eyes, the same hitch to his expectant grin. Evan can’t quite believe they’re here.
Eddie says, “C’mon, they’re waiting for us out there.”
They march onto the field in the same formation as they did yesterday for Family Day and stand through a heartfelt speech that Evan absolutely doesn’t cry at. At the end, their battalion is announced and the families watching erupt into cheers, loud even where Evan is standing a hundred yards away. He closes his eyes and imagines Maddie cheering too, a proud smile on her face.
He graduated Basic. He fucking did it.
As much as Lee was only teasing earlier, at the beginning of Basic, Evan wasn’t sure if he’d ever get to this point. The past ten weeks were grueling and awful, but they were also exhilarating and fun. And man, is he glad that it’s finally over.
He purposefully doesn’t think about how he starts another eight weeks of advanced training at Fort Benning in two days. Right now, all Evan wants to do is soak up this feeling.
He graduated.
“You graduated!”
Evan opens his eyes to Mills’ smiling face. She reaches out and rattles Evan by the shoulders in her excitement.
“I graduated!” he yells, rattling her right back. “You graduated!”
Mills laughs, her grin wide. “I graduated!”
“We fucking did it!”
He’s not sure who moves first, if he falls forward or if she jumps up, but then they’re hugging, the force of it nearly tipping him over. He’s so happy it feels like he’s ripping apart at the seams—Mills’ arms around him might be the only thing keeping him from vibrating out of his skin.
After a moment, Eddie’s smiling face swims into his vision. Evan lets go of Mills just in time to catch Eddie as he pitches forward and then they’re hugging too, Eddie’s palm warm on the back of his neck.
“I’m so proud of you,” Eddie says as he pulls away just far enough to meet Evan’s gaze.
The love and gratitude that crests over him in that moment is overwhelming; he tugs Eddie back and tucks his face into the crook of Eddie’s neck, blinking his tears into his starched collar.
When they pull back, Evan turns to find his friends, but before he can even think about spending the day with them instead of Eddie’s family, Abuela and Sophia flank and converge upon him, practiced, as if they were the ones who just went through ten weeks of military training and not Evan.
Over his shoulder, he catches Mills’ what can you do? shrug before she slopes away with Sybil and Lee and knows he’s been left to the wolves.
The wolves in this case being Shannon and her floral sundress.
“Evan!” she calls, going in for a hug. He stands stiffly, suddenly feeling tall and clumsy as he’s confronted with an armful of Shannon, not quite sure what to do with his hands. He swears Mills didn’t feel quite so delicate and breakable in his arms. “Congratulations!” she says as she pulls away.
He smiles and hopes it comes out at least somewhat natural-looking. “Thank you.”
Abuela fits a palm to his cheek and Evan might start crying again at the sheer familiarity of it. He misses Maddie like an ache. “Congratulations,” she tells him, eyes sparkling.
A little too overwhelmed, Evan can only nod, cheeks already hurting from smiling too much. But then Sophia punches him in the arm and the smile is wiped right off his face.
“Ow!” he yelps, flinching back. “What was that for?”
“Can’t believe my idiot brother’s dumbass best friend just graduated Basic training.”
“Hey!” Eddie interjects at the same time as Evan’s flat, “Rude.”
Sophia grins. Adriana was in senior year when Evan and Eddie were freshmen, back when Evan hated Eddie’s guts. By the time they decided to be best friends, Adriana was off to college and only returned for the holidays, so Evan never really got to know her. Sophia, on the other hand, is only a year older than Eddie—she drove Eddie to school before he inherited the truck from his Pops and she made a point to come to every single one of their football games.
It’s been less than three months since they’ve really talked, but yeah, he missed her.
“You gonna spend the day with us, or do you have plans with…Neets?” She raises her eyebrows pointedly, her smile suspiciously serene.
He looks over his shoulder automatically, but Mills is nowhere to be seen, swallowed by the sea of freshly graduated soldiers. “Uh, no,” Evan says, turning back. “No plans.”
“Then you’re definitely coming with us. Have you ever heard of the Sesquicentennial State Park?”
Evan glances at Abuela, who nods in reassurance, then, with only some reluctance, to Eddie’s parents. If Eddie hadn’t told him about what they said to him yesterday, Evan wouldn’t have known there was ever a problem. They’re both relaxed and smiling, clearly high on Eddie’s graduation, and Helena actually sounds genuine when she says, “You’re welcome to join us, Evan.”
His resolve is crumbling but he still tries to refuse, mumbling out a feeble, “I wouldn’t want to impose on–”
“You aren’t,” Eddie interrupts. He steps out from where Shannon has plastered herself against his side, his hand heavy where it claps on Evan’s shoulder. “You know that. Come with us. We have the whole day planned, it’ll be fun.” He waits a beat, eyes flicking between Evan’s, then raises his eyebrows ever so slightly in a silent plea.
And when has Evan ever been able to deny Eddie anything?
“Okay,” Evan stammers, the word falling out of his mouth before he can hold it back. “Sure.”
The smile that Eddie bestows on him, pleased and gentle, is quite literally breathtaking. “Good.”
Evan heaves a sigh. It’s going to be a long day.
And the thing is, he expects it to be awful. He expects to hate every second.
But the rest of the day is perfect.
Now, Evan’s hasn’t had a lot of perfect days in his life, but he’s had a few: when his dad brought home his favorite pizza and the whole family watched a movie in the living room while they ate; when he and Maddie explored on the first day after moving to El Paso; when he and Eddie skipped school in junior year just to try out a new McFlurry flavor that was only available at the location all the way across town.
So he knows what a perfect day feels like. It feels like wandering down a path next to the lake, the sun on his face with no drill sergeants breathing down his neck. It feels like squeezing onto a splintering picnic table under a massive oak tree with eight people, elbows and knees knocking. It tastes like the homemade tamales Abuela somehow managed to get all the way over here, knowing that Eddie and Evan needed a taste of home. It’s the joy, full to bursting in his chest, when he joins Abuela on a rented paddleboat and the first thing she does is ram purposefully into the side of Ramon and Helena’s paddleboat.
(“Mama!” Ramon exclaims after they collide.
“Sorry, mijo,” Abuela replies without so much as a blink. “I didn’t see you there.”
It’s a bald-faced lie—the lake is empty save for Adriana and Sophia’s canoe across the way, and Evan can hear their peals of laughter from here.
“Why did you do that?” he asks later, barely stifling his own laughter.
Abuela looks him straight in the eye and says, “Because I wanted to.”)
It’s the way that whenever Evan looks over, Eddie gives him that same breathtaking smile from earlier, the skin around his eyes crinkling. It’s how Evan’s muscles ache from a day of fun instead of physical training, which he only notices once they’re dropped off at Fort Jackson, back to reality. It’s the happiness tinged with sadness he feels as he hugs Eddie’s family goodbye, the scent of Sophia’s coconut sunscreen lingering even after they drive off.
It’s a perfect day.
And then Eddie turns to him and says, “I need to tell you something,” and suddenly, the hold Evan has on that perfect day becomes tenuous.
“Yeah?” He turns to walk into the building so they’re not late for curfew, expecting Eddie to fall into step next to him. “What is it?”
But Eddie’s hand shoots out, grabbing Evan’s wrist before he can make it a couple of steps. “Wait.”
Evan stills, turning back.
“I wanted to talk to you out here,” Eddie says, releasing the hold around his wrist. “Um, alone.”
With the edge of his thumbnail, Eddie scratches the arch of his eyebrow. It’s exactly what he does when he’s nervous about something, or worried about what someone’s reaction is going to be.
Evan’s instantly on edge. “Okay.”
And then Eddie says nothing. The air is silent between them for a long while as Evan waits. Eddie won’t meet his eyes, and he keeps on opening and closing his mouth like he doesn’t know how to start. It does nothing to stop Evan’s stomach from tying itself in knots. Something feels very, very wrong.
Shifting on his feet, Eddie clenches his hands into fists before relaxing them. “Shit. Um. Okay.”
“Eds,” he says quietly, and waits until Eddie meets his gaze. “It’s just me. Whatever it is, you can tell me. I got your back, remember?”
It’s the wrong thing to say, clearly. Eddie’s expression crumples and he turns away, his face in shadow. “Fuck,” he says under his breath, almost to himself. When he straightens, his jaw is set, his eyes resolute. “I’m not going to Fort Benning with you.”
Evan blinks. “What?”
“I’m not going to Fort Benning with you,” he repeats, like Evan didn’t hear him properly.
“But–” he says, confusion wrinkling his brow. “We have the same MOS. Why wouldn’t you be coming with me?”
Eddie’s throat bobs, tongue poking out to wet his bottom lip. “After the Forge, Drill Sergeant Beam came to talk to me. He pulled my aptitude test and was wondering why I was on track to be a cavalry scout and not a combat medic.”
“Wait, so–” Evan forces out a long breath. He has a sick sense that he knows where this is going. “He wants you to be a combat medic instead?”
Eddie doesn’t reply, watching Evan carefully as if to gauge his reaction, which is an answer in itself.
Nodding mechanically, Evan says, “You always were the best at med field training.”
“I guess,” Eddie shrugs, the corner of his mouth pinched in a half-frown. “The training is longer—sixteen weeks instead of eight—but they train out of Fort Sam Houston.”
Ah. Well, that makes an unsurprising amount of sense. “Texas. Closer to Shannon than Georgia.”
“Yeah. I talked to her yesterday and she said she’d come visit over the weekends when she’s free.”
“So you—she already knows,” Evan manages to squeeze out. He feels a bit—strangled, honestly.
“I wanted to know what she thought about it before saying yes, you know?”
Evan can’t help it—he stumbles back a step, reeling. Right. Of course Eddie would talk about this with Shannon before committing to anything. Because Shannon is his partner. Shannon’s going to be the mother of Eddie’s child. They have to make decisions together now.
And the decision sounds like it’s already been made.
“You already said yes,” Evan says. It’s not a question.
Eddie nods, and it feels like a gavel slamming down to confirm a death sentence.
It’s then Evan remembers that perfect days don’t exist. The pizza his dad brought home that night had been a consolation prize for his broken arm. He had been furious with his parents for uprooting their lives in Pennsylvania. When Ramon found out they skipped class, he grounded Eddie, and Evan didn’t see him outside of school for almost a month.
He should’ve known. He should have been ready. But the day was—it was perfect. He was too happy to think about all the ways it could go wrong.
Or one particular way it could go wrong.
Eddie isn’t going with him to Fort Benning.
Instead, he’s going to Fort Sam Houston in Texas. To be a combat medic. To be closer to Shannon.
Evan’s been naïve, hasn’t he? All this time, he’s been under the impression that he and Eddie would somehow manage to stay together. They had the same MOS, they went to Fort Jackson together for basic training, and they were supposed to go to Fort Benning together too. In the cab of Eddie’s rusting truck, Evan committed to having Eddie’s back no matter what.
What’s he supposed to do now? Eddie’s the smarter of the two of them—he was the one who got A’s in biology and calculus while Evan was skating by, fully relying on his football scholarship to get him into college. He can’t follow Eddie to Texas no matter how much he might want to. He doesn’t have the same skill set.
“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, and to his credit, he does look it, shoulders slumped and eyes apologetic. “I should’ve told you earlier.”
The scoff is out of Evan’s mouth before he can bite it back. “Yeah, that would’ve been nice,” he says, because he feels absolutely blindsided.
They ship out tomorrow. After that, when is Evan going to see his best friend again? He swallows past the lump in his throat, pretending like the thought doesn’t devastate him.
“You’ll write me, right?” Eddie asks, hope creeping into the brightness of his eyes.
Evan huffs out a humorless laugh. That’s one positive, he guesses—someone to write to. He’d much rather have Eddie sleeping in the bunk below him though, if he had the choice.
Which he clearly doesn’t. The choice was given to Shannon, instead.
“Yeah,” Evan says, shocked at how normal his voice sounds. He feels a little detached, like a clean break has just been made. He knows that this moment has created a distinct before and after in his life, like when his family moved to Texas, or when Maddie left with Doug for Boston. A clear before. A clear after. “I’ll write you.”
“Good.” Eddie smiles, but it’s sad and subdued, and it fades fast. It’s a far cry from the smiles that lit up his whole face earlier that day. “I’ll look forward to them.”
“You better,” Evan says, aiming for playfully stern and falling somewhere around painfully sincere.
A suspicious glassy sheen overtakes Eddie’s eyes, and if Eddie starts crying Evan will definitely start crying, and they can’t be crying outside of their dorm building because it will absolutely get back to Mills and she will make fun of him for the rest of his life.
So he says, “Don’t want to be late for curfew,” and ducks into the building, too quick for Eddie to stop him this time.
He finds his friends in the girls’ dorm room, cuffing the back of Lee’s head before he can turn around and spot him. Lee complains loudly as everyone around them laughs, which brings a genuine smile to Evan’s lips. Somewhere behind him, he can feel Eddie’s gaze on him as he follows him into the room, but he refuses to turn, determined to act like Eddie hasn’t just yanked the rug out from under him.
Tucking himself into the corner of Mills’ bunk, he listens to everyone chat about their day, thoroughly enjoying the blush splotching Feighry’s neck as he’s ribbed about his girlfriend. Despite his best attempts at staying out of the spotlight, eventually Sybil looks over, curious.
“How was your day, Buckley?” she asks. “Spill.”
Evan takes a moment to think.
He thinks about this morning, when he graduated Basic after ten weeks of physical and mental torture. He thinks of Sophia splashing him with the paddle of her oar as Evan and Abuela floated past. He thinks about how ecstatic Eddie was when Abuela brought out her homemade tamales, how he instantly looked over at Evan like he wanted to share that moment with him and only him.
He resolutely does not think about the moment Eddie gently laid Evan’s heart onto the pavement and then, without warning, smashed it to pieces with the heel of his boot.
Evan smiles tiredly and says, “It was perfect.”
It takes Evan hours to fall asleep that night. He wonders if Eddie, only a few feet below him, is staring up at the slats of the top bunk the same way Evan is staring at the ceiling.
He could roll over and check, if he wanted. Whisper Eddie? You awake? like he has countless times before.
He doesn’t. He closes his eyes and waits for dawn to break.
“You ready to go?” Mills asks the next morning, dropping one of her duffel bags at her feet. She’s already dressed in her uniform, ready to fly.
Working on less than four hours of sleep, it’s no wonder that the rush of affection he feels for her is almost enough to bring him to his knees. Eddie might not be going to Georgia with him, but Mills still is. He’s not sure he’d be able to get on the plane without her.
“Yeah,” he replies. “Give me a sec.” He sits down on Eddie’s perfectly made bunk to pull on his boots and lace them up.
Mills frowns. “Where’s Diaz?”
Without looking up, Evan shrugs. “I don’t know.”
Eddie was already out of his bunk by the time Evan woke up. For all he knows, Eddie’s already on a flight to San Antonio. He thought Eddie would at least have said goodbye, but. Well. He used to think a lot of things.
“He’s still coming with us though, right?” she asks.
“Ask him,” he says, and when he stands, Mills eyebrows are higher than he’s ever seen. “What?”
“Nothing,” she says. “Nothing at all.”
Eddie’s already on the bus when he and Mills climb on. The seat next to him is empty but Evan doesn’t hesitate before slotting his duffel bags overhead and sliding in beside Mills.
Mills side-eyes him for a very long time, then glances over her shoulder, peering between the seats. He’s not sure what she sees, if Eddie is looking back at her, or if he’s looking out the window not paying them any attention. When she turns back, she says nothing.
Evan loves her. He really, truly does.
He ignores Eddie for as long as he can. He’s not even sure why he’s doing it—he wants nothing more than to talk to him, to knock some sense into him like he did in the cab of Eddie’s truck a few months ago. But—Eddie made his choice. And Evan knows he has no right to feel hurt over Eddie choosing to spend more time with Shannon, but fuck. He’s hurt.
They were supposed to have more time together. That’s all.
As fate would have it, the flights to San Antonio and Columbus are only two gates apart. They leave within an hour of each other, and Evan wishes the universe hated him a little bit less.
Evan and Mills sit down at gate 50. Mills frowns as Eddie keeps on walking to gate 52.
“Okay, what the fuck is going on?” she asks. “I thought he was 19D.”
“Not anymore,” Evan says, and he knows he’s being insufferable, but he can’t help it.
“Not anymore? What—ugh.” She stomps away, deciding that she’ll get more information from Eddie after all.
When she comes back, she still doesn’t say anything. She digs around in her bag until she produces her iPod, then shakes out the headphones and offers him an earbud.
Evan looks at it, contemplative. He’s sure that whatever music she chooses will be better than whatever thoughts are rattling in his brain right now, so he takes it.
“Thanks,” he mutters.
“Yup,” she replies, and they don’t say anything else.
Ten minutes before Eddie’s boarding call—and no, Evan hasn’t been obsessively checking the time, that would be ridiculous—a pair of standard army-issued boots plant themselves in front of Evan. Without looking up, Evan knows it’s Eddie. The left boot has a scuff on the outside that Eddie spent a whole evening trying to buff out while Evan snickered from beside him.
Evan stares at Eddie’s boots, waiting him out.
“Are you seriously not going to say goodbye?” Eddie asks.
He stubbornly keeps his gaze on the floor.
“Evan.” Eddie kicks his foot and Evan doesn’t so much feel it as he does watch it happen. “Come on.”
“I’m, uh,” Mills says as she gets to her feet, the traitor. “I’m gonna go fill up my water bottle.”
Evan resists the urge to grab the back of her jacket to keep her at his side, suddenly unwilling to be alone with Eddie. Saying goodbye means it’s real. It means Eddie’s about to get on a plane and Evan won’t see him for at least four months, if not longer.
And Evan doesn’t want to do that. He shouldn’t have to do that. This isn’t how it was supposed to go.
“I’m gonna miss you,” Eddie says.
You don’t have to miss me, Evan wants to shout in his face, but he swallows it down, jagged and sharp in his chest.
It’s the same thing he told Maddie before she got in the car with Doug. It’s not that easy, she replied, but it turns out that it is that easy. Apparently, it’s that fucking easy for people to leave him. At this point, he thought he’d be used to it, but he guesses it hurts that much more when it’s the people he loves doing the leaving.
Eddie must be able to read his mind, because he says, “This isn’t some huge goodbye, alright? We’ll see each other again. I’m not leav–”
Finally, Evan looks up, eyes as cold as ice. “You’re not what?” he prompts.
“Ev.”
“You’re not leaving? Because it kind of seems like you’re leaving.”
“Not like that,” Eddie says.
“Uh huh.”
“Hey,” he says as he takes Mills’ spot, ducking his head in that annoying way he does when he’s trying to meet Evan’s eyes. And it works, because of course it does. It always works when it’s Evan he’s doing it on. “We’re gonna see each other again, okay? I’m not Maddie. After you’re done training and you’re back in El Paso, maybe you can drive over with Shannon one weekend.”
“Yeah,” Evan agrees, even though the last thing he wants to do is spend a day driving with Shannon to San Antonio, even if he would get to see Eddie at the end of it. He’s tired. He’s so tired of being hurt by the people he loves. “Okay. Sure.”
“Evan. I’m being serious. We’ll see each other again.” He says it softly, forcefully, like he’s trying to press the words into Evan’s brain. “I promise.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Well, too bad,” Eddie says. “I already did.”
Evan laughs at that, a small huff of sound, and he kicks himself for letting it out almost immediately. Eddie’s answering grin is just as small, and Evan takes some consolation in the fact that it looks about as sad as he feels.
“I’m gonna miss you,” Eddie repeats. “I know it sounds lame, but I will. You’re my best friend, you know?”
“No,” Evan replies, deadpan. “I had no idea.”
“Asshole,” Eddie says, but he’s grinning again, and this time it’s less sad. Maybe a bit nostalgic, even though Evan’s still sitting right here.
“I’ll miss you, too,” Evan has to tell him, because god, he’s going to miss Eddie so much, more than he can probably comprehend right now. In their almost four years of friendship, Evan doesn’t think they’ve gone more than a week without seeing each other. “Like, a lot.”
“So give me a fucking hug, already,” he says, so Evan does.
They collide chest first, hard enough that the buttons on Eddie’s uniform dig uncomfortably into Evan’s solar plexus. Eddie’s arms are strong and warm around him and Evan sinks into it, clutching Eddie’s back.
Usually it’s Evan who tucks his face into Eddie’s neck, but Eddie beats him to it this time. Something like a bubble grows in his chest as the ghost of Eddie’s lips feather across his neck, goosebumps prickling in their wake. His chest starts to expand with something akin to bravery, the bubble growing and stretching until he’s sure he's going to say something, he’s going to ask him to stay, to get on the plane to Columbus with him and not look back, obligations be damned.
But then a voice overhead announces that Eddie’s flight is beginning pre-boarding, and the bubble bursts with no hint it was ever there to begin with.
So close to the shell of his ear that Evan shivers with it, Eddie whispers, “I’ll see you soon,” and then he’s gone, up and out of Evan’s life as fast as he slotted himself into it.