Rasul stroked the back of Jacob’s hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Though Jacob’s eyes were wet, he didn’t cry, and his voice was steady. “I never thought they’d leave me so soon, and not together. Not without a real goodbye. I took a leave of absence from my job, then outright quit, but it wasn’t a smart move. I wandered around Copper Point, trying to figure out what I was supposed to do now. But that’s when I started reading your book again.”
He turned to Rasul now, his face twisted up in emotion. “It was like you saw right into me. The fight to find identity, dealing with loss but carrying on—that was what I needed. I read the book over and over, as if only these words could keep me alive. I understood at the time it was maybe a little unhealthy, but I didn’t care. I didn’t have my parents to be my anchor anymore, but I could anchor myself with your story.”
Jacob might not be crying, but Rasul had to stop and wipe his eyes, and his throat was thick. “Jacob.”
“I was living off my savings, and they were nearly depleted, but I had this huge inheritance from my parents. Life insurance, assets. I got tired of reading your book all the time, so I sprinkled others along with it. Fiction, nonfiction, everything. I feel like I devoured half the library, and the UPS driver brought me ten to twenty books at a time. I knew I was still escaping, but reading felt like a way out, so I kept at it, hoping for a lifeline. Then you wrote Carnivale.”
Now a tear did roll down his cheek as he took his hand back and turned to Rasul, tugging at his cardigan. “You called me Mr. Rogers because of what I wear. Do you know why I dress like I do? Because after my parents died, I couldn’t function unless I was wearing one of my father’s old sweaters. Gus and Matt held me the first time I had to wash them because they were too filthy to continue, and I ached because I knew the smell of my parents would go. Also, at that point, several of them were all but ruined. Then the next day Matt came with a new set from his store. He said it was the brand my dad always bought, and he could get as many as I wanted.”
Rasul wiped at his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“No. You see? Because in the middle of Cardigangate, that’s when Carnivale arrived. I had it on preorder. I bought it in hardback, eBook, and audio. Wrapped in one of the manky old cardigans, the one I hid so it didn’t get washed, I stayed up all night and read your second book. And for the first time since my parents died, I felt alive.” He laughed, a soft and bitter sound. “Oh my God, but I fell in love with you so hard. I didn’t even have the strength to mock myself. I simply thought, this is twice now that this man has dragged me out of the abyss. I’ll have to love him forever. So I decided that I’d do just that, and I also started looking into what it would take to buy a bookstore. It was a lot easier than I thought.” He shook a finger at Rasul. “It was supposed to be enough. It would have been enough. And then suddenly there you were. Here you are. Complicated and beautiful and sexy, flawed and messy and exactly what I never knew I needed. But if I let you in, all the way in, what comes next? You’ll leave. I’ll be alone. You won’t be dead, but in a way it’ll be worse. Because I don’t want to leave here, I do love it here, but….” He shut his eyes and gave up.
Rasul drew several deep breaths, trying to gather himself after that emotional barrage. He couldn’t do it. Running a hand through his hair, he glanced around the kitchen. “Do you have any alcohol?”
“If we’re both smashed, this is going to be a disaster.”
“I’m not going to get drunk. I just need to shave off a few edges. You’re not the only one who has stuff to get off his chest tonight.”
Jacob gestured at the far wall of cupboards without looking at them. “Top left, behind the paper cups. Should be some scotch.”
“Excellent.” Rising, he glanced back at Jacob. “Can I get you some water?”
“You can get me some scotch.”
“Scotch and water. For both of us.”
Pouring the drinks gave him something to do with himself, a chance to organize his thoughts. He didn’t say anything until he’d sat down and gotten a heavy slug of the stuff in his system. How did he want to start this? Dive right in?
Might as well.
He drew a breath and let it out.
“I had a lot of abandonment issues as a kid. My parents were in and out, and so were my caregivers. My grandparents raised me officially, but there were nannies too. Essentially nobody hugely stable was in my life except for my grandmother, and she wasn’t always reliable. Intellectually I can look back and see that I was set up, that this sense that people would abandon me no matter what I did wasn’t my fault, but part of me can’t let go of the idea that I might be the problem, that I’m unlovable.” Smiling grimly into his glass, he took another drink. “Don’t think the irony isn’t lost on me that I draw all these people to me and I still feel that way. It doesn’t matter how many ways I acknowledge I have a hole in me nobody can fill, it still eats at me. It drives me into relationships too fast, pushes me to ruin them.” He dragged his thumb along his beard, his gaze unfocused on the table. “I think I sandbagged myself when I decided I’d write my way through the feelings. It worked for the first book and the second book, after all. What was the harm? Well, I think that was because somehow along the way part of me felt like even though the adoration couldn’t completely satisfy me, it was enough. So long as I had that attention, so long as I was surrounded, I might be okay.”
He shifted in his seat. “Of course, that became the trap. Because as soon as I disappointed people, I was lost at sea. I got really annoyed at myself over it. Here I was, thirtysome years old, and I was still trapped by the feelings I had when I was a kid. Worst of all, I’d decided to write about the feelings I had as a kid. About a real boy I had a crush on but couldn’t tell. About how the world seemed to rearrange itself around me in order to keep me isolated. It was too much. I knew as soon as I started it that I shouldn’t write it. And yet I couldn’t write anything else. So slowly, methodically, I put myself in the place I feared more than anything. Cut off. Isolated. Denied all my cheats and hacks to not think about the pain I’d never told anyone about.”
He slid a hand to Jacob’s knee. “Except in that same place, I also found you. Someone I couldn’t charm or win over with a glance, a wink, or a dance. Someone who liked and respected my work but didn’t want a piece of me the way everyone else did. You were just so… different. But you saw me. Not the manic front I put out but the me who flounders sometimes, that still thinks about the time when I was ten and I had a fever but no one was home and I was convinced I would die abandoned. That feeling of wandering through empty spaces, crying out, but no one comes. Except you did.” He ran a hand through his hair and realized he was shaking. “Now you tell me I did that for you. My stories, born out of my own isolation and loneliness, reached you in yours. You’ve let me come into your space and struggle to heal myself. You’ve seen me stripped down, but you want me anyway.” He shook his head. “You think I don’t want you for that?”
“You won’t stay here, and I will.”
“You won’t let me date you, but you want me to marry you?”