Archive of Our Own

The first thing he processes is the sound of his own breathing, heavy in his ears. The second thing he processes is that he’s on the couch, Zach sitting across from him, his mouth forming words that Jacob can’t hear yet, but has seen Zach say enough times to recognize the shape of them. You’re okay.

“I don’t- it’s not- that wasn’t a panic attack,” Jacob finally manages to force out in between gasps of air. He’s not surprised that Zach thought it was one, though. He feels virtually the same after a panic attack, after all: The sweat drenching him, the heart beating so hard he’s worried it’ll rip out of his chest, the struggle to catch his breath, the feeling of a fear that’s both overwhelming and fading. Zach’s hands cradling his face are a common occurence after panic attacks, too. They lightly squeeze him now, as if Jacob’s been cracked open and Zach’s trying to put him back together.

(It’s the fact that Jacob leans into the touch that makes him realize this isn’t a panic attack. When Zach tries to touch him during a panic attack, it takes everything in him to not funnel his anxiety into rage and rip his hands off of him. Even after they break up, Jacob will never admit to Zach how much he hated when he touched him during a panic attack, how much he hated him in those moments.)

No, this wasn’t a panic attack.

His day terrors are back.

It took his parents a whole week to realize Jacob was suffering from night terrors.

Not that they hadn’t heard him screaming at night. Not only had they heard it, they reprimanded Jacob for it night after night, telling Jacob of the sleep he and Caleb’s growing bodies needed that he was depriving them of, of the energy his parents would need for work in the morning. Eventually, his dad cracked on the seventh night, storming into Jacob’s room only to find him sat up straight in bed, staring wide-eyed at nothing and screaming at the top of his lungs.

His parents took him to the pediatrician next day, with Jacob’s mom holding him firmly in her lap. He felt the force of her silent scoff against his back when the pediatrician suggested the night terrors may have stemmed from Jacob’s obvious attachment issues. He could only see what she found funny about it as an adult. Jacob Hill, so starved for attention that he cried for it in his sleep.

Come to think of it, his parents taking a week to realize was actually quite short. At least, in comparison to the decade it took to figure out the day terrors.

They were less common than the night terrors, but the bouts of uncontrollable wide-eyed banshee screaming still struck enough times for Jacob’s parents to take him to the pediatrician again, who recommended that Jacob be taken to be evaluated for anxiety. Jacob’s parents had openly scoffed then, saying that there was no way a child, their child, could ever struggle with something like that.

They had certainly been wrong about that. But, in a cruel way, they had also been right.

The day terrors had only plagued him once after he became an adult, during his first year at Oberlin. After his third roommate in one semester switched out of their dorm, Jacob was not-so-lightly pushed towards his college’s counseling services, where he was assigned to a graduate psychology student training to become a therapist. She was the first person who ever asked Jacob what he thought the issue was.

“I don’t know,” he had admitted, curling up into his seat. “It just… it feels like I’m having a night terror? Even though I’m awake?”

It felt like a silly answer, but she had treated it with all the seriousness in the world. She typed Night terrors when awake right into Google and found only one article, an article that perfectly fit Jacob’s description.

An article on day terrors.

The occurrence of day terrors in children has received but little attention. Much has been written about night-terrors, for these are extremely common; but it would seem that the similar but much less common attacks which occur in the waking condition during the day have scarcely been noticed by English writers.

She printed the three-page paper and gave it to Jacob, still in possession after all these years, yellowing and sharply creased.

It wasn’t as helpful as Jacob wished it could’ve been. A good amount of the already short paper was dedicated to examining the correlation between day terrors and rheumatism, only to conclude that none existed. Additionally, all of the cases focused on children, none older than seven. And, of course, the paper was well over a century old by the time that Jacob got his hands on it. Still, there were bits and pieces that had stuck with Jacob after all that time.

Almost always an exciting cause can be found and its casual relation proved by the cessation of the attacks after its removal.

The immediate prognosis in day terrors would seem to be good. They are easily diminished by treatment and probably the cure is permanent so long as the exciting cause, whatever it may be, is avoided.

In school and in play the child must be kept as far as possible from all excitement and mental strain.

After getting through a particularly brutal stretch of exams, the day terrors lessened. After he cut contact with parents, they stopped for almost another ten years.

He understands why the day terrors have returned now, though. Legendary’s steady pursuit of Abbott has definitely produced its fair share of excitement and mental strain on Jacob. Still, the day terrors leave as quickly as they came, once the threat of Abbott going charter has been dispelled. After a full week without one has gone by, Jacob lets out a sigh of relief, presses himself impossibly closer to Zach’s slumbering form, and lets himself sit with the relief that it’s finally over.

And it is over. For the next eighteen months.

It’s a deceivingly perfect Wednesday when he sees the email. Perhaps he should’ve known things were too good to be true when Melissa finally caved and agreed to let him put on Peaky Blinders that night instead of Housewives, on the condition that he prepared the popcorn, a condition he easily and readily accepted. The first pop of exploding kernels are beginning to sound when his email refreshes, displaying a connection request from Linkedin.

That’s not what makes Jacob drop his phone. What makes him drop it is seeing that it’s from his dad.

It’s fine. It’s perfectly fine that his dad found his account. He hasn’t even updated it since graduating from college. He made the account for the sole purpose of embarrassing his parents, to flaunt to everyone back in Albany that Jacob Hill had left home and that he wasn’t returning. It doesn’t show that he’s working at Abbott, doesn’t even show that he’s in Pennsylvania. Really, it doesn’t matter that his dad is looking at his account now. That just means it’s having its intended effect after all of these years. He can’t be found. He can’t be found. He really, really can’t be found.

The last thing he remembers is bending down to pick his phone back up. When he comes to, he’s still on his knees, clutching desperately to the handle of a random drawer. His breathing is just barely under control, limited to sharp inhales and exhales, but he manages to get a gasp of air in when the kitchen door slams open.

“Jacob? Jacob!” Melissa’s hands are on his face within seconds, her eyes frantically scanning him. “Jacob, what’s happening? Why’d you scream, kid?”

“I was screaming?” He feels the rawness in his throat as he says it, his head bowing when he makes the same realization he made a year and a half ago. “Shit. I’m sorry, Melissa. Shit. I’m really sorry. Shit.”

Melissa turns his head back up, forcing him to lock eyes with her again. “Kid,” she breathes out. “What the hell was that? I thought something bad had happened.”

Something bad had happened. Something bad was happening. Something bad was happening at all times, and it was finally catching up to Jacob.

“It’s nothing.” He shakes his head until Melissa’s hands finally slip off of him, then pulls himself to a stand. “Just a day terror. They happen sometimes. It’s nothing you need to concern yourself about.”

“Uh, yeah it is, because I live with you, and I’d rather not hear you scream at the top of your lungs again. And you said it was a day terror? Not a night terror? This is its own separate thing?”

“Yes?”

Melissa settles against the counter with a groan, running a hand through her hair. “You’re gonna be the death of me, kid.”

He knows that she doesn’t actually think that. But he still tells her he’s sorry, all the same.

He certainly isn’t Zach’s friend, but he also isn’t the one-sided enemy he was in the first few months following their breakup, so calling him isn’t as excruciating as it could be. The two of them still chat every few weeks, usually after seeing something in public that reminded them of the other. Not after one of them has their first day terror in over a year and needs to pass on advice to his roommate on how to handle it.

“How long was it?”

“If you time them by how long he scares you shitless by screaming, then five seconds.”

“Hey, that’s not too bad. The fact that it only lasted five seconds, not that he scared you shitless.”

“Can we stop talking about me like I’m not in the room?”

All that earns Jacob is a flick to the head from Melissa. “Honestly, Jacob, I didn’t do much for your day terrors. I couldn’t really do much. I mean, you were basically unreachable once they started. I just tried to do what I thought would reassure you. Sorry I can’t give you guys more advice.”

“That’s alright,” Melissa sighs. “I’m turning in. If you’re gonna scream again, Jacob, do it in the closet.”

“Goodnight to you too, Melissa.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Jacob’s not sure if Melissa ruffling his hair before heading out is a sign of affection or annoyance.

“So your day terrors are back?”

Jacob huffs, running a hand through his hair. “It’s nothing. Just happens sometimes. Probably just a one-time thing. I’ll be fine.”

He’s not sure what he wants Zach to do. Call him out on lying, maybe, or go along with it. He certainly doesn’t want to sit in suspended silence with him. “Are you okay?” Zach finally asks.

He doesn’t love Zach anymore, hasn’t loved him in a long time, but the question tugs at his heart, and it’s not hard to remember why he loved him in the first place. He has no idea how he ever got Zach to love him back. “I’m sorry I’m so fucked up.”

He can’t see Zach’s face, but from the silence, he knows that he’s shocked Zach, and can still picture what he would look like. His wide eyes, his slightly parted lips, his lax hands. Jacob’s not sure if he’ll be relieved or upset when he finally stops knowing Zach so intimately. “I never wanted perfection,” Zach finally says.

“But you wanted better.” Now, the silence tells him that Zach agrees.

“We both deserve better, Jacob.” Zach’s voice has lowered to a murmur, as if this conversation is a light banter lulling him to sleep. Or maybe he’s just bored from having his umpteenth discussion on Jacob’s imperfections. “Hopefully, you find it soon.”

He forgot to set his alarm after getting off the phone with Zach, so it’s a quick scramble to get ready and out of the house on Sunday when he wakes up. Still, he makes it to Rubensteins just in time to catch his brunch reservation with Janine and Erika. “Hey, hey,” he says, sliding into their customary booth. “Sorry I’m late. Or sorry that I’m not early, I guess. Sorry I’m on time? Hey, where’s Erika?”

“In the bathroom.” Janine’s sat on the opposite end, sliding Jacob’s coffee towards him. “Hey, you.”

“Hey you right back. How’s Gregory?”

“He’s good, he’s good.” These days, any mention of Gregory launches Janine into a story of their latest escapade, but today, her response is strangely contained. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” he says uneasily, even though he doesn’t really feel good, and he’s beginning to suspect that Janine knows that too.

Janine stares back at him for a few more seconds, then sighs, her eyes softening. “Zach told me your day terrors are back.”

The pit in his stomach sharpens, but he refuses to spit out the dagger at Janine. Talking about his past always puts him on the defensive, and he’s unfortunately internalized that offense is the best defense. He has to bite his tongue to stop the flood of questions threatening to spill out. How often do you talk to Zach? How often do you talk to Zach about me? Does he call you to complain about me? Do you call him to do the same thing?

“Erika and I ran into him at the hookah bar last night. He asked if we still do brunch with you, which I said yes to, and then he spilled the beans. He’s worried about you, you know,” she says after a beat of silence, her voice soft.

Somehow, the buildup to his breakup with Zach hadn’t caused him any day terrors. If the two weren’t ignoring each other, they were arguing about trivial matters that soon turned into personal attacks, only ending when one of them starting crying (usually Jacob) or stormed out (usually Zach). Zach didn’t seem worried about him then. Dimly, Jacob wonders how bad he must’ve sounded on the phone to get him to worry about him now.

Are you okay?

I’m sorry I’m so fucked up.

Dammit. He should’ve just said he was fine.

“I’m fine, Janine. I mean, the day terrors haven’t gone away yet, but I’m still fine. And then they’ll go away, and I’ll be fine fine. Fine squared?”

“Hey!” Jacob’s always happy to see Erika, but right now, he’s especially grateful for her presence. “How you’ve been, Jacob?”

“I’m good,” Jacob says. Nothing’s changed since he’s said the same thing to Janine, but he wants it to be true, and saying it out loud lets him pretend that it is true, at least until he locks eyes with Janine again.

“Jacob!”

There’s a pounding on the bathroom door. It takes Jacob a moment to connect it to the voice that’s yelling. It takes Jacob a moment to realize that it’s Gregory. His legs shake as he rises to stand, and he has to grip the edges of the sink to stay upright.

“Jacob, what’s going on?”

He had invited Gregory over to get some paperwork for school done together. Gregory was feeling a headache coming on, so Jacob went to grab him something from the medicine cabinet.

“Jacob, open the door!”

A quick shake of the door handle shows Jacob that the door to the bathroom is locked. He doesn’t remember locking it. The last thing he remembers is checking his phone and seeing a follow request from his mom on Instagram.

“Jacob! Open the-”

The shaking in his hands finally subsides enough for Jacob to unlock the door, but it’s Gregory who forces it open, barreling into the bathroom and grabbing Jacob by his shoulders. “Oh, thank God.” Gregory’s wide eyes pore over Jacob, slowly falling when they see he’s not hurt. “Are you alright? What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” It’s hard to hear himself over the sound of blood roaring in his ears. “How- how long was I screaming for?”

“What? Jacob, what’s going-”

“How long, Gregory?”

“God, Jacob, I don’t know. Thirty seconds?”

It’s been three days since he had brunch with Janine. The day terrors are only getting longer.

“Jacob, what happened?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry for scaring you. It was just a day terror.”

“Day terrors? Didn’t you get those when Legendary almost closed in on Abbott?”

“Do we have to talk about this right now?” It hurts to pull away from Gregory, in both the figurative and literal sense of the word, but his heart is pounding and his throat hurts, and he just wants to get back to being fine again. “Let’s just get back to work, yeah?”

He brushes his way out of the room before Gregory can stop him. By the time Gregory joins him back downstairs, his breathing has settled.

There are so many things wrong tonight, and frustatingly, it’s both got everything and nothing to do with the food.

Janine and Gregory were way too quick to agree to eat at Rubensteins tonight, even though Jacob knows they’ve been eyeing the new Mexican place across Gregory’s apartment all week, and now they’re just sitting carefully across from Jacob and watching him eat, which is only making Jacob want to eat less, because he already hates eye contact enough but eye contact when you’re eating and the other person isn’t is just torture, and of course, on top of all of that, the food is delicious, so now Jacob feels guilty for not wanting to eat his food, and it’s going to end up in the trash, which will be dumped in a landfill-

God, he’s exhausted, and he hasn’t even spoken all night.

“You’re allowed to talk, you know,” Jacob says in between sips of water. “I promise, I don’t bite.”

“Are you okay?” Janine asks, her hand crawling across the table. “I mean, with the day terrors...”

Jacob meets Janine halfway, laying his hand on top of hers. “I’ve been good.”

He has not been good.

It’s already difficult to get himself to sleep at night, what with the night terrors and sleep paralysis. Now, the simple fact that he’ll wake up is a new stressor, knowing that being awake is no longer the promise of brief restitution it once was. And of course, being awake means running the risk of having a day terror, which have been happening like clockwork everyday. What isn’t clockwork is the time they happen, and he’s woken up from more than one nightmare of having a day terror at school, and it always takes him longer than he’ll ever admit to convince himself that the dream was nothing more than a dream, especially since what he faces when he’s awake isn’t much better.

But he doesn’t tell Janine that, nor does he tell her that his parents somehow found his dormant Twitter account yesterday and that it set off a day terror that creeped over just two minutes. Because other than all of that stuff, he’s actually been good.

“We’re here!” Janine sing-talks, blowing through the front door. “Melissa, get ready, because I’m about to make this tiramisu rise faster than a you-know-what.”

Based on Gregory and Melissa’s pained expressions, their idea of you-know-what is a little bit different than Janine’s you-know-what. “Yeah, you don’t bake tiramisu, kid,” Melissa says.

“Oh. Guess I need a new metaphor then. Melissa, get ready, because-“

“Maybe that’s enough with the metaphors,” Gregory interjects, closing the front door behind him. “Uh, Jacob, is it alright if we dump our jackets in your room?”

“Go ahead.”

“What was wrong with me wanting to use another metaphor?” Janine whispers to Gregory as they head upstairs.

“Sometimes, your metaphors have unintended second meanings…”

There’s a hand on his arm before he can turn away. “You know why they’re here, right?”

“I know.” Ever since brunch last week, Janine’s been coming over for cooking lessons again, and ever since Jacob’s freak out with Gregory, he’s been tagging along with her. No amount of reassurance from Melissa that Janine has long mastered the basics of cooking will deter them, and it’s becoming increasingly harder for Jacob to ignore that the two of them are really here for him. Not that he doesn’t keep on trying to ignore it.

Melissa relinquishes her hold on his arm, crossing her arms over her chest. “So?”

“So nothing. The day terrors go away when they decide they want to go away.”

Melissa gives him an imploring look, then turns away with a sigh. He’s seen the exact same scene enough times with his parents to know he’s disappointed her. “Okay, Jacob,” she says. “Hey, what’s taking them so long? Is Gregory giving Janine an English lesson on double entendres?”

“I’ll go get them.” Trudging up the stairs two at a time, Jacob reaches his room within seconds. But before he can swing his way through the half-open door, his ears catch onto a conversation that makes him freeze.

“None of the cases focus on adults?”

“No, all on kids. Most night terror research is on kids, too.”

“That’s unlucky,” Janine sighs. “Hey, the first case sounds a lot like Jacob. Terribly excitable. He is spare, with bright intelligent face, very quick of apprehension, talks in an eager excited way about his toys and games, and is obviously a child of very nervous temperament.”

“He is pale, and his mother says he has been getting thinner ever since the attacks began,” Gregory murmurs. “Has he been losing weight?”

“Like Melissa would ever let that happen.”

His hand still grips the doorknob. Slowly, he peeks his head inside, his stomach dropping at the sight. Janine and Gregory are sat on the edge of his bed, with Janine’s head craning over Gregory’s shoulder to read from the paper he’s holding.

The paper on day terrors.

“The next page says that day terrors are symptomatic rather than idiopathic,” Janine continues. “So that means they’re not random.”

“The most important part of treatment is the cure of the exciting cause. What do you think’s making the day terrors come back?”

“What are you guys doing?”

By the time Jacob steps inside, Janine and Gregory have jumped off of his bed, but Gregory still has a hold on the paper, fingers unconsciously gripping it as he looks back at Jacob. Jacob knows that they’re allowed to read the paper, that he doesn’t have any special ownership over a piece of research conducted over a hundred years ago. But that was his copy, with notes and strikes and highlights, and that was the version they were reading, and it feels like Zach’s hands are back on his face and he wants to rip them right off, wants to rip himself apart and build a new version that would have never needed that paper in the first place.

“Jacob,” Gregory breathes out, setting the paper down on the drawer. “Jacob, we’re sorry. We just-”

“We saw the paper, and we saw all the highlights, and we saw the title-”

“Get out of my room.”

“When Legendary was trying to take over, that made you start having day terrors, right?” Gregory asks. “But then that didn’t work out and the day terrors stopped.”

“Get out of my room.”

“So we just need to find what’s scaring you now,” Janine jumps in. “And then you’ll be fine-”

“Get the fuck out!”

Regret begins to trickle in when he sees how Janine and Gregory freeze, but it’s not enough to make Jacob freeze with them. “You really think this is what I need right now?” he asks quietly. “For you guys to go through my room, and-and try to psychoanalyze me, and force me to talk about something I clearly don’t want to talk about?”

“We didn’t go through your stuff,” Janine says quietly. “The paper was-”

“Get out. Just get out.” His hands clench into fists, and Jacob knows that what’s coming on isn’t a day terror, but a tantrum. “I don’t want to see you guys right now,” he says, but what he really means is that he doesn’t want them to see him. Tantrums were meant to be for attention- at least, that’s what Jacob’s parents told him every time he had one- and so to retaliate, they would ignore him. He lashes out despite knowing that now, because being ignored means being left alone, and being left alone means being unseen, and being unseen means not being found by the people whose attention he was once so desperate for.

“Jacob…” Gregory trails off when Jacob turns away.

“Please,” Jacob breathes out, his eyes squeezing shut. He’s not entirely sure what he’s asking for anymore.

Janine and Gregory are gone by the time he turns back around.

“You finally gonna tell me what’s going on?”

Melissa’s at his door, leaning against the open frame. “Janine and Gregory left. Made up some excuse about having to check on Gregory’s plants at his apartment. Unless you were yelling at them about that?”

His adrenaline crash has begun, and his legs feel almost unbearably heavy as he drops down onto his bed. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m not looking at you like anything.”

“Yes, you are.” Her eyes are slightly widened, her mouth is downturned, her forehead is creased. “You’re looking at me like you’re scared of me.”

“Oh, kid.” Melissa drifts over to Jacob’s bed, brushing a hand against his shoulder. “I’m not scared of you, Jacob. I’m scared for you. You don’t think I looked up day terrors when you told me you were having them again? I know they don’t just come out of nowhere. I wish you’d tell me what was going with you. We all do.”

Melissa’s hand has dropped back down to her side, but he can still feel the phantom grip of her fingers locking around his shoulder, keeping him in place. As much as he wishes otherwise, he knows he can’t run from this anymore. And he has a feeling that his running hadn’t gotten him very far in the first place.

“My parents-“ Jacob’s throat clamps shut on its own accord, muscles only loosening when he redirects the conversation. “Janine and Gregory found a paper about day terrors I had printed. It had- it had my notes on it. I got angry at them for reading it.”

It feels so childish, being upset with his friends for reading a paper. It burns him to think about how he’s turning thirty next year. The older he gets, the younger he feels. No, the older he gets, the more aware he is of just how much older he’s getting, and just how much he wishes he could go back to a time when he was younger. Not because life was easier back then, but because he was stupider, and that stupidity was a bandaid for wounds Jacob hadn’t even known were gaping within him until the bandaid was ripped off, leaving them to bleed out in his pool of misery.

“It’s okay, hon.” Somewhere along the way of him wallowing in his self-pity, Melissa’s sat down next to him, rubbing his shoulders until his posture breaks down. “Friends argue, it’s fine. You don’t need to beat yourself up over this. Just call Janine and Gregory and apologize, okay?”

“Okay,” he chokes out, even though he doesn’t really want to call. It’s terrifyingly easy to float in his misery until it dries up, and he’s never tried to pull himself out of it before, not when the pool was still filling so steadily. If he tries to swim up, he’s scared he’ll drown before he can make it to the surface. He clings to Melissa like she’s a buoy in the endless sea, crying too hard to whimper out an apology when his tears fall onto her shoulder.

“There we go. Just let it out.” There’s a hand running up and down his back, and Jacob focuses on the warmth of it seeping through his shirt, willing himself to absorb it into the recesses of his soul that he tries to ignore but always demands to be heard, that will occassionally claw its way out until it makes Jacob scream at any and all hours of the day. Eventually, the hand finds its way to the nape of his neck, nails scratching lightly against his skin. “You love stressing me out, huh? Got me mediating friendships like you’re all kids in my class.” The hand stills, then runs through his hair. “You’re like the kid I never had, you know that?”

That only makes Jacob sob harder, his arms tightening around Melissa. I wish you had been there for me when I was a kid, Jacob wants to tell her, but he doesn’t, because the only thing he wishes for more than the ability to go back in time and fix his fucked-up childhood is to not be a burden to anyone, and God, did his parents never miss a chance to tell Jacob just how much of a burden he was.

Melissa’s never told him anything like that before, though. None of his friends here in Philly have. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ, he was taught in Sunday school. On tougher days, it’s hard to convince himself that the law of Christ even exists, but it’s also on the tougher days that he can always find his friends to turn to. And so, Jacob clings to Melissa just a little bit tighter, lets his sobs ring out just a little louder, lets himself be a burden.

He does place a call later that night. Just not to who Melissa told him to call.

“Hey, big bro! I’m actually in NYC right now. I’m actually supposed to be meeting up with some friends, but I think I took the wrong subway? Anyway, long story short, I might actually be in Rochester.”

He really had to start calling his brother more. “Hey, Caleb. Um, before we figure out how you somehow managed… that, maybe I could ask you a question first?”

“Oh, dude, I know you’ve been wanting me to actually get my personal training license, which I’m totally trying to do, but I looked it up, and apparently I have to take a test for it. I mean, tests suck, right? Why would anyone ever give out a test?”

Jacob had just given his classes a test three days ago. “My question’s about something else.”

“Alright, alright! Fire away, big bro.”

Even though their relationship’s been on the mend since Christmas, the brunt of initiating conversation has definitely still been falling onto Caleb. He’s always excited when it’s Jacob to call or text first, and it pains Jacob to know that this conversation will only shove off that happiness. “Did you tell Mom and Dad that I’m in Philadelphia?”

Caleb’s silence is expected, but that does nothing to lessen the sting of it. “No,” Caleb finally says. “I mean, they know I visited you for Christmas, since I told them, but they think you’re still in Ohio. Why?”

“It’s nothing. They just found my LinkedIn. And Instagram. And Twitter. It’s fine. It’s nothing.”

“If it were nothing, why’d you ask me about it?”

This conversation is already freaking him out. Caleb’s sudden ability to read through Jacob outright frightens him. “It’s not nothing,” Jacob whispers. “I got really freaked out. Like, really, really freaked out.”

“I’m sorry, Jakey.” The conversation lapses again, and Jacob cradles his phone as if it’s his little brother, willing the universe to drop Caleb into his room so he can protect them from the mess that is their family but also willing it to keep him in New York and away from the mess Jacob’s created for himself. “I know,” Caleb says. “I know things are tough with you and Mom and Dad. Tougher than things are with me and them. I promise, Jacob, I would never tell them where you are. Not even on accident. I’m really careful to not slip up with them.”

“I know. And I’m sorry I ever doubted that.” When Jacob had cast his parents into a pit of memories never to be revisited, Caleb had gotten entangled along the way. Creeping behind his gratefulness for Caleb clawing his way out was Jacob’s regret for ever tossing him in there in the first place. “I love you, little bro.”

“I love you too, big bro.”

Jacob settles onto his bed, breathing out a much needed sigh of relief. “So, are you actually in Rochester?”

“Oh, dude, you know what? I think I’m actually in New Jersey!”

“I’m sorry,” Jacob blurts out in lieu of a greeting when Janine opens the door to her apartment. Gregory’s right behind her, crossed arms falling to his sides. “I’m sorry for snapping at you two on Friday when you found the paper. I know you were concerned for me. I was just embarrassed. Not that that’s an excuse.”

There’s a look in Janine and Gregory’s eyes when they look back at each other, a look that tells Jacob they’ve already had a conversation about his outburst, a look that tells him they’ve already decided to forgive him. “Come in,” Janine says.

His heart pounds and his legs shake as he walks inside, but he’s got anxiety to thank for that, not a day terror. “I brought the things for the tiramisu,” he says shyly, shrugging his tote bag off his shoulder. “I don’t know if you guys want to-”

“Perfect!” Janine snatches the bag out of Jacob’s hands and scurries over to the kitchen, with Gregory and Jacob following closely behind. “I’ve been wanting to make it all weekend. Gregory and I will make the mascarpone cream and you’ll get the lady fingers ready, alright?”

“Alright.” For awhile, the three fumble around the kitchen in silence. It’s only when Jacob’s got the coffee mixture ready that he dares to speak again. “Listen, about last night-”

Janine and Gregory’s eyes immediately snap back to his, and Jacob turns away. It’s a remnant of his childhood, making large admissions while avoiding eye contact. Confessing through a grated wall every Sunday, pleading with a parent through a closed door. “My parents- well, you know about my thing with them. No contact and all that jazz. But, they, uh, they found my online accounts. The ones that use my name, at least. It really threw me for a loop.”

Janine and Gregory are still looking at him when he turns back. It takes more effort than Jacob cares to admit to not run out of the apartment. “How long has this been going on?” Gregory asks.

“About two weeks?” The tremor in his hands is barely noticeable as he lays the dipped lady fingers into the pan, but barely noticeable is still noticeable. “They would find a new account every couple of days. But I didn’t have a day terror yesterday. Once they’re gone, they’re gone for good. Or until the next thing that scares me shitless pops up.”

“So, you don’t need to worry about your parents trying to contact you anymore?” Janine asks. “What changed? Did you delete your accounts?”

He slides the pan over to Janine and Gregory, fiddling with his fingers. “No,” he sheepishly admits. “I just ran out of public accounts for them to find.”

In an ideal world, they would finish constructing the tiramisu in silence and ignore what Jacob is now recognizing to be a fatal lapse in judgment. But these past two weeks have made it abundantly clear that Jacob doesn’t live in an ideal world. “Okay,” Gregory finally says. “Well, maybe we can… delete those accounts?”

Jacob clears his throat. “Yeah, yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

“What’s the point of having a Linkedin account if you never update it?” Gregory asks.

“I was just trying to prove a point about leaving home!”

“Well, you left home more than ten years ago, so I’m sure they got the message.”

Jacob clicks Delete Account, watching his inactive Linkedin account disappear. “Instagram next.”

“Delete your finsta, too,” Janine adds. “I could see your parents putting two and two together about who jhill95 is.”

“That would imply they remember my birthday.” Still, both of his accounts joined his Linkedin in the virtual waste basket.

“Last but not least…” Gregory leaned over Jacob’s shoulder, tapping his Twitter open for him.

“But Rachel Maddow…”

“Didn’t you screenshot the time she retweeted you like, a thousand times?” Janine asked.

“An artifact is infinitely more valuable than a photo of it.” The loss of the tweet stings, but it’s a necessary sacrifice. Besides, he made the switch to Bluesky months ago, thankfully with the foresight to make an anonymous username. “I guess that’s it, huh?” he asks, shuffling his feet. “Starting to think I made this a bigger deal than it needed to be.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Gregory says with a forcefulness in his voice that makes Jacob and Janine snap their heads at him. His eyes meet Jacob’s, and he sighs, setting a hand on his shoulder. “You did nothing wrong,” he repeats.

The hand squeezing his shoulder isn’t painful by any means, but it still makes Jacob tear up. “We know when you’re going through something, man. And we know you think that you’re making it easier for everyone by trying to hide it, but when you’re feeling down, we all feel it.”

“And we don’t want you to feel like that, Jacob,” Janine says, her mouth settled into a light frown. “So, please. If you’ve ever going through something, tell us.”

Jacob steps away with a light, empty laugh, wiping away the tears building up in his eyes. “I have a feeling you guys practiced this.”

“Maybe,” Janine admits. Her arms envelop his torso immediately, but it takes a few more seconds for Gregory to reciprocate the hug, his arm slowly wrapping around Jacob’s shoulders. “Only because we love you, though.”

“I know,” he whispers, squeezing impossibly tighter. “I love you too.” It’s painful to pull away, but he finds that he feels lighter when he does, his burden lessened just slightly.

“You wanna stay?” Janine asks. “We were gonna watch Jumanji.”

“Janine’s favorite,” Gregory and Jacob say in unison, eliciting a smile from her. “I’d love to join,” Jacob says.

Janine and Gregory hold out their hands, and not for the first time- and certainly not for the last- Jacob takes them.