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The December air was cold and unforgiving against Ronan’s face as he made his way out of St Agnes church Sunday morning. Mass had been as uneventful as always and being at the church never failed to remind him of the other place of worship the church held, in the tiny apartment above it. That place, however, he had lost months ago. Now, he only had the memories to burn through every time he stepped into the church.
Matthew was walking beside him, with Declan trailing behind, and he was talking excitedly about the Christmas plans they made, which were quickly approaching. With Christmas came the memories of the final moments of their adventure on the ley line, of Ronan’s unmaking and Gansey’s death and, the most hurting memory, Aurora’s death. A year ago, he also had Adam’s lips and hands and warmth beside him.
This year, he would spend the holidays without any of his friends, without Adam. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth.
He was looking at Matthew as the boy told a history about his latest friend group hangout while walking towards where the BMW was parked, so he didn’t see him at first. Declan, obviously, was the first one to notice. He cleared his throat.
“Parrish.” It was said with the same tone of emotion he put into his other words, which is to say, none. Unless it was Matthew, of course.
Ronan’s head snapped up. Declan was not joking. There, in front of him, was Adam Parrish in all his dusty complex, with grocery store bags in his hands. His hair was a little longer in the front, but the back was stylish cut, and his clothes made him look more proper than Ronan remembered him, even if they were still clearly second-hand. Adam looked exactly how Ronan felt, startled. Ronan could hear his heartbeat wanting to escape out of his chest.
An awkward silence settled between them until Adam coughed and offered, “Hey.”
Hey. Ronan wanted to scoff, a simple greeting after months of heartache and lonely nights didn’t seem appropriate, but then again, it was as much Ronan’s fault as it was Adam’s, and he was well aware of that. Because of that he said:
“Hey, Parrish, didn’t know you’d come back.”
“Yeah,” Adam grimaced, “winter break.”
Adam then made stilted conversation with an overly polite Declan and an overexcited Matthew until they left. Then, it was only Adam, Ronan, and all the words they left hanging between them.
“Wan to come up?” Adam asked, and because the cold sparked up Ronan’s desire for self-destruction, he agreed.
They climbed the stairs to Adam’s tiny apartment and he let them in. It was as cold as Ronan remembered, and even though Ronan knew Adam hadn’t inhabited the place for months, it still felt painfully like his.
The mattress was still there, with the blankets tangled in it and Adam’s suitcase was overflowing with clothes that spilled onto the floor. The mini fridge Adam had bought for a few dollars in a second-hand market was still sitting in the same corner as if it had never left, even though Adam had probably taken it with him to college.
“The apartment hasn’t been rented since I left,” Adam offered quietly while putting away the few things that were in the grocery bags, “they agreed to rent it for the winter break for a little less than I paid before, too.”
His words were met with silence. Ronan didn’t know what to say. Ronan had too much to say. Every thought he had ever had since that night threatened to spill out of him and he didn’t trust himself to open his mouth and not let them come out.
He sat on the floor, in the spot he used to sleep in, before he got to sleep in the actual bed tangled up with Adam. When said boy turned around and looked at him, Ronan knew he was thinking about it, too.
Adam sighed and sat down on the mattress, stretching his legs until his foot were lightly touching Ronan’s. Even that casual touch made his heart skip a beat. He chewed on his wristbands, feeling like he had regressed back in time.
“Do you still talk to Gansey?” Ronan asked. He hadn’t heard from Adam since he left for college, aside from casual mentions of his name from Gansey and Blue. He wanted to know if he was the only one Adam didn’t talk to anymore.
“Yes, whenever he can get a good signal, I mean,” Adam shrugged, “do you?”
Ronan grunted in response. He heard the real question behind Adam’s words: “Do you answer your phone for him?”
The truth was, he did. Gansey scheduled calls with him through text a week before he actually called, which gave him plenty of time to say no to it. He still didn’t answer as much as Gansey would like him to, but he was getting better.
They got back to silence. Adam was staring at the splinter in the door where Ronan had once cut his hand on. Ronan was staring at Adam from the corner of his eyes. He sighed to let Ronan know he wasn’t being as subtle as he thought. It really was a year and a half ago all over again.
“Why didn’t you call to say you were coming back?” Ronan gave in and finally asked. His chest was heavy with every feeling he bottled up.
“Would you have answered if I had?” Adam shot back. Ronan wanted to say, you could’ve texted, but he knew that wasn’t the point.
He stayed silent. Adam shot him a sad smile.
His heart was breaking all over again. The thing was, having Adam there enhanced everything, and, as much as he told himself he was over him during all these months he spent alone, he knew now, seeing Adam in flesh and bone, looking better than he ever had, flushed and more nurtured, that it wasn’t the case. He was still very much in love with Adam Parrish.
“Your hair looks good,” he said.
“Oh, thanks,” Adam touch the back of his neck, “my friend, she lives at my dorm, took a hairdressing course over the summer and she loves having subjects to test on.”
“Didn’t know Harvard kids liked lower class jobs,” Ronan grunted and Adam smiled a little. At least their understanding wasn’t lost in between them.
“It saves me the money of a haircut,” he shrugged.
“Or the ugly ass cut you had when you did it yourself,” Ronan joked.
“Yeah, that, too,” Adam laughed openly now. His chest both warmed and hurt at the sound.
At that, at least, their conversation got less awkward. Adam told him about college, which seemed like a whole other world, and Ronan told him about the farm, his truce with Declan, and, finally, Opal.
“How’s she doing?” Adam’s interest spiked up at the mention of the hooved girl and he sat up again, since in the middle of the conversation he had laid down on the mattress.
“Still a brat,” Ronan said fondlingly.
“Does she still chew on all of the kitchen utensils?” Adam asked, a smile playing on his lips.
“You can bet she does, I lost count of how many fucking spoons I had to replace this year,” Ronan grunted, “she asks after you all the time,” he added, carefully.
“Oh,” Adam breathed, like he didn’t know that Opal cared about him, the idiot. “I miss her a lot,” he confessed, looking at the ground.
“Do you miss me?” Ronan asked, because apparently, he couldn’t fucking make things easy for himself. Adam’s had shot up to look at him. His eyes held an uncertain look, full of a hurt that Ronan knew mirrored his own.
“Yes,” Ronan closed his eyes at the answer, “do you?”
“Yeah,” he tried to get his breath to even out before he opened his eyes, and when he did, Adam’s face was a lot closer than before.
Suddenly, they were kissing. Ronan felt like he had been underwater since the last kiss they shared and just now was coming up for air again. His hands found Adam’s hair and Adam’s went straight to his waist, gripping him like he would disappear at any second.
They were moving too fast, hands and lips and tongues, the kiss killing the hunger inside them. They found themselves laying on Adam’s bed, Ronan above him, trailing kisses along his jaw, only to stop at the spot in his neck he knew made Adam weak. Adam’s hands were inside his shirt, snaking up his back and sending shivers up his spine. Ronan was almost losing himself completely in Adam again when the church bells rang, signaling midday.
Ronan jumped apart from Adam, sitting back on his knees. Adam scrambled up to rest his back against the wall, his chest moving with heavy breaths. Ronan was just as breathless. He closed his eyes and made himself calm down, to make sure he wouldn’t do anything as stupid as jumping at Adam again.
“What are we doing?” He asked instead. His voice cracked, and he felt like he was laying himself bare before Adam.
“I don’t know,” Adam sighed. They stayed in silence, contemplating each other. Unspoken words cut the air like knives.
Adam was the first to speak up again. “We could do this, if you wanted,” he started, “while I’m here.”
“What? Pretend to be happy fucking boyfriends and forget the last few months?” Ronan shot back bitterly and stood up from the bed.
He backed away as much as he could, because he knew he would be tempted to say yes, the closer he was to Adam. He knew the two of them were still attracted to each other like magnets, he saw the desire and the longing in Adam’s eyes and he knew he would find the same if he looked in the mirror, but he couldn’t. Because in a few weeks Adam would be going back to college, to a completely different world from Ronan’s, with people that weren’t nine hours away, who hadn’t dropped out of high school and weren’t fucked in the head, while Ronan would stay. He would stay and he would be alone again, picking up the pieces again just like he did at the end of the summer.
“Ronan,” Adam sighed, “you know that’s not it.” He just sounded tired.
“Isn’t it?”
“No! God, Ronan, you think I wouldn’t take the chance to be with you again, even if only for a few weeks?” He asked, and by now he was also on his foot, his fists tight at his side.
Ronan wanted to punch something. He wanted to race through the streets of Henrietta until he didn’t remember Adam’s name. Even as he thought it, he knew it wasn’t true, Ronan would never forget Adam, he didn’t even want to.
“And what do you suggest, then? We stay together and ignore the fact that you’ll be leaving again?” He didn’t know what he was thinking, his head was spinning.
“All I’m saying is that I’d take whatever you let me have,” Adam admitted, choosing his words carefully. He looked exhausted. In the shitty yellow light of the St Agnes apartment, Ronan saw the dark bags under his eyes, the tired line of his shoulder and the slight frown in his lips. All part of the Adam Parrish Ronan thought he only was in Henrietta. But now he realized that this was Adam Parrish all the time, a boy that was just as lonely as he was.
He felt defeated. He knew he wouldn’t be able to argue anymore, but he didn’t want to just give in.
“Fuck! Look,” Ronan rubbed the back of his neck, “just give me some fucking time, okay? You can come to the Barns later, or whatever,” he sighed. Adam nodded, eyes shining with something Ronan was reluctant to call hope.
He went to the door and, with a nod, he left. He closed the door to the apartment that still held his prayers, even when the object of worship was far away.
//
Ronan was walking around the fields in attempt to cool off from the many thoughts swirling around his head. I won’t ask you to wait, if you don’t ask me to stay, is what Adam had said in one of their many fights during the summer.
I’m not asking you to stay, only to come back, Ronan thought, then laughed bitterly. As if he would ever be something Adam would come back to Henrietta for. But then again, wasn’t Adam in town anyway? Ronan couldn’t phantom what made him come back for winter break.
He entered one of the barns that were filled with dream things, most of which he had dreamt in the summer. He avoided coming to this barn in specific because even the smell reminded him of Adam, of the summer afternoons they spent together before everything went to shit.
The memories of summer were bittersweet for Ronan. Adam and him had spent weeks and weeks rolling around in The Barns, messing around and kissing, they couldn’t keep their hands to themselves. It was paradise, with Opal bugging them on occasion, Skype calls with the rest of their friends and nights spent blessedly alone. But it wasn’t all good fun, sometimes Adam’s departure hung over their heads like a stormy cloud. All of their fights were downpours. Nasty words shot back and forth, arguments that never seemed to end, nights that ended with Adam leaving to his apartment in St Agnes and only come back when their heads were cool again, which could be hours or days later.
Summer was a tangle of idyllic moments and nasty fights that would never leave Ronan completely. It was highs and lows in a matter of seconds and he didn’t want a repeat.
He dug around the barns in search of a box he kept hidden from both himself and Opal. When he found it, he kneeled and sorted through it. The box was filled with dream things solely about Adam, as well as things he left behind or that reminded Ronan of him. There was a dream Coca-Cola shirt that still smelled like him and a never-dying flower in the exact shade of his eyes. Ronan’s heart was hurting by the time he went through it all, but he stopped with a single item in his hands. It was a note in Adam’s messy hand-writing, with a tarot card attached, The Lovers. It said: it kind of looks like us doesn’t it? I get off at 4 today, got a surprise for you when I get there.
It was all it took for Ronan to got back in time in his own head. The day before the note they had been sniping back and forth, both irritated with each other, but it hadn’t been enough to drive Adam away, so he had slept beside Ronan that night. Adam had left the note on the side of the bed that used to be his when he left for work too early for Ronan to be awake. Ronan had waited all day, his insides buzzing in excitement every time he thought about Adam’s surprise. The other boy wasn’t the romantic type, but sometimes he made casual gestures that made Ronan melt inside. He paced around The Barns and chased Opal around until an hour before Adam said he would arrive. He took a shower and cooked dinner for them, getting more excited by the minute.
When Adam did arrive, with his tan face filled with freckles from the sun and hair almost a shade lighter than in the winter, Ronan didn’t imagine that was the day things would fall apart for good. Adam carried a small bag in his hands and he barely kissed Ronan at the door before pulling at his hand and dragging him to the kitchen to show what he had brought.
It was a brand-new smartphone. When he showed it to Ronan, his eyes shone with hope. “Isn’t it cool? Now we can text and call when I go to college.”
Ronan still didn’t know what made him sneer and shatter the hopeful look on Adams face.
“You had money to buy this, Parrish?” He instantly regretted what he said, but he wouldn’t back down now.
“What the fuck, Ronan? You know damn well that I’ve been saving up,” Adam bristled, “with a full ride at Harvard, I could spare enough money to buy one.”
What he didn’t say, what he didn’t need to say, was that him choosing to buy a phone when he had so many things that needed his attention, like shoes that weren’t falling apart or a suitcase to take his things to college, meant that he was serious about this. He had spare money and he chose Ronan. Ronan was well aware of that, but he had already fucked up.
From that, things had gotten ugly. Ronan didn’t back down and neither did Adam. Both boys had been flushed with anger and Adam seemed exhausted by the time he had thrown himself at the nearest chair and put his head in his hands.
“What do you want us to do, Ronan? Not talk at all while I’m away?” He had asked, defeated.
Ronan hadn’t had the courage to say that he would rather die than not talk to Adam for months on end, but the thought of using his phone regularly threw him off.
“Ronan,” Adam had called him, but something in his voice had changed, “you’re going to answer the phone for me, right?” His voice had cracked, he was clinging to the last bit of hope and Ronan knew it.
Ronan stayed silent anyway.
“Right, that’s fucking great, maybe I shouldn’t have bothered, then,” Adam had said, bitter and angry.
“Maybe you shouldn’t’ve,” Ronan had agreed in a sneer.
“Well, if it’s going to be like this, I don’t know what we’re doing now, then.” That made Ronan’s insides turn to ice.
“Maybe we shouldn’t fucking bother with it, too,” Ronan spitted, but he was already regretting everything he had said that day.
“Is that what you want?” Adam had asked, his voice suddenly cold. He had shut himself away, his emotions guarded behind that infuriatingly blank face.
Ronan had only shrugged and Adam stood up roughly.
“Fuck you, then,” He had sneered and then he left.
That happened two weeks before summer ended. They didn’t speak again. Ronan realized his tears were staining the card and he quickly wiped them away. He couldn’t believe they had ended things like that, over such a small thing. But they had both been tired of the arguing, their tempers were sure to tear them down sooner or later. It was a shame it had been sooner.
He got up from the ground after stashing the box away again. The sun had already set and Ronan knew Adam would be here soon, that was, if he decided to show up.
//
Ronan heard when Adam pulled up in the driveway, in the shitbox, which was somehow still running, but he didn’t hurry to the door like he used to, he didn’t want to seem desperate, because he wasn’t, or at least that’s what he’d been telling himself. Adam was bundled up in the same coat as before and the tip of his nose was flushed with the cold. When Ronan finally opened the door, he walked past him without a second thought, like he might have done before. Only when he was in the hallway did he seem to remember he wasn’t a practically resident of The Barns and he looked sheepish, but he didn’t say anything about it, so neither did Ronan.
Ronan felt a pang in his heart when they moved to the living room and he saw that Adam fucking Parrish still looked like he belonged there, as if nothing had changed at all. He tried to ignore it as he poured the hot chocolate he’d made in mugs for the two of them, but he felt it when he handed Adam the silly mug he adored, that was adorned with tiny ravens, which Ronan had dreamed a long time ago. Maybe the hurt would never leave his chest.
They sat in the porch with their drinks despite the cold. They didn’t speak much, both of them admiring the landscape, Ronan because it was his home and it brought him peace, Adam with the observant way he did things, the look in his eyes signaling that he was trying to catalogue every single difference it had since he was here the last time.
Adam set his drink down at some point and turned his gaze to Ronan. “Where’s Opal?” He asked.
“Dunno,” Ronan shrugged, “I saw her this morning before I left for church, but haven’t seen her since,” he said and Adam nodded.
Ever since Ronan had brought her out of his head, Opal had been an independent creature. She was like an adult-child. Sometimes she needed to be tucked in bed, which Adam had been the perfect man for when he had been there, but she often wandered the lands on her own, never needing Ronan like Ronan seemed to need her. It felt much like every other relationship Ronan had. He always needed people more than they needed him, it seemed. In the end, he was left to his own devices, alone in The Barns for days on end.
“Why did you come back?” Ronan’s curiosity took the best of him. He needed to know what made Adam come back to a place he never wanted to.
“Harvard kind of closes down on long breaks,” Adam shrugged, running his fingers through his hair, “the campus is like a desert on breaks, nothing is open, and I could look for an apartment around there, but it would be more expensive than St Agnes for sure.” Ronan didn’t feel like what Adam said wasn’t true, but maybe it was not the whole truth either. But he wasn’t going to pry, he knew he would be hypocritical if he accused Adam of telling half-truths.
They returned to silence. The night fell completely and the starts were just as visible as they had been in the first time they kissed. It felt like that happened in another life, to another Ronan. This Ronan, sat beside an Adam Parrish that wasn’t his, wasn’t worthy of the greatness of moments like that anymore. It would never dawn on him how he managed to grasp Adam Parrish, only to let him slip between his fingers like sand months later. It suited Ronan, he thought, to crush the greatest thing that had ever happened to him.
“So, have you thought about what I said?” Adam asked in a quiet tone, pointedly not looking at Ronan.
Yeah, Ronan thought about it. It was all he could think about since he left St Agnes. The thought of having Adam again, even if just for a moment, a day, a few weeks, haunted him. How could he ever say no to that?
“Yeah,” he responded, and he knew he didn’t have to utter another word, because Adam already knew his answer was yes, just like Ronan knew Adam had only asked for the explicit consent. They both knew the answer was yes, the moment they had kissed again. God, Ronan thought, would they ever unlearn each other? Did they even want to?
After that, it didn’t take long before Adam was on him again, his hands wandering along with his mouth. It didn’t take long before they were rushing up the stairs into their, goddamn it, Ronan’s bedroom. They still knew every sweet spot, exactly what it took to undo each other, and they did just that.
Later, Adam laid his head on Ronan’s chest, their legs tangled and his arms across his middle, and so they fell asleep, like they were together again.
When Ronan woke up, early in the morning, he had briefly forgotten he wasn’t alone, until he felt the weight wrapped around him. He opened his eyes to see Adam Parrish looking like the goddamn angel he was in the morning sunlight. The light made the sharp angles of his face look golden and his hair fell on his forehead, making he look adorable and vulnerable like he never let himself be when he was awake.
Ronan had forgotten how beautiful Adam looked in the morning, how good it felt to wake up beside him again. He didn’t know if he was blessed to experience this again, or cursed for knowing that his blessings were only temporary.
He left Adam sleeping behind and went to do his morning chores around the farm before going back to the house and preparing breakfast. He was just about done with the pancakes, making them just like he knows Adam liked, when the boy came down the stairs.
Adam was in flannel pajama bottoms he borrowed from Ronan the previous night and the Harvard hoodie he had on beneath his coat. He looked soft with sleep, with bleary eyes and messy hair. Ronan couldn’t believe it was possible to feel homesickness even as the subject of the feeling was standing right before him. He thought that, maybe, he’d been feeling homesick ever since Adam left that summer night. His body was so used to missing Adam that maybe it wouldn’t ever stop, didn’t know how to.
“Good mornin’” Adam’s accent was thicker in the morning, voice still laced with sleepiness and Ronan’s heart longed for it. He moved around the kitchen like he did a thousand times before, fixing a cup of coffee for himself before sitting at the counter and looking at Ronan with an earnest gaze. He didn’t say anything, but the look in his eyes made Ronan shiver anyway.
They had breakfast in companiable silence, a feat they hadn’t achieved since they had seen each other again the day before. Ronan felt comfortable sitting with Adam across from him, a replay of better days.
And then, because Ronan was still in love with the boy in front of him, because he was still curious, because he was already prepared to have his heart broken again, because, just like Adam had said yesterday, he was willing to get whatever was handed to him, he asked again:
“Why are you really here, Adam?” The use of his first name made Adam’s eyes wide, and he sighed, he probably had already been prepared for the question.
“These last few months,” he took a deep breath, “have been hard, you know? I tried to settle down at Harvard, make friends, go out, live a little and whatever, and I did, for the most part, but something was always missing. I didn’t know what it was, until I realized, that the problem was that I was lonely,” Adam was gesturing as he talked and Ronan felt his chest squeezing, not knowing where this was headed. The most probable outcome, he thought, was that Adam needed closure to be able to date again. His head swam in bitter thoughts.
“I was alone again, like I hadn’t been since Gansey, and you, of course, and suddenly I was struck with the knowledge that, even when I deemed myself unknowable, you knew like no one else, and I missed it like hell, you know?” He continued, “I started seeing a counselor, because God knows I need to put all the shit I went through here behind me to move on,” Ronan froze. There it was, he thought. But Adam was not finished.
“And my counselor made me realize that the reason I couldn’t find somebody else and move on, and didn’t want to really, was because of you. You, Ronan, are what’s missing. And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t come back here and found out if there was still an us I could fight for,” Adam was looking him in the eyes now, his eyes bright with unshed tears and Ronan found suddenly hard to breathe. He couldn’t wrap his head around what Adam was saying properly.
“Because, God, Ronan, if there’s even a small chance we could be together for real, not only during my break, then I’ll do what it takes to get it,” Adam confessed. Ronan had heard enough, he got up and went to Adam, pulling him into a kiss.
The kiss was hard, but it was nothing like the ones they shared since the day before. This time they put all the feelings into it, all the love they had been hiding from each other.
“I love, Lynch,” Adam whispered when they pulled apart, “and we broke up over something so stupid, God. When I realized what had happened, I knew I’d messed up really bad and I missed you so bad, you know, even the nuns at St Agnes asked why you weren’t around anymore, they missed you, too.”
“Of course, they missed me, I fucking brought farm food to them all the time,” Ronan snorted and Adam laughed. Ronan brought him in for a hug, his head on the crook of Ronan’s neck. This time, in all seriousness, he said, “damnit, Parrish, I fucking missed you as well. Being without you was like losing a limb every day you weren’t there. I love you, too, fucker,” never had Ronan professed an insult with so much love in his voice.
They stayed in the embrace for a long time, and when Ronan felt tears in his neck, he didn’t say anything, only hugged Adam tighter. He felt a pressure leave his chest and he could finally draw in a clear breath. Ronan had been lost in the sea, drowning slowly, since they broke up, and Adam was his north. Now with Adam so close to him again, he could finally come home.
They still needed to figure so much shit out, but Ronan felt like they could do it. Months apart made them realize they needed each other, and now they had grown enough to know what they to do to be together.
//
They were laying in bed together, watching the snow fall and cover the Barns in white on Christmas Eve, when Ronan turned around to look at Adam.
“Have you been with anyone, you know, since me?” He asked, it was a thought that had been gnawing at his head since they got together, which happened a few days ago now.
They spent those days getting reacquainted again, catching each other up on their lives and telling stories. It had been one of the best few days in Ronan’s life, it felt like they were in a cliché movie, idyllic settings for a Christmas movie. The love, the feeling of home, though, no movie could recreate.
“No, none of them stood a chance against the thought of you,” Adam responded instantly, making Ronan blush, although he tried to hide it. It didn’t work, Adam smirked at him. “And you?” He shot back, quietly. Ronan snorted.
“Parrish, the only human interactions I have here are my brothers and the old ladies in the farm market, what the fuck?” He shot and Adam laughed brilliantly. Ronan never wanted to go months without hearing that sound ever again. “But, no, it’s always been you, and it always will be.”
Adam leaned over him to kiss him soundly once more. Ronan would never get tired of his lips. If he could, he would live in this moment forever. Declan and Matthew would be arriving soon from D.C, but they had time to get tangled up again.
Later, laying side by side, Adam asked: “Does that mean you’ll answer your phone now?”
“Yes, Parrish, fuck off,” Ronan said with no real bite in his voice, because he knew how much it mattered to them both, now.
Instead, when they kissed again, it felt like a promise.