Chapter Text
Evan kept dodging Sabrina’s calls.
He didn’t know how she knew, but somehow Evan knew she knew about the break up. He kept dodging her calls. He didn’t need to hear it. He didn’t want to hear it. She would tell him how stupid he was.
And Evan knew he was stupid. He knew.
And he missed Connor more than he even imagined possible.
But he knew he had made the right choice. He knew. He had to keep Connor safe and the best way he could do that was to stay the fuck away from him. He had to stay away so Connor wouldn’t keep trying to destroy himself he had to he had to he had to.
But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
Evan just wanted to be alone with his pain. He wanted to ignore everyone, keep his head down, just work and keep to himself. He wanted to be able to lick wounds in private and not talk to anyone until he could keep a lid on his broken heart, keep it all from leaking out all over and wrecking things for everyone else.
So he dodged Sabrina’s calls.
He knew it was only a matter of time before he couldn’t. He knew the reckoning was coming and he was utterly helpless to stop it.
So he wasn’t surprised when the weekend after Evan broke up with Connor, he heard the buzzer for his apartment door ring. He wearily got to his feet, set down the bottle of whisky he was nursing, and hit the button to allow her to come inside.
He knew it was coming.
Time to face the fucking music.
Sabrina banged aggressively on the door and Evan pulled it open so fast she nearly knocked on his face because her hand was still raised. “Oh good,” She said, her voice bitter, “You aren’t dead.”
“Looks that way,” Evan said, his tone equally bitter.
“Alex and Mattie here?”
Evan shook his head. They were out of town at a medical conference. They were using it as a weekend away. Before they’d left, Alex had joked that maybe Evan and Connor could stand to get away from the city for a few days too. “Like how back in the day they’d send sick people to the coast to recover. It could be good for you both.”
He hadn’t told them yet about Connor, but he figured they would know when they got back.
Evan led Sabrina into the living room. Sat heavily on the sofa and picked up his whisky bottle. He took a long pull then offered it to Sabrina. “Want some?”
She ignored him. “Evan what is going on?”
“Well, I’m drinking,” He said dully. “And I assume you’re here to yell at me so. Why don’t you just get that over with?”
“Graham talked to Connor.”
Evan took another drink.
“You broke up with him?” Sabrina went on, sounding disbelieving.
Evan swallowed another sip.
He didn’t deny it.
“Ev, what the fuck? What is the matter with you? Less than a month ago you told me you couldn’t live without him, you told me you’d kill yourself if he didn’t live and now you… dumped him less than a month after he woke up from a coma? Please explain that to me because from where I’m standing that doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
Evan shrugged, going to take another drink but Sabrina snatched his whisky bottle away. Damn it, he should have seen that coming, fuck. “Evan what the hell?”
“I’m not good for him,” Evan said, his tone clipped, rehearsed. “He’s hurting himself by being with me and… I can’t hurt him anymore.”
Sabrina stared at him. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Evan wasn’t interested in trying to defend himself to her.
“Explain it to me,” She pushed. “Explain it so I… Because I know you’re a good person, you wouldn’t just leave for no reason, you love Connor you love him so I need you to explain.”
Evan shook his head. “There’s nothing to explain. I keep hurting him and… and he keeps hurting me. We shouldn’t be together. It’s… we’re bad for each other.”
“Bullshit!” Sabrina said, and her eyes were shiny with unshed tears. “You’re not. You two… you’ve become so much better as people since you got together. He keeps you from working too hard, you help him to not be such an asshole you… You changed each other’s lives for the better and… He needs you right now. He needs you and you left.”
“I’m not good for him,” Evan said. “I’m not a good person Sabrina, you know that.”
“Oh that is such bullshit Evan,” Sabrina said, shaking her head angrily. “You are a good person. I’ve known you since you were a freaked out twenty year old, scared of his own shadow. You’re better than this.”
“I’m really not.”
Sabrina let out a humorless laugh. “So you, what, you’re just done trying? Even though you love him and he loves you? You’re just done?”
Evan nodded. “I’m done. I just keep hurting him no matter what I do and… I’m done. I don’t want to hurt him anymore.”
Sabrina shoved his shoulder, hard. “I can’t believe you’re doing this. I can’t believe you’re doing this again.”
Evan didn’t follow.
“What did he say?” Sabrina said. “Did he tell you that you needed help? Did he point out that you’re sick and need to talk to someone? Because honestly I thought you already were… And that was the nail in the coffin for us so.”
Evan said nothing. He couldn’t even look at her.
“I need you to explain,” She said desperately. “Because this… this is scaring me Evan, this feels like you’re trying to… trying to isolate yourself so you can do something fucking stupid.”
Yeah, Evan thought. He was always trying to do something fucking stupid.
Sabrina was crying. “So, what, you dumped him like you dumped me? Because he wanted you to be better?”
“Sure,” Evan said. “That’s one version of it.”
“And the other?”
He said nothing.
“Evan,” Sabrina said, sounding devastated. “You… you’re better now I know you’re better now, I don’t believe you’d do this for no reason.”
“I had a reason,” Evan snapped. “And I don’t owe that to you.”
“Did he… What did he do?”
Slept with Parker.
Left.
Killed himself in an alternate reality to come back to me and destroyed himself in the process.
“You’re such a fucking coward,” Sabrina said finally. “You always do this. You bail when things don’t go your way. You bail when things get hard. I thought you were better with Connor than you were with me, but it turns out you’re still just a pathetic little boy running scared from how you actually feel.”
“You’re right,” Evan owned up.
Sabrina laughed again, bitter and biting. “I bet you packed up all of your shit when he wasn’t home too, didn’t you? You erased yourself from his life before you even bothered to let on that you were going, just like you did with me.”
Evan swallowed hard.
“You have no idea how much that fucking hurts,” Sabrina said. “One minute everything is fine and the next you’re getting dumped by some asshole who makes it out like he never fucking cared about you.”
Evan inhaled sharply. Of course he cared. Of course he did. The problem was what people who cared back did. The problem was that he cared too much, infected them with his feelings and then watched as it ruined everything. He’d broken Connor. He’d broken Sabrina. He’d broken himself, and they kept coming back for more, kept coming back for another round of getting hurt and broken because everything around him was collateral damage. Nothing more than collateral damage.
“I cannot believe you,” Sabrina said. “You’re better than this.”
“I’m not,” Evan said. “And I never was.”
“Fuck, Evan, are you okay?” She pressed. “Are you… you’re not planning to hurt yourself are you?”
“Of course not.”
“That is not an of course with you,” Sabrina shouted, climbing to her feet. “You… you have an illness, you have something in you that makes you want to hurt yourself and right now it seems like you’re… severing ties to make it neater, tidier, just a quick exit or some shit and that is not okay.”
“I’m not -”
“Then what the fuck are you doing?” Sabrina shouted and Evan didn’t know he didn’t know what he was doing he was hurting he missed Connor he missed him so much that he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe but the only way to protect him was to keep him out of Evan’s orbit of destruction, the only thing he could do was remove himself the one variable in all of these demolitions, the only thing he could do to protect the love of his life was to break Connor’s heart. “What the fuck happened? Why would you do this why would you -”
“Because he fucking broke my heart,” Evan sputtered, something inside him unable to keep fighting. “Because he… he did something awful, he hurt me so much and I cannot… I can’t trust him anymore I can’t and I can’t make myself see around it, I can’t make myself forgive him I just… I had to get out before either of us got hurt worse.
Sabrina’s face softened. “What did he do?”
“No, that’s not. I can’t tell you I… I can’t tell you.” He needed her to stop he needed her to stop. “Just… just trust me. All I do is hurt him and all he does is hurt me and it’s… we’re bad together. We’re toxic and we don’t trust each other anymore, we don’t and this is the only way, the only way I can… the only way I can keep going okay? I can’t keep pretending we’re fine when we’re broken and fucked up and only hurt each other.”
“What happened?” Sabrina demanded, her voice hard.
Evan shook his head.
“Evan, something must have happened, you don’t just leave the love of your life over nothing…”
Evan sighed. “He. Connor did something and… and he lied to me about it. He lied to my face for… a long time, and when he finally told me… He only told me because I overheard him telling his friend Andi, he wasn’t going to tell me the truth and I… I can’t. He wasn’t going to tell me, he didn’t trust me not to lose my shit and… and now here I am. Losing my shit, all because he didn’t tell me...” Evan was talking in circles, dancing around the harsh reality, because Sabrina wasn’t part of this she didn’t get to know this part no matter how much Evan ached to just tell someone, have someone hear him out, hear his side.
“What did he do?”
“It’s not important,” Evan insisted because it wasn’t. It wasn’t important to her. She couldn’t know the truth she’d have him locked up. “It’s… it’s the fact that he lied. That he wasn’t going to tell me, that I had to find out because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fact that he couldn’t trust me… I can’t get past it. I just can’t. All we do is hurt each other.”
“Evan…”
“I just… after all of it, after everything, it was too much… I couldn’t. I can’t. I love him so much Sabrina but all I do is… by existing in his life I’m hurting him, keeping him to myself and it’s not fair to him or to me or… I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what to do. I just… I can’t keep letting us try to destroy each other every way we know how. I can’t. I can’t know he won’t lie to me again, and I can’t let him keep hurting himself and hurting me. I can’t let him and since I can’t control what he does, I had to go. I had to leave. I needed to… I had to do it Sabrina, I didn’t want to but I had to do it… Before anything else got worse.”
“Fuck, Evan, I am so fucking sorry.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “You could… I mean you could do counseling or-or -”
“No,” Evan said, something final in his tone. “No. I can’t. We’re done. Me and Connor are so over… We have to be because I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take it, it just hurts every single time I look at him… I can’t. Can’t you see that I fucking tried? I tried and I can’t do it. I can’t be a person who… who moves on with this shit. He hurt himself and he hurt me and no matter how much I wish I could trust him again, I just can’t.”
“Evan…”
“I don’t know if I can do this without him,” Evan confessed, feeling himself tear up. “But I know I just can’t be with him anymore.”
It’s not too late in the evening and Zoe’s just having a shower before they heat up some food for dinner, having just come home from work. There’s a knock on the door.
Connor opens the door to find Sabrina Patel standing there.
Well, Sabrina Patel-Smith now, technically. Maybe.
He can’t remember if they hyphenated or if they both kept their names.
The wedding feels like a long time ago.
“Hi,” says Connor, awkwardly.
“Can I come in?” asks Sabrina, her voice quiet.
“Sure,” says Connor, even though part of him just wants to slam the door in her face. He leads her inside and into the living room, where they both take a seat.
Sabrina rubs her forehead from her position on an armchair across from Connor. She looks… tired and frustrated, and she’s clearly trying to figure out what to say. “Look,” she says after a moment. “I talked to Evan.”
“Oh,” says Connor, stupidly, because… of course she did.
He’s her best friend, of course she did.
“I just…” Sabrina begins. She blinks a few times, then looks at Connor, and there’s something harsh in her expression. “How could you?”
Connor’s heart drops to his feet. He feels cold, all the way through him. “What?”
“How could you let him leave?”
“I didn’t let him do anything,” Connor protests. “He… I begged him to stay, I tried to make him stay, he just-”
“You are such a fucking hypocrite, Connor.”
Connor blinks.
Stares at Sabrina, whose eyes are blazing with anger.
“What?”
“You fucking hated me,” Sabrina says, her voice shaking, “for letting him leave, and then you did the same fucking thing! You lied to him about… something and made him freak out and you let him leave! You let him leave when you know he still loves you and you still love him! When you know he’s a fucking mess right now!”
“I didn’t let him do anything,” Connor says again, trying to explain, trying to process what the hell she’s talking about, what Evan might have said. “Sabrina, I tried to stop him, I tried to reason with him, I-”
“He’s being a fucking idiot right now,” Sabrina says, her voice cold. “But that’s not an excuse to just let him go. To let him walk away. You’re supposed to… you’re supposed to be good for him, you’re supposed to protect him, to make him… to make him okay, and you let him leave?”
“What was I supposed to do?” Connor asks, desperately. “Physically stop him from leaving my apartment?”
“Yes!”
“I still get winded if I climb the stairs too fast!” Connor says, hating how he’s making these stupid fucking excuses, hating how they’re true. “Evan can fucking pick me up, if I’d tried to stop him he would have just moved me out of the way, I can’t… you have to believe I did everything I could, you have to believe me.”
“This is your fault,” Sabrina says, her voice harsh. “If he hurts himself, if we lose him, it’s on you, Connor. It’s your fucking fault.” Her voice breaks. “You’re the love of his life, you’re supposed to protect him and you hurt him, you let him go, it’s your fault if he kills himself, it’s-”
“How dare you?”
Connor turns to see Zoe standing in the doorway of the living room, her hair wrapped in a towel, looking angrier than he’s ever seen her.
Sabrina stands up. “This isn’t about you,” she snaps.
Zoe moves closer toward her. “You have no right to come in here and say shit like this to my brother, no fucking right at all, how dare you?”
“Someone needs to talk some sense into him-”
“No,” Zoe snaps. “They don’t. Because Evan left. Evan’s the one who left. Connor didn’t want that, Connor wasn’t the one who threw it away, Connor’s not the one who fucking left someone they claimed to love barely a month after they almost died !”
“Evan’s not thinking clearly,” Sabrina says, almost pleads. “It was a mistake, he made a mistake, he… he said he didn’t want to live without Connor and I’m terrified he’ll kill himself!”
Connor can’t breathe.
He can’t fucking breathe.
“She’s right,” he manages to choke out. “She’s right, what if he hurts himself, what if-”
He can’t keep talking because he can’t breathe, he can’t fucking breathe, and he’s so fucking cold, he’s shaking, he curls into himself on the sofa and tries to claw his way out of this panic attack, but all he can hear is Zoe screaming at Sabrina to get the fuck out.
Then there are arms around him and Zoe’s calm voice, instructing him to count with her, and he tries, he really tries, and it feels like forever but finally, finally he gets his breathing back under control.
“It’s not true,” Zoe says fiercely. “What Sabrina said, it’s not true, it’s not your fault.”
Connor shakes his head. “She’s right.”
“No,” Zoe says firmly. “She’s not.”
Connor doesn’t have the energy to argue.
But he knows what’s true.
And Sabrina’s right.