Chapter Text
Jared Kleinman had always known that one day he’d look back and regret how he acted in high school. He figured everyone did that. He also thought it would be years and years from now. He’d be sitting around with some friends when he hadn’t thought about Evan or this stupid town in years and someone would bring up high school and Jared would say, ‘man I was a dick back then, I shouldn’t have been like that’. And all his cool, new friends would go, ‘yeah me too man.’
He expected it to be a gradual maturing that led up to this realization. What he hadn’t expected was for the regret to slam into him one perfectly lovely August afternoon only three months after graduation.
He knocked on Evan’s front door and it opened fairly quickly and then Heidi was looking at him. A little confused but not displeased.
“Hey Ms. H.” Jared gave her his best ‘I’ve always been the bestest friend to your son’ smile. “Evan here?”
“Oh uh,” She frowned. “Sweetie he left for college two days ago.”
Jared blinked. He felt a rush of cold settle in his stomach. Evan was gone. Jared had never understood the phrase ‘slamming into you like a brick wall’. Until now. Now when he felt like he actually might fall over with the force of it. Gone. Without even a goodbye. He felt heavy. Like he was sinking into the concrete underneath him. Concrete. Oh right. He was still standing on Heidi Hansen’s porch.
“Oh.” He tried to swallow but his mouth was dry.
“He didn’t tell you?” Heidi cocked her head.
“No um, I mean yeah. Of course he did. I just… I totally forgot. Wow. That’s weird. Sorry to bother you.”
“It’s no bother.” She smiled and Jared forced himself to smile back and wave before turning on his heel and trying his best not to full out sprint to his car. He felt numb as he drove home, which was just fine with him. There were feelings a lot worse than numb.
He knew he wasn’t Evan’s best friend by a longshot. (Which was saying something because he was Evan’s only friend.) But still, they’d been spending a little more time together over the summer and they’d at least been getting along. They’d seen a couple movies. They had lunch together nearly every other day. They even went to the god damn zoo together.
And now Jared wasn’t even worth a goodbye? Not one ‘I’m leaving’ text? No mention of his move-in date or anything?
But maybe it was just as much Jared’s fault. He’d always meant to ask Evan when he was moving. He just couldn’t ever find a way to bring it up without sounding like he was asking because he’d miss Evan when he left. That was true, but he didn’t need Evan thinking he cared about him or anything.
Jared laid on his back on the floor and stared at his ceiling. He supposed he always knew Evan would outgrow him. But god did it have to be right now? When Evan was going to college to meet a million new people and Jared was stuck at home alone for another year. And when Jared was still very much… well, it didn’t matter anyway.
Jared hadn’t decided on a major when it was time to apply to college. He also hadn’t decided on a school. He fought with his mother for weeks about it until she finally gave in and allowed him one year off to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Until everyone Jared went to high school with starting moving to various college campuses or starting new jobs in new cities and posting about how great it was to be independent and how excited they were to start their lives. Jared still didn’t know what he wanted to do. But maybe just picking a school and starting his GEs wouldn’t have been the worst idea.
Especially since the only school he was mildly interested in was twenty minutes away from Evan’s. It was coincidental. They’d actively avoided talking about colleges. Well, Jared had anyway. He didn’t want to think about what would happen when they lived hundreds or thousands of miles apart. So what a shock it had been to find out that they would’ve been so close. This revelation was one of the biggest reasons Jared regretted not applying. They could’ve lived in the same city. They could’ve met up for lunch, visited each other’s dorms. They could’ve studied together and met each other’s friends. But instead, Evan moved away without even telling Jared.
It didn’t matter. Jared wasn’t stupid. All that stuff, lunch and friends and studying, that would’ve never happened anyway. Not with them. They had eighteen years to be best friends and look where they were now.
Jared’s mother got home around six and popped her head into Jared’s room.
“I’m home and I’m making-” She stopped when she spotted him slumped on his bed. “What’s wrong?”
Jared thought about lying but he figured there was no point. “Evan left for school.”
“Oh, honey.” Mrs. Kleinman sat on the bed beside him. “I’m sorry. But at least you got to spend today with him huh?”
Jared just nodded. He couldn’t look his mother in the face and tell her that Evan had actually left two days ago and didn’t even think to tell Jared he was going.
After a dinner where Jared lied to his parents about his day with Evan (it wasn’t hard, most things he told them were lies these days), he went up to his room to sulk. He tried to sleep but couldn’t seem to get his brain to shut up. It was a recurring problem. Eventually, he sat up and grabbed his phone.
It was a little past one a.m. Which meant it was a little past ten for Evan. Jared drummed his fingers on his leg. And then he took a deep breath and, before he could think too hard about it, he pressed call.