The Way We Almost Were ✓

62| for love

"No," Nick answered. "She usually waits till I come in, and then settles into bed."

"So go in," Mike gestured towards the house. "Wait till she calls it a night and then let me inside."

Nick pressed his lips into a tight line and flicked his eyes from the house to Mike, and back again. He breathed out. "Okay," Nick muttered, "Okay. Just stay close -- but out of plain sight. Okay? I can't have someone calling the cops on you."

"Is that concern I hear?" Mike asked, for the first time in that night showing signs of something other than a grave seriousness. There was almost the ghost of a smile on his face. Almost.

Nick chose not to respond and crossed the distance to the front door of Eileen's place.

▂ ▂ ▂ ▂ ▂ ▂ ▂

Twenty minutes later, in the pitch black of the night save for the glow of the moon, Nick found himself on the O'Connell rooftop with Michael.

A few lampposts flickered in the distance, casting enough light around the area that he could make out his brother's features from a few feet away, but still awfully dark that nobody who wasn't in their proximity could identify either boy.

"How's college been?" Michael's casual question in that low tone caught Nick off guard. It seemed like such a normal thing to ask from a sibling -- and the irony of it made something inside Nick ache.

"Great," he responded after a while, moving to stand beside his brother.

Michael had one foot on the low wall, his knee raised a few inches into the air due to the stance. The other foot kept tapping the dusty ground in soundless beats.

"That's good," he murmured, staring at nothing in front of him, where the rest of the neighbourhood was visible, faint specks of light glowing from rooms where night lamps hadn't been switched off or where none of the residents have gone to bed yet. "You always loved pulling apart shit when you were little. Drove mum insane." Michael chuckled, shaking his head and looking down at the roads below, stretching out before them with vehicles parked at random corners. "It took a while for us to understand that you weren't being messy or chaotic, that you just wanted to understand how things worked. So it's good, you know. That you're doing what you love. Following your passion and all that."

Nick's chest clenched, and his eyes burned, so he blinked hard to make the feeling go away.

"I don't know if I might have to continue the course at some other college," Nick said quietly. "If I have to switch states and move from here."

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about." Michael sighed and stepped back from the edge of the rooftop, pulling his foot back from the low wall. He met Nick's eyes, a pair of amber meeting its exact match.

"I had a chat with Sabrina the other night," he told Nick.

"She told me."

"The conversation with her..." Michael's gaze flickered away and he swept his eyes over their surroundings instead. "...Made me realise that maybe this thing never ends. Maybe it's one of those circles of life that just keeps going on. A cycle that keeps running unless someone decides to stop it. To break that chain."

Nick didn't interrupt, choosing to carefully watch his brother instead.

"It's made me see that you might not ever be free, Nicholas," Michael sighed, and the air around them felt so still -- like even the winds were aching for both boys. "And I'm not sure I can live with that."

A car rolled by below them, it's wheels emitting a soft scrunch as they ran over the pebbles and debris.

"It's not your fault," Nick said softly. "You've done all you could to prevent him from finding me. And even now, after he's found out where I am, the only reason I'm still here is because you intervened." He hesitated, then placed a hand on Michael's arm, squeezing slightly. "I'm grateful."