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Eddie pads down the stairs quietly, careful not to wake his parents. It’s late at night in El Paso, even the cicadas have gone to sleep, the silence of the desert rolling through the town. The moon is gleaming and full, shining through the kitchen window as Eddie enters the room. It casts the house in an ethereal silvery light, and Eddie feels like he’s wading through a dream.
He only has tonight to do this. Tomorrow, he’ll be forced onto an altar in front of ten of his closest relatives and become someone’s husband and someone’s father.
He picks up the landline and carries it to the dining table, mindful of tangling the wires on anything that would make a noise. He sits, taking the piece of paper from his pocket, the one he’s folded and unfolded a million times before. He doesn’t even need to look at the paper, but he does. Pennsylvania is two hours ahead, so it’s even later for Buck. But Eddie doesn’t even have to consider the fact that he might not answer. He’ll be awake.
He takes a minute to breathe in and out, careful breaths he’s been learning in the first few lessons of the military program he enrolled in last month. He doesn’t know how to start this, but he can’t hesitate any longer. He dials.
It only rings three times before he hears the click of the receiver and a “Hello?”.
An exhale punches out of his chest at the sound of Buck’s voice. He can’t help it, it’s fully instinctual.
“Buck,” Eddie says.
“Eddie? Hi!”
Eddie pauses at the sound of his name on Buck's tongue. Breathes in and out, and then again, holding the phone away from his face.
"Eddie? Are you there?” Buck asks, crackly as the phone calibrates. His voice sounds tired, but he’s awake. He’s there.
Get it together, Eddie. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”
“One second, Eds,” Buck says, and Eddie can hear noises from the other end, presumably Buck going to shut himself in his room too. He used to have his own landline, a fact that shocked Eddie to his core, but his parents took it away when they found out who he was calling.
“How are you?” Buck asks, and Eddie can picture him in the room he’s only seen polaroids of, his back against the wall under the window, the night breeze washing over him.
“I’m fine,” Eddie says. “How are you?”
“I’m fine too. I missed your voice.”
Eddie still wonders how saying things like that comes so easily to him. “I missed yours, too.”
“So, a late-night call, huh? I didn’t know you had it in you,” Buck says teasingly, though there’s no bite behind it.
“Oh, ha-ha. Get your mind out of the gutter, Buckley,” Eddie replies, though it gives him no distraction from his nerves.
“Pfft, never,” Buck says. Eddie can imagine the scar on his cheek and the quirk of his eyebrow as he laughs softly. He closes his eyes and leans forward, chest pressing on the table edge and grounding him. “What’s up?”
“I’m…” Eddie swallows anxiously. “I need to tell you something.”
He can hear the smirk as Buck says, “If you’re trying to come out to me, I already know.”
“Oh, you're so funny."
He laughs again, louder this time. Eddie wants to bottle it and keep it. Put it on a mixtape and play it on loop. He never wants to go a day without that sound.
“Okay, what’s up?” Buck asks.
“Um…”
Eddie opens his mouth, and nothing comes out. He realizes that he never thought about what he’d say to Buck. When he spat it out to his parents, he knew that they’d be full of catholic fury, but he’d faced that before. He doesn’t know how Buck will react. He’ll be mad, Eddie thinks, but Buck’s never been mad at him before. He doesn’t even know if he can be.
“You’ll be angry.” He manages to say. He feels like a kid again, sitting in the confession booth, begging for forgiveness. He just prays that Buck will forgive him.
There’s a pause. And then Buck says, “No, I won’t.”
“You can’t say that before I tell you what it is.”
“Sure, I can. I couldn’t be mad at you, ever.”
“No, don’t say that,” Eddie says, his voice dying out.
He can feel Buck’s hesitation. “Okay.”
Eddie’s almost breathless, his forehead almost pressing on the old oak of the table. This was his Abuela’s table, and he wonders how many secrets it's heard in its days, how many confessions it’s absorbed into the grain that will never escape it. He hopes this won’t be the first.
He lifts his head slightly, looking into the backyard. He can see the Franklin Mountains out the kitchen window. He can see them from his bedroom, too. Sometimes he imagines himself crossing them and never coming back. He shuts his eyes.
“Eddie?” Bucks asks, softer.
“I’m getting married.”
A pause. A long one, stretching on. It feels infinite, though it couldn’t have been longer than a few seconds. Eddie suffers through it with bated breath.
“What?”
Eddie shakes his head like they’re talking face-to-face and not two thousand miles apart.
“Eddie, what?” Buck asks again. He doesn’t sound angry, more like stunned, but it’s an unfamiliar sound all the same.
“I’m…”
“You’re getting married?”
“I wasn’t… I didn’t want to tell you like this, Buck, I swear. I didn’t want this, I don’t want this.”
“I…” Buck breathes, and it goes silent. Eddie’s expecting to hear the slam of the receiver, the monotone beep of the disconnect tone. He’s expecting Buck to lash out at him. He’s expecting yelling and anger and a definite end. Maybe if it ends in anger, it’ll be easier to get over.
What he doesn’t expect is for Buck to ask, “When?”
Eddie exhales, but it does nothing to calm him. “Tomorrow,” He manages.
“Tomorrow? You’re getting married tomorrow, and you’re only just telling me?”
“It was only decided last week. It’s not a proper wedding, just a courthouse thing. I swear, Buck, you have to believe me.”
He’s knelt at the altar again. He’s saying grace, fumbling with his rosary at Sunday school. He’s feeling that underlying guilt, the apology, the one that seems to be present in everything he does. He’s never felt it around Buck until now.
“I believe you,” Buck says, though Eddie can tell it was resoundingly difficult, his usual soft, deep voice sounding strained. “Who is it? Is it…”
Eddie knows the end of that question. Is it a girl?
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s uh, Shannon. You remember Shannon?”
“Your… lesbian best friend?”
“Well, that was a theory.”
“A very valid one.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Buck’s taking this in. Eddie feels bad for dropping this on him at two in the morning, and he knows that if he were there, he’d be able to see the wrinkle between his eyebrow that he gets when the gears in his head are turning.
“Why are you getting married? And so fast?”
Eddie doesn’t exactly know how to swallow this part. It’s so much responsibility, and so quick. He doesn’t know how he could ever be a father, not with the role model that he barely has. He takes a deep breath before he speaks.
“She’s pregnant.”
“What?” Eddie’s a little afraid that Buck's going to have some sort of medical conniption, but if he doesn’t get this all out quickly, he’ll lose his nerve. “Is it yours?” Buck asks.
He almost can’t believe he’s being asked that, but Buck is the only person on the planet who knows that Eddie’s completely gay, and so if it were anyone else asking, he’d be offended.
But he just says, “Yeah. It’s mine, Buck.”
“How?”
"Well, I didn't think I'd have to explain that to you."
He can hear the eye roll down the line. He knows what Buck meant. I thought you were gay. And he is. He is.
"I mean, how did that happen?"
Eddie sighs. "I don't know. I think we’d been drinking? There was a party involved— I can’t really remember it.”
Buck goes quiet for a few moments.
"Are you mad?" Eddie asks, feeling small, like he wants to shrink and hide under the tablecloth.
Buck clears his throat. "No. No, I'm not angry. Just... wow, Eddie. You're having a baby."
"I know."
“You’re only eighteen.”
“Yeah…”
He can’t pretend like he hasn’t been thinking about that, too. He was never going to college; that’s been off the table for him since seventh grade. But he’d thought that maybe he could get out of El Paso. Run away and start a new life. And whenever he let himself fantasise about packing up and leaving, he always ended up picturing Buck by his side.
Maybe it was stupid to think that. Even if he hadn’t gotten Shannon pregnant, his fate was never to leave. He was always doomed to stay in Texas. But something about Buck had made him play with the idea that maybe, somehow, he could get out.
Stupid. He was so fucking stupid.
"So, what's, um…" Buck clears his throat again. "What's going to happen with us?"
Eddie exhales. This will be the hardest part. This is the end. It's hard going into something with only one fate. No escape. The indefinite. He hates it.
"Shannon knows about us," He starts.
"Yeah, I know."
"And she wants…” Eddie coughs lightly, the words catching in his throat. He spits them back out. “She and I, we’re best friends. We aren’t dating, but we're gonna be married, you know?"
“Eddie,” Buck whispers, probably already knowing where this is going.
“Buck, she doesn't want me talking to you anymore. I shouldn't even be talking to you now.”
“She can’t police who you call,” Buck says, scoffing. He sounds petulant, and Eddie can’t blame him. He felt the same way.
“She doesn’t use landlines. We aren’t gonna have one in our house.”
“What about using a— a payphone? You could tell me the number so I know it’s you.”
“Buck…”
“How about letters?”
"What?"
"Uhm, letters. Remember, I send postcards to Maddie because her husband is a piece of shit?"
"Buck..."
"I can send them to a P.O. box or something. Or your work. Where do you work, again? Is it still your uncle's place?"
"Buck—"
"Shannon won't have to know. You know, now she's your wife, I'm your only best friend."
But they aren’t just best friends, though, are they? They’re more, they’ll always be more. It seeps out of every one of Eddie’s pores. It started the day they met, a supernova crackling into existence as Eddie walked into his military school dormitory. A mixing of souls, of minds, of bodies. It’s irreversible, and Eddie can’t pretend that it’s anything that it’s not.
He’s sure that Shannon can tell when he’s not present, when he’s thinking of Buck. She used to make fun of him for it. He doesn’t know when her amusement turned to irritation.
"You know it's more than that," Eddie whispers down the line.
Buck is undeterred. "Why don't you tell her that we're—"
"I have, Buck. I've told her we're just friends. I've told her that I lied about everything that happened between us. I've told her that I'll never talk about you again. She doesn't care. She doesn't want us to speak to each other again."
He's silent. It stretches. Eddie feels sick. He closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the cool plastic of the telephone.
“Eddie…” Buck says. It sounds reverent and terrified, all of his emotions bubbling to the surface, as they always do. He makes Eddie feel it too, incapable of hiding feelings or secrets from each other. It’s why Eddie fell in love with him. It’s why Eddie can't keep being in love with him.
“I’m so sorry, Buck.”
“No, it’s…” But he trails off. They can’t do anything to fight this. Fate has dealt her cruel hand, and now Eddie has to submit to it.
"Do I at least get a picture of your baby?" Buck asks. He's trying to lighten the mood, but it only makes Eddie feel worse, bile rising in his throat. Static crawls down the line like the tension is affecting the universe, space and time itself. It probably is.
"Buck..."
He hears Buck exhale shakily. He hopes to God he hasn't made him cry; he’d truly never forgive himself.
“Eddie,” Buck says again.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“It’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is.”
“No, it’s really not.”
“Buck, it—”
“No, Eddie, it’s not. It’s not your fault. You made a mistake, it's not your fault.” Buck says. His voice is still shaky, but he sounds firm. Eddie can’t help but believe him.
He can feel the ridges of the table digging into his cheek, but he doesn’t move.
“I don’t know how to do this,” He confesses. It applies to everything. He doesn’t know how to let Buck go. He doesn’t know how to be a husband. He doesn’t know how to raise a baby. He’s terrified.
He can almost see Buck’s face in front of him, can picture ocean blue eyes looking into his as he says, “You’ll figure it out. You’ll be okay, Eds.”
(A year later, a postcard comes through Buck’s letterbox. There’s no return address on it, and he’s lucky his parents didn’t see it. It’s a picture of the sweetest, most round-faced baby he’s ever seen, with blonde curls that rival his own. The name Christopher is written on it, in the same handwriting that Buck remembers copying homework from. He keeps it, treasures it, even after he runs away. Even when he has nothing.)