What if He Knew: Chapter Two - The Fracture

Finn has always been the one to fill the silence. He’s the talker, the singer, the one who assumes everything is exactly as it seems. But when Boston flinches from his touch in their favorite diner booth, the facade doesn't just crack—it shatters. Suddenly, ten years of memories are shifting under Finn's feet. Every look, every shared blanket, and every "brotherly" hug takes on a new, heart-wrenching meaning. The "What If" is no longer a question; it’s a confession that changes everything. Is their friendship strong enough to survive the truth, or was the lie the only thing keeping them together?

Chapter Two 

Finn 

The Fracture

I lean forward, intending to grab the sugar shaker just to force him to look at me, but my hand misses the glass and brushes flush against his knuckles instead.

He flinches.

It isn't a small movement. He jerks his hand back like I’ve burned him, his eyes snapping up to mine, wide and full of something that looks terrifyingly like panic. He shoves his hands under the table, out of sight, and the rattling of the silverware against the Formica is the only sound between us.

“Whoa,” I mutter, my hand hovering over the tabletop, still feeling the ghost of his heat. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to jump-scare you, man.”

“It’s fine,” he says, his voice an octave too high.

I frown, the first stirrings of an uneasy realization crawling up my spine. Boston has never flinched from me. We’ve lived in each other’s pockets since we were ten. We’ve shared beds, clothes, secrets, and broken bones. I’m the guy who pulled him out of the lake when he got a cramp in seventh grade. I’m the person he calls at 3:00 AM when the world gets too loud. To him, I’m supposed to be the safe spot.

But as I watch the way his gaze drops to my mouth and then darts away, fast as a heartbeat, I realize I’m not.

The air in the booth suddenly feels very thin.

The coffee in front of me is steaming, the bitter scent of over-roasted beans filling the gap between us, but I can’t bring myself to take a sip. My hand is still tingling from where it brushed Boston’s knuckles. It wasn't even a full touch, just a graze, a split second of skin meeting skin, but the way he recoiled was violent. It was the kind of flinch you give a hot stove or a jagged piece of glass.

It’s a look I’ve never seen on him. Not directed at me.

“Boston?” I say his name again, but it feels different this time. Heavier.

He’s still staring at that sugar shaker, his fingers white-knuckled around the glass. The fluorescent lights overhead are humming, a low-pitched drone that suddenly feels like it’s vibrating inside my skull. Usually, this diner is my sanctuary. It’s where we come to decompress after a double shift, where we talk about the cars we want to build and the places we’ll go once we save up enough.

But tonight, the booth feels like it’s shrinking.

“I’m fine, Finn. Seriously,” he says. His voice is a sandpaper rasp, and he finally looks up, but he doesn’t meet my eyes. He looks at my chin. My shoulder. Anywhere but into the space where I’m trying to find him.

“You’re not fine,” I say, and for the first time in ten years, I feel a prickle of genuine fear. Not the kind of fear you get from a horror movie, but the cold, sinking dread of realizing you’re standing on a bridge and the cables are starting to snap. “You just jumped six inches because I touched your hand. Since when do you do that? Since when are we… this?”

I gesture between us, to the empty air that suddenly feels like a canyon.

Boston lets out a jagged breath, his hands still hidden beneath the table, but I can see the tension vibrating through his shoulders as he retreats further into the fabric of his hoodie. "I’m just jumpy. Too much caffeine. Not enough sleep. Don’t make it a thing, Finn."

Don’t make it a thing. That’s his go-to. Whenever Boston feels exposed, he tries to shrink the world back down to size. But the more he tries to minimize it, the more my brain starts to catalog the last few months. It’s like a film reel that’s been playing in the background of my life, and someone just turned the volume up to a scream.

I think back to the bonfire in October. It was freezing, the kind of New Hampshire cold that gets into your marrow. We were sitting on the tailgate of the Jeep, sharing a flask of cheap bourbon. I’d leaned into him, heavy and relaxed, the way I always do. I’d made some joke about us being old men together, sitting on this same tailgate in forty years, still complaining about the same radiator leaks.

I remember now how he’d gone dead still. He hadn’t laughed. He’d just taken a long pull from the flask, and when I looked at him, his expression was so painful I’d asked if he was getting a migraine.

I thought it was the bourbon or maybe he was just tired.

Then there was New Year’s. My sister, Sarah, had cornered him near the drinks table. She’s always been nosy, always asking why a guy as decent as Boston hasn't brought a girl around in years. I’d been across the room, but I’d caught the look on his face when he glanced over at me. It was a second, not even that, a fracture of a moment where he looked like he was drowning and I was the only dry land in sight.

I’d laughed it off later. I’d told him Sarah was a shark and he needed to get better at dodging her.

He’d just looked at me and said, “It’s not as easy for me to dodge things as it is for you, Finn.”

I didn’t get it then. God, how did I not get it?

“What happened on Friday?” I ask, my voice dropping. I lean across the table, trying to force him to look at me. “The power went out. We were on the couch. I woke up and you were gone. You didn’t even leave a note, you just… you were gone before the sun was up.”

Boston’s jaw tics. I can see the muscle jumping in his cheek. “I told you. I had stuff to do at the shop. Early shift.”

“The shop wasn't even open Saturday, Bos. I texted Miller to see if he’d let you off early so we could grab breakfast, and he told me he hadn't seen you since Friday afternoon. Said the doors stayed locked all day.”

The lie hangs between us, limp and ugly. Boston finally meets my eyes, and the sheer amount of agony in his gaze nearly knocks me back. It’s not anger. It’s not even panic anymore. It’s exhaustion. The kind of exhaustion that comes from carrying a weight that was never meant for one person.

“Why are you doing this?” he whispers. “Why can’t you just let it be?”

“Because you’re my best friend!” I snap, my voice cracking loud enough that the trucker in the corner glances over. I don’t care. “Because I don't know who I am without you, and lately, it feels like you’re trying to erase yourself. You’re right here, but you’re not here. And I don’t know what I did to make you want to leave.”

“You didn’t do anything,” he says, and his voice is so small it breaks my heart. “That’s the problem, Finn. You didn’t do a single damn thing.”

He stands up suddenly, the legs of his chair screeching against the linoleum. It’s a harsh, jarring sound that cuts through the hum of the diner. He looks like he wants to run. He looks like he’s about to bolt out the door and keep going until the Jeep is just a speck in his rearview mirror.

“Sit down,” I say, and it’s not a request.

He hesitates, his chest heaving under his hoodie. For a second, I think he’s going to ignore me. But then the fight seems to drain out of him all at once. He sinks back onto the chair, his shoulders slumped, his head hanging low.

I look at his hands. They’re still trembling.

I think about every time I’ve called him "brother." Every time I’ve joked about us being "platonic soulmates." Every time I’ve hugged him or slapped him on the back or fallen asleep on his shoulder without a second thought. I’ve been moving through our friendship like it was a well-lit room, never realizing that Boston was standing in the shadows, trying to keep the walls from caving in.

The realization is hitting me in waves now. It’s in the way he never talks about the future unless I bring it up. Or in the way he looks at me when he thinks I’m busy with something else, a look so heavy with longing it’s a wonder I didn’t feel it like a physical weight on my skin.

What if he knew?

Boston had thought it. I can feel it now. That question has been the third person in our friendship for God knows how long.

“Boston,” I say, reaching across the table again. This time, I don’t try to touch him. I just leave my hand open on the Formica, an invitation he doesn’t have to take. “Talk to me. Really talk to me. No more 'fine.' No more 'tired.' Just... give me the truth. I can take it. Whatever it is, I promise I can take it.”

He looks at my open palm, then back at my face. His eyes are swimming now, the glassiness breaking into actual tears that he’s trying desperately to blink back.

“You say that,” Boston whispers, his voice trembling as much as his hands. “But you have no idea what you’re asking for. If I tell you... there’s no going back, Finn. Everything we are? It dies the second I say it.”

“Then let it die,” I say, and I mean it. Because whatever we are right now, this ghost-haunted, silent version of us, it’s already dead. I want the real thing. Even if it scares the hell out of me. “Let it die and let’s see what’s left.”

Boston takes a shaky breath, his eyes locking onto mine with a terrifying intensity.

“I’m in love with you,” he says.

The words aren't a whisper and he doesn’t shout them. They’re just a fact, laid out on the table between the salt shaker and the cold coffee.

And just like that, the air in the diner finally stops moving.

Come back tomorrow for another chapter

Copyright © by LS Phoenix

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Published by LS Phoenix

New Hampshire, USA

https://linktr.ee/authorlsphoenix

First Edition: January 2026

Cover Design by LS Phoenix