Page 38 of Signal No. Us

“You want to know what he said?” Ver asked, and continued without waiting for permission, same as always. “Not everything. Big brother privilege only extends so far. But I’ll tell you this much: he’s scared you’ll take the job. Not because he thinks you don’t love him. Because some part of him still expects people to leave, even now, even after everything, and I don’t think that part’s going to fully believe you’re staying until you actually don’t go.”

Allan sat down heavily in the chair across from him, the mural looming behind Ver’s shoulder, the two small painted figures under their storm, hand in hand, a future Allan badly wanted and was, for the first time in weeks, genuinely afraid he might talk himself out of.

“I didn’t tell him for two weeks,” Allan said. “I don’t even fully know why.”

“I think you do,” Ver said. “You just don’t like the answer.”

“Enlighten me, then, Kuya Ver, resident expert.”

“You wanted to see if it would feel like something first. Before you had to decide what to do with it,” Ver said, unbothered by the sarcasm. “A Director title, after they basically threw you out. That’s not nothing, Allan. That’s proof, or it looks like proof, that the last ten years weren’t a waste. I get why you’d want to sit with that quietly for a while before you let anyone else touch it.”

“That’s annoyingly accurate for someone I only ever see with a wedding folder under his arm.”

“I’m a man of many talents,” Ver said, entirely serious, and set the folder down like evidence. “Speaking of, I have a draft of my best man speech. There’s a whole paragraph about you in it too, actually, about the two of you, since apparently I get a bonus little brother out of this wedding whether I asked for one or not. You want to hear it?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Fine. I’ll just tell you now: I’m going to cry harder than my own bride at this rate, and it’ll be your fault as much as his.”

“Get out of your own cinema,” Allan said, and it came out almost like a laugh, some small fraction of the night’s weight easing loose despite himself.

Ver stood, gathering the folder, then paused with his hand on the door.

“So what do you actually want, Allan?” he asked, and for once there was no joke riding underneath it. “Not what proves something. Not what would make Ma proud, or the old you proud, or whatever ghost you’re still answering to. What do you want?”

“I don’t know yet,” Allan admitted. “That’s the whole problem.”

“Then go find out,” Ver said. “Properly. Not scared, not half-deciding before you even land. And Allan—whatever you come back choosing, you’ve got me. I’m actually your brother, not just pretending for the free rent. You know that.”

“Free rent, sure,” Allan said, “that’s definitely why.” It came out thinner than he meant the joke to land, and he found, for the first time since the fight, that hearing it said plainly had actually helped.

He sat alone a while longer after Ver left, under the half-painted mural, tracing the shape of the storm he’d given them both, and let himself hope, carefully, deliberately, the way he was still learning to do most things now.

CHAPTER 21

Cora found him on the back steps the next morning, exactly where she always seemed to find him when something needed saying.

“You two fought,” she said. Not a question.

“How did you⁠—”

“You didn’t eat anything last night,” she said. “And Robby threw the leftovers straight into the trash last night like the plate had done something wrong.” She sat beside him, in no hurry to start, and waited.

Allan told her the email, the title, the number, and the two weeks of silence he’d kept even from her. He expected, honestly, some version of disappointment. What he got instead was worse: patient, gentle listening, the kind that gave him nowhere to hide.

“So this,” she said, when he finished, “is the fear you mentioned before. It’s not just about Robby, is it?”

“I don’t know,” Allan admitted. “All I know is, I saw the number, the title, and it felt like, like proof that I didn’t waste ten years. That I hadn’t failed.”

“Who said you failed?”

“No one. But—my whole life, Ma, I’ve had a way to measure it. Grades. Titles. Salary. Then I came back here, no job, painting a mural I’m not even sure matters, and I got scared. Because if I don’t have a way to measure it, how am I supposed to know if, if I’m worth anything?”

Cora was quiet for a long moment, and when she spoke again, her voice had lost its usual brisk edge completely.

“Allan. Do you know, I was more scared the day I saw you step off that ferry, cracked phone screen, crying in the bathroom your first night here, I was more scared then than I am now, when you have no job but your eyes are actually alive? That’s my measure. Not your title.”

“But what if I’m wrong, and I actually need—need something like that, to feel complete?”