He shook his head. “It’s either/or. You can’t have both together. They are fundamentally incompatible.”
She shook her head. “You’re wrong.”
He threw out the hand holding the cigarette. “Are you disagreeing just to disagree? I’m pretty sure I know more about me than you do.”
“When you read Goodnight Moon. It was Brock’s voice, but Nick’s heart.”
This stopped him. He stared at her. Then he looked down, took a long drag. “Swan,” he exhaled. “This ain’t Goodnight Moon.”
“No, it isn’t. But you are.”
He kept looking down. Had she gotten through to him?
But then he muttered, “Right. You wish I were something I’m not. And I think not just in my read, but in life.”
Sewanee snapped her head back. “Are you–what universe are you currently transmitting from?”
“Yours, lovie.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, that’s not what I–”
“Trust me, that is exactly what this is.” He nodded rapidly, having convinced himself, if not her. “You want both. You want me to be, to be . . . uh . . . Brock McNick! That’s what you want!” He victoriously kicked away someone else’s cigarette butt.
“That’s who you already are, you, you . . . you fart-head!”
Nick had to laugh. “Fart-head?”
Sewanee had to join him. “It’s the best I could come up with, Brock McNick!”
“Well, that’s the best I could come up with!”
They both took a measured breath. Nick flicked ash from his cigarette and Sewanee attempted a gentler tone. “All I’m trying to say is, when you’re working, you’re Brock. And when you’re not, you’re Nick. And I don’t understand why one has to get sacrificed for the other. It’s all you, Nick.”
He took another drag. He was the picture of composure. Almost performatively unruffled. “Yeahhhh,” he exhaled. “I get it now.”
“Good.”
“This is about you, not me.”
Her eyebrows snapped together. “What? What are you–this has nothing to do with me.”
“It has everything to do with you. You’re projecting.”
“Projecting?!”
He attempted a casual shrug. “You said it yourself. You’re trying to reconcile who you once were and who you are now.”
Her mouth fell open. “You are so off-base here. This conversation started because I was talking about the work!”
“And I’m calling bullshit. I don’t think it is about the work. I think we’re talking about something much bigger than the work and–news flash–I don’t give an ever-loving feck about the work anyway.” He came closer, pointed the cigarette at her. “That’s you! That’s you the actor! That’s not me.”
She sliced her hand through the smoke and her voice sharpened. “Can you not wave that in my face? I do give an ever-loving feck about the work so I don’t like secondhand smoke, okay?”
He stepped instantly back. “Sorry.” He muttered a curse, threw the cigarette down, and stamped it out. He said, mostly to himself, “I’m quitting again soon.”
Sewanee gestured at the butt. “You drop something?”
“Huh?”
She rolled her eye and stood and picked it up. “I will never understand why people don’t think this is littering.”
He held out a hand. “Give it here.”
“No.” But now she was walking around trying to figure out what to do with it.
He made a grabby motion. “Seriously.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Sewanee searched for a trash can.
Nick took out his hard pack of cigarettes, flipped it open. Shook it. “I’ll take care of it.”
“I just need to find a–”
“There’s not a one in sight. Just give it here.”
She looked around. He was right.
She stomped over and dropped it in, as if depositing a bag of dog crap on his doorstep.
They retreated from each other, to opposite sides of the stairs. He leaned against one stone banister, she did the same on the opposing one.
A moment of reprieve.
Sewanee watched Nick from the corner of her eye, waiting to see if he had more to say. Because she did. She had something else she desperately wanted to say, but the last time she decided to say what was on her mind–all of five minutes ago–it had ended like this. She didn’t want to hurt him further. She didn’t want to hurt them. But she’d come to realize something from this tiff that felt more relevant than how it began. More relevant than them, even.