Chapter Text
“Why don’t you just order something?” Yolanda says through the screen. “You can even throw it in the oven and pretend you made it yourself. Wait — did you even get pans when you divided stuff in the divorce?”
“Nope,” Frank says, not looking up from where he is bringing water to a boil. “I just went to TJ Maxx and got a set. At least, I think it’s a set.”
Which had felt like a win at the time. A cart, a receipt, a clean break. Not like this, standing in a kitchen that still didn’t feel like his, cooking something he wasn’t entirely sure how to finish.
She winces. “This is depressing.”
“Can you tell me what to do next?”
“No.”
He looks up. “What do you mean, no? There’s nothing you love more than bossing me around. You used to shout fake football plays to throw me off my game.”
“Yeah, I did,” she laughs. “Because you suddenly insisted on playing with those idiots instead of sitting with me like a normal person.”
“You mean instead of sitting alone, eating lunch like two weirdos?”
“We weren’t weird,” she says automatically.
He raises an eyebrow.
“…We were selectively social,” she corrects.
He snorts. “Right. Two thirteen-year-olds hiding behind a vending machine because everyone else was unbearable.”
“And look at us now,” she says. “Thriving.”
He gestures vaguely at the stove. “Speak for yourself.”
That earns him another laugh as Yolanda sits down on her couch.
“Yeah, well,” he says, “remember when they locked me in the gym because I hung out with you?”
“Yes, I do. But I’m still not helping you until you admit what this dinner is really about.”
“It’s a nice dinner,” he insists. “That’s it.”
If he says it enough times, it might even sound true.
“No. You don’t go through all this trouble for friends. You gave me Penny’s leftover dinosaur nuggets last time I was there.”
“Because that’s how highly I think of you. Not that I would go out of my way to get you different-shaped nuggets, but you do get the fun ones when they’re available.”
“I’m honored. But I still only go there to hang out with your kids, that’s all.” She yawns and stretches her arms above her head. “No offense.”
“None taken,” he says. “No one comes here to hang out with me anyway.”
Yolanda scoffs. “Ugh, already with the dramatics.”
“You come here to see them, you said so yourself,” he replies.
“Yeah,” she shrugs. “Because your kids are objectively better company than you.”
He smiles despite himself.
It’s not wrong. And it’s easier to let her say it like that than to acknowledge what it actually means — that she’s stayed. Through everything. That Penny and Tanner still run to her when they see her, like that small part of their lives at least hadn’t changed overnight.
“Pretty sure Penny still thinks you outrank me,” he mutters.
“Well,” Yolanda says, unapologetic, “I am her godmother.”
“You insisted on that.”
“Obviously,” she says. “Someone had to make sure you didn’t completely screw them up.”
It lands lighter than it should. Easier to make it a joke than to think about how quiet the apartment gets when they go back to their mom.
He glances down at the pan, frowning at the color of the celery. “Should I have a backup plan? In case I turn this into something inedible?”
“I don’t know, should you?” she shoots back. “What’s the big fuss?”
“I just want to make her something nice to eat, because she covered for me when Tanner got sick,” he says, sharper now. “Don’t twist this into something it’s not.”
Because if it is what Yolanda says it is, then there’s something to lose.
“McKay is constantly switching shifts with you, and you don’t have her over,” she trails off.
He pretends not to hear that.
“This is a date, Frank,” she insists.
“It is not a—”
“You’re cooking for her. You miscalculated the potassium in that case today. You didn’t even flinch when someone bad-mouthed the Penguins in the elevator. You’re in your head. It’s equal parts endearing and pathetic.”
Frank realizes he almost mixed thyme with fennel and sets the container down with a frustrated sigh.
Focus. Measurable things. Ratios. Heat levels. Things he can fix if he gets them wrong.
“Okay, fine,” he says. “Maybe for me it’s a date.”
She leans forward. “What do you mean, for you?”
“I mean that when you invite someone over that you like, it’s a date,” he says. “But when you go to have dinner at your totally unromantic friend from work’s house, it’s just… friends having dinner.”
And if he names it first, maybe it hurts less when Mel doesn’t.
“This is a date, Frank.”
“It is not—”
“You’re cooking for her. You’re distracted. You’re spiraling. I’ve known you since we were thirteen. I know when you’re like this.”
He exhales through his nose. “You don’t.”
“I do,” she says. “Because out of the two of us, you’re the one who falls.”
He glances at her.
“Hard,” she adds.
“That’s not—”
“It is,” she says. “You pick one person, and suddenly it’s the end of the world.”
He wants to argue. Doesn’t.
Because she’s not wrong.
And because he’s already doing it again, has been for the last few months: cataloguing things about Mel, replaying conversations, building something out of maybe nothing.
Yolanda leans back. “Me? I avoid it entirely. Much healthier.”
He almost laughs and is tempted to say something.
But he doesn’t.
Because the image flashes anyway. Yolanda, years ago, sitting on his couch, wrecked in a way he had never seen before or since. Silent, which had been worse than any shouting.
The only time she’d ever let herself fall.
The only time he’d had no idea how to fix it.
“Oh my God,” Yolanda says, after he spaced out. “You’re more stupid than I thought.”
“What would you rather I do? Presume she likes me?”
“Yes. Presume. Take an educated guess. It’s obvious to anyone who’s around you two.”
He pauses, leaning forward on the counter, biting down on his tongue. “Wait… is it?” he asks. “Jesus. Do I stare a lot? Am I a creep?”
“Relax, Radiohead,” she says. “It’s obvious only to people who actually know you. Yes, we can tell that you are head over heels.”
“Okay, smart-ass,” he says, pointing a spoon at the screen. “So you’re admitting you don’t know what she feels.”
“I don’t know her that well,” Yolanda shrugs. “But probably you will after tonight. If you don’t screw this up.”
“High chance that I will.”
Because that’s usually how this goes. Not catastrophically, but quietly. Misread cues. Missed timing. Letting something almost happen and then stepping back before it can.
“Come on, you’re not that rusty.”
“I am. I haven’t done this since I was twenty.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I remember. You sucked back then, too.”
“Hey—”
“Come on, if I weren’t visiting that weekend, you would’ve never mustered up the courage to talk to Abby.”
He rolls his eyes. It’s true.
He had friends in college, but he’d felt like an idiot admitting he didn’t have the nerve to talk to the pretty redhead from calculus. Yolanda had come to visit one weekend, clocked it instantly, and dragged him out to find her so he could introduce himself.
He wonders, briefly, what his life would look like if she hadn’t.
Then she’d gone back to his dorm with one of Abby’s friends, starting one of the many instances that eventually led to the rule that Yolanda wasn’t allowed to hook up with Abby’s friends anymore after she broke one too many hearts.
Abby and Frank used to laugh about it—until Abby didn’t.
Yolanda had always been great at reading other people and kicking their asses into doing something about it. Less great at letting her own guard down.
Not that this was the moment to bring that up.
“You’re gonna deny that too?” Yolanda snaps her fingers at him. “I can make you stir the wrong thing and make a clown of yourself.”
“Fine, yes,” he says. “You’re a perfect wingwoman.”
“And…?”
“And I’m terrible at realizing when a woman likes me.”
That had been a whole other thing. Turns out Abby had liked him too, and Frank hadn’t caught on, not even months into dating.
“Atta boy.”
“That’s not even my fault,” he adds. “I was a late bloomer.”
She laughs. “Yeah, no one knew what to do with you when you came back that summer taller and less awkward.”
“Fond memories.”
“But you do have some game,” she says. “Somehow. I don’t understand straight women.”
“Hey— and not only,” he says, grinning. “I got my fair share of guys hitting on me as well.”
Yolanda narrows her eyes. “Oh, I’m aware.”
He loves riling her up about this.
“You told me enough to be annoying about it and not enough to be useful,” she says. “Which I resent.”
He huffs out a laugh. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“You like being evasive,” she corrects. “Huge difference.”
“Details are overrated.”
“Details are everything,” she says. “I missed one summer, your freshman year of college, and suddenly there’s a whole chapter of your life I don’t get to weaponize against you?”
“Tragic,” he says.
“It is,” she insists. “It’s a Schrödinger’s cat situation now. I both know and don’t know, and I hate it.”
He just smirks.
“You’re the worst,” she says.
“I’ve been told.”
She points at the screen. “I’m getting the full story eventually.”
“Good luck with that.”
“This time I’ll just corner Mel and get the postmortem from her.”
“Please don’t do that.”
He’s about to come up with a wittier response when he burns himself on the pot handle.
“Jesus—”
“Oh my God,” Yolanda laughs. “I haven’t seen you this flustered even—”
She cuts off.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
“What? Come on.”
“Nothing, Frank. Just don’t cause any fires.”
“What were you gonna say?”
She hesitates, which is rare enough that he notices immediately.
“…Even when you called to tell me you were going to ask Abby out.”
He remembers that call. Sitting on the edge of his dorm bed, bouncing his leg endlessly. Overthinking every word he might say.
This feels… uncomfortably similar.
His first official date had been back then. There had been some attempts before that, which didn’t exactly boost his track record.
—
He’s seventeen, sitting on a booth at a diner that suddenly feels too small, too bright, too loud.
Across from him, the girl he’s with keeps checking the door. She is pretty, objectively, in a way he can recognize now but doesn’t know how to respond to. Frank is talking. He knows he’s talking too much. He can hear it happening and still can’t stop it.
“…and then the coach said it was technically offside, but if you look at the replay— well, not replay, obviously, because we don’t have that, but if you did, it would’ve been—”
He cuts himself off.
She’s not listening.
“Sorry,” he says quickly. “I— sorry. I talk a lot.”
“It’s okay,” she says, already halfway out of her seat. “I actually just remembered I promised my friend I’d meet her.”
Of course she did.
“Yeah,” he says, nodding too fast. “Yeah, no, that’s—yeah.”
She smiles, polite, relieved. Gone before he can figure out what the right thing to say would’ve been.
Frank sits there for a second, staring at the condensation ring her glass left behind.
Then he exhales, drops some crumpled bills on the table, and leaves.
Yolanda opens the door after he knocks only two times.
“Took you long enough,” she says, stepping aside. “I thought you were gonna lose your virginity with a cheerleader and abandon me.”
He walks in, already pulling off his jacket. “She left.”
“Wow,” Yolanda says, not missing a beat. “Rude. Did you monologue her into it?”
“Probably.”
She eyes him for a second, then jerks her head toward the couch. “Come on. I taped the episode.”
He doesn’t ask which one.
They fall into it easily. Shoes off, shoulders sinking into opposite ends of the couch, the TV already playing some dramatic argument between people whose lives are objectively worse than theirs.
“Okay, no,” Yolanda says after a minute. “He’s lying. Look at his face. He totally knows that’s her long-lost twin.”
“He’s not lying,” Frank says. “He just doesn’t know the truth yet.”
She turns to stare at him. “You are projecting.”
“Am not.”
“You are.”
He shrugs, grabbing a handful of popcorn straight from the bowl between them.
They watch in silence for a while. It’s a nice alternative when Yolanda has her house to herself. Frank is happy that, for as much as his night was a bust, he can keep her company.
“You’ll get better at it,” she says after a while, like she’s stating a fact.
“At what?”
“That,” she says, waving her hands. “Talking to girls. Not… doing whatever you did tonight.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Doubt it.”
She nudges his foot with hers. “You will. You just need someone who doesn’t get scared off by how your brain works.”
He rolls his eyes. “That’s not a thing.”
“It is,” she says. “You’re just gonna fall for her like an idiot when it happens.”
He snorts. “Yeah, okay.”
She settles back into the couch. “And then I’ll have to deal with you being unbearable about it.”
—
Back in the present, Frank stirs the pot a little too hard.
“Well,” he says, forcing a shrug, “I was stupid and not even an adult. I didn’t know what I was getting into. I was also a better catch back then, so my chances were better.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” He points at his chest. “What do I have to offer Mel?” he says, counting on his fingers. “Addict. Divorced. Two kids. Probably disappointing at least three different versions of God at any given time—”
“Shit,” Yolanda cuts in. “Are we doing Catholic guilt now?”
“You usually start it,” he mutters.
“I do not.”
“You literally lit candles for exams until you were twenty-five.”
“That was strategy,” she says. “Not faith.”
“Right.”
“At least I’m not out here collecting sins like Pokémon cards,” she shoots back. “Divorced and repressed? Pick a struggle, Frank.”
He winces at the dig, but pretends it doesn’t get to him.
She notices. Of course she does.
“I don’t even know if I’ll have a position at the hospital next year,” he continues. “Anxiety-riddled, overactive, fucked-up loser—”
She just looks at him.
“You were always a fucked-up loser, that’s nothing new.”
He exhales.
“But now you’re in recovery,” she continues. “You go to therapy. You show up. You adore your kids. You’re a great dad. And you’re a great doctor. They’d be insane not to offer you a position.”
He blinks at her.
“How long do I have?” he asks.
“What?”
“How long do I have to live? That’s why Mel’s coming over, right? This is Make-A-Wish?”
“Fuck you.”
“I’m serious,” he says. “This is the first time I’ve heard you string that many compliments together without being drunk and then vomiting in my car.”
“I can take it all back.”
“But you won’t.”
He turns back to the stove.
“You’re in your head,” she says now, easy, like she’s said it a hundred times before.
She has.
—
It’s 3 a.m., the fluorescent lights too bright for the hour, the hospital quieter but never actually quiet.
Frank is standing at the nurses’ station, flipping through a chart like he’s looking for something that isn’t there.
“Langdon.”
He doesn’t look up.
“Frank.”
Still nothing.
Yolanda steps closer and taps the chart down just enough to break his line of sight.
“You’re done,” she says.
“I’m not,” he says immediately. “I just need to double-check—”
“You triple-checked it already.”
“I could’ve missed something.”
“You didn’t.”
He exhales sharply, running a hand through his hair. “I’m just making sure.”
“No,” she says, steady. “You’re trying to outrun the fact that you’re exhausted.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been on for, what, sixteen hours?”
“I said I’m fine.”
His voice comes out tighter than he intends.
Yolanda watches him for a second. She doesn’t push, but doesn’t back down either.
Same as always.
“You don’t have to prove anything,” she says finally.
He lets out a quiet, humorless laugh. “Yeah, I kind of do.”
She tilts her head. “To whom?”
He doesn’t answer.
Because the list is long. Attendings. Patients. Himself. Some version of God he’s not even sure he believes in anymore.
Second year of residency, and it still feels like he’s one mistake away from being sent back to square one.
“Go sit down,” she says.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I can’t,” he repeats, softer now.
She studies him, something flickering across her face. Recognition, maybe, of the same type of behaviour she falls into. Or concern.
“Okay,” she says, adjusting. “Then at least drink water before you pass out and make me do your job for you.”
That gets a weak huff out of him.
“Bossy,” he mutters.
But he is secretly thankful that she came to check on him after her surgery shift ended. Because it means someone’s paying attention. Because it means someone will step in before he goes too far.
He grabs the cup she shoves into his hand, takes a sip.
“Better?” she asks.
He nods.
It’s a lie.
But it’s enough for now.
—
They move on. The soup simmers.
“Cooking seafood is a gamble,” Yolanda says.
“She’s not allergic…” he mutters.
“How do you know?”
He freezes.
“What? No— I just guessed.”
“Langdon…”
“Dr. Garcia?”
She stares at him, clearly trying to be intimidating. It still kind of works on him.
“…I overheard her telling Whitaker she likes this kind of soup,” he admits.
“When?”
“…Last winter.”
“Oh my God. You are a creep.”
He smiles faintly.
“But then again, she might be into it. I remember the first case you worked together,” Yolanda says. “You both looked disgustingly dazzled.”
“That was me being a good teacher.”
It had been the first time he had noticed how steady Mel was under pressure. How, even if she second-guessed herself, she was able to speak about it in a way he never could.
“And I’m surprised you noticed anything with how you were eye-fucking Santos,” he says toward the screen.
Yolanda flips him off.
“And that wasn’t our first case,” he adds. “At least not the first one we worked alone together.”
“Oh, of course you remember,” she says. “You probably have it written in your diary. ‘Frank and Mel 4ever <3.’”
“You’re wasted as a doctor,” he says. “The regional comedy circuit is really missing out on you.”
She laughs, delighted. Then straightens.
“Come on. Tell me.”
He hesitates.
“…Four years old. Took one of his dad’s edibles.”
Yolanda quiets immediately.
“He was about Tanner’s age,” Frank says.
The memory comes back sharper than he wants: the weight of it in his chest; the reflexive panic that had nothing to do with the case and everything to do with what could have been.
“I called Abby,” he says. “Said I wanted to talk to him. But really, I was just… scared.”
“Frank…”
“I was judging those parents,” he says. “And I was worse.”
He can still feel it— the certainty that he didn’t deserve to be the one standing there, telling anyone anything.
“No,” Yolanda says, firm. “You were never high around your kids. You wouldn’t have let Tanner get into anything. Neither would Abby.”
“She’s the only reason I didn’t fuck it all up,” he says, gripping the counter.
“Frank, look at me.”
He does.
“You’re a good dad. Even at your worst.”
He exhales.
“Thank you,” he says. “But look at me now. Look at them. I’m making them grow up without their father. I’m putting them through more crap just by being away.”
And every time he leaves, it feels like he’s choosing it. Even when he knows he isn’t.
“You’re not,” Yolanda says immediately. “Things weren’t working between you and Abby for a while, Frank. You know this. I know this. Abby knows this.”
“Doesn’t mean my kids need to understand that,” he says. “All they know is their father’s not there to kiss them goodnight most of the time.”
He can picture it too clearly— Penny already half-asleep, Tanner pretending not to care, the space where his dad is supposed to be, empty.
His throat tightens. He runs a hand through his hair before anything can show on his face.
“You don’t have to know this because you’re a lucky asshole who grew up with loving parents,” Yolanda says, in that blunt, unfiltered way she uses when she’s trying not to soften something. “But parents staying together just for their kids? It’s a nightmare. Trust me. I know.”
He does know. He remembers her house.
The times he’d been over there, the air always felt wrong. Either too quiet, like everything had already been said and no one wanted to say it again, or too loud, voices cutting over one another, doors closing too hard.
And Yolanda, somewhere in the middle of it, acting like none of it touched her.
It had.
He’d seen it.
After one particularly bad afternoon, her dad shouting that he felt trapped, her mom firing something back about wasting her life, Frank had started inviting Yolanda over more. To study. To hang out. To do nothing.
“I’m sorry, Yo-yo.”
“It’s okay,” she says. “Your mom fed me. Repeatedly.”
He glances at her.
She shrugs. “Don’t make it a thing.”
“Only reason I put up with you, Frankie,” she adds.
He hasn’t heard her say it like that in years.
Frankie.
It pulls something loose before he can stop it. He shouldn’t be thinking about this now, but he does.
—
They’re thirteen, sitting on the low concrete ledge behind the gym because everywhere else is too loud or full of people who already seem to know who they are.
Frank has a sandwich he’s not eating. Yolanda has a juice box she’s stabbing the straw into like it personally offended her.
“They’re all idiots,” she says, watching a group of kids laughing loudly across the yard.
“They’re just… normal,” he says, though he doesn’t sound convinced.
“Well, I don’t want to be normal,” she snaps. “I just don’t want them to think I’m weird.”
“You just called them idiots.”
“Yeah,” she says, stubborn. “But they don’t get to call me that.”
He huffs a laugh, finally taking a bite of his sandwich, splitting the other half with her.
“You’re intense,” he tells her.
“You’re annoying,” she shoots back.
There’s a beat.
“…Frankie.”
He looks at her. “What?”
“That’s what I’m calling you,” she says, like it’s already decided.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“It’s not even my name! No one calls me that.”
“Your mom does.” She’s been spending more time at his home after school when they got together to study. He thought she would find it annoying, but apparently, she welcomes the excuse to be away from her own house.
“And I do too, now,” she says with a smirk.
He shakes his head, but there’s no real resistance in it.
“Fine,” he says, rolling his eyes.
They sit there a while longer, not talking.
At some point, the bell rings. Neither of them moves right away.
“You coming?” he asks, standing up.
“In a second,” she says.
She watches the yard like she’s bracing herself for something.
Frank hesitates. Then he sits back down.
“I’ll wait,” he says.
She doesn’t look at him when she nods.
—
He comes back to the kitchen with the sound of something simmering too hard in the pot.
“Shit,” he mutters, turning the heat down, then immediately lifting the lid as if that somehow helps.
“You think it would be extremely awkward to see her at work if this blows up in my face?” he asks, scratching at his temple.
“Maybe,” Yolanda says, tilting her head. “You could just… not.”
“Not what?”
“Not blow it up,” she says.
He huffs. “Very helpful.”
“I try.”
He grabs a spoon, stirs once, twice, then sets it down again.
Then, picks it back up. There’s that restlessness again— the one that never really lets up.
“Make sure you don’t cross shifts with her if it gets too uncomfortable,” she adds. “That’s what I do.”
He glances at the screen. “Didn’t know you had a system.”
“Well,” she shrugs, “people get attached. It’s easier this way.”
He leans back against the counter, arms crossing loosely.
“Right,” he says. “Efficient. Emotionally healthy.”
“Exactly.”
He snorts.
“You schedule your avoidance now?”
“I optimize,” she corrects.
He shakes his head, a small smile tugging at his mouth.
“Yeah, that sounds sustainable.”
“It is,” she says, too quickly.
She sounds sure of herself.
She always does– even when she’s completely full of shit.
Frank taps the spoon against the edge of the pot, then sets it down harder than necessary.
Because he knows this system. Knows what it looks like when she decides something is easier than dealing with it.
It’s the same tone she used when she insisted she didn’t care.
When she said it wasn’t a big deal.
When she spent a whole week sleeping on his and Abby’s couch, her eyes lost in soap operas on the TV,
He exhales, pushing the thought away before it fully forms.
But at least, if she has doubts, she keeps them from showing. There had only been one time she sounded truly unsure.
—
They’re sixteen, sitting in his car outside her house.
The engine is off. The radio is still playing low, some Air Supply song he hasn’t bothered to turn off.
Yolanda hasn’t moved to get out.
That’s what tips him off.
She’s staring at him in a way that immediately puts him on edge.
“What?” he asks.
“What what?”
“You’ve been glaring at me for, like, three minutes.”
“I have not.”
“You have. Did I do something?”
She exhales sharply. “No.”
A beat.
“…Maybe.”
He shifts in his seat. “Yolan—”
“There was this girl today,” she cuts in.
He blinks. “Okay?”
“Ashley.”
He blinks. “Ashley…?”
“Ashley Dubois,” she says, like that should be obvious.
He takes a second. “Oh. From lit?”
“Yes,” Yolanda says flatly.
He tries to picture her. “She sits in the front, right?”
“Of course she sits in the front,” Yolanda mutters.
“She seems… nice?” he offers.
Yolanda just stares at him.
“She kept asking about you.”
He frowns, confused. “Why?”
Yolanda lets out a short, disbelieving laugh.
“She asked what you’re like, what you listen to, if you’re seeing anyone—”
“She probably needed notes,” he says. “Or, like, something for class.”
Yolanda goes very still.
“You think she was asking about your music taste for class?”
“I mean— yeah? Maybe?”
She turns fully toward him now.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“What?” he says. “Why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not mad at you.”
“You are.”
“I’m not—” she cuts herself off, pressing her lips together.
He waits.
“…She likes you,” Yolanda says finally.
He blinks.
“What?”
“She. Likes. You.”
He stares at her, then laughs, awkward. “No, she doesn’t.”
“Oh my God.”
“She doesn’t,” he insists. “Why would she—”
“Because you got taller and stopped dressing like a substitute teacher,” she snaps.
He winces.
“And suddenly people can see you,” she adds, sharper now.
He goes quiet.
“…Okay,” he says. “Why does that make you mad?”
“It doesn’t,” she says immediately.
It clearly does.
He studies her. “I thought you hated her.”
“I didn’t hate her.”
“You hated her.”
“I didn’t—” she exhales, frustrated. “She’s just…” She searches for the word, then finds it.
“Empty.”
Frank furrows his brow. “That’s a little harsh.”
“She asked me if you liked ‘whatever movie is playing right now,’” Yolanda says. “That’s a direct quote.”
He tries not to laugh.
“And then she told me she ‘loves deep conversations’ and followed it up with—” she gestures vaguely—“nothing. Absolutely nothing. No thoughts. Just vibes.”
He snorts. “That’s your criteria for hating people now?”
“She doesn’t even know you,” Yolanda continues. “Not really. She just decided you’re interesting now because you look different.”
He shifts slightly in his seat.
“So you’re mad because she’s shallow,” he says.
“I’m not mad.”
“You’re mad.”
She glares at him.
“I’m mad because she’s empty and I like her,” she blurts out.
She winces immediately, like she regrets the phrasing, the timing, all of it.
“Okay,” she says, taking a deep breath. “I’m gonna say something, and you’re not allowed to make it weird.”
“That sounds like a trap.”
“It’s not a trap,” she snaps. Then, quieter: “Just, don’t.”
He nods. “Okay.”
She nods too. Once. Twice.
Then nothing.
Frank glances at her, then back at the windshield.
“…Yoli.”
“I like girls, Frankie,” she says, softer now.
It lands in the car like something dropped too fast.
Frank just looks at her.
Because that was not where he thought this conversation was going.
“I mean—” she starts, then stops, shaking her head. “Forget it.”
“No,” he says quickly. “Don’t, don’t do that.”
She goes quiet.
And he stays silent too, because he doesn’t actually know what the right sentence is supposed to be here.
So he goes with the only true thing he has.
“Okay.”
She turns to him, sharp. “Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s it?”
He shrugs, a little helpless. “You said don’t make it weird.”
“I didn’t say don’t say anything.”
“Right,” he says. “Sorry. Uh…” He tries again. “Does this mean I have to stop making fun of your taste in women before I even knew it existed? Like with shallow Ashley?”
She stares at him.
Then, despite herself, a small, startled laugh breaks through.
“You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Consistent.”
There’s a pause, and she doesn’t even comment on his terrible taste in music as the next song plays. Which is new.
She exhales, some of the tightness leaving her shoulders.
“I didn’t tell anyone else,” she says.
“Okay.”
“And you can’t—” she starts.
“I won’t,” he says immediately.
She studies him for a second, like she’s checking if he understands what that actually means.
He does.
“Okay,” she says again.
Then, quieter: “My mom would lose her mind.”
He nods.
He can picture it. The tension in that house, already stretched thin, snapping in a second.
She lets out a short laugh. “Another thing to carry. So that’s fun.”
“Sounds fun,” he echoes.
She leans her head back against the seat, eyes on the ceiling.
“I just— I didn’t want you to find out from someone else and make it weird,” she says.
“I’m not gonna make it weird.”
“You might,” she says. “You make a lot of things weird.”
“Fair,” he admits.
She glances at him again.
“You’re… okay?” she asks, clearly hating that she has to.
He frowns. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. People are… people. And they know we’re friends.”
He thinks about that.
About the guys at school. The locker room talk. The way things get said casually, like they don’t mean anything.
Then he looks at her.
“No,” he says finally. “People are people. You’re you. Fuck them.”
She holds his gaze for a second longer than usual.
“…That was almost a good sentence,” she says.
Then she reaches for the door handle and stops.
“Hey,” she says.
“Yeah?”
“If you ever tell anyone, I will ruin your life.”
He snorts. “Good to know.”
“I’m serious, Frankie.”
“I know,” he says.
She opens the door.
“Night, idiot.”
“Night, Yoli.”
She steps out, then leans back in for a second.
“…Thanks.”
He shrugs, like it’s nothing.
Like it’s obvious. Like staying was never a question.
——
Back in his small kitchen, Frank watches the steam rise from the pot.
He thinks about all the things they’ve never said out loud, but they don’t really need to.
“Leave it on low for five minutes,” she says finally. “Then go shower. Wear the blue shirt your mom got you for your last birthday, it makes you look half decent.”
He rolls his eyes. “More compliments. Definitely dying.”
“If you keep this up, I will kill you.”
He laughs. “Spoken like a true butcher.”
“And to think people had doubts about our potential.” She stands up and grabs a beer from her fridge.
When he is wired like this, Frank wishes he could take the edge off at least with a drink. He knows why he can’t, but still, it doesn’t make it suck any less.
“And look how great we turned out,” he says, a crooked smile pulling at his mouth. “Well, mostly you. Don’t think Father Thomas would have a glowing review of my life choices.”
“Listen, asshole,” she cuts in. “The martyr act is not productive, and it’s definitely not a turn-on. So lock it away if you want to get laid.”
He exhales, somewhere between a scoff and a laugh.
It’s easier like this. Let her pull him out before they sink too far into the melancholy.
“It’s not that type of dinner,” he insists.
“I thought we agreed it was a date.”
“Okay,” he says. “Then it’s not that kind of date.”
“Whatever,” she shrugs. “But if I have to give you a pep talk before you have sex, I need something stronger than this.” She tips her beer toward the camera.
“Fuck you,” he says, shaking his head.
“No, see, this friendship works because that was never on the table.”
He raises an eyebrow. “So you don’t believe in friendship between men and women? Or, in your case, to be able to be friends with women?”
“I do,” she says quickly. “I have tons.”
“Sure,” he says. “Like Dr. Walsh.”
“I can end this call right now,” Yolanda says, though she has the decency to look a little caught.
“Of course, there’s Santos,” he adds. “But I thought you would’ve moved on to a different friend by now.”
She actually blushes.
Frank blinks.
Well. That’s new.
Hell might’ve frozen over.
Sorry, Father Thomas.
“I—I think I might be over the drama,” she says, hands moving as she talks, as if she’s trying to organize the thought mid-sentence. “And, uh, yeah. It’s my last year of residency. I should focus.”
Yolanda Consuelo Dolores Garcia, stuttering over a woman she’s sleeping with.
He didn’t think he’d ever see the day.
“Well,” he says, smirking just enough to give her an out, “as many friends as you have, no one’s as nice as me, right?”
“No,” she says immediately. “No one is as annoying as you.”
He laughs.
It comes easier now. Lighter.
A few minutes pass as he chops vegetables and stirs in clams, and Yolanda instructs when to lower the heat, when to add the cream.
“I’m sorry, Frankie,” she says suddenly.
He stills. It’s the second time tonight.
She hasn’t called him that in years. Not like this.
Not since starting residency. Not since Tanner and Penny were born.
Not since the night he called her after Robby suspended him and he couldn’t stop shaking.
“What are you sorry for?” he asks.
She shrugs, but it’s not casual. “For not being there when I should have been.”
He shakes his head immediately. “You were there.”
“I wasn’t enough.”
“You were,” he says. “You always are.”
“I should have realized you were struggling,” she says quieter.
“Yoli, no,” he says immediately. “I did my damn best to make sure no one could get close.”
“I should’ve anyway.”
“You were busy,” he says. “You were… you.”
Which is the closest he gets to saying it, how she’s always been like that. Pushing, proving, refusing to be underestimated in rooms that weren’t built for her. It’s the kind of confidence he admires in her, and that he seems to have lost alongside the pills.
She huffs. “Yeah, well. Turns out being stubborn doesn’t make you observant.”
“No,” he says. “It just makes you impossible.”
She almost smiles.
There’s a pause, familiar and heavy.
“Okay,” she says briskly. “Enough of this sappy shit. Go shower. Try not to scare her away with your face. Dazzle her with your nerdy bullshit.”
“You passed AP History because of me,” he points out.
“Your hyper fixation was useful back then. Maybe your ADHD will finally get you laid.”
“It’s not that kind of dinner!”
“You’re exhausting,” she says. “Go shower.”
“Love you, Yo-yo.”
She huffs.
“Hang up, Frank.”
Then, shaking her head but smiling, “Good luck, idiot,” she says.