It became a routine without either of them naming it as one. Paul was on the wall most evenings now, and Noel had stopped pretending the boy's presence was incidental, and they walked together through the lower quarter in the particular comfortable quiet that had grown between them over the past two weeks, conversations that moved between nothing in particular and, occasionally, something that mattered more than either of them acknowledged directly.
Noel had started bringing two portions of bread instead of one.
He had not decided to do this. He had simply found himself, at the baker's counter, asking for two instead of one, the decision arriving below the level where he would have had to examine it, and Paul had accepted the second portion the first time without comment, the way he accepted most things, and it had become part of the routine alongside everything else.
It was on the fourteenth evening that Noel decided to end it.
He had been turning the decision over for several days, the particular dread of watching something become important to him at exactly the moment when he had decided he was not safe to be important to anyone. He thought of the two situations in the square and the alley, the hesitation, the arrival too late, the proof accumulating that something fundamental had broken in him that he could not yet repair. He thought about Paul standing near him in any one of those moments instead of safely elsewhere, and the thought arrived with a coldness that settled the matter.
He could not protect this child if it mattered.
He had demonstrated, twice now, that the protecting did not arrive when it was needed. And Paul, walking beside him most evenings, trusting him in the specific uncomplicated way that children trusted adults who paid them honest attention, deserved better than a man who might freeze at the exact moment freezing cost the most. He found Paul on the wall the next evening and did not sit beside him.
PAUL: You're standing weird.
NOL: I need to talk to you about something.
Paul looked at him properly, picking up on something in Noel's tone that shifted his own posture slightly, the easy looseness of the past two weeks replaced by something more careful.
PAUL: Okay.
NOL: I think you should stop spending your evenings with me.
The words landed exactly as badly as Noel had expected them to, and worse, in a way he had not fully prepared for, because Paul's face did not crumple the way a younger child's might have, did not give him the easy target of obvious hurt to apologize his way around. Instead the boy's expression went carefully neutral, the particular defensive stillness of someone who had been disappointed before and had learned not to show it too plainly.
PAUL: Why.
NOL: It's not about you. You haven't done anything wrong.
PAUL: That's what people say right before the thing that's actually about me.
Noel exhaled slowly, the precision of the observation landing the way Paul's observations always landed, too accurate to deflect easily.
NOL: I'm not a safe person to be around right now.
PAUL: Has someone threatened you?
NOL: No. Nothing like that.
PAUL: Then what.
Noel struggled with how to explain it, the particular difficulty of handing a thirteen year old the full architecture of his own self doubt, the gap between wanting to help and being able to, the fear that something essential had broken in him that he could not yet trust himself to have repaired.
NOL: If something happened. If you were ever in danger and I was nearby. I'm not certain I would be able to help you in time.
PAUL: Why not?
NOL: Because I've failed at it. Twice. Recently. People who needed help, and I hesitated, and the help arrived too late to matter.
Paul considered this with the particular seriousness he brought to most things, his eyes on Noel rather than away from him, refusing the easy exit of looking elsewhere.
PAUL: So you think if you're not around me, I'll be safer.
NOL: Yes.
PAUL: That's stupid.
The word arrived with more force than Noel had expected, sharp and immediate, and he found himself without an easy response to it.
PAUL: You're not the only thing keeping me safe. I was fine before you started walking with me. I'll be fine if you stop. That's not the point. The point is you found one person who wanted to spend time with you and you're getting rid of him because you're scared of something that might not even happen.
NOL: It's not that simple.
PAUL: It's exactly that simple. You're just making it complicated because complicated is easier to hide behind.
Noel stood there, the boy's words landing with the particular precision that only honesty delivered without diplomacy seemed to carry, and found he had no immediate counter to offer.
PAUL: I'm going home.
He said it flatly, without the easy warmth of their usual parting, and turned and walked off down the street without looking back, and Noel stood at the wall watching him go, the second portion of bread still in his bag, uneaten, the evening suddenly feeling considerably colder than it had a few minutes before. He told himself this was the right decision.
He told himself it for the rest of the evening, sitting by his window in the dark, the particular silence of his room louder now than it had been before two weeks of company had made him forget what the silence actually sounded like. He did not see Paul on the wall the next evening.
Or the evening after that.
He walked past the bakery each night out of habit, and each night the wall was empty, and each night the absence sat heavier in his chest than he had anticipated it would, the particular cost of a decision that had been meant to protect someone landing instead as a loss he had inflicted on both of them for reasons that felt, increasingly, less like protection and more like fear wearing protection's clothing. He had tried to leave. He was no longer entirely certain it had worked the way he intended.