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When Maddie leaves for the first time, Evan tries not to be too upset about it.
He’s only thirteen years old, standing by and watching as his older sister drives away, leaving him so she can move to another state, leaving him all alone with their parents who look at Evan but don’t see him. They simply see right through him, just like they always have.
Evan has always known that Maddie wouldn’t live with them in their house for the rest of her life. After all, she never really hid how much she always wanted to get away from their parents, which is something Evan is also very familiar with, but being aware of it and actually watching it happen are two different things.
It hurts, Evan realises as he keeps his unwavering gaze on the car driving down the road, his vision blurring. It hurts to watch the person he hoped would never leave him doing the opposite, the person who has been his rock his entire life.
Evan doesn’t really know how to exist without Maddie by his side, standing up for him and protecting him from their parents. That’s something she has always done, and now she’s gone, leaving him so she could have a chance to make a life for herself.
Still, he doesn’t blame her, he isn’t even angry at her to begin with. It’s just that dull ache around his heart that he can’t do anything about. It’s the sort of ache that doesn’t disappear even when he painfully presses his knuckles against his chest, or when he finally walks back inside the house and hopelessly tries to find at least a hint of comfort in his parents’ cold eyes, or when he curls up into a ball on his bed and cries and cries until he finally falls asleep.
The day Maddie leaves is the day Evan realises that she’s the first person to walk away from him, and now matter how much he doesn’t want it to be true, she probably won’t be the last.
– ☆ –
When Abby leaves, Buck lets himself believe that she will come back to him.
That’s exactly the reason why he promises her at the airport that he’ll wait for her, that he’ll still be right here when she returns, when she returns to him. Abby doesn’t say anything, but she nods, and for Buck that’s already an answer itself, confirmation that he holds close to his heart as she turns around and walks past those glass doors.
Abby might have not been the first woman he was in a relationship with, but it’s impossible to deny that the love and care he feels for her is something he has never felt towards any other woman he dated before.
Being with her made him a better man, brought up a part of him that Buck didn’t even dare to think that it existed anymore, and that’s something he’ll always be grateful for, something he’ll always love her for.
That love is exactly what he doesn’t want to let go, something he isn’t ready to let go, despite knowing deep down that he should. Instead, he keeps holding onto that love and that overwhelming hope that she will return because why wouldn’t she?
Abby knows that Buck is there, waiting for her just like he promised, so there’s no explanation why she wouldn’t come back to him. He spends days, weeks, months, pacing like a ghost in her house, holding onto the hope that soon she’ll return, or return his calls, or answer his messages, or at least sees them.
She doesn’t and yet he still keeps hoping.
Buck waits and waits and waits for her, until he can’t anymore, until he admits to himself that she’s not coming back anytime soon. But if she does, she won’t be coming back to him.
– ☆ –
When Ali leaves, Buck feels a little less hurt about it than he thought he would.
It definitely hurts a lot less than a break up is supposed to.
If he’s being honest with himself, he didn’t really think that Ali was the person he’d spend the rest of his life with, it just felt nice to have someone beside him again, someone to come home to.
But, in the end, Buck wasn’t in love with her and maybe that’s the reason why he can’t bring himself to be as upset as he probably should be when she walks out of his apartment and out of his life.
No matter what he felt towards her, whether it was love or just the sense of comfort he got when he was around her, it still hurts to be left behind again.
– ☆ –
When Maddie leaves again, Buck doesn’t blame her in the slightest.
However, for a second that thirteen year old Evan in the back of his mind still desperately calls out you’re leaving me? again. But despite everything, Buck isn’t that thirteen year old kid anymore.
For a moment, he tries to convince her that maybe she doesn’t need to leave. Maybe being around her family and the people she loves might help, but it’s all in vain. And, well, he knows that Maddie wouldn’t leave Jee-Yun, Chimney and Buck if she really, truly didn’t need to.
So, in the end, he simply nods, even though Maddie can’t see him through the phone, and tells her to be safe, tells her that they’ll all still be here when she’s ready to return.
Still, just because he’s not a thirteen years old boy anymore, it doesn't mean that he doesn’t cry himself to sleep like one.
– ☆ –
When Taylor leaves, Buck feels angry.
He isn’t exactly sure if he’s angry because of the fact that everything went down the way it did, or if he’s angry at Taylor who simply didn't love him enough to slightly change for him, or if he’s angry at himself for letting himself believe that Taylor would change for him.
At this point he should’ve already learnt his lesson that even though people do change, he’s an example of that himself, they usually don’t tend to do it when it comes to him.
Soon enough, anger turns into hurt because Buck loved Taylor, he really did. She did mean something to him and the break up hurt, even if it was him who initiated it.
Somewhere deep down, he had a tiny bit of hope that maybe Taylor was it. Maybe she was the person Buck would spend his life with and she would finally be someone who wouldn’t walk away from him.
Buck turned out to be wrong about that and Taylor ended up in the long list of people who did turn their backs on him one way or another.
– ☆ –
When Natalia leaves, Buck barely feels a thing about it.
Well, anything other than relief, really.
He can’t lie, she was nice and being with her was nice as well, but there was only so much conversation they could have about death until the inevitable finally happened and Natalia walked out of his apartment and out of his life as well.
– ☆ –
When Christopher leaves, Buck feels like his heart has been ripped out of his chest.
Buck isn’t his parent and Christopher isn’t his son, but he might as well be. He loves that kid like his own, there’s no denying that.
It’s no secret that Eddie is aware of that as well, considering that, God forbid, if anything happens to him, Buck will become Christopher’s legal guardian. Neither Eddie’s family nor Shannon’s family. Buck.
Sometimes the conversation he and Eddie had at the hospital after Eddie got shot still feels surreal.
It’s been years, and Buck still hasn’t forgotten that suffocating, that soul-crushing fear he felt during a tsunami when he thought that Christopher was gone and it was all his fault, because he didn’t look after him, because he didn’t protect him, because he failed him.
Afterwards, he didn’t even know how he’d ever be able to face the kid or how Eddie would ever trust him again, but he did. He dropped Christopher off at Buck’s the next day and thanked him for not giving up.
After the lawsuit, when Buck apologised to Eddie for not being there when he and Christopher needed him, he made a promise to himself that he’d never do anything like that ever again. And he kept that promise as much as he possibly could.
Buck was always there when Eddie and Christopher needed him, always trying to mend whenever something broke between them, but this? He wouldn’t even be able to explain it to him, that much he told Eddie when he learnt that Marisol and Christopher had seen him with Kim.
This is something even Buck can’t fix. He desperately wishes he could, but he knows that he can’t no matter how hard he might try.
That’s the reason why he has to stand by and watch as Eddie, on the verge of tears, says goodbye to Christopher, who refuses to even look at him, let alone say I love you back.
When Eddie’s parents close to the door behind them, leaving to go to Texas with Christopher instead of staying here and helping their son, Buck slowly walks towards his best friend and gently places his hand on his shoulder. He can only hope that Eddie knows that Buck is here for him, even if it’s not enough.
Even when Eddie turns around after a minute or two and breaks down in his arms, Buck doesn’t let himself cry, because he knows that it’s Eddie who needs a shoulder to cry on right now, not the other way around.
However, that doesn’t mean that a tear doesn’t slip out of his eye at the sound of Eddie’s devastating sobs and the clear absence in the house.
– ☆ –
When Tommy leaves, Buck feels hollowed out.
It’s just another person he loves, walking out of his life. Nothing’s new.
The thing is, he barely even understands the reason for their break up. Sure, Tommy told him that he was worried that Buck would eventually break his heart but Buck doesn’t understand why he would even think that.
Didn’t Buck make it very clear how much he cares about him? Was it not enough? Was Buck not enough?
Or was Tommy planning on breaking up with him the entire time they were dating? If he was worried that Buck would hurt him, why did he not think about how much he would hurt Buck by being with him for six months and then walking out of his life, just like that?
Not having answers is what has been killing Buck ever since the moment Tommy left his apartment, along with that absence that Buck finally allowed himself to believe that wouldn’t be there anymore after he and Tommy made their relationship official.
That desperate need to get the answers and maybe to start over again is what keeps pulling Buck towards his phone all the time. But there’s also another part of himself that doesn’t let him open the messages, no matter how badly he wants to.
So, instead of driving himself insane about whether the man who shattered his heart in his chest has reached out to him or not, Buck turns his apartment into his own personal bakery.
And, of course, he tries not to let himself dwell too much over the fact that he has been left behind, again.
– ☆ –
When Eddie leaves, Buck feels like a half of his soul has been ripped away from him.
It hurts more than anything he has ever experienced in his entire life.
It makes Buck feel like he’s dying.
For a second, when Eddie told him that houses he was going through were in El Paso instead of L.A., Buck’s brain refused to accept that it was really happening, that Eddie was telling the truth.
It felt like a bad dream, a goddamned nightmare.
Buck hoped that it was just a bad dream because Eddie couldn’t have been another person to walk out of his life like that.
That’s why he moved almost automatically, grinning at Eddie and suggesting moving the party to the couch. But as soon as he sank into his seat, reality hit him like tons of bricks.
Eddie was leaving.
Eddie was leaving Buck.
Along with reality, there was a realisation. An epiphany.
Buck loves him.
Buck is in love with his best friend.
Oh.
His first instinct was immediately to blurt it out, to let Eddie know because he needed him to know. But he pushed the feeling down just as quickly as it surfaced, because even if Buck needed Eddie to know, what Eddie needed was to leave, to be with his son.
That wasn’t something Buck could stop him from doing. He wouldn’t, no matter how it was tearing Buck up inside. He would never be that selfish.
Which is exactly the reason why Buck stays quiet, not letting the confession slip out of his mouth as he and Eddie choose the house together, as he sits there when Eddie tells the team that he’s leaving, as he helps Eddie pack up his things.
And now, as they stand by Eddie’s car outside the house, Buck stays quiet until he knows that he can’t anymore, until he knows that he has to say something, anything.
“Be safe.” Buck tells him weakly, forcing himself to smile.
“Take care of yourself, Buck.” Eddie says in return and smiles as well, although it doesn’t really reach his eyes either.
Then, he turns around and gets in the car, driving away.
I love you, Buck wants to call out, hoping Eddie will hear him.
He doesn’t.
He simply stands in the rain and watches as the man he loves leaves, just like everyone else has, just like everyone always does.