“Secrets are your personal property. You may invite others into your home, but no one may trespass.” She glances out the window now. Awaiting more violence. Pondering her mortality.
Right on cue, the sound of a firebomb. It scares Lily. Jolts Oliver and Maud awake. The moment for revelations has passed.
Lily keeps us locked in all day. She does everything she can to drown out the sound of the uprising outside. Blasts vinyl from therecord player. Invites us to play dress-up in her closet. Demands Oliver distract us with live music. But she can’t force joy. That’s one thing that must arise naturally. She suggests more movies at night. Maud says she’s too tired to stay up. Says she can’t sleep on the couch again. “Crick in my neck. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Go to your rooms. Tomorrow will be here soon enough. All this will end.” Lily says those last words like she wants to believe them. Not like she actually does.
Oliver and I lie side by side. I can tell he’s in one of his dark moods.
“It was nice to hear you play music again.” I turn my head toward his. “You play so infrequently these days.”
He shrugs. “I guess.”
“I love you.” I move my hand closer to his. My fingers brush against his.
“You don’t need to make me feel better.” He turns toward me. “Everyone doesn’t have to be happy and in love all the time.”
“I know that.”
“Our whole neighborhood is burning. Listen.” From Railton Road, the sound of petrol bombs. Police warnings. Powerful chants of liberation. Desperate cries for help. “I knew it. I sensed it. You didn’t listen when I warned you.”
“What do you want me to say? That you were right?”
“It would be a start.”
“This isn’t happening because of us or some feeling you had.” I sit up. I can’t sleep. “It’s happening because people have had enough of being treated like they’re subhuman.”
“Arewesubhuman?”
“What?” I search his face for some sign of what he’s thinking. “Because we’re gay?”
“No!” He twirls his gorgeous locks of hair in his finger. Making little spirals. Then letting them fall. “Because we’re... immortal. It seems like a blessing on the face of it. But it’s not. It’s a prison of time.”
“This will pass. Things will get better. And then you’ll be happy you’re young again. That you get to experience each new era with the energy of youth.”
“What if things don’t get better? I don’t want to be here for the apocalypse!” His eyes are full of dread. “I tried to reverse it when we were apart. I bought as many copies ofThe Picture of Dorian Grayas I could find and burned them. Inhaled the fire. I sought out healers and psychics and witches. Anyone who might know some secret way to end this.”
“I wish I could make this wish come true for you. I know it’s all my fault.”
“Yes it is.” He thinks for a moment. Turns to his side. “People long to be obscenely rich, famous, immortal. They think it will give their lives meaning. Make them special.But all it does is isolate you. The majority of things people wish for are terrible. The happiest lives are the simplest lives. Our lives are too complicated.”
“I’m sorry.” I spoon him. Clutch his body. Pull him as close as I can. “Maybe we can simplify our lives. Ignore the chaos and just focus on each other.”
“Stop. Just stop.” He doesn’t say any more. He sweats in his sleep. There’s a restlessness to him that scares me.
He bolts up close to midnight. “What’s that?” He looks around our dark room.
“It’s just the fighting outside. Go back to bed.” I try to hold him.
He pushes me away. “No, it’s something else. It’s Maud.” He bolts out of bed. Drenched. Eyes ablaze. “It was her window.”
“I— You can’t hear her window—”
He throws pants and a shirt on frantically. “Not everyone experiences the world exactly as you do, Bram. My God, you have no idea how narcissistic you can be. Ihearthings. I have a musician’s ear. I know the difference between the squeak of her window and a fucking firebomb.”
Oliver never swears. Never swore. He’s changing.
“Okay, I’m sorry, let’s—”
