“Don’t be angry with me, Oliver, I can’t take it right now.”

“Here’s the thing, kids—and I know this because I’ve lived a long and scandalous life—here’s the thing about lust: you don’t have to like each other. Ever heard of hate sex?”

He seemed out of place, but not in an entirely unpleasant way—like a student who had wandered into the wrong classroom and found the new subject intensely interesting.

We stood there, motionless, staring at each other. James’s eyes were keen bright gray, but standing so close I could see a little ring of gold around each pupil.

Per aspera ad astra.

He stared up at me for a moment, then lifted his head and pulled me down to meet him. It was almost a brotherly kiss, but not quite. Too fragile, too painful.

For someone who loved words as much as I did, it was amazing how often they failed me.

The question is so unlikely, so nonsensical coming from such a sensible man, that I can’t suppress a smile. “I blame him for all of it,” I say.

But then James appeared on the porch, like some kind of divine interference.

“It’s like Romeo and Juliet,” I said, eventually.

With it came a soft, senseless panic—I couldn’t see James anymore. I fought the impulse to grope across the bed until I found his arm. I spoke out loud, just to hear him reply.

I glared at him, waiting for an answer I knew I wouldn’t get. “I should hate you right now. And I want to—God, I want to—but that’s not enough.”

Acts I and II passed not unlike the first rainy front of a hurricane.

“Then I guess you’ll have to move into some hovel in Queens with the rest of us.” I leaned toward her until our shoulders bumped together and she gave me a tentative smile. “We’re all going to live on top of each other, like it’s the Castle all over again?” “I don’t see why not.”

“James!” He stood on the porch with a duffel bag by his feet, his breath a stream of white in the frigid night air. “I didn’t know if you’d be up,” he said, as if he were merely late for a meeting we’d arranged and not completely unexpected.

Colborne: “Are you close? The six of you.” It sounded alien. The six of us. We had always been seven. “Like siblings,” I said,

Alexander in the gallery, pretending to share a cigarette with Homer.

He seemed almost a mythical figure, Ganymede, caught beautifully between man and boy. I knew it would be James, had guessed as much, but his appearance was no less affecting.

“C’mon. You can tell me. Even if it’s bad, even if it’s really bad. We’ll find a way to fix it.” I realized I was begging and swallowed hard. “James, please.”

“Oh God,” I said. “Me.” Half asleep, half dressed. Him. Heart hammering, crouched on the floor. “You didn’t tell me.” I didn’t realize until it was out of my mouth that that alone was worse than any of the rest of it. “Why didn’t you tell me?”