IN PATRICK’S ROOM, I crawl out of my dress and tights and shoes.
I allowed things to happen with Dylan. Never really because I wanted to. Even the night we met—at Mom’s work Christmas party—he talked me into sneaking outside when I didn’t really want to. But he had a nice smile and he gave me attention and I was sick of pretending to have a good time. I never analyzed his glances, his words, the way his body moved.
Not like this.
I crawl into bed, hair and teeth brushed, face washed, and night shirt on, and then reach for my phone to check my texts. But it isn’t there. And then I remember.
I left it on Henry’s nightstand.
An inordinate amount of time—read: obsessive, ridiculous, absurd—is spent debating on whether to go into his room through the bathroom or the hallway. Hallway seems less personal, somehow. So I go that way, and stare at his open door while my muscles remain at maximum clench. Light from the TV flashes shadows on the walls outside his room. Faint music plays. As I get closer, I recognize the tune.
I peek in the door. A Beatles movie is playing on the screen. It’s at the part in Let it Be where Yoko has asserted herself in the studio and the guys are emitting their bugger-off beams.
Henry turns his head and looks up at me then. Bare from the waist up, under the covers from the waist down.
“I left my phone.” I don’t know why I whisper it.
He points at the TV. “The BBC is having a Beatles marathon.”
I smile. “I haven’t seen this one in forever.”
He lifts the covers beside him and glances down at the empty spot on the bed. A wordless invitation. My cheeks flame. Saying no is the right thing to do.
“I’ll keep my hands to myself, if you want,” he says. “I kept that promise once before, if you remember.”
If you want? I swallow. “I do remember.”
I only think about it for another half a second before I crawl in, enveloping my chilled legs in the warmth of the covers. His bed smells like him. I settle in under the blanket, stiff as a studio with Yoko in it, and fold my hands awkwardly over my stomach. Like a corpse. He looks sideways at me.
“There you are.” He smiles.
A nervous laugh bubbles up. “Here I am.”
He doesn’t touch me; he doesn’t scoot closer. He looks back at the TV and I clear my throat.
“So why are you, the non-fan, watching a Beatles movie marathon?”
“I’m not so much watching it as listening to it since I’m working with one near-sighted eye at the moment.”
“Don’t you have a back-up pair of glasses?”
“Yes. In the darkroom somewhere.” He turns to look at me.
“But everything I need to see right now is already up close.”
Oh God. Was that a line? I fix my eyes on the movie and pretend not to catch it.
“So why are you listening to the Beatles, exactly?”
He shifts in the bed until he’s on his side, facing me. The same way he did at Glastonbury. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Uh, sure.” I gulp and keep my eyes deadlocked on Paul at the piano. His gaze heats the side of my face while I wait.
“I actually really bloody love The Beatles.”
My mouth falls open with a little pop. I cave and look at him.
“I thought you’d like to know.” He grins. “Your theory was correct. Liar or asshole. I’m a liar. Also sometimes an asshole.”
I think back to that day. The smarmy look, the whistled Rolling Stones song.
“That’s a pretty stupid thing to lie about. I at least try to ration my untruths.”
He laughs. “I had my reasons.”
“Oh yeah?”
“When you first arrived, my daily goal was to irritate you.”
On some level, I already knew this, but I have to ask. “Why?”
He touches the end of my nose with his index finger. “You do this thing when you’re flustered where your nose draws up just here, and…” He drops his hand, trailing off as he meets my eyes. “It’s adorable.”
Inevitability is sometimes a feeling, like letting go at the top of a slide. You know the moment you release your grip, you’re going to zoom—exhilarated, amused, alive. But then you hit bottom and it’s over. It isn’t the slide I’m afraid of. It’s the bottom. And right now, I don’t trust myself not to let go. It’s easier to watch Paul and George argue about simplifying guitar rhythms, so I look back at the TV.
“This is my least favorite of all their movies, if I’m being honest,” I finally say.
“Bittersweet,” he agrees.
“And it’s the end,” I add. “I hate endings.”
“Me, too.”
We’re quiet for a few minutes.
“So tell me about these untruths you’ve been rationing,” he says.
It feels like a nudge. To get me to admit things he already knows.
“You’ll have to wonder.” I flash him a flirty grin.
His dimples wink. “Truth or lie: my aura is purple.”
“Truth.”
“Truth or lie: my eye doesn’t look that bad.”
“Trick question,” I say. “It didn’t look that bad in the tube when you asked. It looks terrible now.”
He chuckles. “I appreciate your honesty.”
I turn on my side to face him and prop my head up with my hand. My heartbeat makes my entire body vibrate. “Can I ask you one?”
He nods.
“Truth or lie: What Mons said tonight.”
A shadow crosses his face. “Which part?”
“The part about how your secrets will make me not like you.”
He hesitates. His eyes wander down to my mouth and pause on my lips. Sometimes when Henry and I talk, I think maybe we’re both just lips and eyes and eyes and lips, thinking about kissing all the time. Ever since that one time we did.
The Beatles begin their studio version of Don’t Let Me Down in the background.
“Truth,” he finally says.
Our bodies mirror each other in the dark. A few heartbeats of space separate us. I want to beg him to tell me those secrets, the way I’ve been telling him all of mine.
“Somehow I doubt I could ever not like you.”
“Truth or lie,” he whispers. “You want me to kiss you right now.”
My heart trips over itself. “Truth.”
He leans in and presses his lips against mine. Warmth, pressure, and electricity simultaneous. I get lost. For once, I don’t think about the past, or the future, or meds or pain or drama, or who I am or who I’m not or what the hell I’m even doing on this planet besides wasting space and oxygen. Every particle that makes me who I am lives in my lips while Henry is kissing me.
He tastes like peppermint, always peppermint, and it’s my new favorite flavor. His big, warm hands skate gently across the skin on my hips, beneath my nightshirt, pulling me close. I melt into him.
At some point, minutes or days later, I remember how very temporary this all is.
The slide is amazing, but the ground is coming. I pull away and sit up.
Henry opens his eyes. “I’m sorry, did I—”
I shake my head. “No,” I barely manage.
“We can stop.” He searches my face. “I didn’t plan that.”
“I know.” I run a fingertip over his swollen cheek.
“Stay,” he says, withdrawing his hands. “I’ll keep my promise. Let’s watch the movie.”
I nod and slide into his shoulder, resting my head in the nook between his neck and collarbone. He laces an arm around my back and I hug his waist, and we watch the Apple rooftop concert until we both fall asleep.
: : : : :
A series of dings wake me up. My eyes flutter open. Henry’s warm body is pressed against my back. His breath is slow and steady on my neck, and his legs are tangled with mine. A solid blue light from the TV casts a hazy glow over the room. I pick up my phone and glance at the time, then text Patrick back, wondering what he’d think if he knew where I am right now.
Henry shifts in his sleep and turns over, so I roll onto my back and peek over at him. The light from the TV glows around his face. It’s a photogenic face. One that I’ll miss terribly. A sad sort of restlessness breaks loose and swims through me. I’m not looking forward to saying goodbye to him. I grab my phone and snap a picture of him sleeping.
Caption: too good to be true
Things might look different to him in the light of day. I have very little time left with him, and I’m afraid of what will happen if I’m still here when he wakes up.
But I can at least get his spare glasses for him.
Slowly and quietly, I stand up and tiptoe out of his room.
: : : : :
In the dark room, I rummage around, trying my best not to make noise.
Some drawers are filled with chemicals, others with old film canisters. I stoop down and open a drawer beneath the negative processor and—aha!—finally spot them on top of a mountain of pictures. When I grab them, some of the pictures fall to the floor.
As I clean up the mess I made, I notice a photo of Henry and Patrick together. From a few years ago, it looks like. Patrick’s in a soccer uniform. Henry’s wearing a Radiohead tee. They’re huddled together smiling from ear to ear. They look nothing like a couple of brothers who don’t get along.
The next one on the stack is another of Henry and Patrick—this time younger. Both laughing, draped in towels at the beach.
I sink to the cold floor and sit cross-legged, then lift a stack of photos out of the drawer. As I flip through, I watch them age backwards. Each picture with both of them tells the same story: brothers and friends.
I wonder how they could’ve let family drama tear something so obvious apart.
But of course, as Lexie and Maddie have both separately pointed out, I don’t have siblings. So maybe I know nothing.
About halfway down the stack, I find one with old tape on it, like it was once in an album. Or hanging on the wall. It’s Patrick holding Felix when he was a tiny little kit. Felix has a gauze wrap around half of his face, and two bandaged paws. As I put it down, though, something niggles at the back of my mind. Something off. I pull the photo closer to my face in the subdued light of the room. It isn’t Patrick holding Felix, because he would’ve been 12 years old when the little fox was rescued. This is a man, not a teenager. He’s looking down, so I can’t see his face. Only the top of his red hair is visible. I study the slope of his neck and shoulders, the way his freckled arms cradle the little fox and disappear beneath his fur. There’s something familiar about him, so it was easy to assume it was Patrick. This must be John. Patrick’s real dad.
I set the picture down and pick up another. The next one, though, has the same man in it. My hands start to shake. All of a sudden, I’m thrashing in the Thames again, frozen and unable to breathe.
This picture isn’t of the top of his head.
A cold sweat starts at the top of my head and moves to my feet like a dynamite fuse.
This picture has a full body view.
Henry and Patrick huddle under each of the man’s arms. I see the similarities between Patrick and his father as they stand side by side. They have the same eye color. The same nose. The same cinnamon freckles on their faces and arms. My eyes blur as they stop on the man’s forearm, just above the wrist, where there’s a loopy tattoo.
It says Jojo.
The current swallows me whole.