THURSDAY
07 NOVEMBER, 1996
ISAIAH

               I clasp the number hanging from my key as I unlock the door so the metal rings won't clink. A whiff of gentle herbs welcomes me at the first crack in the door and my ribs constrict but next, I clock the pitch dark. The scent of his dinner still lingers but Dorian is asleep, confirmed by the steady breathing that fills the room.

Thank God.

I don't want to talk to him tonight. My whole arm still throbs from punching Badrick and I've no reasonable explanation for doing it. I don't want to think about what that made Dorian feel. Disgust? ...Fear?

I go to place my keys on the round linoleum table only to freeze. It's set for two, bowls on top of plates with cutlery lined on either side. He made dinner for both of us? asks one voice and the other replies, of course, he did. 

How many hours did he wait?

An ache in my jaw, I hunch over my bag to search blindly for clean underwear. Dorian has never known how to fold clothes and they're muddled into a mass I navigate mostly with touch. How much of the time I spent sunk in the soggy grass by the river did he spend waiting?

A groan severs my regret spiral. I snap my head up.

My fear that Dorian is awake and cross with me is elbowed out of the way by the understanding that reality is much worse. He twitches and a whimper escapes him. Dropping my pyjamas on top of the rest of my clothes, I rise and stare at his frame in the dark. His face is turned away from me. 

'Dorian?'

The only response is another whimper, louder this time.

With one knee on the mattress, I reach over my empty half to press his shoulder. 'Dorian?' Still unsuccessful, I climb properly onto the bed and, as if sensing the proximity of a potential threat, Dorian snaps rigid as a plank.

Is he afraid of me?

I reach over him to turn the lamp on and try again: squeeze his arm and repeat his name but he's unresponsive to both. By the time I was twelve, I'd learnt that forcing him awake is not the right strategy — though it gets him out of the nightmare quicker, the panic in the moments straddling consciousness is doubled.

So I settle beside him and hold his hand, a little tighter than I normally would, and keep talking. Tell him about River Arene, about the way I've been a wreck since we arrived back here but two hours by the water, with my shoes and socks off to let my toes get muddy and cold even at the risk of getting more ill than I already am, has healed me from five years of city-induced apathy. 'Dunno. I were so stubborn to leave, I never let myself admit how much I love this town–'

Dorian's eyes snap open. His breath shackles in his chest, body frozen in place with a death grip on my hand.

'You're alright.' I place my free hand on the spot triangled by his shoulder, sternum, and armpit. His heart races against my palm. 'Everyting's criss.'

For three more seconds, Dorian stares at me with drowning eyes before he empties his lungs in one rattling breath. 'Nightmare,' he croaks, though it must be to himself because I certainly don't need the explanation.

As his body releases, one muscle at a time like a row of domino blocks falling over, he starts to shiver. Dorian places his own hand over mine and despite my worry, the incessant electric pulses in my knees slow to a gentle bumblebee buzz.

I thumb the canyon of his collarbone. 'You want water? Or tea?'

He shakes his head.

'Sum else?'

He shakes his head again. And just as I'm about to ask a third time and a fourth, and one more, until it's not about his needs but mine, he cuts five steps ahead to lecture me with a cheeky be careful what you wish for:

'Can you hold me?' There's a tremble in his voice but he ploughs through. 'Just for a while. Please.'

He's not afraid of me. He doesn't think I'm violent.

Dorian doesn't ask again but his single "please" echoes and multiplies in my head to the same effect. How could I deny him now? After all the times I showed up at his dorm at every hour of the night and he let me in despite it being against the rules, let me hold him or would hold me in his tiny bed that hardly fit one set of shoulders comfortably onto it. After he drove me here and then to my mother's house and put up with the oscillations of my mood without complaint.

So, despite needing a shower and my meds, I lie down. Dorian rolls onto his side so I can spoon him, the duvet down at his waist and not an obstacle between us even when I remain on top of it.

As my arms settle into place, my mother huffs sardonic laughter at the back of my mind. You're going to regret it.

I know... I know.

But at the first inhale of his cypress scent, her cruelty mutes. Within seconds, I toe the line between sleep and wakefulness.

Dorian doesn't relax into me. At times, his breath hitches and I know he's holding back tears. Still, he won't want to talk about it until he wants to talk about it, so I pull him as firmly into me as I can and settle into silence. Dorian's withheld sobs reverberate through his spine and into my chest.

As I struggle to keep my eyes open, the part of me still conscious slumps into reality like a man does into the first chair in sight after an exhausting day, that reality being that beneath my shallow visor of bitterness, I love him.

I love Dorian and if I thought time would help me stop, I couldn't've been more wrong — my feelings for him are only stronger for all the years they've lied dormant. Like a neglected houseplant that grows roots so robust there's hardly any soil left in the pot, my love for him flourishes and grows thrice in size at the first drop of water.

'Do you think it's a sin?'

Ache flares through me as my bones grit like teeth. The next second, I'm blind with tears. How do I keep falling for it? Why do I let myself relax time and time again when I know it's only a matter of time before he pulls the rug from under my feet? I'm so fucking foolish.

Dorian spins around, shrill whimpers vibrating in his throat like a frantic bird trapped in a glasshouse. 'It came out wrong. I didn't mean it like that–'

'I understand what you meant just fine.' Rolling onto my back, I refuse to look at him. We still speak in whispers. 'You're afraid I'll drag you to Gehinnom with me. Cause everyone knows I'm the faggot and you're the good Jewish boy I corrupted.'

'No, I didn't. You know that's not true.' He sits, leaning slightly over me to intercept my staring contest with the ceiling. But before he can speak it, his resolve trips up. Hesitation sketches his face effortlessly. 'Where've you been?'

'What?'

The whites of his eyes turn sickly in the greening glow of the bedside lamp. 'You smell weird.'

'Out.'

'Did you have sex with someone?'

'What?' Laughter knits into my speech though I'm not slightly amused.

'You had sex with someone, didn't you?' He stumbles out of bed and tears our quiet night-time argument to shreds. His voice isn't louder than normal but with the baseline a whisper, he might as well scream. 'You've been out having sex with someone and I've been here proofreading your dissertation? I even made dinner.'

'I ain't never asked you to make dinner.' It's a pitiful comeback.

Dorian thinks so too; his glare clashes with mine. He picks up the printed copy of my dissertation and slaps it onto the bed in front of me. 'Why did you ask me to read this?'

'...Cause I ain't got no one else.'

'Why don't you ask all the other men you sleep with?'

My confusion is punched out of me with the weight of a forage harvester. I scowl. 'You reckon I should take academic advice from complete strangers? It's not like I ask them for an analysis of Cioran and to summarise the prevalent themes in Emma before I agree to head.' When he wilts, all it does is make my insides seethe hotter. 'If you didn't want to do it, you could've said no.'

'That's not the point.'

'What is?'

The point is that I'm too dirty, too sinful. It disgusts him, how far I've sunk; like being a mamzer wasn't enough, I had to pick up sex and smoking and neglect my terminally ill mother. If our worlds didn't align six years ago, I've driven a crowbar between them. They'll never share a solar system.

We're both breathing heavy. Adrenaline pumps through my body to heighten my senses, all fixated on 'you had sex with someone, didn't you?', on the twist of his lips, the revulsion in his tone, and the way he locks his body tight.

Dorian says nothing, eyes excavating mine. Is he digging for a part of me he can still respect?

'Did you have sex with him?' he asks.

I raise my eyebrows to prod for better context.

'That man from the party, in October, on the porch. Did you have sex with him too?'

'I don't see how that's–'

'It's a yes or no question.'

His stare drills into mine with so much force I feel it at the back of my skull. When it's offered so rarely, eye contact is either a weapon or a gift. 

I draw my lip between my teeth to peel the chapped skin. 'Yes.'

'How?'

I narrow my face into a sarcastic smile. 'Dropped my jeans and bent over.'

'How could you have sex with someone like that. After he called you...' I go to fill in but he sees my intent and cuts over me '–all the things he called you?'

I prefer it. They call me a quashie poof to my face I don't need to spend eleven years believing we're best friends only to find out they never viewed me as worth much.

'It turns me on,' I lie. 'It ain't nun of your business.'

'It's not healthy.'

'Cause being gay is a disease, right?'

Dorian's patience snaps. 'That is not what I said!'

A laugh rolls against the roof of my mouth and I climb off the bed, pick up my night clothes, and stalk to the bathroom. Before I yank the door shut, my attention snags on the set table, fork, knife, and spoon perfectly aligned beside untouched bowls.