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In truth, I am thinking how this tousle-haired, bit-off-his-guard, morning-after Percy is my absolute favorite Percy. I am thinking that if Percy and I have this last junket together on the Continent, I intend to fill it with as many mornings like this as possible.
“I am thinking that today we are leaving on our Grand Tour,” I reply, “and I’m not going to waste any of it.”
Lucky for me as well, or else we
might never have met, and then what would have been the point of my life?
But after years of holding it over me—clean up, sober up, stop letting lads climb in through your bedroom window at night or else—for the first time, we both know he means it.
The great tragic love story of Percy and me is neither great nor truly a love story, and is tragic only for its single-sidedness. It is also not an epic monolith that has plagued me since boyhood, as
might be expected. Rather, it is simply the tale of how two people can be important to each other their whole lives, and then, one morning, quite without meaning to, one of them wakes to find that importance has been magnified into a sudden and intense desire to put his tongue in the other’s mouth.
Monty is being friend-zone because of the stigma of homosexuality centuries ago and well, they are best friends. Its going to be embarassing and sad if Percy rejects him.
by.) My father made me apologize to the Peeles, while he gave them the lots of boys mess around at that age speech—which he’s gotten a lot of use out of over the years, though the at that age part is becoming
less and less relevant—then, after they’d left, he hit me so hard my vision went spotty.
A small shift in the gravity between us and suddenly all my stars are out of alignment, planets knocked from their orbits, and I’m left stumbling, without map or heading, through the bewildering territory of being in love with your best friend.
Oh, by the way, could you perhaps not touch me the way you always have because each time it puts fresh splinters in my heart?
Oh, by the way, could you please keep touching me, and perhaps do it all the time, and while we’re at it, would you like to take off all your clothes and climb in bed? They’re both weighted alike.
I have lived most of my life as a devotee of the philosophy that a man should not see two sevens in one day,
Lots of boys mess around at that age. I can still hear my father saying it, and it feels like a kick in the teeth every time. Lots of boys mess around. Especially when it’s late and they’re mauled and far from home.
That is like the old version of syaing, "it's just a phase," and its both funny and sad.
an I’d expect no more from you sort that strikes flint inside me.
Perhaps pleading eyes—Save me from this girl dragging me away against my will—and then he’ll come rushing to my rescue. Or perhaps a curled-lip sneer—Jealous? Well, you had your chance with me and you missed it.
I’m more liberal with the undressing—by the time I’m in nothing but my breeches, she’s still peeling off jewelry one excruciating piece at a time.
“Aren’t you tired of this—aren’t you tired of being this person? You look like a drunken ass all the time, all the bloody time, and it’s getting . . .”
“It’s different for women. No one condemns a man for that sort of thing, but she’ll carry that with her.”
“Don’t you dare,” she
says, her voice low and tight, “say anything like that ever again. This is your fault, Henry. No one else’s.”
Poor Monty, it says, and I want to die when I think of him pitying me. Poor Monty, with a father who beats you until you bleed.
Poor Monty, with a fortune to inherit and an estate to run. Poor Monty, who’s useless and embarrassing. “Good night,” Percy says, then rolls over, away from me. Poor Monty, in love with your best friend.
Perspective is a goddamn son of a bitch.
“God no—he’s got our banknotes. I want a real drink and a real bed and real food—I could ravish a plate of cakes right now.”
“Reward?” My temper is starting to rise to match hers. “You think this tour is a reward? This is a last meal before my execution.” “Oh, how tragic, you have to run an estate and be a lord and have a good, rich, cozy life on your own terms.”
I thought we had developed some understanding between us,
“No, we need to find out if they’re actually after this”—and here I snatch up the puzzle box from where it’s still sitting on the table between them—“and return it so they’ll let us alone.”
Say something, Monty. Be a friend, be a gentleman, be a human being. It’s Percy, your best friend, Percy who you’ve gotten foxed with, who plays you his violin, who used to spit apple seeds at you from high up in the orchard treetops. Percy who you kissed in Paris, who looks so damn beautiful, even now. Say something kind. Something that will make him stop looking so alone and afraid.
“No, you want this to be about you. You care about what happens to me because of what that would mean for you. You are the only thing that matters to you.”
“And his doctors are backward quacks if any of them told him so. If they’ve been keeping up with any recent research, they should know it’s been proven that epilepsy is nothing to do with demonic possession. That’s all dark ages nonsense.”
Percy didn’t trust me enough to tell me so.
“I do not pretend to understand the passionate friendship you and Percy have always sustained—you’re important to each other, there’s no questioning that. But I don’t think you can blame him for not telling you. Your attention is usually elsewhere, and when hard things come up, you . . . drink, you sleep around. You run away.”
But they don’t let girls into universities. Girls go to finishing school and boys go to medical school.”
The middle ages sexism is hard and strong.
“This is a Baseggio puzzle box. They are expensive and rare. And they are not used to hold things of worldly value, like money or jewelry or the wants of common thieves.”
“These boxes were designed to carry alchemical compounds over long distances and keep them safe if stolen.”
“You Spaniards are to be cleared out of here by tomorrow morning or you’ll be arrested. We will not have you cluttering up the river with your filth. And if we find you’re hiding these criminals, the punishment will be severe.”
Emotional and volatile, a man whose heart rules his life. Confusion in love and relationships. A lack of control and balance.”
A new life, or a new view on the one you have.”
“Because I want you to know,” she says, “that there is life after survival.”
The coastal road turns so rough and mountainous that we reach Spain without realizing it until we come upon the same sort of packed customs house we fought our way through in Calais.
Wait, are France and Spain even close to each other? I mean, using a horse would take a week or so to get from France to Spain, right?
“You might be the only person left on earth who thinks me decent.” Between us, I feel his knuckles brush mine. Perhaps it’s by chance, but it feels more like a question, and when I spread my fingers in answer, his hand slides into mine. “Then everyone else doesn’t know you.”
“Think they’ve asked us to stay so they can smother us in our sleep because we know too much?” I scrape a rim of soap off the blade and onto the edge of the basin. “I think they’re holding out.”
“I think they know what’s in the box. Or at least have an inkling. They both got shifty when I asked about the cure-alls. Whatever’s inside it must have to do with their father’s work.”
They could also just ask if the Robles siblings can cure Percy from his epilepsy tho.
“What are your expectations, exactly? If Percy did feel the same way about you, what would happen? You can’t be together. Not like that—you could be killed for it if you were found out. They’ve been sentencing mollies by the score since the Clap Raid.”
It occurs to me then that perhaps getting my
little sister drunk and explaining why I screw boys is not the most responsible move on my part.
All those death objects in the study are damned unnerving to
Dear Lord, don’t make me share a platonic bed with Percy again.
Condesa Robles, In regard to our arrangement pertaining to your father’s Lazarus Key—
