Page 49 of Exquisite Things

We shower together. He holds me from behind. Soaps my body up. I get the sense he doesn’t want to look at me. That he’s hiding.

I felt so vital when I walked into the house. Roses in one hand. Poetry in the other. Love in my heart. Connected to him.

To life. Now he feels distant from me. Even as his skin pushes against mine.

He squeezes some shampoo out of a tube and rubs it into my hair.

“That smells like soup. I swear, Lily and her antiaging potions.”

He doesn’t laugh. He’s in no mood for jokes.

“We shouldn’t go.” I speak the words quietly. Wonder if he heard me over the sound of the shower jets.

“Shouldn’t go protest?” He speaks directly into my ear. “Or shouldn’t go on the trip I spent months planning for us?”

“Oliver, don’t be like this.” I immediately regret saying it. He’s only being himself. Scared. Averse to risk.

“Be like what exactly?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry, that came out wrong.”

“I want to know. Like what? Tell me? What am I being like ? Like... oh, maybe like a person who actually has an opinion of his own? Doesn’t just follow you around like a lapdog?”

“Oliver, what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?” I attempt lightness. But my question only magnifies the vast expanse

of energy between us. I don’t understand him anymore. Perhaps I never did.

“It doesn’t matter.” He lets go of me. I don’t move. I’m the one hiding now. I keep my gaze on the chipped tiles of the shower.

A herringbone mosaic pattern I let myself get lost in. The countless shapes the same pattern can make. Depending on how it’s

perceived.

“Have you thought about what would happen if we end up in prison?” Oliver grabs my shoulders and spins me around. “What would

the guards say when they realize we don’t age? What will this government that’s so willing to sacrifice their own do with

us, do you think?”

“I—I don’t know.” It’s not a thought that’s crossed my mind. I suppose it should have. They raid queer bars. They lure men

into toilets, then arrest them for cottaging.

“Well, I know.” He turns the shower faucet until the water is freezing cold. He needs it to cool the heat inside him. “They’ll

try to kill us out of fear. Then they’ll realize we’re indestructible. Which is what they long to be. Then they’ll use us.”

“Use us? How?”

“I don’t know. As soldiers. Or spies or assassins. As—as—as something that will give them more power. If I were evil enough

to mastermind such a thing, then I would be a president or a prime minister or in charge of some sort of empire!”

“So it’s not Maud you’re concerned about? It’s you—”

“Oh, don’t accuse me of being selfish. Not you, the most selfish person I know.” He exits the shower. There’s still foam on

his lower back.

“That was harsh.” I whisper the words. I’m not sure he hears them.

Oliver grabs a damp towel hanging from the door.

It’s black with bright pink palm trees on it.

He dries himself ferociously. Like his skin is covered with insects.

“And how dare you accuse me of not caring for Maud? Or for you. We’re happy.

Finally, we’re happy. Why would we risk all that right now? For what?”

“I don’t know. For a more just world.” I hear myself say the words. I’m not sure I believe them. The world has always been

unjust. Always will be. Destruction and injustice will survive as long as human beings do.

“Good luck with that.”

“Look, I know what you’re saying. I get it.”

“No, you really don’t.” He looks at me with scorn. It’s Valentine’s Day. This is the last thing I imagined happening today.

“You say you get it because you want the conversation to be over. Because you can’t stand being wrong, but you really don’t get anything at all.”

“I— You’re right. I don’t get it. I feel like you’re in one conversation, and I’m in another. All I’m saying is that we waited

a long time for the life we have now. Perhaps we need to do what we can so Maud and Lily and everyone else has their chance

before their time is up.”

“Great. Fine. Message received. But today? On the day I spent months planning for us?”

“Nobody planned this, Oliver.”

“I PLANNED IT!” His eyes blaze with fury. He screams so loud that I’m sure they can hear him down below. It’s not just a lover’s

spat anymore. It’s a public fight. We’ve made it everyone’s business.

“I—I know you did. I’m sorry. I get it. I wasn’t thinking. Or I was, but not of you.”

“Because you never think of me.” He hangs the towel back up. Stands naked in front of me.

“All I think about is you.” I turn the shower off. Stand in the steam. Let it evaporate around me.

“As the object of your obsession.”

“Not obsession. Love.”

“ Your love.” He lowers his voice. He can’t risk too much being heard. “ Your decision to make me this way. Your life here in London. Your mother. Your sister. Your home. It’s always you leading us—”

“I thought—I always—I thought you liked that about me.”

“I did.” He huffs. “Maybe I do. Most times. But this was my day. I asked you to hold the day for me. I wanted to be the leader for once . I was going to take you to Paris. I—”

“Paris, really?” I open the shower door. Join him outside. Try to pull him close.

He pushes me away. “You’re wet and I’m angry.”

“Will you forgive me? If I come to Paris with you?”

He shakes his head. Looks at me with even more rage than before. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over now. The surprise is

ruined. I don’t want a Valentine who spends the day with me out of guilt.”

I grab the same towel he dried himself with. Wrap it around me. “I have never spent time with you because of guilt, Oliver.”

I catch my reflection in the mirror. As youthful as ever. Unblemished skin. White teeth. Eternal glow. “If I do feel guilty,

it’s because of them downstairs. We can go to Paris anytime. Because we have all the time in the world. They don’t.”

“Sure, yeah, you’re right.” He nods. “Let’s go to Paris another time. Anytime, in fact. Which we both know means it will never

happen. I certainly won’t be getting my money back.”

“Is this about money now?”

“It’s about...” He hovers under the door frame. “It’s about everything!”

He doesn’t get dressed. He throws himself in bed. Raises the covers over his face.

I sit by his side. “Oliver, come on. This isn’t like you.”

He speaks from under the sheets. “You have no idea how like me it is. I’m so good at hiding, and I hate it. We’re still hiding. Not because we’re gay anymore. Because we’re immortal. But

it feels the same. Lonely and horrible.”

“Then let’s tell them.” I try to think through the repercussions. “Let’s go downstairs and tell the truth. They’re our family.”

“Which is exactly why we can’t tell them. What good could possibly come from their knowing what we are? A distance will grow

between us and them. It will all come crashing down. And all I want... is for our happy home to never crumble.”

“Maybe nothing will crash down. Let’s talk this through.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Then come downstairs with me. Let’s be with Maud. She needs us.”

“You go.”

“She needs you too.”

“I won’t be a part of her destruction. Someone has to tell her how risky it is for her to go out there.”

“Then go convince her. But don’t shut us out.”

He gets out of bed. I feel hopeful he’s coming out of his dark fog. He takes the journal I gave him out of its hiding spot

in the floorboard. Grabs a pen.

He writes me a message: Please leave me alone .

Somehow, I can’t argue with him in writing. I scrawl a message out under his: Okay. I’m sorry I ruined your Valentine’s Day. I love you.

He puts the journal back into its hiding spot.

Returns to his cocoon. “At least it was memorable.” He pulls the sheets over his face again.

I close my eyes and think of the last memorable Valentine’s Day I had.

1895. James at the St. James. The premiere of Wilde’s play was on this very holiday.

The event that set my life as I know it into motion.

I feel a sudden chill. It feels like a new version of my life is being set into motion once more.

I head downstairs. I pray that whatever has changed between me and Oliver will shift back with a sunset or a sunrise. A passing

storm. Nature’s way of releasing pressure. That’s all our fight was. Pressure relief. I hope. Everyone but Lily and Maud are

gone when I get to the living area. They make posters together.

Lily’s reads, No Police Cov—

Maud’s reads, Blood ah go run if—

I sit next to Maud. Grab a poster board. “Is it cool if I make one?”

Maud nods. “Of course.” She continues adding to her poster. Draws a capital N in block letters. “That sounded like quite a row up there.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“Everything okay?” That’s Lily. Concern in her voice.

“I think so.” I shrug. “I don’t know.”

Lily places a hand on mine. “Was Oliver always prone to melancholy spells?”

I want to deny ever noticing Oliver’s moods. I feel as if his sadness is all my fault. Guilt washes over me. I can’t lie to

Lily so I say nothing.

The certainty in Lily’s eyes tells me that I’ve told her everything. Without uttering a single word. “Should I go up there?”

I try to put myself in his shoes. He asked me to leave him alone. But Lily might get through to him in a way I can’t. “I don’t

think it would hurt.”

Lily stands up. Gives us both a pat on the head. Then she heads upstairs. I hear her knock on Oliver’s door. Sweetly speak his name.

I grab a red marker. Contemplate what to write. But first, there’s something I need to say. “Maud, please don’t be cross with

Oliver.”

“Cross? I’m really not.” It’s not her rage that slaps me in the face when she looks at me. It’s the hurt. “But quite the choice

of words after the New Cross fire.”

“He’d just been planning the trip for months. It meant a lot to him.”

“More than thirteen Black lives ?” Maud reacts to her own words. “Sorry.”

“You have every right to be upset.”

Maud shrugs. “Thing is, I’m not upset. I’m... frothing with rage. I don’t know how to live like this. Always looking over