Page 164 of Oleander

Cas sat very still, with his hand resting on his thigh as he stared at a point on the wall. When I moved in front of him, he looked up at me, blue eyes oddly focused despite the clear intoxication in them.

“Here, I’ll help you with these.” I knelt and began to unlace his trainers – I’d tied them for him earlier, too – slipping them off his feet. His ankles were slight and hairless, I knew, knobby pointed joints leading down to smallish feet. “Why don’t you undress and get into bed?”

I’d help him if he needed me to, but stripping Cas out of his clothes felt like something I needed to prepare myself for, and I wouldn’t put myself through it unless it was necessary.

Suddenly, he leaned forward, and I thought, terrified, that he was going to kiss me. Instead, he leaned his forehead against mine and breathed me in. His breath was gin-sweet and hot, and I tried to steady my own.

“I miss you,” he whispered, so softly it felt like an exhale.

I froze, unable to breathe or move, pinned there by the hint of desperation in his voice. If I hadn’t watched his mouth move, I’d have assumed I imagined it.

“Cas,” I said, closing my eyes. It was too much, too overwhelming, too impossible.

“Jude, please,” he said and tilted his head to bring his mouth closer to mine.

I’d not known that kind of power existed within me to refuse him, but clearly, over the years, some layer of self-preservation had grown over me, over my mind and my heart, so that I was able to gently push him back. I stood.

“I’ll get you some water and aspirin for when you wake up.” I went to his bathroom and, refusing to look in the mirror, let the tap run while I searched in his toiletry bag.

Along with his creams and lotions, I found three pill bottles. One, a very well-known pain medication I knew he shouldn’t have taken while drinking. The other two, I wasn’t sure of until I read the label. They were for depression and anxiety.

My whole world tilted on its centre in that moment, re-ordering, things falling out that I didn’t understand. I shoved them back into his bag and zipped it up, feeling uneasy, guilty, and like I’d invaded his privacy. Would he want me to know?

I thought no, he wouldn’t, and I’m sure if he were sober, he’d have come running in here by now, furious that I’d gone through his things.

I knew there were all sorts of things for headaches in the main bathroom, so I went there to find something for his head instead.

When I returned, he was lying down on the bed on his back with his eyes closed. I set the water and pills down next to him and moved to go.

“Will you stay?” he asked, opening his eyes. “Just lie next to me. Don’t worry, I won’t try and kiss you again.” There was a bitter twist to his mouth as he said this that changed the meaning to:Don’t worry, I won’t lower myself to trying to kiss you again.

Nodding, I rounded the bed, and got on the other side, and lay down next to him. He sat up, took a few loud gulps of water, and lay down again so that he faced me. I shifted onto my side to face him.

His eyes were closed.

We weren’t touching, weren’t even particularly close – it was a very large bed – but it still felt intimate. It would have been the perfect moment to ask him about the pills, about what was going on with him and why he needed them, how he was really doing. But I didn’t dare. I was afraid, not only of him, but of what itmeant. Was he sad? Was he in pain? Because if he was, then it changed everything, and I didn’t know what to do with the new reality it left me with.

I needed him to be happy. Because part of my grieving Cas, instrumental, in fact, to my grieving him, was knowing that he was happy with the choice he’d made. Was knowing that he’d chosen that perfectly comfortable life with Blackwell on the other side of the fucking world and regretted nothing. I didn’t want to hear that it had been a mistake, because then it would mean we’d both been miserable for no fucking reason.

“I think about it,” Caspien said. “The night in Oxford. Probably more than I should.”

A deep tremor rolled through me. There was guilt and a deep aching sadness, but it warred with white-hot shameful lust.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He opened his eyes. “I’m not.”

I stopped breathing, caught in the blistering intensity of his gaze. He was drunk. I couldn’t trust anything he said or did while he was like this, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to.

“It wasn’t...” I began.

How on earth did I begin to explain my feelings about that night to him of all people? “It’s not how I ever imagined it would be between us. I’m ashamed of it, of who I was that night. I just...”wanted you so much. Hated you so much. Loved you so much.I suspected he knew all of this, and since I swore I’d never offer these things to him as easily as I once did, I shut up.

“How did you imagine it?” he asked.

Perfect. Tender. Life-changing.

I tried a smile. “You don’t want to know.”