This takes place in a future not far from now. You'll meet a boy, who's really a man but to you will be a boy for a little while longer.

He's someone you'll meet more than once, as is the way of living in a metropolis where budding friends meld and break apart like swarms of bees. Six degrees of separation will feel more like two as you run into each other while accompanied by people you'd never assume would look twice at each other in the street.

You'll meet at a fancy rooftop bar, at a random lunch spot, at a party in one of those gentrified neighbourhoods near the wharf. He'll remember you more often than you will him, or at least, you will make him believe it each time; watching as he gets flustered from having to explain once again how he's the guy whose drink you took off with that one time.

The second time he reminds you of this, you notice a few things. He's clearer somehow like someone's enhanced his simulation-avatar from 720 to 4K. He must be having a good day. There's less noise. Less shadowy substance billowing before his face. You notice his eyes aren't black or brown like you initially thought, but a muted shade of hazel. His chin is slightly indented and the planes of his face are softer and more delicate now that he's clean-shaven.

Golden Boy. It isn't the first time you've thought of him as such, but this time it'll stick, and however many times you lock eyes with him that evening, that's what will spring to mind: a corn-fed, all-American, Midwestern boy, even though you're in the UK. You wouldn't know what the equivalent would be on this side of the pond.

He looks athletic, not particularly agile, but strong, healthy. The glasses he typically wears threw you for a loop. That, or that he normally dresses like a crossover between a librarian and Indiana Jones, and he's not dressed like that that evening. Whatever it may be, something's different about him. You notice him in all the ways he's unusual, and where you've previously found yourself averse to the idea of someone who wears the mark of death, you convince yourself—if for a moment—he's just as alive as you are.

***

The real trouble begins after befriending Matilda. She's one of the Fanatics at the company. Always trying to have a Good Time and insists on cajoling half the town into her crazy schemes.

You both dance for a living, but there are levels to it at a company. There's the Legacies whose grandparents'—sometimes parents'—names are etched into golden placards on the studio doors and therefore feel entitled to every solo, and then, there's the Fanatics, and they're both insufferable for different reasons.

The Fanatics are the types who did Performing Arts in high school and made it their whole personality. They're insanely dedicated to everything but the craft itself, and the way they quiz you feels too much like they're trying to catch an imposter among their ranks. Catching their attention as a newcomer is like dancing with a dagger to your back, seeing as they've appointed themselves the judge and jury on what's kitsch, whose performance was a flop, who fucked their way to a solo, etc. Everything is so tightly enmeshed in company drama, ranks, and reputation that even if their cattiness is exposed for the school bullying that it is, at the end of the day, the Fanatics' are the ones that put the elite in these elitist institutions. Matilda is no exception.

You clock her from a mile away and readily accept her help navigating the other Fanatics. Unsurprisingly, this includes a lot of arse kissing. It's at one of these get-togethers you meet her friend, Foy. Matilda introduces her as "the American Dahl," which to your ears sounds like "American doll." You stand there unsure if you're supposed to join in on what's clearly a little inside joke.

Foy is an actor who's recently relocated to L.A. You'll come to know her well, something about the shape of her face (she is rather lovely) and how closely it resembles that of her brother quickly inures you to her. She and Matilda are from the same roster of socialites and have attended the same two performing art schools as all the other attendees at these gatherings. You can't quite say why they take to you the way they do. Benignly, you wonder if the reason they hang on to your every word is to turn around and regurgitate it at parties you'll never get invited to. This is of course something you'll think more often as Matilda starts dragging you across town to posher and posher places, but never with any real malice.

***

It's summer when you meet him on the rooftop bar, the boy that'll change everything. And it's during that same summer, with only a few more awkward encounters to bridge the gap, that you find yourself road tripping to a music festival with the three of them.

You learn there's a culture to this, to festivals in this part of the rainy world. You depart by train from the city having packed lightly: an extra pair of shorts, socks, and some tees; only to find yourself in an English country house, being berated by three baffled natives who've splayed the content of your rucksack on the living room settee wondering where the wellies and the insect spray are. You won't know a single performer from the line-up, but the way they've described Wilderness Festival is nothing short of Snow White's enchanted forest, complete with workshops and performances and a banquet. You recall the pictures Foy sent you of people bathing in the lake, their bodies streaked with paint and glitter. If it's anything like it's been advertised, it's worth getting it right the first time round. You swallow your protests in favour of the cloudless sky and pack Matilda's father's wellies and a woolly jumper.

There's a playlist playing in the car, some mix of punk and indie rock from a decade back that they seem to know by heart. Although you don't care for the music, you enjoy watching the ease of childhood friends getting back into the groove of their banter.

There's a distinct shift after Foy vacates the driver's seat at the first petrol stop. The volume hitches higher—a Bikini Kills song—and she demands the windows be rolled down. She inches her feet closer to her brother's seat, annoying him into submitting to the weight of her painted toenails as she reclines against the passenger door. Sunglasses perched on her head. A new song begins and she and Matilda start singing with Foy relegating every other line using her hand as a microphone and laughing each time her brother ignores her.

Peering at you from the gap between the door and the seat, she says, "Aww, you're making our choir boy shy." To him she says, "Show off that voice, how else will he know?"

His eyes, mortified, find yours in the rearview mirror. He's been doing this a lot intermittently and you don't catch on to what's going on until you tune in to Foy's smugness in their silent but heated exchanges. The moment is broken when she places her feet back on his thigh, twisting to face Matilda seated next to you. "What's that song called?" When Matilda doesn't answer, she makes a motion for you to nudge her. "Tilly, what's that Bon Iver song called that Sybil sang at our graduation?"

"Skinny Love."

Foy laughs and leans back into her seat, watching as her teasing colours his face.

Skinny love. A zing of surprise and pleasure makes you burst out laughing too. You would have never guessed. Not in a million years. Watching, or rather, actively looking out the window, but still watching the blush creep up his neck in your mind's eye, does stuff to your insides that takes you back to being seventeen again.

***

He's not well. You notice it the day you meet him, but that will be relatively easier to ignore compared to how unwell he becomes two hours into dallying around the acres of Wilderness.

You would wager it starts right then as you enter the festival grounds, but in reality it sneaks up on you in tiny increments. You feel it briefly in the car as the wisps bleed past his headrest and drag across the ceiling as the car speeds down the motorway. The voices go in and out like sirens but fainter, spelling out an omen of what's to come.

You'll grapple to describe what exactly is wrong with him. The first time you meet him you'll utter a quick prayer under your breath to ward off whatever residual curse clinging to him that might project onto you. But the shadows aren't clinging to him, just like the noises, they're emanating off him like solid waves. It's the strangest thing. Curses don't last that long unless they're really powerful, and they definitely don't do the things that are happening to him.

At times, he'll feel like a cracked coconut. Sensations will wash over you and you'll swear you feel the rays of sunshine against your neck inside someone's dimly-lit terrace house, smell the smell of dewy grass, hear the sounds of horses, their neighing and their hooves. It's bizarre that that should be the most frequent sound he emits. It's so...harmless.

For a long time, you'll actively avoid looking directly at him. He unsettles you and it's not just the projections—you've felt them before. You know what they are. Once when you were seven you found a dying newborn calf still clinging to the warmth of its anguished mother. Your grandmother told you to cover it in ash before the wisps drained out of its body, and so you did. They had looked like his, like billowing veils of silk paper hovering over its body. She hadn't needed to tell you what they were. You thought you knew. But meeting him you're not so sure. In fact, it's part of the reason you refuse to acknowledge what he is or what's happening to him. He shakes your foundation. If he's indeed marked by death, why is he unaffected by it? Why does everything about him scream a healthy, white, middle-class lad?

It isn't until you're at Wilderness Festival—coincidentally also the longest time you've spent in his company—that you realise that you were wrong to chalk it up to some mistake. To some weird anomaly. He is affected by it.

The louder and the more aggressive his shadows become the more subdued he gets. First, he puts on sunglasses, then stops being as animated until he slowly drifts to the back of your ever-expanding friend group. The noises grow into a cacophonous jumble, and he's wincing, rubbing his forehead and tugging his fringe upward in frustrated jerks. You're not supposed to see. You're not supposed to notice the way he's gripping his bottle of craft beer as if he's kneading release from it. And you're definitely not supposed to be the one to offer that release.

"Hey, does anyone want to head to the lake?"

His relief is palpable. "The lake? I wouldn't mind."

"Know how to get there?" You'll do this often—pretend you're clueless. You busy yourself with pulling the map from your back pocket as if you don't already know the lake is situated across the park.

"Yeah, I could use the..." he looks ahead at the group who's grown with the addition of Malcolm and Matt. The bunch of them too focused on sampling free foods to notice you're not trailing behind them anymore. "The quiet," he finishes.

And because you can't stop yourself when it comes to this boy, your worry tumbles out before your brain registers, "Everything all right?" He appears taken aback, but you're not sure, there's no telling with those sunglasses.

"You sure you want to miss The Kooks' set?" he asks, changing the subject.

"I have no idea who that is." That coaxes a laugh out of him and he takes a step closer.

"Good. I hate crowds."

You level him with a deadpan look. "Good thing we're at a festival then." The shadows mould around his face like a bridal veil, casting shadows where there shouldn't be any. He smiles, and although you can't see his eyes you can tell it doesn't reach all the way across.

"I thought..." he shakes his head, "doesn't matter. Can we go? I feel a migraine coming on."

***

When someone's cracked like a coconut, you'll find yourself wanting to listen to their inner noises more than the fear of those noises can persuade you not to.

You find yourself taking a longer way round, skirting the folk masses, just so that his mind (is it his mind?) can calm down enough for you to distinguish between the sounds. There's people talking through him. A child or several children. There's that familiar car horn cutting through their chatter, ending in the sound of glass breaking. This loops over the sounds of adults speaking more firmly but never clear enough to tell what they're saying. Sometimes, though, you do. A child will speak and you'll register it but it'll slip your mind, just like it would if you were dreaming and were trying to recall it in the groggy moments after. They never seem to say anything you're not expecting them to. You're never shocked to hear their voices either.

Is it a dream? Are you listening to his leaking subconsciousness? You haven't had much time to theorise. You've been too afraid to. Too afraid to look at him, acknowledge his abnormal existence. Oh, how the circumstances have changed. If a stranger walked up to you and demanded what you were to each other, you might call him a friend; in that loose, socially malleable way one is a friend if you happen to spend two consecutive days together.

Maybe it's true that you're no longer afraid of him because you've seen that he can't hurt you with it. He himself has no control over it. It's hurting him and he won't ask you to slow down, but it is hurting him. It must be. As soon as you're out of the crowd and the music is a distant memory and you've slowed down to a comfortable pace, the shadows subtract and the noises thin out. He's quiet, still wearing his sunglasses as a shield, but you feel it. Is it strange that you can feel his discomfort easing? That you're so attuned to him?

This is something you'll promptly ignore probing to instead take advantage of this moment that hasn't been afforded you before. You've never been alone like this, the two of you. Your throat is a chute, overflowing with questions that wash over the expanse of your tongue. The longer the silence between you stretches, the more invasive and inadequate they seem.

Why do you want to know what pills he was taking earlier? Probably some ibuprofen. Have you survived a near-death experience? Did your parents fight a lot when you were growing up? Do you like riding horses, or have any experience being around horses? You opt for silence.

You've never been a sociable person but next an introvert your lack of social skills are brought to light. Going to lunch with Foy was a child's game, you even fancied yourself quite the conversationalist, but next to her brother you're back to being a fourth-grader on foreign soil, trying to string together grammatically sound sentences. You watch him fiddle with the label on his beer bottle, tearing it into small strips. "Is it far away, the lake?" you surprise yourself by the question. It's not what you want to ask and you already know the answer. But you're glad you do when he looks your way. You're distorted in his sunglasses. His eyebrows hitch across his forehead like he's surprised you're acknowledging him. "Not far."

"You come here often?"

"The lake?"

"The festival."

"Yeah, used to come here with the family when I was younger. Haven't been here in ages though."

"Hm."

"We used to live in Oxford. My father took us fishing in that lake. And I guess that answers my question, two birds one stone and that." He smiles. God, such a golden boy. You can't help it, he really is one. It's clear he's unaware of how the sun and the wind favour him, kissing his hair and skin ever so delicately.

"So what do you usually do, besides what we were just doing."

"More of that, usually."

You laugh. "You're not really selling this place."

"That," he says, "and getting elbowed until your sides bruise listening to music that will be so faint where you stand, you'll ask yourself why you ever bothered getting your wellies muddied."

"I'm getting the distinct feeling—"

"The booze is okay though, and so is the food."

"That's what you were doing with your parents, was it?"

He cackles, throwing his head back. "I won't lie, there was an attempt...once, maybe twice. But mostly we sat around doing pottery or watched a play or something."

"Let's do that then."

"You don't want to do that."

"I kinda do."

"I take it you can't stand Foy." There's a quality to his look that's different.

"Foy, Tilly—" you count them out on your hands, "—Malcolm, Matt. To be honest," you scrunch up your face in mock annoyance, "you as well."

His smile is non-existent. "Ah, explains why you wanted to escape."

"I didn't." You can't tell behind those sunglasses if what you think is bothering him, is bothering him, but if your guess is correct, you want him to know. "I like Foy," you say firmly. She's his sister, he has every right to be protective of her. "Honestly?" You look pointedly at him, asking if he can take your honesty. "You looked overwhelmed, and I didn't mind breaking off and going to a less crowded place."

He takes it no better than if you'd taken a taser to his stomach. The shadows drift over his face like a cloud moving over the sun, and he stands there, stunned. You hadn't meant to be so blunt, to embarrass him. You feel the loss of his gaze as he looks away.

"Thanks." It's a meek little thing that lands in the grass before his feet

"Don't. I have my own selfish reasons."

He looks up. "Yeah? What?"

"Watching you get painted like a clown."

"Uhm... In your dreams maybe."

"Cute that you think I dream of you. Didn't they tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"About Sunny Sunshine?"

He looks thoroughly confused. "Who?"

Smiling, you point at the opening of the tent to your right and let his brain put the pieces together: the children with their parents waiting for their turn, the face painter with the yellow top hat and jacket with the big sun painted on her face. He slowly starts shaking his head.

"Come on, we have to get you introduced."

"We really don't." He begins backing away.

"It'll be cute. I'll get one too, and don't worry, doesn't have to be a clown. A butterfly, maybe."

"No. Absolutely not. I'm not walking around with that on my face."

"That won't be a problem. Your body will do. Come on." You grab hold of his wrist just as he tries to make a run for it. You can't tell what's sweeter, finally touching him and nothing apocalyptic happening or feeling his resolve crumble.

***

"Paint him like a lioness, please."

"A lioness?" she glances at him where he's seated on a small stool, looking miserable.

"Don't. This is a hostage situation."

"Oh, I'll believe it when I see it, love. The only reason I'm not kicking you out is that, against better judgement, I've decided to believe you're both sober."

"And because we're paying...or he is."

"It's ten quid per person."

"You hear that?" He flips you off and you pull your lips into a line, trying not to laugh from how much you're enjoying this.

"You know, most people say lion," she says. "By people, I mean parents accompanying their small children, must say though, quite nice hearing lioness for a change."

"Thank you. I thought he could use the bravery. He's too concerned with what others think of him." She raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything as she continues to blend out paint on a wooden plank.

"For twenty quid could you please draw a massive dick on his face?" he asks her.

"Don't make me regret this." She takes her paintbrush and starts in on his face.

"That's right, let him know. Money can't buy everything, Mr Richie-Rich." You take a step forward to watch her work without the tresses of her bleach-blond hair obscuring your view.

"Know what it could buy me, though?" he asks, eyes closed, head slightly tilted. "Assassins on the dark web."

"So much machismo from someone getting kiddie paint on their face."

"You know what?" His eyes flash open, the shadows over his face nearly non-existent. He stares for so long that whatever he was about to say forks on a different path, taking the heat with it. In the end, he simply swallows and closes his eyes again.

"What?"

"Nothing."

You want to say something snarky like, 'you know you get really red when you're embarrassed?' but you can't bring yourself to say it. Can't bring yourself to look away either. His hands are in his lap, loosely intertwined. His foot taps out a quick rhythm that reverberates through his thigh and arm. You should look away, but your eyes are stuck, oscillating back and forth between the spots on the back of his hands where his bulging veins originate and the hollow of his throat.

Look away. But your gaze is only climbing. To his jaw. Face. Look away. You tell yourself you're checking for shadows, but there are no shadows. He looks normal. And then you're convincing yourself of how rare that is, and that you ought to get to know what he looks like when he's like this—bare—so that you can clock the change in the future. As if sensing the intensity of your stare, he sticks out his tongue, drawing you back to your senses.

"I take it you're feeling better?" you ask. The noises have grown so faint they're indistinguishable from the kids playing outside the tent. He nods. "Are you really not gonna look at me?"

You're teasing, of course, only because he's kept his eyes shut for so long. You don't expect him to be so intense with it. Don't expect his eyes on you to stir awake the electric eels in your stomach. How did it get to this point? You don't even know if he's dead or alive, so why then have you already imagined a million possibilities that would take you from where you're standing to having your nose buried in the trunk of his throat? Feeling the bulk of him? Having the entirety of him pressed against you, his arms around your waist?

You break eye contact first. "So, are you an actor like your sister?"

"You're joking, right?" You scuff your feet against the grass, dragging them back and forth next to his stool, still not quite ready to meet his gaze.

"Are you serious?" His tone tears your gaze back to his face.

"Oh fuck." The mortification as it dawns on you. "I've asked you this before, haven't I? To be fair," you hurriedly add, "I suck at remembering these things. I'm serious, birthdays, pet names, what people do for a living..." you wince hearing how much worse it sounds out in the open.

"This might be your third time actually," he says calmly.

"You're joking. I know you're not but please say you are."

"Guess I'm not that interesting." You laugh, not being able to fully process the absurdity of that statement, but he doesn't know that. The briefest flash of hurt crosses his features. Whatever shallow mirth was there crumbles, replaced by growing anger—at yourself, at him for interpreting it all wrong.

"You are," you insist. "I'm the one with the goldfish memory. There's a lot of things I'm regretting right now. I thought...I thought you'd be different."

"How?"

You try not to laugh from the shock of the knife that twists deeper into your stomach. His expression is hardening and time is not waiting around for you to decide whether to be truthful or not. "Less..." You don't know how to finish. "More..." Everything is wrong. Even Sunny has stopped colouring to look at you. "Not as lovely." It hangs there between you, so flimsy and inadequate it makes you want to scream.

Not for the last time, you'll wish you could just tell him the truth. That the first time you saw him, you didn't think he'd make it to the end of the week, but then he kept showing up, looking radiant and healthy with the stain of death on him, and you'd convinced yourself someone was fucking with you. That maybe you were the one about to die and not the other way around. That he'd been sent as a sign to you. You want to tell him you're still not sure. That every time you try calling your grandmother—the few times she answers the phone—she never utters a word to you, and you've taken her silence as rejection. And she would reject you, wouldn't she, if you were badly cursed? Maybe you are because that would sure as hell explain why you can't seem to stay away from him.

"Guess."

"Please don't make me." Unsurprisingly you sound as miserable as you feel.

"It'll be fun. Lola, have a go," he glances at Sunny who's real name is Lola apparently. To you, he says, "Do your worst. What have you been thinking I was all this time? If you say actor or dancer I will cut your legs off."

"I—

"I won't lie," Lola says, "you look like a rugby lad, something athletic, I reckon." He coos appreciatively at that, leaving your already jumbled mind doing a 180. Sports? Does he actually expect you to name one?

"I played rugby in school," he volunteers.

"What's wrong with being a dancer?" you ask.

"Matilda."

"Okay, fair. But I swear I thought..." you thought he was an actor. "So you didn't go to the same school, the three of you?"

"No, I was sent away to a monastery." At your bewildered look, he insists. "True story. Behavioural problems, that's what they called undiagnosed dyslexia in the Stone Age by the way. I was sent to this school in Wales with real monks."

"Oh, I know the one. Is it still running?" Lola asks.

"Think so. They still invite me to alumni banquets. I don't go though."

"Take it you didn't like it there." She changes positions, tilting his head away from you to get the last of the whiskers.

"I did." You smile because it doesn't sound like it at all, but then he says, "I learned how to horseback ride there," and your heart plummets so violently it pulls you smile with it.

"I bet it was really green. Lots of woods," you hear yourself saying. Your fingers have grown numb. He merely 'mmhms' with closed eyes. "Meadows," you continue, "loads of greenery."

Squinting with one eye, he asks, "Have you been to Wales?" Lola hums in agreement.

"No, but I would love to."

He must be halfway sedated by the brushstrokes because he says, "Let's make it a date then."

You laugh seeing him regret it just as instantly. "Sure, if you're paying for the horse riding lessons."

"Ouch. He only wants me for my money."

Leaning back, admiring her work, Lola says, "Sounds like a keeper, love." She hands him a mirror and dries off excess paint from her fingertips on a wet towel next to her row of paint bottles.

"You look cute." He looks like a backup dancer in Cats.

"Now," he says, turning to her all serious. "Can you at least turn him into a cockroach?"

***

The compromise is that she paints you into a butterfly, which isn't much of a compromise considering he pays for both.

"So, did the monks really teach or were they used as intimidation?" you ask when you're far enough into the woods that the smell of the underbrush takes you back to the sound of neighing horses.

"They taught most of the classes actually."

"What was your favourite."

"I did well in Visual Arts."

You don't correct him and say, 'that's not what I asked,' instead you let the quiet engulf you once more. "I didn't finish my A-levels there, but a sculpture I left behind was bought by this American...I don't know...Wallstreet-dude-slash-art-dealer," he shakes his head, incredulous, "and apparently it's displayed in some wealthy guy's summer villa in Malaga."

"Did you get paid?"

He chuckles. "I did not. But I did meet him, the American."

"And?"

"And he told me," suddenly he grows sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck like he was doing earlier when he was complaining about mosquito bites, only now he's also avoiding looking at you, "he wanted me to keep making things."

"...making things?" It's clicking in your mind, but the process is incredibly slow. "Sculpting?"

"Yeah, sculpting, designing, but...I can't just...I'm not like Foy. They get trained for rejection, you know. I don't know the specifics, but she told me something about it once. A course where they broke down the psychology of it. It's also one of those things that you inherently know when you're going into the arts. I guess you would know, but I don't imagine you get rejected a lot. I went to an engineering university, I know fuck shit about the art or what even makes something artistic."

"So, you're an engineer?"

That makes him scoff. "Hardly. A designer. I design the sort of chairs you find in IKEA—I mean, not really, but that's the elevator pitch. I don't like it though. The IKEA-chair place, which I know is pretty shitty to admit. A lot of my uni mates would kill for that kind of portfolio, but... It was my father's idea. He has a low tolerance for artistic bullshit. He wouldn't let another one of us 'gamble away' our future. It was easier for Foy because she was born an attention seeker. Billie and I had to do something respectable. Something that won't, using his words, 'end us up in a halfway-house.' I'm not much of a rebel." He glances at you. "Shocking, I know."

"I kinda agree," you say, stepping over a felled tree. "What you said about artists. My flamenco teacher, my very first one, this no-nonsense abuela who would look you up and down and be brutally honest with you, I used to ask: can I do this? Am I good enough? Do you think I could be on the same level as these dancers who have the staccato in their spine, who are born with these rhythms?" You glance at him, smiling from the memory. "She used to say, to be successful you can't ever have an emergency exit door. As soon as your mind knows it could be comfortable doing something else, you're doomed. She really gave it to me straight. She said: listen, the competition is cutthroat, each level is more competitive, and if you don't feel like your life will cease if you stop dancing—in Foy's case, stop or acting. In your case, sculpting—then...I mean, I'm sure it's not like that for everyone, especially if you're from money, but it was for me. The only way you can take that many rejections is because there's no other option but to keep getting rejected in the hope of someday hearing a yes."

"I guess I must not want it as much." You hate that what you've said might have contributed to his self-deprecating tone. Maybe he thinks you think of him as privileged, which he is, and thinks you're brushing him off, but you don't know what else to say that won't sound like a lie.

"Are your parents supportive?"

"Yes." You tell yourself it's not a lie. That technically your adoptive parents are.

"You know, I thought you'd be different, too," he says after a while. The light finds its way through the dense trees and beams kaleidoscopic patterns across his face. He squints looking at you. "Yeah," he nods, his smile stretching. "Not as lovely, definitely. I thought you'd be this, like," he gestures as if asking you to finish his thought. "Okay. I know these are two contradicting ideas, but, like: really silly and also really serious. Silly in that you take who everyone projects you to be very seriously, almost to the point of becoming a caricature and not someone real. I mean," he gestures again at loss for words, "you know, the accent, the clothes, the haircut, and also you danced flamenco for so many years and now doing what, ballet? Like what real-life person does that? And then, suddenly you're dropped into the cesspool that's London where everyone is utterly vapid, and I say that with love. It makes for some very silly people. And then, on the other end, serious. Because you wouldn't smile, at all, when I met you. And had I known you suffered from short-term memory loss—" you start laughing "—I wouldn't have kept introducing myself like an idiot, but now I know."

For the first time in a long time, you feel your body temperature rising as the blood wooshes to your face. "What's wrong with my accent and clothes?" You find yourself absentmindedly touching the frills on your self-made crop top. Your hair needs a trim and you hate that someone has seen you in ways you cannot control. You don't want to touch it, much less exist in your body when he looks at you like that. And he is looking at you. Inside him, a child is doing something that generates a lot of glee and makes the air around you smell like motes of dust and old books. He steps closer and the stuffy library air gets thicker. He grabs hold of one of your frills. Tugs on it until you're too distracted to notice that he's taken another step.

"Nothing." It's a whisper and barely even that above the sounds of a distant car horn that's only getting louder. Your heart is accelerating and for a fraction of a second it feels too real, too fast, but then you take a step back and the spell between you snaps. He lets go of your crop top and you watch the shadows pulse in and out of him, growing stronger and then fainter. He's looking everywhere but at you.

You start walking in the direction of the lake, heart deaccelerating, asking yourself what the fuck just happened. Telling yourself you were not just about to kiss. Berating yourself for being desperate enough for a second to actually want to. You're so consumed by the still lingering feeling of almost getting hit by a honking car that you miss the sign announcing the lake until you feel his hand on your body. You swerve out of his grip so fast you catch the shock on his face before he schools it again. Thankfully, the sound of nearby people is enough to distract you.

The short walk to the waterfront is quiet, suffocatingly so. You don't know what to say to each other, so you ignore the silence by people watching. Some have made their tents on the far edges of the woods, near the shade and dragged their towels to the clearing. Some are sunbathing in colourful, glittery bikinis while others are rope-swinging from a nearby tree into the lake. There are a lot more people than you were expecting.

"I know a place." You follow him around the edge. He dips back into the woods again. "This place's quieter." For a second you want to say, 'you sure you want to be alone with me in the quiet?' but you're too afraid of what the answer might be. He takes you to the other side of the lake. It's a long walk before you can see the lake's surface again, clearly reflecting the cloudless sky, serene and untouched. You dump your rucksack on a patch of tall grass next to the water's edge and look back at where he's taken a seat on the craggy rocks.

"So?" he asks.

"You're allowed to wash the paint off your face if you want to."

"And if I don't want to?" Is he angry? He sounds angry but you can't tell when he drains all emotion from his face like that. "Maybe I want to feel courageous and stop caring what others think of me."

"Do you have a towel?"

"Are you going in?"

You tug the crop top over your head and throw it next to your rucksack. "Do you have a towel? Yes or no? I don't want to dry myself on my tees."

"Uhm," his eyes are glued to your chest, "no." You unbutton your shorts and decide at that moment to stop caring what's going on in the underdeveloped brain of a twenty-something-year-old.

You feel stupid for even attempting to figure him out. Babysitting him isn't what you signed up for. You came to this festival to live out the fantasy the pictures promised. You came because the last time you swam in a lake was your twentieth birthday, three weeks before you relocated to Spain for six years.

Taking momentum, you give a big whoop as you break the surface.

"Be careful of the worms," he calls out.

"What worms?"

"I knew a mate who had tapeworms enter through his pisshole. Ended up with eggs in his bladder." You brush your dripping hair behind your ears to take a good look at his shit-eating grin.

"Ha ha." You turn on your back and swim out counter-current to the gentle lapping at the shore.

"You should be a comedian," you call out.

"Fear of rejection, remember."

"Fuck fear!" You throw your head back. "Fuck. Fear," you yell at the top of your lungs, liberated by the fact no one can hear you for miles.

You dive, touching the sandy bottom. When you resurface, he's closer. Standing at the edge of the water.

"I don't have a change of clothes," he says. He wades closer, stopping just short of wetting his shorts. You don't know what his eyes are asking permission for: to join you fully clothed or naked? Maybe it's true that he's been coddled all his life and needs a bit of handholding, but the faster he learns that you won't do either, the better. Not for the first time you think what a shame it is to die before reaching one's full maturity. Before he has had the chance to say fuck it to everything. He still cares. It's so evident he still cares about what you think. You, of all people.

"Your make-up is all ruined." He wades closer and closer. Wetting more and more fabric.

You touch your face self-consciously. The paint stains your fingers.

"Wait." He mumbles, reaching into his pocket. He pulls out a clear plastic something and grabs it with his lips before submerging his shorts completely. "Fuuuuck," he breathes, "it's cold."

"What's that?" You nod to his hand.

"MDMA. It's Matt's." He touches your cheekbone gently, wiping away something.

"Why do you have it?"

"Why do you think? Maybe you should wash your face completely. It's looking more Halloween than fairy queen."

"Don't change the subject." You take the plastic ziplock bag from him and inspect the pink pills. Four of them lined in a row. "Is this what you were taking earlier?"

"No," he yanks the bag back. "And stop giving me that look. It was sumatriptan for my migraine. The only reason I have this is because Matt looks habitually stoned and he's afraid of getting frisked. He doesn't think I'll touch them. I definitely should, though."

"No."

"Why? I thought we were saying 'fuck fear.'" You don't like the look of his grin.

"I also said you should be a comedian."

"You're a walking contradiction, you know that?" But he's grinning wider, the material of his canvas button-up ballooning before him as he kicks off from the ground, throwing himself backwards into the water. His face-paint streaks in a million directions the moment he re-emerges. "I was fully prepared for today to suck," he wipes away most of it with a sweep, "I mean, suck royal ballsack. Crowds. Music. People's faces going in and out, smudging. The sounds. They say you should never meet your childhood heroes. I sort of get that now. You should never revisit your magical place as an adult. Yet..." He holds the tiny plastic bag between his thumb and forefinger, admiring it against the sun.

"And?" You ask when he doesn't continue. He looks at you and you can already tell he's made up his mind.

"I didn't feel crippled once, being with you." He opens the ziplock bag. Something in you crumbles, breaking off from your flesh and making the water ripple, but it's just your fingers dragging across the surface as you wade to him. Fighting him for the plastic. He turns away from you, pulling it into his chest. There's a pill in his hand and then on his tongue.

"Are you dumb?" you can't believe he's actually swallowed it.

"Yes." He doesn't look the tiniest bit remorseful. You watch him for what feels an eternity, your chest rising and falling and nothing besides that changing. He closes his eyes, head tilting back, arms extended. You grab his hand and yank the plastic from him.

"You're a fucking moron." He laughs, happily, freely, lowering himself back into the water. You open the zip, peering inside at the three remaining pills. Before you can think twice about it, you grab one and put it in your mouth.

"FUCK FEAR!" he howls into the air and laughs, watching you chase down the dry, grainy pill with just your saliva.

"If I die, I'm coming back to haunt you. I swear." He grabs your hand, strong enough to pull you into him in a circular motion.

"If you die I would never forgive myself."

"And what if you die?" You pull yourself free from him.

"Nine lives baby. And molly isn't touching one of them."

"You know this isn't what I meant by fuck your fears."

"I know. I'm working myself up to the bigger stuff."

His feelings are so transparent you don't know whether to laugh or gag. You splash him with water trying to wipe the stupid grin off his mien. He ducks. Splashes you back. And then you're in a full-blown fight. He holds you underwater, the weight of him pushing you down. You fight out of his grip, sputtering and coughing. He's so much stronger than you, but pride stops you from admitting it. You grab his leg. He quickly escapes. You try doing the same manoeuvre, pushing him down by jumping on him. It works until he slithers away from you, grabbing you by the waist in return and laughing in triumph. His wet clothes feel coarse against your skin as he hugs you like a koala, sinking you faster than a two-tonne truck. You fight to reach the shimmering light at the surface. When he lets go, it's a big show of mercy.

"Are you trying to kill me?" You bob up and down the surface, fighting to regain your breath.

"Sorry, I didn't—" his grin is all boyish, "you're a lot thinner than you look. I didn't think your body would feel like that."

"Feel like what? You know what, I don't want to know." You start swimming away until you're out shallow enough to stand.

"Like an eel," he calls. "Like a ballerina."

***

You can taste the music at the very back of your throat, frothing like someone's pouring champagne straight into your mouth. Your throat is a flute and the music is the highest quality rosé and you're struggling to convey how it bubbles. How it feels. How it fills you so completely. But he understands because he's nodding and his eyes are closed. He understands. His body is moving and it's moving like the highest quality rosé.

"God, I want whatever they're on so bad" Oh.

"Fucking conniving pieces of shit."

"Look how happy they look."

Somewhere in the back of your mind, the realisation that everything you're feeling is chemically enhanced, that you don't actually like rock music, and that if you keep dancing without stretching you'll tear something vital, balloons and deflates, losing its momentum to the tiniest sensations. It's like your drug-addled mind is glued to a bullet train running through your senses at atomic speed. No thought is too small, no sensation too big, but everything falls away just as you're beginning to wrap your head around it. The individual blades of grass under your feet wash away the grin on Foy's lips. The way the sun falls across your back melts together with the hues of the sky resulting in an oh that reverberates through your being.

You just want to lie in the grass next to the group and watch the world spin. Your newfound realisation hums through your body. This is what the universe is about. I should lie in the grass. The severed connection to your frontal cortex roots you to the idea while you remain in your exact spot like a lobotomized patient. It feels like you're dancing, but are you? It feels like you've become the wavelengths carrying each note of music, but have you?

Your only reference point to reality is the boy dancing engulfed by shadows. And when the fear of him, of how completely submerged he is by his demons, falls away, even he starts looking unreal. How come you've never noticed how beautiful he is? He was a happy child once and then something happened and now he stands before you like Cabanel's Satan—already dead or maybe dying.

Another realisation is just on the verge of bursting through the rose tint, but you swallow it down, clinging tighter to your euphoria. Is it so bad that you don't want to spend your whole life scared of your grandmother's bogeymen? If you were normal, wouldn't you have disregarded everything and kissed him by now?

Keyword: normal.

Something inexplicably funny is in there somewhere but you're laughing before you figure out what. He opens his eyes to look at you. The force of him is too much. Everything about him is too much and you feel yourself wanting to touch it better. To push back against the sound of scraping metal; the neighing of a rogue horse. Actually, you want to suffocate that horse. It clicks.

Oh.

A part of him must die. Why haven't you thought about that before? It's so fucking obvious. His past must die. You rack your brain for the words to the prayer your grandmother burned into your thigh. You call on the sensation of the hot cast-iron searing your skin as you grab hold of him. He stops jumping. The words are there on your tongue but you're overcome by the physicality of him; his warm skin, his panting breath. Your eyes snag on his throat, lips, eyes. "You were so right," he's saying, nodding.

His smile is too big not to be drug-induced. "All this time. You don't understand, all this time I was so consumed"—he says it like it's the most wonderful word in the dictionary—"but like fuck him. Fuck my father. Yashar, I swear to god, I fucking love you. Fuck—"

"Listen, did something happen to you?"

"What? No. This...this is all you. This is fuck fear—"

"No." You swallow, grabbing his hands. "Did something happen to you when you were younger?"

"What do you mean?" He's not smiling anymore.

"I know this-this...it's crazy, but I think I know how to make it better. The headaches."

"I feel good. I feel fine now, don't worry—"

"No. Listen. My grandmother is a soothsayer. Just let me—" but he's not. He's pulling away from you, and as strange as it sounds you're sharing a heartbeat and it's picking up speed. He's afraid, but he shouldn't be. This is actually one of the prayers your grandmother never had anything negative to say to you about. It's one filled with so much love and light, you're sure of it. His shadows won't stand a chance.

"Touch me." You reach for his hands again and start jumping in beat to the music. "Please." Dance with me. You're not expecting him to, much less to embrace you in a bear-hug, picking you up and spinning you in the air.

"Oh, look. A pas de deux, Mr Dahl," Matilda calls from the grass. "Form needs a bit of work though, Yash." You land ungracefully as he releases you, proving her right. "We've got rehearsals next week, sad if you broke anything."

"Fuck off." You grab on to him for support as he practically spins you around his twisting torso to throw daggers at her with his eyes.

"Hey," you soothe. He's got his arms around your waist and he's not intending to let go anytime soon. Looking into his eyes you surprise yourself by not stepping back.

What if it doesn't work and it's all been a mad woman's delusions all along? What if there's no such thing as magic? You want to find out. Maybe just as much as you want to kiss him, maybe more. You grab him, cupping his jaw with your hands. He brings your foreheads together, eyes closed. His relief amplifies the jumble of sounds. They bore into you, forcing their way inside your skull. He mistakes your gasp of pain for want and presses his lips to yours.

Did you really think you could save an agent of Death? Nay child.

You hear your grandmother's voice as clear as day before he consumes you. The sounds are so loud they ground themselves into your bones, hollowing out your marrow. The pain is a white-hot flame to your retinas. And the worst part—by far the worst part—is trying to fight it. You scarcely feel him against you when you start reciting. Whatever little pain relief you gain from the cleansing prayer is just enough to buy you time to fill your lungs once. When you breathe, you breathe in the smell of dewy grass, and when you exhale, it suspends in a cloud before your face. You're freezing and there's an urgency to your thought. You need to be quick. Why? You need to be swift. Why? These are not your thoughts. There's a different texture to them; they weigh differently, are more frenzied, but you accept them, and as long as you don't fight them, the pain eases. You make yourself boneless, letting them lead you.

The smell of cut grass is so powerful it jumpstarts your heart. You only realise you've been running all this time as your body comes to a halt before a grey horse on the other side of the road, and you realise: this isn't you at all. This is Frans Dahl.

Come, Ziggy. Good boy. Come.

You're Frans Dahl. The realisation shatters along with your body as the truck—so fast, so sudden, so alarmingly loud—races through you. You become the lingering echo of screeching metal and exploding glass. As expansive as the sky. And then you become the sky too.

Here, here. I got you. You're dying, son. Do you know what that means?

Pain slams back into your body with the force of a double-decker.

What do you want? Be quick, there's not much time left.

You want to live. You want to live. You want—

"Yashar."

"He's breathing!"

"Yashar?"

You'll try to describe this moment, coming to, seeing all of their crowding faces, each wearing a distinct frown of worry, and fail. It won't feel real to you—none of it will. His blown-out pupils, the emergency personnel speaking through the phone, Foy asking you if you'd had a heart attack and Matilda shoving Matt, insisting it was his stupid fault.

Most surreal will be the male choir and the light over their heads as if you're seeing the sun through stained glass. There will be voices there, too, in the beginning. Voices that'll sound like your mother's, your grandmother's, an incessant ringing, but they'll quickly bleed into the festival surroundings as the connection to his projection severs.

The pain everywhere subsides and you hear the blaring rock music. Feel his arms around you. Hear him asking, "Can you stand up? Are you concussed?" But you keep saying, "I'm sorry." It doesn't even sound like your voice and you tell yourself you don't know why, but you do. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Frans."

Dying is fucking painful, and you never ever want to experience anything like it ever again.

***

If it's one thing you're truly good at, it's convincing yourself what's happening isn't really happening. For as long as you can remember, your existence has been split between your grandmother's world, the world of flames and divination, and your world, the one you've chosen for yourself.

Given the choice, why would you ever choose a world concocted by someone who abused you for most of your childhood when there's this? This world. The one in which you're a champion? From a tiny village near the Alborz mountain to the English National Ballet. Wow. That's what they all say, wow. At the end of each night they applaud and applaud and applaud, several minutes at a time. And in the dressing room backstage, everyone besides the truly bitter, have nothing but love and admiration for you. This is your world. This. The one in which Frans Dahl is a man, a boy, a recent graduate, a brother. Alive. In every sense of the word.

When you get out of the shower the next day, in the safety of your own flat, and find two missed calls (two) from your grandmother, you pretend that that—along with being sucked into Frans's death—never happened. You throw yourself into a routine of Rehearsal 1, Rehearsal 2, Rehearsal 3, 4, 5, Extra Rehearsal, Performance Rehearsal, Performance. Eating. Sleeping. Waking up to repeat it all again. The season ends without you ever looking up from your calendar. Summer turns into winter before you've set an alarm for the next day.

You're self-appointed manager, Tom, is begging you to leave the ballet as soon as your nine-month contract ends. It feels like you're never fully rested. If you're not guesting for the ballet (they're really milking you for all your worth, six performances a week), you're in the studio posing for one brand sponsorship or another.

Spring draws closer with a yawning mouth, but you're wilting amongst its greenery, and it's not something a weekend trip to see your nephews and sister in Malmö for Nowruz will fix. You feel disconnected and strange as you bow for the last time on some stage in Manchester you can't remember the name of. The night whizzes past in snapshots of debauchery; sloppily removed make-up in nightclub mirrors, overflowing champagne bottles in the back of taxis, the aftertaste of anchovies and the cloying sweetness of Matilda's perfume as she clings to you. You won't be able to explain it, but you'll want to get swallowed up. To get swallowed up and disappear truly and fully into the night.

Your anchor out of depression will come in the shape of a red door. Some hole-in-the-wall tapas bar, a block from the nearby flamenco school in the Spanish Quarter. The bar itself is called Grotto de Granada and you watch your first performance there from the staircase. To your surprise, the space, no bigger than your east London flat, is crammed. It'll do something to you. The atmosphere, the rhythm, the clapping, the hungry faces of the students. That same night you'll book a flight back to Seville.

Everything changes in continental Europe. You jump between dance studios, at first craving a bularía. Any bularía. Any flamenco rhythm. But after drifting for some weeks, you find yourself in your old neighbourhood in Madrid. Friends that you've neglected to the point of losing all their manners around you, harass you into their studio and then into a charity performance at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. From there, you're making plans with the creative director of that same company for a rendezvous in London. Your plans of returning are as fickle as a paper plane on a rainy day but he's handsome and charming and before you know it he's pinned you down for a day at the beginning of August.

From then until August you're recycling the same ten kilograms of clothes in your carry-on as you spread yourself thin across Europe. Your hitch back to London in a private plane from Greece that lands in Gatwick Airport, all provided for by Tara's new beau. Crete's been treating her good and she's flying out to wrap up her second studio album with a hotshot producer who apparently lives as a recluse in nowhere-Suffolk. In and out of London, that's all your visit is supposed to be, but Tom, and the creative director Marco, and Tara all have different plans.

***

There's something about the late-summer breeze that evening that takes you back to a particularly awkward car ride back from Wilderness. If you were the type that believed in coincidences, any plausible reason would suffice to dismiss the icky feeling that settles in your stomach as soon as you approach the affluent west London neighbourhood. But you don't, and so you can't help but think that something dreadful is waiting behind that anonymous door.

You don't like the look of the place. It's the sort of walled-off house that you know from experience conceals the nefarious deeds of the upper-class, and you can't imagine why Tara would want to spend her last remaining hours in London there.

"Thirty minutes, in, out." You grab her by the sleeve of her jacket as she puts out her cigarette on the stone bannister. She shrugs off your pointed look with a roll of her eyes.

"Set an alarm."

"I will, and when it's up? Can you promise me you won't linger?"

"I swear, I don't even know the guy like that."

"You say that every time," you mumble as she rings the doorbell. "What are we even doing here? Your flight leaves in hours. Hours."

"I told you, this guy's like a literal genius. I just need to—" she doesn't get any further, cut off by the door opening and the previously contained sounds tumbling out in full volume along with a whiff of weed so potent it makes you wince involuntarily. "Heeey," Tara greets the woman.

"Hi babes, you friends of Freddy or Gregor?" she asks, holding out the uncorked bottle of wine in her hand like a microphone. You have no idea what she's talking about when Tara replies, "Gregor."

"Good, just checking."

"Sorry, who's Freddy?" Tara asks.

"Don't know, I was just asked to ask. Door duties and that, you know?" She doesn't seem all that sober, and you feel your stomach sinking as she laughs her way inside. You follow her down a hallway that opens to a spacious living area.

"This place is disgusting," you say as you press into Tara on the small landing so that she can hear you over the music. "I can't believe you preferred this over a cosy tapas bar."

"You're forgetting that you've already taken me there and it's the deadest place I've ever been to."

"Can't help it if you don't have taste. So, what does your friend look like?"

"See that guy over there?" She nods to one of the sofas that's slightly angled away from you. You can't tell who her eyes are trained on; the guy smoking the hookah, the one on his phone, or the one sitting on the armrest. To be honest, they all look the same. Same short trim, same style of clothing, same bored look.

"I'm setting the alarm now," you warn. "I'll go see if I can find something to drink. I'll come find you." She nods, but her mind is already halfway across the room. You watch her drift into the crowd, eyes trailing her until you confirm which one of the men it is before you head off in the opposite direction.

The kitchen is surprisingly airy with big glass doors opening up to a backyard patio and a garden that looks good enough to feature in Architectural Digest. You find your eyes drifting to the people out there, glancing at their glasses, trying to guess what they contain so you don't embarrass yourself by how bad you are at making alcohol drinkable. There's an assortment of spirits along the kitchen counter and nothing else. Bottles of all shapes and sizes stare back at you, daring you to mess up. You pick up a bottle of vodka, seeing as it's the only liquid you can tell apart from the others. And then you're standing there, debating whether to drink it straight. Is that something people do? When you try, you almost dry heave. You need to dilute it, but with what?

You're looking around for something suitable when you notice someone's left behind their drink on the counter. You know you shouldn't, but you have a horrible habit of stealing people's drinks. Yes, it's bad, but it's convenient. Just a taste, you tell yourself. At least then you'll have some idea to spring off of. With your back to the people on the patio, you take a sip. The alcohol burns your tongue but is immediately soothed by something sweet and refreshingly zesty. Okay, not bad. You take another sip—

"Wow, déja vu." It travels down the wrong pipe and you're coughing, eyes burning, sinuses stinging, hunched over. You're in literal hell. He doesn't touch you so much as hovers until you turn to face him. Even with eyes welling with tears you can tell something's different about him. You've never seen a year's time passing on someone's face before. He's let his stubble grow, grown broader, cut his hair, changed up his style to something more form-fitting and darker. You've thought about him so often you're now realising you've inadvertently frozen him in time. Given his shadows a fixed nature when in fact they'd always been these malleable, living things with a mind of their own. Reminded, you take a step back, hitting the counter loudly and awkwardly enough to wipe the shy smile off his lips.

"Hi." It sounds meek even to your ears.

He takes a step back, giving you space, then nods to the drink in your hand. "Still using the excuse that you suck at making drinks?"

"I swear, I didn't know it was yours." You can't tell what expression you're wearing but it does something to his demeanour.

He looks away, glances back again, says, "It's not, but I saw you swiping it. It's a pretty well-lit kitchen."

His eyes don't stay fixed on you for long. He's glancing at the ceiling, at the appliances, behind him at the doors leading out to the garden. You see the people he came with standing around looking at the two of you. He rubs his neck.

"I wanted to—"

You—" you both begin at the same time.

"You probably need to get back to your friends," you say, having no qualms about seizing the lull, not if it means he leaves faster and you can go back to breathing again.

"Ehm no, it's—" he shakes his head. "I told them I knew you and they didn't believe me." His skin is reddening and he's gesturing with his hands trying to get the words out faster. "They're the Americans—I mean, they're my friends, of course, but like from New York—they're in town for Gregor's bash."

"Oh."

"Yeah," he continues, "they're fans."

"Fans?"

"Massive fans of yours." He just stares, his cheeks colouring alarmingly fast. You glance over his shoulder to get a better look at them; two women and a man, standing pretty much in the same position as last time, but unlike before they're no longer preoccupied with you. They're dressed in retro-futuristic clothes that look made for first matrix film. Your frown is very visible because what the fuck. Why would he say that? There's no way these people wouldn't bark out laughing at the thought of sitting through a ballet.

"Are you here alone?" he asks before you can get a word in edgewise.

"No."

"I take it they're as hopeless as you are in making a drink?"

"No, Tara's definitely better, but she left me for...maybe Gregor, I don't know. I honestly have no idea who—"

"You came with a girl?"

"A friend." You hate that you have to qualify. Hate seeing his relief. Hate that you've spent months rehearsing this moment; what you would say, how you'd say it, how you'd look while saying it, and that after all that time, that he's allowed to do this. To completely ruin the script.

You watch, frozen in place, as months of dreading and carefully planning your life around avoiding him goes down the drain the moment he reaches for the glass in your hand and raises it to his mouth.

"So you like this, then?" He takes a sip. Your mind has never been this disconnected from your mouth. You feel the words forming only to wash away, again and again, each time by a wave of emotion larger than the one before.

"A bit too sweet."

"Uhm, how's your sister?" That can't be your voice.

"Which one?" he asks, and despite yourself, you're smiling. God, what's happening to you. Was he always this... overwhelming?

"Foy. I haven't met the other."

"Billie. I would count my blessings. I love her, but Billie's," he shakes his head as he grabs a clean tumbler from the cupboard overhead, "she's one of a kind, let's just leave it at that."

"Crazier than you and Foy?"

"I'm not crazy."

"Are you avoiding my question on purpose?"

"Sorry." He doesn't look it one bit. "I'm a bit distracted." He glances at you, each time in longer increments that feel more like aeons than seconds. Your whole body feels feverish, lethargic, weighed down by the realisation that you're not alone in wanting to stop this small talk, to stop time altogether, to just to look at him.

You shouldn't want to, not when his shadows are already sucking you in; the music around you growing fainter, the smell of weed and strawberry flavoured tobacco falling away, replaced by the woods from his past.

He's dead.

You felt him die. But how can that be? He's there in the flesh, making you a drink. Once again you feel your two worlds colliding and you're desperate—desperate—to cling to normalcy. You force your spine to soften, your shoulders to relax, your hip to support your weight by leaning deeper against the counter.

"Here, taste this." He hands you the drink he's mixed. You take it from him, watching as he watches you bring it to your lips.

"You sure this'll be good?" But you're closing your eyes all the same and taking a blind swig. You wince as it goes down. "Ugh, no. Nope." You push the glass to his chest as if physically distancing yourself from it will stop your throat from burning.

"Okay, let me find something to soften the blow." He walks over to the fridge and grabs a two-litre coke. Fills the glass to the brim.

"Excuse you," you're bringing it to your mouth even as you clumsily spill some of it on your hand. He watches where you've spilt the liquor, intently. So intently you lose your focus and don't take a sip.

"Was that always there?" he asks. Your stomach hallows at his caress over your sun tattoo. And suddenly you must drink. You gulp down the content, not even tasting it.

"I got a tattoo, too." His gaze softens.

You show him your other hand, the moon inked between your thumb and forefinger. "Got them ages ago when I moved to Spain," you say.

"A changeling."

"A what?"

"A changeling tattoo, that's what Ricky," he throws a glance over his shoulder at his friends on the garden patio, "calls them. When you get one to mark the end or the beginning of an experience."

"Is he your tattooist or something?"

"God no. But it has a name, kinda cool."

The way he's looking at you draws the inevitability of asking about his tattoo to the forefront of your mind. You feel yourself fighting it for a few seconds before asking, "Why did it take you so long?"

He chuckles. "I finally knew what I wanted and I wasn't afraid of getting it. Why the moon and the sun?"

"To tell the time when I'm dancing." Nobody has ever asked before and even if they did, you wouldn't have told them the real reason. For some reason, with him, you come awfully close to the truth. His stare bores into you and you wish you could pry open his mind and dissect his thoughts. "Where?" you ask. Maybe you mean to embarrass him, to watch him redden, to feel your heart beat uncomfortably close to painful. Maybe that's why you ask. Maybe this is exactly what you want; for him to grab the drink from you, for your heart to squeeze as he takes your hand and spins around to face the garden.

"Here." You're hardly breathing as he guides your hand to his lower back. "A bit higher up." That's as far as his arm twists, but yours is climbing. Feeling the expanse of moving muscle under his polo shirt.

"Here?" You surprise yourself by how detached you sound.

"Almost, bit higher up."

"Here?" you ask flattening your palm between his shoulder blades. His head hangs, leaving the nape of his neck exposed. You feel yourself stepping closer. What is wrong with you? His scent is overwhelming this close: summer grass and Lynx body spray. You could bite him. Sink your teeth into his meaty shoulder. God, you're depraved. "Here?" you repeat again when he doesn't answer.

"Yes." But he doesn't move an inch and you don't either for what feels like an eternity. He turns around slowly, "I can't wait till my dad sees it."

"A revenge tattoo, how boring."

"Oh, but only the best revenge tattoo."

"A naked guy?" You don't know why you're doing it. He's frowning, looking as if you've sprouted an extra head. It's your voice, the mean way you've arranged your face to deflect the way your heart is beating erratically in your chest—over a guy. Over a guy who's dead.

You feel sick.

"That's....that's actually brilliant, but, yeah, maybe not as a permanent mark on my skin for the rest of my life. My dad's religious." He's smiling. "I mean religious in the most phoney way possible. I'm talking about cheating on your wife with a mistress for ten odd years religious. Never attends mass religious. Anyway, my grandma on my mum's side always used to tell us these macabre stories about the Norse gods when I was younger. Stories he's always hated and used to make a big fuss about." He laughs. "I can just see the face he'll pull so clearly, eight hours of getting poked with a needle is worth it just for that mental image."

"He hasn't seen it yet?"

"He lives in Connecticut."

"Okay." What?

"Well, technically he lives here and over there, but he's over there now."

"Okay, so what's this tattoo that'll get him so riled up when you see him years from now?"

"Not years. We run the London Marathon together and he hasn't missed one, ever."

"Still, my point."

"It's Odin's raven," he says it like it explains everything, "holding his eye in its beak."

"A raven." A bird associated with death. You don't believe in coincidences and too many are piling up. Your stomach revolts. Get out. Get out now.

You don't. You're schooling your face as he says, "The description really doesn't do it justice. I would show you, but..."  he grows shy, but you can hardly concentrate over the fear so strong it has you mapping the quickest escape route around his body. You've just about found the words to excuse yourself when his friends step inside the kitchen.

"We're heading upstairs," one of the girls says, her drawl distinctly American. They don't wait around for him to answer, but he does anyway, "Yeah, this is, uhm, Yashar." They all turn to you, mid-stride.

"The Hispanic heritage museum." The guy—Ricky—says nodding knowingly.

"Yeah," Frans replies, shifting from one foot to the other. Glancing at you he says, "Long story."

"Well, Gregor's probably upstairs," the first girl says, "we should say hi, considering. She makes an effortless gesture to nothing in particular that somehow makes sense, "and then we're leaving."

"Okay." Her gaze lingers for a beat longer before they leave. Watching them go you're struck by two things simultaneously: the mention of the Hispanic heritage museum —there's a story there and it has something to do with you—and secondly that these friends of his, with their shiny, tight-fitting black clothes and pale exaggerated make-up, are very different from the ones you've seen him with before.

"Sorry, about that." He rubs the back of his neck.

"You owe me an explanation."

"There's really nothing to explain."

"Oh, I have a list. Friends from New York City who all flew out to come to a house party? Honestly, who is this Gregor and why are people flocking to him like it's a fucking pilgrimage?" You don't expect it to come out quite as aggressively as it does.

He laughs. "What are you doing crashing someone's party?"

"No. I'm asking the questions. Hispanic heritage museum?"

He groans. "Can I have a cig before the interrogation please?" He glances longingly at the patio. "Do you mind?"

You didn't know he smoked. You don't let your surprise show as you trail behind him to the garden. He grabs the lighter and packet off the outdoor table and takes a drag so deep your lungs smoulder along with the end of his cigarette.

When did you start smoking? you don't ask. Too invasive. Too much like you know him, or worse, like you used to be friends.

"I went to visit Foy, in Los Angeles after I quit the design job I was telling you about." He takes another drag. "The product designer one. No, sorry, junior product designer." He makes a wry face. "Long time coming really. I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do my first week there. Ever experience that? It's a mind-fuck. I mean, this is what you went to school for, and you're competing with all these amazing portfolios, and you don't even want to be there. Anyway, I quit, and then I'm in L.A—that's when all this started," he gestures to his cigarette, "it's disgusting, but," he shrugs, "I was losing my mind there for a bit. Waking up and not having a purpose, like a stable 9–5, it's scary. And Foy and my dad... Anyway, I'm getting the hang of it now, finally. I did some freelancing once I got to New York for this company, UniDes. And then, Claes—I don't know if I've mentioned him, the art dealer who... Yeah, anyway, he invited me to a showing at his gallery. That's where I met Ricky and Erin, and the quiet girl, Miya."

"They're not really fans are they?" you ask when he takes another long drag.

"I'm getting to that."

"So it's a joke?" Of course. "Why would you do that? Why would you say something like that?"

"Wait, no. Maybe I exaggerated a little, but they really didn't believe it was you."

"Why would they? They've never seen me before. Erin certainly didn't seem like she liked me either, and Ricky—" you can hear yourself losing it, "with that whole 'Hispanic museum' schtick. Do you think I'd enjoy that? That, what, I'd feel flattered?" He used you like he was trying out a punchline to his inside joke on an outsider, all the while blushing like he couldn't believe you were gobbling it up.

"No. Wait. Sorry...I-I," his eyes fly shut like he's in agony, "I'm not doing this right."

"Doing what? What's this?"

"I haven't seen you in a year—" he breaks off, calming himself. When he starts again, it's slow, enunciated. "When I saw you standing there like that... I just... Would you have preferred me not to walk over to you?" He's asking something else with his eyes; something much larger, stealing all the air from your lungs. Then he says, "Carmen Amaya." Two words that pull the hurt and anger from under you leaving your heart levitating. "The reason Erin probably doesn't like you. The Hispanic heritage museum. I dragged them there and made them miss a really important auction."

"What does that have to do with me?"

He laughs, humourlessly, extinguishing his cig on the ashtray. "She's the most famous flamenco dancer."

"Yeah, I know."

"You mention her like every other sentence, and maybe... Maybe if we ever met like this again, we could have something to talk about other than," he looks anguished, "you know, you almost dying from molly I gave you." He swallows. "And they know. Of course, they know who you are."

"You went to a Carmen Amaya exhibition? In New York?" you ask.

"Yes."

"And you dragged your alt friends and made them miss an important auction. Friend that you had known for how long?" But you're smiling and he's fighting back laughter as he says, "A month give or take."

Something settles between you. Some unsaid thing too vast and fragile to acknowledge. And you did it because you knew she's my idol, you don't say.

"I bought a Blu-Ray DVD on her life as a souvenir and everything."

"Skipped the I-heart-N.Y.C tees and went straight to the Carmen Amaya merch. I'm impressed."

"Don't pretend like you wouldn't scoff and never speak to me if you saw me in one of those."

You laugh.

"Can't have that," he says, and then, much quieter, "How've you been?"

"I'm not with ballet anymore."

"I know."

"I haven't seen Matilda in months."

"Do you miss it?" You're not sure what he's asking; the ballet, Matilda, or a time in your life when you were oblivious to how he died.

"A lot." You swallow, clearing your throat. "I have other projects in the works though. I went back to Spain for a short while, danced some Spanish folk dance, but it looks like I might be doing something more contemporary in the future."

"Are you staying?"

"It's not really up to me." He nods as if he understands but he doesn't. Not really. It's there, written all over his face. His hestitation. He opens his mouth, closes it.

"It would suck if you had a flight booked and weren't telling me." His words feel like bricks the way they sink. "Feels like something you would do, and it makes me want to do something foolish in return, like admit I've really missed you and if you're leaving you should tell me now." He doesn't say it like one, but there's something in his rueful smile that makes it sound a lot like a confession, and you think, of course, only someone like him would confess and leave it hanging like bait for the awkwardness.

He's so much braver than you. He is because there's no way your pride would've survived the ensuing silence—your silence.

"I haven't booked a flight yet." You don't know why you phrase it like that, or what it means, but you like the look of his blossoming smile. For once you can actually admit it without trying to cover it with something snarky about his immaturity. You like him. You like him despite everything. He opens his mouth, "There's this—" but is drowned out by the ringing from your pocket.

"Fuck, the alarm." You take one look at him realising he has no idea what's going on. "It's...it's stupid. Short version: time's up and I need to let Tara know," guilty you add, "if we don't leave she'll miss her flight."

"It's okay, I wasn't planning on staying much longer anyway. Do you have a ride? I could drop you off if you'd like."

"You're driving? Are you sure you're sober enough for that? What about your friends?"

"Yes. And don't worry about them, they'll be safe."

"Honestly..." you start, not wanting to feel indebted to him, simultaneously struggling with the newfound realisation of liking him liking him. He's looking at you expectantly. Hopefully. "If it's not too big of an inconvenience," you say, caving.

"It's not. Go find Tara. I'll meet you out front."

For the briefest moment, however ridiculous the impulse, you think of grabbing Tara and bolting out the backdoor as soon as you're out of his sight. A part of you is screaming: you're not actually entertaining the idea of there being anything between you two, are you? He's dead. You died along with him on that field in Oxfordshire.

No.

How do you explain it then?

Nothing happened. It was just a bad trip.

Your hand is shaking as you place it on Tara's shoulder. You lean over and whisper something that never makes it to your ears. She follows you, talking animatedly, but you barely register her, pressed up against you in the crammed hallway as you make your way outside.

What's come over you?

You're at a crossroads. The realisation happens slowly and then all at once as you catch sight of him, seated on the bonnet of his black Volvo.

"Is that him?" Tara asks and you nod but deep inside you're thinking: this is the moment. This is the moment you choose between forgoing everything your grandmother taught you, to instead carve your own path with a boy—not dead, not emitting shadows and noises—but this boy right here, who despite himself can't hide his happiness at seeing you. Who indulges Tara's thousand-miles-an-hour gushing about the guy at the party and doesn't so much come close to vexed when she asks, "mind if I put on something?" and turns the volume to the highest setting.

You know it in your heart of hearts you could come to love him. This boy. As he is now. That if you try hard enough, you could become functional enough for him, for the both of you. Leaning back in the passenger seat, feeling his gaze on you as he waits out one red light after the other, you'll tell yourself the shadows aren't real. And when they fight you for their truth, pulling you into the sounds of the car crash that killed him, you'll close your eyes and try your goddamn hardest to convince yourself of the fact.

***

THE END

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