Lark is grateful for the contact, for the comfort, but his mind drifts. He thinks about the attention he has demanded from Oli during the night, the intimacies he has been allowed. Oli smiles at him kindly, and Lark’s thoughts go to Reed, asleep in the upstairs bedroom. His window overlooks the lawn, where he might look out and see Lark holding hands with his boyfriend in the dark, under the stars.

It’s easy, Lark knows, to misstep. His body says things his mind doesn’t even allow him to think. He has pulled himself apart over these kinds of mistakes—and had others help with savaging.

In Portland, he sang his harmonies for Jules and became something more than he had been before. Singer and songwriter, both. A declaration of self-sufficiency that Max heard even though Lark did not. Without knowing it, he became a rival. And Max was grasping, and Dana worrying. Everything was unraveling.

He doesn’t like to think what his careless hands might have done to Jules and Quinn.

Lark traces that sinking feeling, the particular shame, to a single moment of happiness. The last half hour in the recording studio, listening with Jules resting quietly against him, an elation that left him singing in the parking lot.

He didn’t know what he was doing. Thinks, maybe, now, he doesn’t know what he is doing either.

Oli can hear Lark’s chest working, his breath deliberate, a little shaky on the inhales. Their contact only lasts a moment. Even though Oli keeps a gentle pressure on Lark’s knuckles, Lark tugs his hand away.

“Sorry,” Lark says, his hands up over his eyes. Oli isn’t sure what he’s apologizing for: reaching out or pulling away. Oli considers offering his hand again to reassure him, but then Lark turns his face towards him.

His pale eyes are full of moonlight, bright in shadowed sockets. He pulls in a deep breath, like he can’t get enough air, like any moment he will be pulled down underwater, dragged to an airless depth.

Oli thinks to touch him again might make it worse.

Lark mutters something unclear, then goes quiet.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Oli tells him. “You don’t have to explain.”

I

Quinn texted to tell me he hadn’t made it to campus on Wednesday—the day he had an afternoon research seminar, the day I went with him to practice piano after work.

I picked up the message on my lunch break. Having a Bad Day. Won’t make it to campus. Sorry. Will make it up to you.

I told him that was fine, not to worry, that I hoped he felt better. I thought of Jules, too, looking tired and translucent when I had last seen them. Their pastel hair and dark roots, the slope of their neck under my palm.

I asked if I could come over after work. Quinn sent back a smiley face and a list of movies he wanted us to watch.

When I showed up at the house, the door was unlocked, and Quinn was on the sofa. He was sociable, but pale and tense with pain, mouth a grim line and knees pulled up to his chin. His hair was pulled up, revealing the gaunt ridge of his cheekbones, unobstructed by the tube that usually ran from behind his ear and into his nose. He’d dislodged it, he said, accidentally.

Quinn put on Stalker—a movie he loved and had seen before. That I had never seen a Tarkovsky film was a source of gleeful astonishment. I had fallen asleep fifteen minutes into Solaris during my summer convalescence.

Jules came in not long afterward. They bent over the sofa to kiss Quinn, who turned his head to the side, offered his cheek. He mumbled something about needing to brush his teeth. Jules asked quiet questions about how Quinn was feeling but was waved away, shushed for interrupting the film.

Jules shrugged and moved over to me instead, ghosted a hand over my shoulder, then came to rest with their chin against the back of the couch. I could feel their breath against my ear. Imagined, briefly, my hair would stick to their lip gloss.

Quinn was looking at us, at Jules so close to me. He was frowning, jaw tensed–still–against pain. I turned away.

Max wasn’t home when I got back. Dana was sitting on her own in the living room, her face lit up by her laptop screen. She moved over to make room for me, asked me how practice went. She was editing photos of Max: his face in sharp focus against the blur of leaves, mouth open in a way that showed his teeth. He looked vicious and hungry, hair sticking out in all directions like he’d gone feral outside somehow.

Where were you tonight? she asked. Max was looking for you.

He knows I usually practice on Wednesdays.

He said your car wasn’t there. At the college.

I told her, then, about Quinn being sick. That I’d gone up to visit him and Jules.

You guys are close, huh? Dana had stayed focused on the screen, but she looked up at me in the silence I left after the question. Max misses you, you know? Practicing and stuff. Like you used to.

I started to drift off to my room, Dana’s voice following me.

Are you still serious about Squires? Are you going to leave?