He looks at me, desperate.
“I—” My head is spinning.
“So maybe it doesn’t have to be the reason he dies,” Cal concludes. Even under the soot, he’s visibly blushing. He looks at Lanz, whose breathing has only quickened.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Morgan. She’s frowning. Frowning and thinking. Frowning and thinking and putting her hands together, thumb tips pressed together, fingers curled and touching at the ends. A mirror image.
A heart.
Then she cracks her hands apart, spreads them wide.
One towards me. One towards Cal.
Oh my God. Of course. It’s so stupid. It’s almost so stupid that I’m angry about it. I start crying, practically hysterical. “You idiot,” I say, laughing out the words. “You absolute idiot.”
Cal looks alarmed, staring at me like I’ve lost my mind.
I ignore him—for now—and look to Lanz. “Lanz,” I say. “Lanzelin Dell’Acqua. I love you. Iloveyou.I love you.” I don’t know how many times I need to say it, but I know I haven’t said it before, not that I can remember, even though I know it’s true, and has been for I don’t even know how long. “Do you hear me?” I put my hand on his cheek, brush with my thumb.
He swallows, nods.
Then I look at Cal. Cal, who has loved Lanz since before I ever set foot on this campus. Cal, who has never been anything but there for him. Cal, who has been too afraid to claim it and almost waited too late.
“Tell him,” I say. “Cal, tell him.”
“Oh.” The single syllable breaks in Cal’s voice. He tightens his hold on Lanz’s hand. “I love you,” he says. “I do. I should have told you before, I know, but… I do.”
We wait. All of us holding our breath.
Before anything can happen, before anythingdoeshappen, Cal rocks back on his heels, drop’s Lanz’s hand, fiddles with something on his finger.
His ring, I realize. The one on his thumb. A wedding ring. From his parents.
“Here.” Cal takes it, swallowing hard, lifts Lanz’s hand again, and slides it on the right thumb, same place as he wore it.
And it’s so sweet, it’s so kind, it’s so entirely real and so entirely Cal, I start crying harder, just at the beauty of it and out of adrenaline come-down and the fact that I can’t tell if this is even working or if I even got it right.
But Lanz’s hand tightens on Cal’s.
The color floods back into his face, slowly at first, then faster. His breathing deepens, his eyes open, he pulls himself up, and he kisses Cal hard on the mouth, so hard they almost lose their balance and topple into me, which just makes me laugh even though I’m still crying.
And then, as soon as there’s an opening, I gently push Cal away and take Lanz’s face and scan it to make sure he’s really okay and really alive.
“Hi,” I say. “I love you.” It’s all I can think to say. I feel like I’ve lost any other vocabulary.
“I love you too,” Lanz says, smiling and finally, for the first time in months, looking like the handsome, hapless boy I saw in French class all the way back in fall semester. He frowns. “I love you two, too. Like, t-w-o, t-o-o? Uh…” He squints, tipping his head, even as I’m still holding on. “Je vous aime les deux?” he says, tentatively.
“We get it.” Kai’s voice. “Would you just kiss her already?”
Lanz obliges, kisses me on a carpet of fresh spring grass and nodding clover flowers and green life humming all around us, and I feel like I can fly.
FORTY-TWO
GWENNA
The last day of classes,it’s sunny and warm.
No one takes final exams. The administration cancelled them "in light of recent events"—which is the closest anyone official has come to acknowledging what happened. The party line, as far as I can tell, is that there was a "structural incident" at the chapel and…yet another mysterious fire, this time at Camlann House. (“Those insurance claims are going to start looking mighty fishy,” Kai observed). As if an entire campus blooming back to life in the span of minutes is just…weather.
