"Thanks." She ducks her head, wiping a hand over her mouth. "Um. I'm going to...take a shower, I think?"
"Of course," I rasp. "Um, thank you." Her sweater's hanging off the edge of the couch, so I hand it back to her.
Gwenna laughs. "You're welcome, Cal." She leans over and kisses my forehead, then pulls the sweater back over her head and heads for the stairs. "Let me know what you think of the last chapter," she calls back. "When you get there."
"Uh huh," I manage, still not quite breathing regular yet. I look over at Lanz, who's tugging his jeans back by the other side of the couch.
I almost can't believe it's the same person who walked in here twenty minutes ago. It's like he's suddenly in HD or something. Sharper, warmer, in clearer focus.
A prickle crawls down the back of my neck, cutting through the afterglow.
Something's not right.
But what?
"Feeling better?" I say, after too much silence.
“Me?" Lanz says, glancing in my direction. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, much."
He nods a few times, like he's emphasizing the point.
But he doesn't meet my eyes when he does it.
FIVE
GWENNA
I’msurprised how invested I am when classes resume on Tuesday.
I wake up early to pack my bag with textbooks and looseleaf and pencils. In the Camlann House kitchen, I review notes from previous lectures over coffee—something I think I’ve never done before in my life—and I head out with ample time to be a full ten minutes early to class.
It’s a brisk ten degrees above freezing, but not windy, for once, and the campus looks almost alive despite the graying snow and pale sky: students crisscrossing footpaths, books in their arms, chatting or laughing or hurriedly comparing notes in case of a not-so-pop-quiz.
I slow my steps, realizing I’m in no hurry myself. And as I do, a vision of an alternate reality plays out in my mind: a reality where none of this had happened.
Gwenna, mid-semester, freshman year. Neck-deep in reading, spending hours alone in the library, hunched over behind stout walls of books that I flip back and forth between, scribbling notes. I’m busy, untidy, disorganized, stressed—relatively speaking—andblissfullyhappy. I’m mapping out course choices for the next semester, and the one after: can I fit in Old English Poetry, finally tackleBeowulf, or will it conflict with the Byzantine History seminar that’s only offered every other year? Should I plunge on in Latin or should I switch off for a year of intense Ancient Greek? I’m up late reading, I’m playing around with potential thesis topics, I’m considering studying abroad—Paris, Rome, Edinburgh. And all the while, I’m here, living here and learning here, immersed in the little perfect snowglobe of gothic buildings and cramped classrooms and wrought-iron gates that is Caliburn University.
Then I shake my head, and the vision clears.
Because there’s no them. No Kingston, no Kai, no Lanz, and no Callahan.
And even thinking of that feels like carving my heart out of my chest.
I stamp the snow off my boots and settle in the middle of the Art History classroom, take diligent notes in the dark as Professor Lazar flicks her slide carousel around and around.
It’s not even the sex, I think. Although, I admit, thinking of yesterday, of Callahan and Lanz taking me together like that…
I squirm in my seat a little bit, glad that the lights are off.
It is, and it isn’t. I guess I never knew I liked sex that much, that Icouldlike it that much, but most peopledo,so in principle it’s not exactly surprising that once I tried it, I’d enjoy it.
No, more than that, more than anything mechanical or physical or theoretical, it’s them. That they would so plainly do anything for me, that they alreadyhave, on a scale and scope that is almost too big to even fathom.
For me. For just me.
Fuck, I realize.I am so, so badly in love.
The morning passes too quickly,no matter how I try to linger and draw out every step of coming, going, and studying in class, and too soon, it’s time for my last class of the day.
