My Oxford Year: A Novel

And we were in that seldom mood

When soul with soul agrees,

Mingling, like flood with equal flood,

In agitated ease.

Coventry Patmore, “The Rosy Bosom’d Hours,” 1876

The “back stairs” are encased in one of the turrets. Timeworn stone spirals downward into what might once have been a dungeon. I’m definitely coming back later to explore. If we’re still here, that is. Or if I’m not being questioned by police.

Antonia precedes me, and at the last stair, just before we step through an archway, she stops. I hear footsteps coming toward us, echoing in a tunnel. We tuck back into the staircase, hidden from view by the curve of its rough wall. There’s a small cough, which I immediately recognize as Jamie’s. The footsteps turn before they reach us, and stop. “Oh! Sorry.”

“Not at all,” I hear William say, and realize that the cellar must be on the other side of the wall we’re leaning against. “Can I help you?” William’s voice sounds even more ominous in the cellar’s echoes.

“Ella asked me to fetch champagne.” Jamie pauses. “Though I’m beginning to think . . .”

Antonia and I grimace guiltily at each other.

“Right,” William mutters. “Well, since you’ve come, you might as well—”

“I’m sure you have it well in hand.” Jamie’s shoes click, as if he’s turning to leave.

“Jamie.” William’s voice is tight. “Might we have a word?”

I hold my breath. Antonia and I stare at each other, on tenterhooks. Jamie sighs. “Must we?”

Antonia’s eyes close, looking as disappointed as I feel. Dammit, Jamie.

“Of course not,” William huffs. “I thought you might have an opinion on the wine, but I’m perfectly capable—”

“I believe it was champagne she . . .” But even talking about wine seems too overwhelming. “Never mind.” Jamie’s footsteps fill the ancient stone tunnel and then diminish.

Antonia and I look at each other. Should we leave? Should we stay? On the other side of the wall, we hear William root through wine bottles. The sound of glass knocking against wood, of bottles yanked from a rack and pushed back in. Then, an unnatural stillness.

Then, an explosion of shattering glass.

Antonia and I both jump. It’s not the sound of something being dropped; it’s the sound of something being dashed. William’s breathing grows so loud we can hear it from around the corner, guttural and choked. The bull has entered the china shop.

Then he’s sobbing. Feral, bestial sobs. A pained little groan slips from Antonia’s lips and she turns to go to him. I grab her hand. She looks at me, bewildered. I point toward the hallway and then to my ears.

Jamie’s returning footsteps.

William must hear them, too, because he swallows his sobs. Jamie’s clacking heels turn the corner into the cellar and, once again, stop dead. “Not one of the Château Lafites, I hope.” Then, “I thought I heard something as I topped the stairs.” William doesn’t reply. Jamie doesn’t move. “Everything all right?” Jamie ventures.

“Smashing,” William chokes out.

“Rather.”

“It slipped. Nothing to fuss about.”

“I’ll get the broom.” Jamie’s voice deadens as he moves deeper into the cellar.

“Leave it, I’ll have Colin or one of the—”

But I hear the creak of an old hinge and Jamie says, “I’ve got it.”

“Don’t. Let it be. The last thing I need is you cutting yourself.” The sound of glass scraping against the floor. “Damn it all, I said leave it!” William explodes. “Might I be allowed to run my own ruddy house?”

“For Christ’s sake, I’m only—” A heavier set of footsteps strides toward the tunnel hallway. “Right, of course! Walk away. God, I hate . . .” Jamie falters. I imagine him clenching his jaw, his fists, every part of him in one tight coil ready to spring.

“Go on,” William dares. “You hate . . . ? You obviously have something to say, so say it, you ungrateful—”

“Stop!” Silence. Then, “Oliver’s last word, remember?”

“What are you dredging up now?”

Antonia’s hand finds mine.

After a moment, Jamie continues. “We were standing on opposite sides of his bed, arguing over him, and he said, ‘Stop.’ You pretended not to hear it. ‘Stop,’ and then he passed out. Never regained consciousness. Four hours later he needed the ventilator and I had to make the decision. And you hated me for it. ‘Stop.’ His word, not mine.”

Antonia squeezes my hand and I watch her eyes fill and overflow, tears trickling down like a roadside waterfall.

“I wasn’t aware,” William blusters. “I couldn’t hear—”

“‘Stop.’”

After a moment, the sound of tinkling glass resumes. “Hand me the bin.” Jamie sighs. A metal pail scrapes across the floor, followed by the tinny ring of glass dropping into it.

“You routed me,” William says more strongly.

“And you gutted me,” Jamie fires back.

“How so?” William shouts. “Maybe, had you consulted me, instead of behaving like some petulant child—”

The bin crashes to the floor. Oh God, are they going to come to blows?

“You said,” Jamie yells, “his body still warm before us, you said, ‘Why Oliver? Why did it have to be Oliver?’”

My eyes pop open. As do Antonia’s. She doesn’t know this either?

Even William sounds appalled. “I never said such a thing!”

“You did.”

“I would never!”

“First you blamed me for killing him and then you salted the wound by wishing it were me in his place.”

“No! Untrue! A father doesn’t favor—”

“Oh, come off it, you would have gladly exchanged—”

“I was talking about myself!” William roars. “I wanted it to be me lying there! Me! Not you! God forbid, not you.” Rasping breath and then, “I said what I said, Jamie. I did. I blamed you, yes.” William’s voice is as tight as an overwound clock. “But wish you dead? I love you! It was just . . . the pain had nowhere to go, you see, nowhere to—”

A sob rips through the cellar, echoing off the stone. I look to Antonia, but her eyes are closed. Jamie struggles for breath, for control. “Apologies,” he chokes out. “What you said. Was just . . . unexpected.”

When he speaks again, William sounds mystified. “What have I done, honestly, Jamie, what have I done to make you think I would ever wish—”

“Not that.” Jamie clears his throat. “I mean, yes, that. But no, it was the word ‘love’ what surprised me.”

“Oh, please,” William scoffs. “Don’t act as if you don’t know that.”

Eventually, the tinkling sound resumes, breaking the silence. Again. Jamie, voice more controlled now, speaks. “I’ve heard every other bloody thing. Your disappointment. Your anger. But love? No. That stays bottled up inside you like all these wines, just sitting here, waiting to be shared, enjoyed, but too valuable to open. You’re so afraid that once they’re drunk, there will be no more, it will all be gone. Well, one day, it’ll be gone anyway whether you drink it or not.”

“You’re quite the poet, I’ll give you that,” William drawls. Jamie sighs, defeated, muttering something that prompts William to counter, “Oh, come now, I’m joking. I . . . I do understand. What you’re saying, I do. But my father—”

“Dammit!” Jamie hisses. “Bugger it all to hell.” Antonia and I both look up, panicked.

“Christ, d’you cut yourself?”

“It’s fine.”

“Let me see.”

“I’m fine.”

“I have a handkerchief. I’ll wrap it.”

“It’ll stain.”

“I don’t give a mouse fart, give me your hand.”

Silence.

A long silence.

William speaks first. “I believe I may have made a bit of a mess of things.”

“It was a crap vintage anyway.”

William snorts.

Jamie sighs, all the heat seeming to have left him. As if, having volleyed those barbed words back and forth with William, having purged them, they’ve been dulled, rendered inert. “Dying is awful business.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s not true?”

“You’re not dying.”

Jamie scoffs. “We’re all dying.”

Silence.

“I can’t lose both of you, Jamie. I won’t allow it.” William’s voice breaks.

“You won’t allow it.”

“Sons do not die before fathers. It’s not the order of things. I’ve done what I’ve done, I do what I do, because I refuse to accept that this is my lot. Simply can’t fathom that I can’t fix it. I can’t buy the cancer out of you. I can’t pay it to go away, I can’t bully it away. What have I done in this life that I’m forced to watch both my sons die before me?”

When Jamie finally replies, his voice is strangled. “I’m sorry. I truly am. But there is no order to things. I can’t let you do to me what you did to Oliver, just so you feel like you’ve done everything you can. I won’t have ‘stop’ be my last word.”

“Live and let live, is that it?”

“Live and let die, more like.”

Antonia leans her head against the wall, turns into it.

William swallows, his tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth, betraying its dryness. Betraying his fear. “It all seems rather pointless. We fix and repair, fix and repair, only to have it break again. I don’t know what to do, Jamie. Tell me what to do.”

“Open the bottle. Open every damn bottle you can, while you can. Then let me go. In love. That’s what you can do.”

Unbidden, I think of “Dover Beach” and Jamie asking me what Matthew Arnold is saying, and me replying, In death, love is all there is. He asked me how that made me feel and I, stupidly, naively said, Lonely. But not Jamie. No, Jamie answered, Hopeful.

Because Jamie knew all of this already.

After a time, I hear them pulling away from each other and I realize that they were embracing. The sound of a hand pounding on a back as William says hoarsely, “Damn stiff upper lip. Everything comes out eventually, I suppose.”

“Try being with an American,” Jamie quips. They chuckle.

William clears his throat. “How’s your hand?”

“I’ll live.” They both snort at that. “I feel rather better, I must say.”

“If only feeling better made it easier.”

“Well,” Jamie argues, “at least it doesn’t make it harder.”

William groans slightly. “Ever the optimist.”

“Quoth the pessimist.”

They share a chuckle. William sighs. “We better get back up there. Your mother’s probably called the coroner. Here, we’ll take this one up for supper.”

“We’re not drinking this.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s more expedient to ask what’s right with it.”

“You know,” William growls, “where I come from, we drink ale. All this fuss about wine, with the year and the vintage—”

“They’re the same thing, old man.”

Antonia and I look at each other, unable to contain our smiles as they bicker. I point up the stairs with a nod, indicating that we should leave them to it. But Antonia tugs my hand. I look at her. She tugs harder and pulls me into her, our hands unclasping and her arms enveloping me. She kisses the hair above my ear and croaks, “Thank you.”

I swallow. To be hugged by a mother and have nothing but gratitude and joy there; it’s heady stuff. I squeeze her and then, for some reason I don’t understand, nudge her back. We look at each other and she smiles again. She whispers, “Shall we join them?”

I’m about to go with her, but something inside me—for a reason I now understand—whispers back, “You go.”

She looks disappointed, but wipes her eyes, takes a breath, and turns away, stepping through the archway and to her left, into the wine cellar. “Ah, splendid!” she cries, sounding chipper. “You haven’t killed each other.”

They laugh. They speak easily. They tease, they prod, they poke.

I find I can’t take a step. I find I have to lean against the wall for a moment. Just a moment and then I’ll leave. I promise. I just want to appreciate this.

The three of them, on the other side of the wall, are a single unit now. Unseeable, unknowable, by me. I got what I wanted. I’m free to leave now.

So why don’t I want to?

I take a breath. I force my foot onto the next stair, and then the next, and the next. Leaving them behind.

“SO, PROFESSOR DAVENPORT,” Charlie says, holding his champagne flute up by his face and leaning across the table toward Jamie. “I should like to know your intentions.”

“Charlie, please,” Jamie replies. “My parents don’t know about us yet.”

Everyone chuckles, including Charlie, who huffs, “They’d have to be blind not to see the way you look at me.” We’re sitting in the grand dining room, the seven of us spread out around a table meant for twenty, Antonia and William at each head, Jamie and me on one side, Charlie, Maggie, and Tom on the other. We’ve gone through two bottles of bubbly and three bottles of wine. And that’s just since the start of dinner. Smithy’s delicious quintessential English roast dinner, of which she took only one considering bite from Jamie’s plate before declaring it edible, wished me happy birthday, slipped into her coat, and excused herself for the night.

Charlie has rested his elbows on the table, something he would never do sober. The avidity in his eyes makes me nervous. That, and the fact that he’s pouring himself more champagne.

“Seriously now,” Charlie continues. “Tell us your plans.”

Jamie is less comfortable with this question. “Don’t have any, really.” He holds his empty glass up to William, who wordlessly refills it.

“Sorry, but you’ll be teaching?” Maggie prods.

“Well, that remains to be seen—”

“Cease this prevaricating!” Charlie bangs his fist on the table for effect. “What’s to become of Ella from Ohio, our dear Yankee orphan?”

I slide my glass to the right. “William?”

He turns with the bottle. “Pleasure.”

Charlie wobbles a hand at Jamie. “Will you move to Washington? Surely they need skinny-bejeaned, schoolgirl-fantasy liabilities in America as well.”

“Actually”—I jump in—“I’ll probably be traveling with the campaign, so there’s no point in Jamie moving—”

“You’re not breaking up!” Charlie shouts, this possibility just occurring to him. Jamie just drinks his wine. My eyes flash to his parents, whom I don’t really want to discuss this in front of and who are pretending they’ve gone deaf. “Take him with you! He can revise his sodding thesis from anywhere!”

Maggie taps his forearm. “Charlie—”

He’s unmoved. “What’s a year or two in America?” He turns glassy eyes on Jamie. “Go explore the colonies, then come home and take your rightful place as lord and heir of . . .” Unable to remember the name of the house he’s sitting in, he swirls his hand, “this, and then marry Fanny Brice over there”—he means Fanny Price—“and promulgate”—he means “propagate”—“the line as befits a man of your exalted birth!”

“Charlie’s a bit of a monarchist,” Maggie murmurs.

“I’m only saying—”

That’s it. I’m done. “This isn’t just a job, Charlie. It’s my life. If she gets elected, I hopefully get a position in the administration, where I can have some impact. Best case, she gets two terms. Then we get our next guy in and the cycle starts over. I can’t put in for a transfer. There’s no London office in American politics.” Why am I so defensive? Why am I justifying this? Why do I sound bitter when I say, “Decade after decade after decade, keeping my country going in the right direction, that’s my life.”

Charlie, impervious to fact, just looks bewildered. “Surely, someone else can do that!” I open my mouth, but he keeps going. “What, you think you’re alone on this mythical hill with your magical education sword raised against the advancing illiterate hordes? That the issue of education in America can only be fixed by you and your merry band of arts teachers—”

“I care, Charlie, I care about what happens to my country—”

He rolls his eyes. “For someone who loves her country so much, you seem rather keen to change it. Now listen, you silly tart. I love you, I do, but you are a class-A idiot if you think that’s life. This . . .” He gestures between Jamie and me. “What you two have, that’s life.”

The table goes silent. I open my mouth to try, once again, to explain this (or at the very least end it), but he stands. He winks at Jamie and looks back at me. “You have a think.” Then adds, inspired, “While I have a tink!” He staggers out, laughing to himself.

I open my mouth, but Tom—good, ol’ reliable Tom—steps right into the fray. “Might you devise a suitable travel schedule? Whereby an equal amount of time is spent at key intervals traveling to see one another? I could help you devise the algorithm—”

“I’m not disposed to travel, I’m afraid,” Jamie pipes up, finally setting his glass down. He gazes steadily at Tom. “I’m ill.”

Tom looks down at his plate, scrutinizing his food. “I feel fine.”

I lean in to Jamie. “You don’t have to do this.”

He just keeps looking at Tom. “I’ve terminal blood cancer.”

Maggie’s fork drops to her plate with a clatter, her hand finding her mouth. Tom cocks his head like a puppy. “Is it serious?”

“He said ‘terminal,’” Maggie whispers, looking to me for confirmation. I try to nod, but can’t meet her eye.

“I’ve been in treatment for quite some time—” Jamie begins to explain, but Maggie’s sob interrupts him. Her loud, gasping wreck of a sob.

We all stare at her.

She cries harder, gasping for breath. Tom, little boy lost, drops his head to his chest. Jamie glances at me and sardonically lifts his glass.

Charlie, of course, reenters the room at this moment, staggers back to his seat, takes one look at Maggie and Tom, and mutters, “Jesus, who died?”

William abruptly stands, barking, “A toast!” He turns to me and raises his glass. Everyone follows suit, even Maggie, who covers her mouth with one hand while holding her trembling glass aloft with the other. William grimaces at her. “No need to cry about it, my dear, I’ll be brief.” This elicits a relieved chuckle from everyone. Except for Maggie, who sniffles. And Charlie, who peers at her, flummoxed.

“What the hell is going—”

“Eleanor . . .” William’s tone stops even Charlie from continuing. He regards me and his eyes soften. “Ella,” he revises. “I wish to thank you. For being . . .” He pauses, seems to change tack. “Happy birthday. May we all celebrate many more around this table.”

My eyes fill.

Maggie releases a fresh sob.

William raises his glass again. “To Ella from Iowa.”

“Ohio,” Jamie whispers.

“Oh, bugger, to Ella from Ohio, then!”

Laughing, everyone choruses, “To Ella from Ohio!” and clinks glasses.

I nod at William. He nods back.

It’s a start.

Before he regains his seat, Maggie jumps up like a jack-in-the-box, blurting, “Sorry, can I just say—” She draws a shaky breath. She turns and looks down at Tom. “You’re an idiot.”

Tom’s still looking at me.

“Tom!”

He jumps. “Here!” Now he looks up at her.

Her face falls, suddenly sad, deflated. “I don’t have it in me. I simply cannot endure it, waiting for you to go through yet another one of your infatuations. I’m done.”

“But—but it’s you!” Tom stammers.

“I know, yes, it’s me,” she hisses, “never-good-enough, never-pretty-enough, never-one-of-your-propositions—” Tom opens his mouth to interrupt, but she keeps going. “No, I’m going to finish, because I’m done, I’m done always being patient, always there! Don’t you see, we could die tomorrow and we’d never—” Poor Maggie, realizing what she has just said, spins to Jamie and me. “Sorry! I just meant—”

“Keep going!” I cry.

She spins back to Tom, but before she can speak, Tom says, “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“What?”

“Why are you saying ‘what’?”

“Because I said yes and then you said ‘what.’”

“Why?!”

I catch Jamie’s eye and mutter, “Third base!” He gets the Abbott and Costello reference and we bite back a much-needed laugh.

Tom is sputtering. “Why? Because, okay, okay, here it is: Maggie?”

“What!”

Tom’s hand shoots out. “That wasn’t Maggie question mark. Well, it was, but it was meant to be Maggie full stop.”

“All right, yes?”

Tom squeezes his eyes closed like he’s doing calculus in his head. “Shh! Don’t speak! I really must concentrate.”

“Tom, this is—”

He completely melts down. “No! Stop!” He’s beginning to hyperventilate. “Just let me—gather all of my—it’s just, you see . . . All right, going back, just a bit, you know, to what you just said, the thing about never-pretty-enough, and never-whatever-enough and never—what was it? Propositioned!—don’t you see, Mags? From the beginning it was . . . it was you, wasn’t it? It was always you, but I couldn’t have, I wouldn’t have, I mean, I would have, if you’d wanted, of course I would have, but if you hadn’t wanted to, with me, I would have—well, I couldn’t have taken it, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t . . . oh, bugger and blast!” Tom stands. He takes her face in his hands, leans down, and kisses her. Just lays one on her. Arms hanging at her sides, Maggie melts, Tom holds her up by her head for a moment. Then she springs to life, grabbing his shoulders and leaping up, wrapping her legs around his waist.

We stare at them.

Antonia stands, smooths her dress, folds her napkin. “Cake in the library?”

AFTER ANOTHER HOUR of festivities, of cake and coffee and Charlie opening my present of Scotch for another toast, we stumble (some of us more than others) upstairs for the night. I kiss both Antonia’s and William’s cheeks and thank them, without reservation, for the best birthday I’ve ever had. As we walk down the hallway, we peel off into our traditional, separate rooms. I take the opportunity to shower quickly and brush my teeth. There’s a robe in the bathroom and I slip it on. I toe into the slippers Antonia provided.

I can’t do anything about the smile that seems etched on my face.

I crack the door open. The coast is clear. I slip out into the hallway, closing the door behind me as quietly as I can. When I turn around, I see the door next to Jamie’s room open. Maggie shuffles out. I smile. She turns, sees me, startles, and smiles guiltily back.

We meet in the middle of the hall, our shared look like two knowing sorority girls. Then her brow furrows, her smile turns sad, and she pulls me into a hug. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

I manage to whisper back, “Not tonight. We have nothing to be sorry about tonight. Okay?” I take her hands in mine, pull back, and look into her swimming eyes. “I couldn’t be happier. For both of us.”

I can tell she’s excited but nervous. Possibly even worried. As she probably should be. Time for some sisterly advice. “Remember,” I whisper. “It’s Tom. Be literal and explicit. And patient. Also, don’t make any sudden moves.” She chuckles and takes a breath, dropping my hands. When she walks past me, I slap her ass. Stifling a laugh, she slips into the room.

My turn. I quietly open Jamie’s door and close it behind me.

It’s dark. The light from the hallway creeps through the bottom of the door, only illuminating about three feet in front of me. I have no idea where the bed is.

“Jamie?” I whisper, taking tiny steps forward.

“Who goes there?” he growls playfully, his voice coming from the left.

I continue forward, keeping my hands in front of me as I reply, “’Tis none but I, sir.”

“Ella.” He hates it when I do my Dickensian orphan accent. Which only makes me do it more.

“Wot, sir? Does I displease you? Evuh so sorry, guv’nuh.”

He groans as my eyes begin to adjust to the moonlight slipping in through the curtains. I can see him lying in bed, turned toward me, propped up on an elbow. Waiting. The sexiest silhouette in the history of light and dark.

I stop walking when I get to the side of his bed. I look down at myself, illuminated by the ambient silver light. I untie the terry-cloth belt around my waist and drop the robe.

It’s an echo of our first morning-after, when I dropped the sheet just to be shocking. I’m not even sure he remembers this until he says throatily, “The last time you did that you were telling me how much you didn’t want a relationship.”

“Oops.”

He leans forward and snakes his hand around my wrist, tugging me onto his high, plush, inviting bed. I giggle. “Oi, guv! I likes me a bit of a rough tumble ev’ry now an’ den, but—” Jamie puts his finger to my lips and I go quiet. I feel his encroaching heat as his other hand slips up and over my shoulder, grasping the side of my neck. His thumb trawls up my throat, stroking the underside of my jaw.

I liquefy.

“Haud yer weesht, lass,” Jamie murmurs in the flat-out sexiest Scottish accent I’ve ever heard. His breath warms my throat and his lips find the hollow at the base. “Yer in Scotland now, ye ken?” His tongue flicks out, sending a spike of need shooting through me. “None of that sassenach glaiber here.”

I can’t take it anymore. I haul his face up and kiss him, pushing myself into the heat of his bare chest. He’s so warm, I want to burrow in there and hibernate.

But, later. Right now I have other plans.

Jamie’s breathing has quickened and shallowed, there’s a slight rasp. Even though his hands are kneading my hips eagerly, I tip away and ask, “Feeling up for this?” Wordlessly, he brings our mouths back together, throws a long leg over my hip, and slides me toward him, pulling our lower halves flush and answering my question.

Wasting no time, Jamie rolls me onto my back and nudges my legs apart with his knee. He rises up on an elbow, the fingers of one hand tangling into my hair, his other hand finding my stomach. I reach out and card my fingers through his hair. His hand trembles slightly on my abdomen, his breathing still hoarse.

I’m transported. Blame the house, blame the events of the day, blame the ring Antonia gave me, but I suddenly feel as if I’ve slipped into another era. The two of us, in this timeless room, finding our way back to each other. There’s a feeling of reverence in the tilt of Jamie’s head, in his attention to my body. It feels sacred, blessed, even matrimonial. The awareness of centuries of wedding nights that may have passed in this room swoops in on me, and I shiver. Which prompts Jamie to look at my face. His eyes glitter in the dimness. “Thank you,” he murmurs.

I don’t have to ask for what. It doesn’t matter. It ripples through me like a stone dropped in a lake, compelling me to say, right back at him, “Thank you.” For all the same reasons, whatever they are.

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

My seamless reply seems to catch him off guard. He’s not the sort of man to clarify, to ask, “Really?” But I can see it in his eyes. How could he doubt it? In response, I tighten my fingers in his hair. Yes, really.

He drops his head and kisses my stomach. Then sweeps his lips upward. He pivots over me, settling fully between my legs. He lifts onto his palms, rising above me. I bend my knees, wrapping my legs around his hips, so very ready. But he pauses. I notice that his arms are shaking. He’s weak still. He drops his head, hanging it between us. I stretch my neck and kiss his forehead. It’s so warm. He’s overexerting himself.

Before he does something ridiculous like apologize, I grab his shoulders and push him off me, flipping him onto his back. His surprise alone is worth it. He laughs. Without skipping a beat, I straddle him, sliding myself down on him in one go. He sucks in a breath and throws his head back.

I can’t help but grin. We may be timeless, but something tells me this room hasn’t seen many women on top.

MY EYES OPEN slowly, leisurely. Early-morning light finds its way through the gap in the heavy velvet curtains. Jamie’s turned away from me. Caught up in the memories of last night, I slide over and rest my face between his shoulder blades.

I lurch backward. He’s covered in sweat. He’s trembling. “Jamie, you okay?” I whisper. He doesn’t respond. I grab his shoulders and turn him onto his back. His breathing sounds like there’s a baby rattle stuck in his chest. “Jamie!” I hiss. No response. I shake his shoulders. “Jamie, wake up!” I reach for his face.

His skin is on fire.

I bolt upright. “Jamie!” He doesn’t open his eyes. I crawl over him, straddling him in a tragic reprisal of last night, and open his eyelids.

His eyes are rolled back in his head.

I scream.