“Yes.” I feel my way toward his voice, using the other bunks to guide me.
“Easy.” His hand skates across my back, briefly, as I pass him and find my own bunk. I lie down beneath the sheet and the woolen blanket. Both of them smell like mildew and, very faintly, like mouse shit, but I’m grateful for the warmth. The heat from the fire in the bathing room didn’t penetrate this far. When I exhale, small clouds of breath crystallize in the darkness. It will be hard to sleep. The exhaustion that hit after dinner has evaporated just as quickly as it came. My body is on high alert, full of a twinkling frost. I am incredibly aware of Julian’s breathing, his long body almost next to mine in the pitch dark. I can feel that he is awake too.
After a while he speaks. His voice is low, a little bit hoarse.
“Lena?”
“Yeah?” My heart is beating high and fast in my throat and chest. I hear Julian roll over to face me. We are only a few feet apart—that is how close the beds have been built together.
“Do you ever think about him? About the boy who infected you?”
Images flash in the darkness: a crown of auburn hair, like autumn leaves burning; the blur of a body, a shape running next to me; a dream-figure. “I try not to,” I say.
“Why not?” Julian’s voice is quiet.
I say, “Because it hurts.”
Julian’s breath is rhythmic, reassuring.
I ask, “Do you ever think of your brother?”
There is a pause. “All the time,” Julian says. Then, “They told me it would be better after I was cured.” There are a few more moments of silence. Then Julian speaks again. “Can I tell you another secret?”
“Yes.” I pull my blanket tighter around my shoulders. My hair is still wet.
“I knew it wouldn’t work. The cure, I mean. I knew it would kill me. I—I wanted it to.” The words come out in a low rush. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
Suddenly I could cry. I want to reach over and grab his hand. I want to tell him it’s okay, and feel the softness of his seashell ear against my lips. I want to curl up against him, as I would have done with Alex, and let myself breathe in his warm skin.
He is not Alex. You don’t want Julian. You want Alex. And Alex is dead.
But that’s not quite true. I want Julian, too. My body is filled with aching. I want Julian’s lips on mine, full and soft; and his warm hands on my back and in my hair. I want to lose myself in him, dissipate into his body, feel our skin melting together.
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing away the thought. But with my eyes closed, Julian and Alex melt together. Their faces merge and then separate, then collapse again, like images reflected in a stream, passing over each other until I am no longer sure which of them I am reaching for—in the dark, in my head.
“Lena?” Julian asks again, this time even more quietly. He makes my name sound like music. He has moved closer to me. I can feel him, the long lines of his body, a place where the darkness has been displaced. I have shifted too, without meaning to. I am on the very edge of my bed, as close to him as possible. But I won’t roll over to face him. I will myself still. I freeze my arms and legs, and try to freeze my heart, too.
“Yes, Julian?”
“What does it feel like?”
I know what he is talking about, but still I ask, “What does what feel like?”
“The deliria.” He pauses. Then I hear him slide slowly out of bed. He is kneeling in the space between our bunks. I cannot move or breathe. If I turn my head, our lips will be six inches apart. Less. “What does it feel like to be infected?”
“I—I can’t describe it.” I force the words out. Can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe. His skin smells like smoke from a wood fire, like soap, like heaven. I imagine tasting his skin; I imagine biting his lips.
“I want to know.” His words are a whisper, barely audible. “I want to know with you.”
Then his fingers are tracing my forehead, ever so gently—his touch, too, is a whisper, the lightest breath, and I am still paralyzed, frozen. Over the bridge of my nose, and over my lips—the slightest bit of pressure here, so I taste the saltiness of his skin, feel the ridges and swirls of his thumb on my lower lip—and then over my chin, and around my jaw, and up to my hair, and I am full of a roaring hot whiteness that roots me to the bed, holds me in place.
“I told you”—Julian swallows; his voice is full, throaty now—“I told you I once saw two people kissing. Will you…?”