I doze off, but every so often I wake and turn my head and notice he’s not there. The emptiness beside the bed is like the emptiness inside me and I close my eyes, chanting excuses for him, reasons why he isn’t here, make believe, fairy tales, stupid lies. The unbelievable anxiety that swept me away last night has been surpassed by this futile game. With a sense of bleak fatality, I watch the cold dawn light inch up the walls and lengthen the shadows in the room. Shattered with tiredness and hurt as to where Julian has spent the night, I smother my cough and creep out of the room. Strangely, it’s only as I reach out to push open the door to Julian’s dorm that I realize I’m still clasping that folded piece of paper Louis gave me last night. The hard corners have left numb red marks in my palm from where I have been holding on to it so tightly. For a second I debate unfolding it before I go in, but it can wait; this can’t. The door creaks, the room hushed.
