Jack’s voice came out ugly. “This wasn’t supposed to be forever, you know.”

“Oh really?” Theo laughed, mean. “That’s funny, considering that you’ve told me that you—”

“Yeah, well.” Jack cut him off. “I’ve got things—my internship and stuff.”

“Right. Stuff.”

“And I—Theo, this was just supposed to be—I was always supposed to go home.”

Theo sat on their one chair across from the bed, his whole body still but tense. Anticipatory. “Why now?”

“What?”

“Why now, Jack?” He pulled out his pack and lit a cigarette. Didn’t offer one.

“Look, it doesn’t matter—”

“It matters,” he exhaled, smoke spiraling, “To me.”

Jack sat back onto the bed, looked at his hands. “I just—I got a letter, and it made me—I feel a bit homesick, and—”

“Who sent the letter?” Theo knew, somehow. But he wanted Jack to say it, wanted him to confess.

They’d never talked about her.

“Meg!” Jack shouted, then more quietly but still fucking angry, “It was from Meg, all right?”

Theo’s voice, very still, as sharp and deadly as a scalpel—“Can’t bear to be queer, can you?”

The air in the flat was thick with smoke and sweat and buried rage. Theo stood, went to the window, opened it all the way.

“You know what, Gardner? I always thought that between the two of us, I was the coward. Guess I was wrong.”

“Excuse me—” Jack nearly spat.

“This ridiculous charade...these months, every fuck, every pitiful...” Theo slammed a fist against the wall. “You wanted me to feel something for you, compassion and gratitude and—”

“Theo—”

“After all that, I... You made me...” He laughed like choking. “After all that you’re going home. To Margaret. Who is, I think you may remember, a woman.”

Jack flushed, scalding and sick.

“This summer... I’ve figured you out, Gardner. Why you’ve always been like this, so fucking selfish.” Theo leaned his head against the peeling paint of the window. “You’ve talked a lot of shit about the kind of person that everybody else wanted you to be. About the way Gwynns treated you like some fucking example, about—

“But that’s stupid. It’s so stupid. Because you see yourself as the center of the fucking universe.” Theo laughed with the jarring friction of broken glass. “You can’t imagine a life where it’s not all about you. Where you’re not that example.

“You were poor.” Theo spat the word, laughed. “That’s what you always say. That there wasn’t enough money, and that’s why you had to be the—the poster boy for overcoming bullshit. But that’s just another excuse.”

His words were honed blades, well-trained, practiced. He dragged on his cigarette, breathed out the smoke, readied himself.

“You were abused, Jack. Your mom hurt you. Every day she didn’t feed you, she hurt you. And if you’re expecting pity from me, you’d better look somewhere else. Because...you were abused as a kid? So what?” Theo’s shoulders tensed, and he spoke quietly. “So was I, you asshole. But you’re supposed to—I want to move forward, and you—”