The tower was lined with clear glass windows, and they could see out over campus, and the lights from downtown shone in the distance. They were far enough out of the city that they got a smattering of starlight, and it seemed like an in-between time—this night in May, with summer coming, with court dates and jail sentences waiting, and them in the middle between the earth and the sky.

“Come ’ere.” Genni pulled him close, his back against cool glass. She pressed her delicately curved body against him and kissed his mouth. She tasted like licorice and Chanel lipstick.

It wasn’t the first time they’d kissed, but it felt the same—he loved her, so much, and he wanted her forever, and he was entirely unmoved.

But what difference did it make, really? He curled his body down around her, meeting her lips, trying to push his affection for her, his admiration of her wickedness and hidden fragility, into their connection—hoping to make up for what he lacked.

Back in sophomore year they’d kissed for the first time, and he had held her hips, newly full and luscious, and he breathed in her sugared scent. He knew he was the luckiest man in Baltimore, to have her in his arms, but it—it felt like—

Maybe this was all he was allowed to have. It wouldn’t be the worst way to live, maybe, because he did care for her, as much as he was capable of caring for anyone. And maybe the love he had imagined was entirely fictional, just another fairy tale. He loved her as much as he could and kissed her with that intention, here in the dark at the end of the world.

A sound from the staircase.

He opened his eyes. Genni kept kissing him, unaware; he kept kissing her, automatic.

Jack Gardner stumbled in, holding hands with Margaret Daugherty.

Theo felt a bit sick.

The perfect couple.

Jack, who had always rejected him. Jack, who, despite his obvious poverty, managed to get the attention of all of the teachers, the coaches, the girls, leaving Theo in the dust. Jack, class valedictorian, and lacrosse captain, and everything Theo was supposed to be—everything his father had demanded of him. And Margaret, who was—he had to admit it—quite good-looking, with toasted skin and all that auburn hair, but who’d never had time for him, content with her stupid happy family and the certainty that they loved her.

They were laughing, maybe a little tipsy on cheap coconut rum, and he shouldn’t have felt like this—he wasn’t supposed to. Jack was in some ill-fitting rented tuxedo, and Margaret’s dress was rough tulle, and they shouldn’t have looked—he’d had everything. They were nothing.

Weren’t they?