“Because you should have told me. I deserved to know. And I needed to know to make the choice.”

“And why did you make it?” he asked me.

I brought his hand to my face and I kissed his palm. “You know the answer to that.”

“I will see you again,” he said. “I’ll always see you, even if I’m not right there with you. Even when you can’t see me back.”

“Do you promise? Is that true?”

“I wouldn’t lie now. I wouldn’t do that.”

“And will I ever see you?”

“I can’t tell you,” he said, wrapping his arms around me, so tight, so held, it seemed unthinkable that soon he would be gone. “I don’t know. But I’ll be everywhere.”

“I’ll always look for you,” I said.

He gave one last sad smile.

“How does it end? Where will you go?”

“You’ll see.” He grabbed my hand. “Let’s go,” he said. “I’m tired now.”

I should have known it would have to be like that, the way he left. Something as unstoppable and inevitable and irresistible as sleep. A door between one world and another. The thing that breaks off from this Now and starts a new one over. Nothing you could argue with. Sleep always comes, in the end, and takes you, whether you want it to or not. It’s what you’d die without, even if it also kills you.

At the very end, in my bed, I watched as his astonishing, electric beauty began to calm and empty, his frown dissolving, eyelids softening and going still. Such a privilege to witness. So proud that he would let me see. I felt him starting to go, almost falling anyway, until at the very last moment his whole body jumped, a controlled explosion, that drop that wakes you when you fall somewhere in a dream, that static, Frankenstein jolt. I saw it and I saw the near-miss in his eyes when he opened them, his pupils bottoming out, and I thought, He’s not going. He can’t leave. He’s going to stay here with me.

“Look for me in London,” he said. “I can see it. Dark and all the lights are doubled in the water on the deep-puddled road. The dips and channels are full of fresh rain, the pavements and potholes and the lull of the curb. I am waiting to cross. That’s the start. I can feel the weight of the people behind me, pushing forward, thinking ahead, always ahead. This little island in the road is crammed with them, full to capacity and more coming. A taxi takes the corner close, the bus after it at a wider angle, and then a white van hits a puddle just right and sends the water in a high arc like an opening fan.