Jude grunts loudly. “Are we really going to have this conversation again? For the millionth time?” He turns to me like I’m going to play referee. “Gunnar and I were together for nearly twenty years. Does that sound like a seduction to you?”

“I don’t care what it sounds like!” Gunnar’s voice is rising. “Twenty years or twenty minutes, it makes no difference with you. You sweep in with your cool British accent, all flirty eyes and ‘I’m bad, but I can be better,’ when all you actually care about is what you can get away with! As soon as you’re bored, it’s all ‘see you later’!”

“That’s such a load of one-sided horseshit,” Jude retorts, glaring at him. “And do I really need to point out that you were the one who dumped me?”

“Because you were already done! You just made me be the—”

“Here we go. ‘I have no agency! None of my mistakes are my fault! All my bad choices are because somebody else did a mean thing one time!’”

“Fuck you, Jude Marlowe!” Gunnar snaps, eyes aflame. “You were over me long before we broke up, but you didn’t want the guilt of ending things after Turning me, so you just pushed and pushed and acted like an ass until I couldn’t take it anymore. So fuck you!”

Jude just nods, a sarcastic smile on his face. “Like clockwork. Every time we see each other, it’s the same old story: I ruined your life, and you’ll never forgive me for Turning you. Fine. But for once, just this one time, admit that you asked me to Turn you. You hated your life in that rancid pit toilet of a town, dying by degrees while you waited to inherit the family dirt farm or get murdered by homophobes when you couldn’t hide your secret anymore. You said you’d rather I just kill you than leave you behind. You cried when you asked me to take you—you fucking begged.”

Gunnar struggles to answer, and when he speaks, his voice is rough and thin. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know what it would mean to be … like this. Forever.” He rubs his eyes, and when he opens them again the golden light has gone out. Wounded and vulnerable, he says, “You didn’t tell me the truth. You told me you loved me. You said we’d be together forever. Those were lies and I believed you.”

“I never intended for things to turn out the way they did,” Jude says quietly, after a long moment. “I don’t regret the choices we made, and I’m still grateful for what we had. You won’t believe me, but I did love you. And you’ll always matter to me.”