Oberon kissed his eyes. “I want you to be happy.” He kissed his mouth, and Ángel sobbed into the kiss.

This was humiliating. It was awful. He ached to be alone. To escape from Oberon and his gentle touch and his sweet kisses and his knowing skin, just for a while.

“Stop.” He pushed Oberon away, tried to escape from his all-seeing touch. “I need, I think I need privacy tonight, Oberon.”

“Why?”

“I’m sorry. Leave me alone. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Are you sick?”

“No,” said Ángel. “We don’t get sick from emotions. Not really. We just—we sometimes need to be alone.” Oberon wasn’t moving. “Oberon. You know this.”

“But something is wrong, and I can’t tell what it is.”

“And you won’t,” said Ángel, his grief coming out in sharpness. “You won’t ever be able to tell what it is. Not with me.” He shook Oberon off, got to his feet, and stumbled away from him. “Please,” he said. “Please go away. I’ll be better in the morning.”

Oberon remained kneeling, looking up at him, the lamplight on his still face.

Ángel made a frustrated, sweeping gesture with his hand. “Would you just go?”

“All right,” said Oberon, softly. “But—” He rose gracefully and stepped toward Ángel, hand extended to him again.

Ángel shrank away. He stumbled into his guitar where it was leaning against the wall. Oberon reached to catch him just as Ángel was trying to dance away from the guitar; he twisted, and the neck of the guitar seemed to rise up between his ankles.

Ángel fell. His full weight came down on the body of the guitar. There was a crunch-snap, the sharp singing cry of guitar strings, pain as his hip drove straight through the wooden box to the floor.

He rolled to his knees, stared down at the wreckage.

“Ay, my baby,” he whispered, as he gently picked up the guitar: not a guitar anymore, but a collection of broken pieces of wood, held together by strings. The spruce soundboard was splintered, one curving maple side shattered, the head snapped right off the neck. Struts and braces, which should be hidden away inside the box, were exposed like broken ribs.

Hopeless. Beyond repair. Poor dead thing, like a bird struck by a car. His eyes blurred with tears. My fault, he thought. Mi culpa, lo siento. I didn’t take care of you, and now look at you. Pobre cosa muerta.

Oberon crouched beside him. He drew a breath.

“Please go,” whispered Ángel. “Please. Please go.”

Oberon rose without a word and left, closing the door quietly behind him.

Chapter 26

Ángel cried easily, but it rarely made him feel better. He knew that some people felt cleansed by it, but after sobbing over the corpse of his guitar for half an hour, he just felt thick-headed and stupid and in as much pain as before.