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“James.”
He wasn’t hearing me, or pretending not to. Just sitting there with his hands around a coffee mug, staring out the window. His expression troubled, as it often was. As if every part of his life troubled him, and I couldn’t do a single thing about it. He was sitting right in front of me, but at the same time, he was so, so far away.
“James,” I said again. “you’re slipping.”
His eyes flickered to mine, and he let out a small sigh.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re slipping,” I said again. “Where are you?”
He took a sip of his coffee, as if he needed time to consider what to say next. After a while he looked at me again and tried to smile at me. He failed. Miserably.
“I’m fine, Oliver,” he said. “Just… tired.”
His usual response. Everything was always fine. He was always tired. Therefore I went back to our old ways. The way we could talk without being entirely us.
“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together,” I said.
James only shrugged. Looked down in his cup. All I wished to do was to walk over to him. Hold him tightly. Let him talk as much, or as little, as he wished. But I couldn’t. We weren’t like we were before. Nothing was as it had been.
The day of my release, I had been sure that he would be there to pick me up. That, after ten years, he would have been able to process the whole ordeal. But that was wishful thinking. Filippa had come, as she always had. She had taken me and Detective Colbourne to Dellecher, and the whole night had, once again, been re-lived. When we had walked over to the tower, for me to see mine and James’s room one last time, there he was. He hadn’t exactly looked happy to see me, but I was so relieved that I had hugged him with all my might. He’d just stood there, but I didn’t care. After ten whole years, I was actually touching him again. Not seeing him on the other side with a wall of glass between us. Nothing had ever felt that good. Not even being on stage with him. Holding him in my arms beat it all.
“Everyone can master a grief but he that has it,” James now said in a low voice.
I had no trouble at all believing that taking another person’s life did something to you, but I still couldn’t believe why he couldn’t talk to me. Talk to me without hiding behind Shakespeare. I had done everything I could; I had even served time in prison for him, but still. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, talk. Often, we could go on about our lives without incident, but sometimes, like now, he slipped away. He was somewhere else. Somewhere I couldn’t follow. He had been the one swinging the hook, not me. He was the one seeing the life go out of Richard, not me. But we were us. Oliver and James. James and Oliver. A package deal. You never saw one without the other.
He put the cup to his lips again to finish the coffee, then he just got up from his seat. He took my cup too and walked over to the sink to wash them. I watched him. Saw how his shoulders were slumping. His head bowed down. His hair still messy from bed. If this was an alternative world, my dream world, I would’ve walked up to him, put my arms around his stomach. Let my chin rest on his shoulder. He’d look at me and chuckle. We’d discuss our plans for the day. But this wasn’t an alternative world. Our world was the one where sadness and misery followed. A world where we couldn’t, and wouldn’t, talk about anything that happened that night at Dellecher. We didn’t talk much about Dellecher, in general. The only person we had somewhat contact with from college was Filippa. And for that, I was grateful.
“Should we try to go outside today?” I suddenly asked.
Instead of hearing James’s voice answering me, I heard the sound of porcelain breaking. A yelp left James’s lips and he hopped away from the sink. His hands lightly shaking. Without a moment of hesitation, I rushed over to him. Put a hand on his back, hoping that he would let me keep it there. He’d cut himself when the cups had shattered. His hands were red with blood and he couldn’t stop staring at it.
“James,” I said. “let me clean that up for you.”
“I—,” he whispered.
I only shook my head, led him to the bathroom. He was still shaking. As was his breathing. All I wanted to know what was going on inside his head. What was he thinking, right now? Once we came into the bathroom I sat him down on the toilet seat, while I looked around for something to clean the cuts with.
“We have seen better days,” James said when I sat down with a pad of cotton.
I didn’t say anything, only made sure to dry away the blood from his palms. He winced when I came close to the cuts. As soon as his hands were clean and dry, I secured them with bandages. James was quick to stand, but I took hold of his elbow.
“Oliver, I have to throw away the shards,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ll do it later.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again. Nodded slowly with a sigh. His gaze wandered to where I held his arm. I was quick to let go. Me, wanting to touch him in any way, could never be like before. Neither of us was the same person we had been ten years ago. The only thing that had stayed the same was my feelings for him. I was still in love with him, and I probably always would be. Now James gazed at my arm hanging limp next to his. He looked up at me, just looked into my eyes for a while. My heart started beating faster behind my ribcage. His beautifully bright gray eyes stared at me. It felt as if he could see right through me. That he could read every single one of my thoughts just by looking at my eyes. I opened my mouth, felt the three words on my tongue, but just as his name left my lips, James walked away. It was with heavy steps I slowly followed him. Or, at least, walked to where I thought he’d gone. And I was right. He sat on the bed. A blanket thrown around his body. His eyes staring at the floor. The only sounds in the room our breaths and a clock on the wall. With easy steps I sat down on the creaking bed, next to him. It was an old bed we’d found second hand, when neither of us had any money. We could use with an upgrade.
“James—,” I tried, but he cut me off.
“When we are born, we cry that we are come / To this great stage of fools,” he said.
“This a good block / It were a delicate stratagem to shoe / A troop of horse with felt” I continued. “I’ll put’ t in proof / And when I have stol’n upon these sons-in-law, then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!”
“King Lear, Act 4, Scene 6,” he mumbled.
“Yeah,” I said. “it was a rough one.”
He nodded. Fiddled with his fingers. Was silent for a long time. The very few times our time in college became a topic, he went silent. Aggressively showed that he didn’t even want to acknowledge the subject. I just continued to look at him. My best friend, the man I had gone to jail for. Few bits of his hair peaked out from the blanket, all messy and dark. All I wanted was to comb my fingers through it, but I stopped myself.
“James—,” I said, at the same time as he said something else.
“Oliver—,” he tried.
He lifted his gaze and we were looking at each other. His gray gaze fixed on my face. If I looked closely, I could almost sense a tiny smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Seeing James smile nowadays was rare, so my heart consumed it all.
“You first,” he said.
“No, you can go,” I insisted.
James let out a sigh. He took off the blanket and hopped closer to me. I hoped with all of my might that he couldn’t hear how fast my heart was beating.
“I… I just wanted to say that I’m sorry,” he said. “Our whole lives changed because of that night, and it will continue to haunt me for the rest of my life. I can still—”
He let out a shaky breath. Moved his gaze away from me. From the shaking of his shoulders, I knew that he was crying. I put a hand on his shoulder, and he slowly turned around. His lower lip was quivering, his eyes all glassy, but he still pressed his face against my chest. His arms met around my back and I let mine do the same around his. I put a steady hand in the middle of his. It had been a long while since I had hugged him this tightly. I could smell all of him. His shampoo, his cologne, his soap, our laundry detergent. It was all James, and it just smelled like… home. He smelled like home. He smelled more like home than my parents’ house in Ohio could ever.
“It’s okay,” I mumbled into his hair. “take your time.”
He took his time. I don’t think I’ve ever heard James cry that much. I could feel my own throat tightening hearing him sob like that. He had let go of my back to turn both of his hands into fists. He was shaking so violently that the bed shook. His whole body jerked, and I had to hold him down with all of my strength to ensure that he wouldn’t fall down. Suddenly, he looked up at me again, as if he realized how close we were. He took hold of the front of my sweater.
“Every time I close my eyes, Oliver… every time I close my eyes I see his manic smile,” James whispered with a thick voice. “The way he smiled there… on the dock.”
I nodded slowly. I could still vividly see the poster of Richard in the refectory. ALWAYS I AM CAESAR written in big, bold letters. His face staring at every single student at Dellecher with a grim expression.
“James, look at me,” I said, and he did. “He’s gone. He’s been gone for ten years. You’ve suffered with this guilt for ten long years. But you’re here. You’re still here. Everyday you wake up, you walk a tiny step longer from Richard’s death. It has taken time, and it will still take time, but I am here too. I’m here every step of the way.”
“I still don’t understand how you could ever want to be in the same room as me when you figured out what I had done,” he mumbled. “You went to prison for me, Oliver. Prison. I just… I still can’t believe you did that. Why? Why would you risk your entire future on something you didn’t even do?”
“Because I love you, James,” I said. “I always have.”
He opened his mouth, and closed it just as quickly. A thousand different emotions flew over his face. And I could barely translate a handful of them. At last, he looked down, away from me. When I looked at him, every time I looked at him, I saw him ten years younger. I saw him sitting on his bed in our room up in the tower, reading and reading, desperately trying to learn his lines. I see a young man knowing exactly what his future holds. Just for everything to get turned upside down by an accident.
“Why?” James said again, his gaze staring at me once again. “Why would you put yourself through that, Oliver? You, who knows me better than anyone?”
“Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind, / And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind,” I recited.
“Me? With all my issues? With all my flaws?” he asked. “You love me?”
I nodded.
“I do,” I said simply.
Swiftly I hopped a bit closer to him. Did that thing that I had wanted to do for so long. I let my fingers run through his dark hair. He slowly closed his eyes and let out a sigh. He took hold of my wrist, the wrist belonging to the hand I stroked his hair with.
“Oliver?” he said and let his eyes flutter open. “Could you… could you kiss me?”
I took his request seriously and kissed him. It was sweet, remorseful, something I had longed for. This was what had gotten me through those ten long years locked up. The chance that I one day might get to kiss James Farrow. He kissed me back softly, as if I was kissing a cloud of cotton. What was he so afraid of? I had already confessed my love to him. Suddenly, he let go of me. Took a careful breath before letting those gray eyes meet mine once again. His eyes glittered with tears once again. One slowly ran down his cheek. I was quick to dry it away with my thumb. Then I just let my finger stay there. Stroking his cheek. It took James a few tries to talk, but at last, he was able to say what he wanted.
“I think… I think I must love you too,” he said. “Just having you there all the time has always been so natural, so I’ve… I’ve never thought about my feelings more closely. There’s always been something else occupying my mind.”
“That doesn’t matter,” I said with a smile. It was most likely a stupidly silly grin. “I would wait for you until the end of days.”
James let out a chuckle and I thought I would explode. Maybe he could finally start healing, for real. Going back to something that somewhat resembles his old self. That passionate theatre kid, just the same as me, that I fell in love with.
“Hear my soul speak: / The very instant that I saw you, did / My heart fly to your service,” I said, my face all smile.
“Oh, just shut up and kiss me again, Oliver,” James said.