“There’s this idea in psychoanalysis that I’ve always liked.” Julian pulled himself closer and rested his head in the crook of Paul’s arm. “It’s that what we call ‘love’ is actually letting your identity fill in around the shape of the other person—you love someone by defining yourself against them. It says loss hurts because there’s nothing

Once he might have been too humiliated and self-conscious to hold his ground, but he reminded himself that Julian thought he was capable of better.

“That’s the way a person should be.” Paul’s certainty didn’t waver, but the longer he spoke, the more his confidence did. “Nothing imposed from the outside. You figure out on your own what’s good and what isn’t, and maybe that idea ends up being rigid, but that’s better than not having anything at all. I don’t care if anyone doesn’t like it, even

No longer was there any danger in being gentle with each other. It was a relief to be able to trust, and the relief made everything else simple.

Julian’s silence was as good as a confession. His face was so blank that Paul could read anything he wanted in his features. He chose disgust.

What the story records, ultimately, is the deep fear I once carried about my loneliness and what it could do.

In hindsight his frustrations and fears would be taken as evidence that he was still human—but in the present, before he’d made anything of himself, they meant he was only human.

“Don’t pay attention to them,” said Julian bitterly. “I mean it. You use other people’s useless fucking opinions as an excuse to hate yourself—”

As always, Paul wanted to be charmed—but it was a kind of affection Julian had never shown when they were face-to-face, and it kept Paul writhing at the end of the hook so helplessly that he could never quite believe it wasn’t by design.