The Game of Love and Death(51)

He pretended to read the philosopher’s words to Ethan. Had the boy been more observant, he would have realized there was not enough light in the car to read. But, as Love was well aware, Ethan’s blood was screaming.

“ ‘Homosexuality’ ” — he paused to let the word sink in — “ ‘is regarded as shameful by barbarians and tyrants. These same barbarians, these same despots, also consider philosophy itself to be shameful.’ ” The boy was still, his eyes glued to the road. “ ‘These rulers are afraid of ideas, they fear friendship, and they fear passion — three virtues homosexuality often generates. Because these virtues are not in the interests of the corrupt, they condemn their result.’ ”

Ethan gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.” He pulled over. “What we’ve been doing, it’s not … it’s not that. I’m not that.”

Love touched Ethan’s hand to fill him with calm. But he couldn’t take away the sadness.

“Don’t you see,” Love said, “the same system that is wasting the gifts of all the men of Hooverville, who wish for nothing more than honest work, is the system that prefers obedience over thought and ideas. The powerful are happy to send men to the front lines of war and have their limbs shot off or worse. But should that man ask a question, he’s a traitor. This same system could condemn injustice, but instead it chooses to condemn something as simple and as fundamental as the search for the second half. We are all born wanting this. Why does it matter what shape this second half takes, provided it is the thing both sides seek?”

Love turned Ethan’s face toward his and wiped the boy’s tears. “Why choose fear over love? In what world does that make sense?”

Ethan bent over the steering wheel and sobbed. “I would rather be dead than this.”

“Don’t say that.” Ethan’s death would devastate Henry. It could cost him the Game, which would mean that Flora would die too. Love couldn’t bear these thoughts, never mind his fondness for Ethan. He put a hand on Ethan’s back. He could feel his heartbeat, and he set his own to match, to be that second half as he always knew he would, consequences be damned.

“Breathe,” he said. “Breathe.” A lifetime of shame and sorrow leaked out of Ethan. Love absorbed it with one hand and cast it away as though it were as slight as a spider’s web.

“Who are you?” Ethan lifted his head. He’d stopped crying and looked curious. “Who are you, really?”

“The one you’ve been looking for,” Love said. “One who is here. One who sees you. One who is able to love you just as you are.”

Ethan leaned in and kissed Love. Rain pummeled the car, but neither one felt anything but the thrill of the other.



Afterward, Love watched Ethan sleep. He’d dressed himself in James Booth’s shabby everyday suit and returned the Book of Love and Death to his pocket, where, for the first time, it felt like an encumbrance. Even though he had ways of making it appear small, it was in fact a huge collection of heartbreaking tales of love. He’d been writing in it for ages, a small act of defiance against Death, the great unraveler of stories. To record the details of how the players met, what they noticed about each other, what captured their imaginations: All of this was how Love showed his affection for humans and their strangely beautiful, optimistic hearts.

To be written into story. That was how even the lost lived on.

Love’s need to write, his book, had never felt heavy to him before now. He wished to be relieved of the burden, but there was no one else to carry it.





THE sun was not yet up, but already, the air smelled of wisteria and lavender. This day would be warmer than the previous one, but not by much. Gentle weather was one of the things Henry most loved about his city. The drizzle was no friend to baseball — the rain washed out a good quarter of the season — but Henry had always played more for the rhythm and connection than the competition of it, and so it hadn’t mattered.

Sunday morning. He had a French exam to take tomorrow. It seemed ridiculous that a day as nondescript as this, filled with such mundane things as French grammar, could follow a night like the one he’d had.

If the world made any sense, a new day of the week would be born, one that didn’t require him to think about school, one in which he could lie on his back in the grass and look at the sky and imagine what it would be like to run away with her and do nothing but play music and eat fruit and walk down the street together for as long as they lived without feeling like the whole world would be staring and judging, or worse.

A small part of him wished he’d never met her. Wished he’d never heard her sing. Wished he’d never eaten eggs in her kitchen. If these things hadn’t happened, his life would be school, music, and baseball. Scholarship. Graduation. College. Orderly, predictable, respectable, safe. Perhaps even marriage to Helen followed by a lifetime of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Routine, sustaining, nourishing things that wouldn’t fill his chest with pain and dread. Life in 4/4 time.

But it was only a small part. The greater portion wouldn’t trade the hope for anything. It was as though he’d started seeing for the first time. He couldn’t go back to darkness no matter how much it stung to look at the light.