TWELVE MONTHS AND THREE WEEKS PRIOR TO THE DEATH OF OLIVER SALLOW

Oliver has only felt this specific brand of heedless hope a handful of times. One of them was in the days leading up to their sixth-form study trip to London.

In hindsight, the whole affair ranks within the highlights of Oliver's hilariously short stay on the mortal plane.

He'd never been to London before then which, to him, seemed like some kind of cosmic mockery. He'd spent the last decade being passed around England, learning his way around tiny towns with names unpronounceable to anyone outside the UK, soaking up all sorts of accents like a particularly language-savvy sponge, without once setting foot inside the capital. Now that he was finally sitting on the bus, an ancient Oyster card that Daniel had borrowed him tucked in his coat pocket, he thought he might vibrate out of his skin.

Of course, he was careful not to show too much of his enthusiasm on the outside—sitting alone in the back of the bus, earbuds in and a pen cap jammed between his teeth as he scribbled into his well-loved copy of Hamlet, one would have never suspected that he'd spent the last two weeks frantically reading every travel guide he could get his hands on.

The one exception sat a few rows ahead. Oliver took a brief break from reading—he was one of the unfortunate souls cursed with the inability to read more than two pages at a time while in a moving vehicle without getting violently sick—to study him. They weren't required to wear their school uniforms on this trip, so Finn was once again dressed in washed-out jeans and a sweater that looked either incredibly soft or terribly scratchy. Right now, the sleeves were pushed up his freckled forearms as he played some sort of card game with the football team twins, his shoulders shaking as he laughed at something one of the other boys said.

Something about the sight made Oliver's stomach twist in a most unfortunate way.

He blamed it on his motion sickness and closed his eyes.

The next time he opened them was three and a half Joy Division songs later when a hand tapped his shoulder. Oliver was ready to level whoever dared to disturb him with a glare, only for the expression to slide off his face when he found himself almost nose-to-nose with Finn.

Finn gestured at his ears with a lopsided smile.

Shocking even himself with his uncharacteristic display of obedience, Oliver took out his earbuds. The overwhelming cacophony of an entire busload of sixth-form students crashed over him; sugar-high laughter, YouTube videos played at full volume, someone's Bluetooth speaker blasting some infernal pop song.

"Hey," said Finn.

"Hey," Oliver repeated, lifting one eyebrow. "What's up?"

"Nothing much. Just thought I'd come over. D'you know how much longer until we're there?"

"Around thirty minutes, I reckon," Oliver distractedly said. His brain was still trying to comprehend the fact that Finn had voluntarily ditched his card game and too-loud friends to sit next to him.

Judging by the look on the twins' faces as they peered at them over the back of their seats, he was not the only one confused about this turn of events.

Finn, oblivious to the stares they were attracting, made himself comfortable in the aisle seat. From his pocket, he procured a bag of Maltesers that he offered to Oliver with a questioning hum.

With some vague thought about accepting food from fairies and thus inevitably binding oneself to them, Oliver held out his palm to accept the half-melted sweets. He had already been part of this dance for too long; now seemed a little too late to worry about the consequences.

"What are you looking forward to the most?" he asked instead.

Finn tugged his sleeves down over his wrists, gaze slinking past Oliver and out the window. "I'm not sure. I've never travelled, so... all of it, I guess. You?"

Oliver thought about it for a moment before he ducked his head to Finn's ear. "I have a plan, but you can't tell anyone about it."

This close, he could hear the way Finn held his breath as he nodded.

"I'm going to sneak out tomorrow night," Oliver whispered. "I think I can manage to get tickets to the Globe. There's no way I'm leaving London without catching a play."

Finn turned his head a little, his eyes wide with a mix of anxiety and admiration. "All alone?"

"Well, yeah," Oliver said. "I don't think any of them will want to see Hamlet."

A beat passed. Then, Finn said, "I'd come with. If you want."

Now it was Oliver whose breath caught in his throat. Usually, he prided himself on his good intuition, but this the miniature Cassandra inside his head had not seen coming—and if she had, he, in true Trojan fashion, most likely wouldn't have believed her.

He searched Finn's face for any hint of mockery. "Really?"

Finn nodded.

"Okay," Oliver quickly said. In his chest, his heart suddenly thumped a frantic staccato. "I'll see if I can get us in."

"Cool." Cheeks dimpling with a smile, Finn popped another handful of Maltesers into his mouth. There was milk chocolate on the tip of his nose. Up close, it was obvious that his sweater wasn't of the itchy but the unbelievably soft variety.

In the distance, London came into view.

Oliver's heart stomp-stomp-stomped.

***

Despite the less-than-ideal conditions (read: his being forced to discover the city with a pulk of sixth formers and a handful of exasperated teachers), London was everything Oliver had dreamed it to be.

He loved the buildings and the taxis; he loved the parks and the way the Thames looked moments before sunset; hell, he even loved the ridiculous amounts of Pret-A-Mangers at every corner. His heart soared at the sight of Baker Street, and then again at the sight of the actual filming location of the BBC series. He could've spent hours exploring the Natural History Museum and the neighbouring Victoria and Albert. The afternoon in Brick Lane, trying on ridiculous sunglasses with Finn in one of the underground thrift shops, was the hardest he had laughed in months.

Even the nights, penned in their room in a cheap hostel near Elephant & Castle, were more fun than he ever would've expected. While their classmates snuck out to go to the nearby pub, Oliver and Finn lay shoulder-to-shoulder on Finn's bed, watching reruns of The Great British Bake-Off, providing their own commentary—Oh, come on, Samantha, everyone knows you need to temper chocolate—and eating their body weight in the biscuits they'd bought in bulk at Marks & Spencer.

It was on the last night of their trip that Oliver barged through the door, triumphantly clutching two tickets to the Globe.

"Oh, hey," Finn said. Accustomed to the workings of boys' locker rooms, he was shuffling around their room with neither a shirt nor any trace of self-consciousness.

"Good lord," Oliver cried out, dramatically shielding his gaze. "My poor virgin eyes!"

"You're a virgin? Why did I waste so much time looking for someone to sacrifice during midnight mass then?"

Oliver cracked one eye open to peer at Finn through his fingers. "... Are you not a virgin?"

"Oh." From one second to the next, Finn's cheeks were making a valiant effort to match his hair. "Yeah, I am."

Unversed in teenage boy conversations such as this one, Oliver quickly changed the topic. "I got us the tickets. Show starts in less than an hour. Get a move on."

Finn saluted. "Aye, captain." On the aye, the Irish accent, courtesy of his mother, slipped through.

While Finn dug up a clean shirt from the pits of his suitcase, Oliver retreated to his half of the room—in part to escape the tormenting sight of the moles scattered across Finn O'Connell's bare shoulders, but mostly to touch up his make-up. He pondered for a moment, studying his reflection in his hand mirror, before he decided to add a dark purple lipstick to his already dramatic eyeliner and bruise-coloured under-eye make-up. His hair, he pinned up with his black claw clip in a deliberately messy way that allowed a few strands to escape.

When he glanced over his shoulder again, he was met with the sight of Finn standing in his usual sweater-jeans-combo, staring at him from behind the thin pair of sunglasses with flame-detail on the frame that he'd acquired in Brick Lane.

"What?" Oliver questioned.

Finn shook his head. "Nothing." He quickly pulled on his jacket. "I'm ready."

***

Shakespeare's Globe was only a short bus ride away from their hostel. By the time they reached the theatre, Oliver's blood was singing, his cheeks flushed with excitement despite the September chill. How many times had he stared at pictures of this place, imagining what it would feel like to set foot inside?

Surreal. That was how it felt. Part of it might have been that the circular venue was even grander in real life; the fact that Finn O'Connell was shuffling inside next to him might have played a tiny part as well. Even though Oliver knew that this wasn't the same theatre as the one built during Shakespeare's time but a reconstruction erected about 230 metres from the original site, he felt dizzy taking in the packed stands, the pillars that supported the roof that spanned over the stage.

"We should've gotten pissed beforehand," he said to Finn once they'd jostled their way towards the stage. As in good ol' William's time, there were no seats, leaving the audience to stand as if waiting for a concert. In the racket around them, Oliver had to lean down to speak into his ear. "For authenticity."

Laughing, Finn tipped his head back. There was no roof—back then, the theatre had relied on the sun to light the stage—, giving them an unobstructed view of the blushing sky. On instinct, Oliver reached into his pocket to pull out his phone. With a glance over his shoulder to make sure security wasn't watching, he snapped a quick picture of Finn, then another of the stage to send to Mrs. Thistlecloth. He was about to slip his phone back into his coat when Finn took it from him and got onto his tiptoes to take a selfie of the two of them, his hair tickling Oliver's cheek.

"What was that for?" Oliver asked, unable to hold back a grin of his own.

Finn shrugged. "Memories."

A moment later, the show began. It was breathtaking. As the sky above them darkened, the audience was captured by Hamlet's slow descent into madness. While Oliver knew every word by heart, Finn squinted at the captions displayed on the screens above the stage—first confused, then, slowly, becoming just as entranced as Oliver had been the first time he'd read the play.

Chills ran down Oliver's arms during Ophelia's last scene. The actress, laughing in a way that was both childlike in its joy and haunting in its underlying despair, clambered off the stage to stumble her way through the audience, singing her song of flowers and grief.

"There's rue for you," she said, suddenly earnest as she came to a halt in front of Finn, "And here's some for me."

And Finn... he nodded, eyes wide and captivated, as his fingers closed, so gently, around the small yellow flower she dropped into his palm.

It was then, with Ophelia skipping back towards the stage and Finn carefully slipping her gift into the pocket of his denim jacket, that Oliver realized just how deep his own affliction ran.

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance.

If Ophelia's verses were true, then Oliver would've stuffed his pockets full of herbs just to hold on to this image: Finn, his pale face illuminated by the moon, his eyes filled with the purest wonder as he gazed at the stage.

Pray you, love, remember.

***

The sky was ink-blue by the time the play ended. While Oliver went ahead to sit on the pavement outside—after running around London all day and then standing for two hours in his platform boots, his feet hurt in ways previously unimaginable—, Finn went to the restroom.

It gave Oliver a good ten minutes to clear his head. In front of him, the Thames glinted in the pale moonlight as the looming office buildings on the other side of the river held silent vigil. After the noise and the light and the close heat in the theatre, the silence had a weight to it, draping over Oliver like a heavy cloak.

By the time Finn sank down on the pavement next to him, Oliver had almost managed to convince himself that the odd feeling in his chest had only been a product of the play.

The effect vanished when Finn nudged his shoulder and opened his hand to reveal a small pin. "Found this in the gift shop." He smiled sheepishly. "It's kind of silly. You don't have to wear it."

Oh no, screamed Oliver's brain helplessly. Oh no, oh no.

"Thanks," said his voice, even raspier than usual. His nightshade-coloured lips curved upward without his doing. "It's brilliant."

Beaming, Finn watched as Oliver pinned the small image of a bee to the lapel of his leather trench coat. In a speech bubble above its little head stood the words To bee or not to bee.

"I'm really glad we did this," Finn said, voice hushed like a confession. "I was scared of going, at first."

"Why were you scared?"

"I was nervous I'd have another..." Finn's Adam's apple bobbed as he had to forcibly unstick the words from his throat. "Panic attack."

Oliver hummed quietly. The wind whispered through Finn's hair, the moon turning the strands into copper. By now, most of the theatre crowd had dispersed, leaving them in their own little bubble of quiet right in the middle of Southwark.

"I just don't want to be like my mum," Finn said.

"Does she also get them?"

"Yeah. Or, well, she would. If she still went outside." Finn's smile turned wry. "She had a panic attack while going grocery shopping once, y'know? It came out of nowhere. She almost passed out in the dairy aisle at Costco. After that, she didn't go out shopping alone anymore. Then she stopped being able to drive the car and had to quit her job. Now, she can barely leave the house alone. It all just... spiralled."

"So she's agoraphobic?" Oliver asked.

Finn scuffed the tip of his trainers against a crack in the pavement. "Dunno. She hasn't been diagnosed or anything. But, yeah. 's what all the sites said when I googled the symptoms."

Oliver studied him. Another layer to Finn O'Connell, gingerly peeled back. "Well, you're not," he finally said, knocking his shoulder against the other boy's. "You went on this trip. You went inside a crowded theatre with no easy exit route. You haven't even had a panic attack since we've been here, have you?"

"No." The tension in Finn's shoulders visibly eased. "I haven't."

"See? No reason to despair, then." Getting to his feet, Oliver dramatically declared, "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt. You, Finn O'Connell, have attempted. You should be proud of yourself."

With a small snort, Finn placed his hand in Oliver's outstretched one and let himself be pulled to his feet, his expression smoothing once again. He was good at that, Oliver thought. Softening the ripples on the surface, drowning the stone that had caused them.

And yet, for whatever reason, he'd allowed Oliver to witness the process, not just the result.

Standing there, with the moonlight rendering his features hazy and hard to grasp, Finn O'Connell was at once the boy who had trembled under the sink and the football player who slammed locker room doors; the son who went to the bakery to buy cake for a mother who couldn't leave the house and the class clown who disrupted Geography.

More than anything though, he was the boy who had cried silently when Ophelia had died—and, at least in this, uniquely Oliver's.

***

Oliver was an analyst by nature. Once the first symptoms arose, he immediately dragged them under the microscope for examination, scalpel at the ready—though not to get rid of them. He didn't fool himself into thinking the affliction could be exorcised that easily; he just liked knowing what exactly it was that he was dealing with.

So he ran the tests, analysed the results, consulted past samples.

The situation was even direr than he'd feared.

He could feel it in the way something inside him stung when he dropped the room keys off at the reception desk, leaving behind the nights of pretentious baking show commentary and the sight of Finn stumbling through their room with his eyes half-shut and hair sleep-mussed.

He could feel it in the stuttering of his heartbeat when Finn slid into the seat next to him on the bus ride back, as if it had always been a foregone conclusion.

He could feel it in the giddy trembling of his hands when Finn asked if he could borrow Oliver's copy of Hamlet to have something to read, and he heard it in his own voice when he patiently explained every verse Finn didn't understand.

And then, he felt it in the quiet awe that settled over him when Finn fell asleep half-way through the second act. His head rested against Oliver's shoulder; his even breaths gently moved Oliver's hair. Oliver sat there, unmoving for fear of jostling him, his heart a wild thing in his chest. He thought about waking him, but in the dimly lit back of the bus, with everyone else either asleep or on the way there, this, quiet and innocent as it was, felt allowed.

It was too late for him, anyway.

He couldn't believe he had managed to go seventeen years of his life without falling for straight boys, only for Finn O'Connell to ruin his streak.

******************************

they are in love your honour!!!

i hope you enjoyed this chapter! it's probably one of my favourites of this entire book. did you have a favourite moment? :,)

today's song is enchanted by taylor swift because i feel like it perfectly captures that giddy first love feeling :,)

thank you so much for reading! i will see you again next year (hehe) <3