Some Distance

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Gerard is waiting in my room when I leave the shower the next morning. He's curled up in my armchair, face tilted into the light breeze coming in my open window. He's reading one of my essays.

"Do you mind?" He says, lifting the pages.

"I'm working on that." I wince, "It's not finished."

His eyes are on my scribbled words, and he begins to read aloud. "Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of nihilism was a truth widely acknowledged before the world ended. We knew, objectively, that we were tiny specks of meat and bone hurtling through the abyss of space on a spit of rock. Yet still we were dominated and controlled by the fantasies we'd constructed; money, religion, beauty. There's a dozen concepts I could name. But now I live at the end of all things, and there is no use for any of it. There is only what we are willing to do, for ourselves and for each other-"

"Stop that," I groan, and snatch the papers. "It's not finished."

Gerard's smiling, eyes tender. "I like it, so far. You'll be able to write a book one day."

I roll my eyes, "Maybe you should have an album ready for when things like that matter."

His eyes spark, and he grins. He relaxes into the chair, and I turn away to change out of my towel.

"Now," he says, as I face my mirror and start to drag a brush through my wet hair. "What did you and Frank get up to last night?"

My heart squeezes, and I decide to lie.

"We just went for a drive-"

"He already told me about Stonehenge." Gerard waves a hand. "He ran the idea by me before he took you."

I purse my lips, "Is there anything else he told you?"

He shrugs innocently and won't meet my eyes. Irritation prickles in the pit of my stomach.

"Is there something else I should know?" He hedges.

I spin towards him and glare. "He told you?"

"Frank tells me a lot. You're going to have to be specific-"

"He told you about last night?" I demand.

He rolls his big hazel eyes, "Yes, Nevaeh, I know-"

My stomach rolls. "He told you we had sex?"

Gerard's mouth drops open so fast I'm surprised he doesn't break his jaw. "You two had sex?" He gasps, too shrill and too loud.

Oh, god. Oh, god! "You said you knew! He told you-"

Gerard's on his feet, hands over his mouth. "He told me about the Milky Way! And the sunset and that you'd finally spoken about your family. About meeting us before. He didn't tell me you'd fucked!"

I'm panicking, and thinking about lobbing my hairbrush in his direction. "I can't believe-! This is all your fault!"

"My fault!" He hisses, throwing his hands in the air. "It's you two that's been sneaking around-"

"We have not been sneaking around!" I gape, "That's the first time anything like that has happened! It was... Well, it was, like? I don't know, it was a spur of the moment thing. It shocked us both."

"So shocked that you stopped, right?" He quirks an eyebrow.

"Well," I frown, "No."

"So a couple of weeks ago you were in the shower together-" My face flames scarlet, "And now you've slept together, anything else?"

I say it through gritted teeth, "No."

He narrows his eyes, "Nothing?"

I squeeze my eyes closed, "We've been sleeping in the same bed."

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