Page 15 of As Many Stars
Ash laughed, huskily. “And you, as well…thank you.You…” He paused. “You came because Blake asked. And—and maybe I shouldn’t say what I wanted to say, then. If you…the two of you…I’m realizing how much I don’t know. How poor a friend I’ve been to you.”
“Never,” Blake said. “Not ever. One of us had to be respectable.”
“If you felt like you couldn’t tell me…” Ash’s gaze went to Cam, back to Blake. “If there was something, someone…important to you, and you thought you couldn’t speak of it, to me…I thought you knew, I thought…but I should’ve said. Aloud. So you could hear me say it. I’m so sorry.”
“Stop talking,” Blake said. “No overexertion. Your lungs.”
“But I should say it,” Ash said. “I’m sorry, and—and the worst of it is, I think I’m too late, because you’ve got someone, and—”
“I’ve what?”
Cam stirred, a shift of weight; but he did not interrupt.
“I can’t not say it,” Ashley said. “Ididthink I might die, and—Blake, you know I love you. You must know. If you don’t—I’m sorry I didn’t say it.”
“Of course you love me,” Blake managed, heart in his throat. “We’re friends. We’ve been friends since Eton. I did your mathematics problems and you read Cicero and Tully and Ovid so I wouldn’t have to. I love you, too.”
“But…Blake…yes, of course, but that’s not what…” Ash blinked at him. Struggled to sit up more. “Areyouall right?”
“Fine. Worried about you.”
“You don’t look well.”
“That’s what I said,” Cam said. “And I’m the physician in the room.”
“Blake,” Ashley said. “I think you should listen to Doctor Fraser.”
“I’m fine!” The headache felt like rainbows fracturing.Like the glint of sun from ice-floes, blank and white and vicious, slicing through cold air. “I just…I might go and lie down. For a moment.”
“Yes.” Ash was sitting up more now, reaching out. “You should. But—you heard me, didn’t you? I love you. I’m in love with you. I need to say it. I need to know you’ve heard me. Even if—if Iamtoo late, at least I’ll have been honest—”
“You don’t need to pretend, I know you don’t—and you don’t need to say it because you think you owe me, or you feel sorry for me, because of how I feel—” He took a step away. Stumbled over nothing. His vision wavered. “You’re awake and I love you and I’ll just go lie down…”
He heard Cam swear, a bitten-off Gaelic oath; he heard Ash’s voice, quick with distress; but he couldn’t hear much, because the flat dull roar swept up and over him. He was dimly aware that he must look ludicrous, someone who’d climbed mountains and excavated Roman ruins now collapsing on Ash’s pretty bedroom rug; but then he couldn’t think about it anymore, as the world went away.
Chapter 9
Blake was not aware of much, after that. Glimpses. Indistinct scenes. Ephemeral floating ghosts, voices, hands on him. He was not sure where he was; there was a bed under him, and cool cloths, and terrible tastes upon occasion, and a deep all-encompassing ache in his bones that ebbed to a sort of muffling bronze languor, slow as molasses.
He knew Cam was there. And Ash. Both presences, one firm and authoritative, one sparrow-light and noisy, speaking to him.
He lost any sense of time, amid the ghosts.
He heard blurred conversations, once or twice. Cam’s low rumble. Ash asking a question. Blake wanted to tell him to get back in bed, he’d only just woken up himself, he shouldn’t be here. What if this was infectious, whatever it was? What if being here was too much for Ash’s lungs?
But he couldn’t talk, and focusing was difficult. He slid back into languid confused swirls of color, indistinct. It did not feel like sleep; more like dissolving.
He heard Cam swear at him, once or twice; he heard Cam’s accent raw and tangled with fear, as it hadn’t been before. “Come on—no, we’re not doing this, not again, not you—I’ll not lose you, d’you hear me, I can’t—”
You’re not losing me, Blake attempted to tell him. I’ll be fine. I always am. I just need some sleep. Tired.
Cam swore again, brief, choked-off. “He—your Ashley—he’s sleeping. He’s fine.He’sfine. I’m not. You—you woke me back up, you changed my life, and you can’t be doing this to me, not again, it’s notfair—not you, when you made me smile, one of the worst fuckin’ days of my life and you were there and you made it bright, and you know you makehimsmile, too—you’re not going to die because I won’t fuckin’ let you.”
Blake, startled, wanted to interrupt. Was he going to die? Was that a concern? And—he’d made Cam smile? On a bad day?
He was glad, if he’d done that.
He went away again, for a bit. When he woke Ashley was there, sitting with him. Ash was talking, or crying. “He says it’s—it’s bad. He says he’s not giving up. But I can tell—what he isn’t saying—Blake, please. I’m so sorry. Please. I love you. Please try to drink some of this.”
