Page 27 of Where Light Cannot Follow

"Michael." His eyes go dark and flat. "Before you speak, I want you to think about this life. The life I've given you this year. Do you like being a man of respect? Having a penthouse apartment and a seven-figure portfolio?"

I pause for a moment, thinking of Matthew's wet eyes after our last argument. Thinking of the foot-tall Christmas tree he'd stuffed into our shoebox of a home when we'd first graduated college and were living mostly on hopes.

But then I reflect on the last year. The security. Never having to scrutinize coupons or calculate whether I can afford both groceries and the electric bill. Never worrying about going hungry again.

"I do," I finally say, and it feels as though some piece of my soul departs with the words.

"Then you need to be single and very interested in a certain young woman next week. Am I understood, son?”

Another pause. Then I speak the words that will seal my damnation. I no longer wonder why I belong in hell. These memories remind me that it's a mercy Virgil bothers to walk alongside someone like me at all.

"I understand," I finally say.

12

DANTE

The past doesn't release me. It continues.

Matthew, tear-streaked, wearing an old college tee—he never adjusted to the expensive brands I tried to buy him—stares at me. "What are you telling me?"

"I'm sorry," I whisper. And I am. But not enough.

"Don't do this," he says. "Please. I love you, Michael."

I glance away, looking instead toward the leather sofa in the furnished apartment. The elegant grain of the hardwood floor. The automated blinds, the concierge button by the door. The life I refuse to surrender ever again.

"I'm sorry. I'll give you money, I'll⁠—"

"Damn your money," he yells through snot and tears. "I want you. That's all I've ever wanted."

I lift my eyes and force myself to meet his gaze. "The problem is, I've always wanted more."

Virgil shudders beside me, and I swallow but refuse to look his way. Tears stream down my face. I am certain that if Virgil were not here, I would surrender to this loop and live in it forever. It is the hell I deserve.

"I love you, Michael. Please."

"I'm sorry," I say. "But I don't feel the same.”

He hiccups another sob, gathers his things, and storms out. The door is too heavy to slam, and instead it closes quietly. A whisper of a sound to mark the end of my soul.

I don't wipe the tears still on my face as the memory shifts once more. But I do glance at Virgil. He's crying as well, a tear glistening on his upper lip. He meets my gaze, and in his eyes I see something unexpected, not the disgust I deserve, but a sorrow so deep it could only come from recognition.

It doesn't comfort me. It makes it worse.

"Next memory," I say. We're not finished with this portion of my genesis. Not yet. And I will own my sins. The space we stand in shifts once more.

"You can't mean her," I whisper hurriedly to my father. The party beyond us brims with clinking glasses and soft jazz.

He glances back. "Why not? She's a beautiful girl."

"She can't be twenty."

"She's nineteen. Legal. And quite pretty, if I say so myself."

I look back at the soft-cheeked girl giggling behind her champagne glass, who smiles shyly at me. I return it before turning to my father again. "She's nearly a decade younger than me."

"What does it matter when you aren't interested in women anyway?"