Chapter Thirteen Tristan #2
“Marcus wasn’t exactly forthcoming.” I rubbed my forehead. “Or maybe I wasn’t in a state to listen. I got angry. Walked out. He told me not to concern myself with it.” I rolled my eyes. “Which feels… optimistic.”
Henry was quiet for a beat, then said gently, “Early-stage lung cancers can have very good prognoses now. Treatments have come on massively. Surgery, chemo, immunotherapy. He could make a full recovery.”
“He could,” I echoed, not quite daring to believe it.
“Would you like me to look into it? I imagine he’ll be under the Royal Marsden.”
“You could… find out?”
A hesitation. Just enough to hear the ethics kick in. “I mean, I could try. But it would really be better if you rang him yourself.”
“Mm.” I wrapped my fingers tighter around the mug. “Maybe.”
“Look, I’m a sweaty mess and I probably still have someone else’s blood on my trainers, but I could grab an Uber and be at yours in a few. We could talk it through. I could bore you senseless with survival curves and treatment pathways.”
I winced. “That’s… generous. But I’m not actually at home.”
“Oh.” A beat. “Where are you?”
I stared out over the canal, at the drag of water and the graffitied brick opposite, and wondered how on earth to explain the truth without opening a door I wasn’t ready to walk through.
“Not… home,” I said again, weakly.
Henry huffed. “Helpful, Tris.”
Yes. That was me. Always precise. Always curated.
“Are you…” Henry paused long enough for me to hear the calculation, the instinctive triage he applied to everything. “Safe?”
I smiled despite myself.
What had I done to deserve him? To be randomly assigned the same room at Harrow and never once tire of each other.
Most people learnt to hate their roommates by year ten.
We’d learnt how to orbit. To give space without absence.
And how to love each other fiercely while politely ignoring the fault lines.
Maybe it was because of everything we didn’t say.
Like how he was still in love with Zara, no matter how diligently he performed heterosexual optimism for the benefit of parents who subsidised his life. Or how I told him… almost nothing. Not about the men. The mess. Or the way I kept stepping into shadows and calling it curiosity.
“I’m safe,” I said, softly but truthfully.
Henry exhaled on the other end of the line, relief bleeding through before he could stop it. “Call me if you need me.”
“I will. And thanks, Hen. I appreciate the check in.”
We hung up, and I stood there for a while longer, letting the sun scorch my skin and the sweat bleed through my shirt. Safe. It was a strange word to apply to this place. To Razor. And yet the longer I stood there, the more it felt true in ways I couldn’t quite articulate.
When the heat became too much, I went back inside with intent.
Habit, more than curiosity, guided me. I was a barrister.
I assessed environments for a living. Spaces told stories whether their owners wanted them to or not.
The flat itself gave very little away. The desk against the exposed brick wall was sparse to the point of austerity.
Laptop closed. Files stacked with their edges aligned.
No photographs. No personal mess. Nothing anchoring him to a softer version of himself.
It struck me how little of Razor existed in objects.
Whatever mattered to him lived under his skin.
The glass coffee table in front of the black leather sofa was just as bare.
A few faint cup rings. Nothing else. But beneath it sat a black duffel bag.
Heavy canvas, worn seams, half-unzipped.
Not carelessly abandoned, but deliberately unremarked upon.
Storage, not secrecy. I stared at it, aware that I’d already crossed the line from observer to participant.
So I sat on the sofa. Stared at it for a bit longer while chewing on the inside of my cheek along with the morals I pretended to have. Then, proving I had none, I reached under the table and dragged the bag towards me.
“Jesus.” I swore my voice echoed.
Inside were small, heat-sealed pouches. Dozens of them. Uniform in size, each one packed with rose-tinted crystals catching the light as I shifted the bag, glittering faintly. Pretty. Delicate. Individually portioned, ready to move.
Pretty Poison.
The name didn’t shock me. It settled. Clicked into place with cold, professional clarity.
This was what knowing looked like when it stopped being theoretical.
Because this was measured quantities. Consistent packaging.
A product designed to pass cleanly from hand to hand without ever needing a face attached to it.
This wasn’t indulgence or chaos. It was control.
Logistics. A supply chain I could map out in my head without trying.
And sat there, face to face with it, I understood what I hadn’t allowed myself before: I hadn’t crossed into his world because I was reckless or curious or broken.
I’d crossed because part of me had believed I could keep it at a safe distance.
I was wrong.
This wasn’t something I merely knew anymore.
It was here.
And so was I.