Coda 05 -Paris a to Z

room and turned to look at me with scared eyes. “I have to talk to you about somethin first.”
I sighed and tried to be a good sport about having to wait to tear his clothes off. “Are you going to tell me what you and Jon were arguing about?”
“We werent arguin,” he said. “Not really….” He hesitated for a minute, and I could tell he was trying to decide what to say. What he apparently decided on was, “I have somethin I need to tell you.”
“Okay.”
The next sentence seemed to take a great deal of effort. “Somethin happened today. Somethin important.”
“With Cole?” I asked. I wondered if theyd somehow ended up in bed together again, although Jon had looked only bewildered and confused when I saw him with Angelo, not furious as he would have been if Cole had cheated on him.
“No, not with Cole. I mean, at the church.”
“Did you find God?” I asked, smiling, but he didnt smile back.
“I dont know if it was God,” he said, “but I found something.”
I hadnt quite realized until that moment how serious he was. It wasnt easy for Angelo to open up, even to me. The fact that he was obviously trying meant that it was important. I pushed all thoughts of getting him naked to the back of my mind. I sat down and said, “Im listening.”
“Sainte-Chapelle was amazing, Zach.”
“Thats what Ive heard.”
“They call it the jewel box. Did you know that?”

    “I didnt.”
He nodded, his eyes unfocused as he thought back on it. “Thats what its like, Zach. Like bein in a jewel box. Or in a magic castle.” He glanced at me briefly, his cheeks turning red, waiting to see if I would laugh at him for that. When I didnt, he went on, sounding more sure of himself now. “You cant tell from the outside, but the inside is unbelievable. Almost like there are no walls at all. Just stained glass everywhere. It looks like its made of lace.”
“Cole said that when you saw it, youd wonder how it even stood.”
He nodded. “Hes right. Cant quite believe people built it at all.”
“So what happened?”
“I was there, lookin at all those windows. Cole was off somewhere else, talkin to the guy givin us the tour. Not many people there yet. I felt like it was just me.” He stopped short, looking at me, his eyes glowing with excitement and awe. “Just me, Zach,” he said.
That was obviously an important point, and yet, I knew I was missing it. “Im not following you,” I said.
“I was the only thing in the jewel box.”
I was surprised to hear a tremor in his voice. Not because he never cried. On the contrary, he cried in front of me easily, and it embarrassed him, every time. He saw it as weakness. Hed spent his whole life holding his emotions inside, never allowing anyone to see them. His instinct with others was to attack, or to joke, or simply to walk away. If anybody else had been in the room, he would have had no problem keeping his emotions in check. But hed let his guard down with me long ago without ever meaning to, and for better or worse, hed never been able to raise it again. When it was only the two of us, he couldnt seem to stop his feelings from pouring through that gap. Still, it made me realize that whatever had happened at Sainte-Chapelle had touched him in a very profound way.
“Go on,” I said.
“I know Ive never made things easy, Zach.”
The apparent change of subject caught me off guard. “What do you mean?”

    “Im not good enough for you. Never have been.”
“Of course you are.”
“Im not. Ive always known it. From day one. I been a bitch to live with. And I kept you at arms length for a long time now.”
“Not so much anymore,” I said. “And I always understood.”
“Its not fair to you, Zach,” he said, looking down at the floor. “And its gotta end.”
End? My heart started to pound. “What do you mean?”
“Its time I quit pretendin.”
I was glad I was already sitting down because my legs couldnt have held me at that moment. All the doubts Id had about what hed been doing online came crashing down on me, drowning me, making it impossible for me to breathe. “Angelo,” I said, my voice hoarse, “youre scaring the hell out of me.”
“I gotta quit puttin you through it at all,” he said.
My hands were shaking, and I could barely make my voice work. “Youre leaving me?” I finally asked, although I was terrified of hearing the answer.
His head jerked up, and his eyes were wide and full of surprise. “ No! ”
In the blink of an eye, the wave