BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

▬▬ 24

TUESDAY
24.10.1990
DORIAN

               I'm copying the phrases Mr Henriques wants us to translate when a balled-up note falls onto my desk. I don't have to look around to figure out who it's from. My heartstrings strum in a way that tickles my chest and I curl my toes as if that'll help keep my fingers steady.

I confirm Mr Henriques is occupied with someone else before I lower my pen. Latin might be an extracurricular but that doesn't mean it's any less formal than an A-level subject would be. My brothers used to say Coeus cares more about extracurriculars than exam results.

Pulling the note closer, I unfurl it gently as if it were a flower that holds the universe in its blossom; I tear a single petal and the world ends. Unsurprisingly, Isaiah's elegant handwriting greets me.

'Deus me salvet?' it says, the translation for the first of Mr Henriques's phrases: may God save me. 'God is my salvation. He's mocking me.'

Smiling, I look back only to find him waiting. The flutters in my chest birth a summer tempest and, rather than be forced to suppress it, finally, I can run into the rain and let it soak me. The tingling in the tips of my fingers and soles of my feet I've had a deep aversion to for years turns out quite pleasant once I surrender to it.

I'm learning to surrender to it.

It's been twenty-three days since our kiss on the bench by the river. We've kissed only a handful of times since then (there's no rush, you keep reminding me, we have all the time in the world to see where this goes), but now we know all we need to do is ask, and that makes all the difference.

Now, I can sigh at the perfect loop in his y's and g's or how he never accidentally combines letters despite writing in cursive. Now, I don't have to disguise the yearning it wakes in me. Won't you tattoo them into my skin?

I scrawl my response under his. 'Me servavis. Me servavis. Me servavis.' I ball up the note, careful to follow only the existing creases, and toss it to his desk, diagonally two behind mine.

Reading it immediately, Isaiah bites down the smile that pulls at his lips (let me bite it). He looks up with a star in his gaze that says: I remember. He remembers.

A figure interjects our line of sight. Mr Henriques plucks the slip from Isaiah. 'What have I told you two about passing notes? Surely, whatever it is, it can wait till after the lesson.'

The few pupils who care enough to listen in, snicker. They stare hungrily as Mr Henriques reads the note in that way teachers do I've understood to stand for a sardonic anything you care to share with the rest of the class?

His brow furrows and he reads it a second time, then a third. It must be nonsense to him — to anyone but Isaiah and I. We've perfected semi-telepathic communication nobody else can decipher because they're missing eleven years of context.

Isaiah knows this too. He grins at Mr Henriques with an act of innocence that doesn't attempt to appear genuine and becomes wholly convincing precisely because it manipulates overtly. 'Just working on our conjugation, sir.'

Mr Henriques has no foundation to punish us if he wanted to.

'I mean it — no more notes during lessons.' His expression is harsh but his tone has a ring of humour that undercuts the threat. He returns to the front of the class, tossing the note in the bin as he passes.

Isaiah casts me a glance and we both stifle giggles as we return to our own work for the remaining five minutes before the bell rings.

As always, we allow everyone else to leave before we do. Bumping shoulders with anyone in a race to the door makes my skin crawl and his unrelenting risk of dizzy spells or muscle spasms doesn't beckon Isaiah into crowds either. On our way out, Mr Henriques hands back our assignments from the previous week.