Page 78 of Last Light

“No. I thought that guy just slept with her dead body.” He sounds earnest, thoughtful, like he’s really trying to figure out the poems.

I chuckle. “Yeah. I guess that’s what he does in that one.”

“Lot of creepy stuff in these poems. I mean the one with the rich guy who had the painting of her, but he’s the one who killed her. You know the one I mean?”

“Oh, yeah. ‘My Last Duchess.’ So you figured out he killed her?”

“Course he did. Guy was a total creep. Rich, heartless asshole. I liked the poem though.”

On a whim, I start to recite the poem in the dark. I’ve read it out loud so often that the words come easily.

Travis listens, huffing in amusement when I get to the best line.

I choose never to stoop.

When I’m finished, he reaches over to flick my arm gently. “You know the ‘Annabel Lee’ one?”

Of course I know it. I say it out loud, the haunting words rhythmic and eerie in the otherwise silent room.

When I finish, he lets out a long breath. “That was amazin’. You got a real good voice for poems. Never really liked ’em much until hearing you say ’em out loud.”

“Thank you.” I’m almost squirming with pleasure at the compliment.

“What’s your favorite?”

“I don’t know. Maybe ‘Lady of Shalott’?”

“That the one with the lady in the tower?”

“Yes. That’s the one.”

“Couldn’t figure out why she died. What the hell happens? She lays down in a boat and just kicks the bucket?”

I can’t seem to stop smiling. “Yep. Pretty much. I think she’s supposed to die from love or something.”

“You know that one by heart?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

I hesitate for a minute before I start to recite that one too. It’s long, and it takes a while, but I feel tension in Travis’s body as he listens.

He reallylistens.

Halfway through, I need to do something with my hands, so I reach over and pick up Travis’s hand from the top of the covers. I play with it, feeling his knuckles and rubbing his palm with my thumb.

He doesn’t pull his hand away.

“That’s a real pretty one,” he says when I’m done. “Reminds me of you.”

“Really? Why?”

“Don’t know. Just does.” He sounds self-conscious, so I don’t press the subject.

“When I went to London, I saw Tennyson’s grave in Westminster Abbey. I also saw Browning’s. He wrote the duchess poem. I was so excited, finding the plaques of all the poets I love there.”

“Bet you were. When did you go?”

“When I was fifteen. My grandparents took me over the summer. We went to London, Paris, and Rome.” I swallow when the reality hits me like a blow. Like a physical blow out of the blue. “They’re gone now. The cities. All three of them. Everything in them. They’re just... gone.”

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