"Jean, this needs to stop!"

"I'm sorry, I don't know how to stop it!"

"We'll find someone. A psychiatrist, or a therapist, or a counselor, or a guidance counselor, or a social worker. Someone who can help you. You can't live like this. You must be miserable."

"There's nobody I can talk to about this! Nobody understands!"

"I'm sure nobody does, but it can't hurt. We have to do something. I don't want you to be miserable your whole life."

Jean buried his face in his hands. "I appreciate the sentiment, Julien, but there's really nothing anybody can do."

"Don't say that, Jean!" Julien encircled his arms around Jean's shoulders. "I love you. I love you so much. I love you because of everything you are and everything you have been and everything you will become. Please, talk to me if you can't find anybody else. I swear to God I won't judge. I love you, Jean. I want you to be happy."

Jean sighed heavily. Maybe he'll change his mind. Julien kept his fingers crossed.

"I love you because of the person you are, not the person I expect you to be, Jean. Nobody's perfect, but we're perfect for each other. You can tell me anything. I'll stand by you no matter what."

"Don't make this hard, Julien. Stop. Please, just stop already."

"Talk to me, and then I'll stop."

Jean rested his head on Julien's poitrine. "I don't want to talk about this. It's too dark. I'm too dark. So dark and twisted you wouldn't understand."

"So make me understand."

"I can't."

"Jean." Julien pulled him up by the shoulders and cupped his face in both his hands. "Look at me." Their pained eyes met. "I love you. That will never change."

"You'll never be able to save me."

"So I'll drown with you." Jean's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. Tears pooled in his eyes. Let me in, Julien silently willed. Just this once. Because I love you.

"I- I'll try, Julien. But this is going to be rough."

Julien took both Jean's hands in his own. He squeezed them. "I'll be here for you for all of it."

"It was horrible, what happened in there. They separated us from Pere Jean at the gare and we were loaded onto cattle cars. There were so many people we could barely breathe. We couldn't move or even sit down." Jean's eyes widened as yet another horrifying memory hit him. "There was a little girl beside me. She was maybe five, or six. She was emaciated, her hair was falling out in clumps, and the only part of her clothing that wasn't falling apart was her yellow star. She died on the second or third day in the train. By the time we got to Auschwitz…" He shivered. "There weren't many of us still alive. When they opened the doors, piles of corpses fell out of the train onto the ground.

"They separated us when we got out. Men in one line, women in the other. There was a horrid man with a Hitler moustache who was sorting us. The old and sick and children went one way, the rest of us went the other. Lafarge-Dupre got sent with the old and sick. Negus and I, we barely scraped through the first selection. We nearly died the first day there, Julien. We didn't know it yet, but they were gassed.

"They took away everything we had. Clothing, luggage, letters, everything. They took away the book you gave me as well. We were doused in scalding water, our heads were shaved." Jean rolled up his left sleeve and revealed the massive scar along his forearm and Julien felt all the air being squeezed out of his chest as he realized what Jean was about to say next. "They tattooed us. My number was 183343. I'll always remember it. The priest cut it off of my arm when I escaped and the wound didn't heal well.

"Every morning, there was roll call. It lasted three or four hours at a time and we were all tired and hungry and so scared because they would pick out everybody slated for 'showers'. We knew it was the gas chambers and certain death. Afterwards, there would be basically water for breakfast. There was a guy, Antoine, who I befriended. He slept on the bunk beside mine. He served meals. He's dead now. I was going through the bunks one day and I found his body. I never became close to anybody else after him.

"I was assigned to remove the corpses of those who had died during the night. It was horrific. One after another, Negus and I, we would drag out those cold dead bodies. I was terrified. They haunted me for a long time. They still do. Julien, you could not imagine the horror of having to drag hundreds of bodies out to the incinerator every day. We were always hungry and cold and tired. We stole to survive. The corpses would sometimes have boots or clothes or slices of bread that we could steal to trade or use. It's disgusting to think about now, but we didn't care then. We were so desperate. Sometimes I didn't want to live anymore, but then I thought of you, and I realized that I had to. You were my only reason for surviving. The war had to end someday, and when it did, I vowed to see you again."

"What happened the night of your escape?"

"We had planned it for a long time. We stole and hoarded everything we could and we traded for food and sturdy clothes. Negus was transferred to Canada around then."

"Canada?"

"Where they kept all of the things they had confiscated from us when we first arrived. He swiped the Arabian Nights, the copy that you gave me, so that we could burn it for a fire. Bon Dieu, I wish I had let him do that.

"We just had to wait for the perfect opportunity to escape. In October, the day had come. We had heard that the guards would tighten security soon. At the same time that day, there was an issue with the incinerator, which meant that they couldn't dispose of the corpses fast enough. The guards were too busy to notice us too much, so just after dusk, when it started raining, we decided to make our getaway. We ran for it, but it was just too hard for Negus. He fell behind and the guards shot him and- bon Dieu, I left him behind." Jean clutched at his head. "I can't believe I did that."

"You had to."

"I could have saved him."

"No, you couldn't. When you made that decision to leave him behind, he was already dead, and they would have killed you too if you went back."

"I feel so terrible."

"I know you do."

"I'll be haunted by this for the rest of my life."

"I know. But Jean, there really wasn't anything that you could have done. Nobody blames you for it. Not even Negus. Not even bon Dieu."

"I don't think I can continue with this."

"You're almost there. Jean, it'll make you feel better when you're done."

"I continued running. I ran for the whole night and then slept all of the next day in the woods. It took me two more days to get to the pastor's house and by then I was sick and exhausted. I was sick for another month after I arrived. They said I nearly died. I felt so guilty. I wanted to die, to give up every single day, because Negus had saved me and I had betrayed him. And then when we were freed, and the Soviets had finished questioning me, and sent me back to France, I thought about how you had probably moved on, and how you were probably happier without me in your life. I decided not to bother you. If you were happy, then I should have been as well."

"You idiot."

"Excuse me?"

"You were free for three years, and you didn't find me?"

"It made sense to me!"

"You moron!"

"What?"

"I love you! How could avoiding me possibly make sense at all?"