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1.
“Laundry detergent is practically a self-contained emulsion—not that it has to be a mixture of anything, but it has a hydrophilic and a hydrophobic end,” says Jonathan-Sims-but-I-usually-go-by-Jon-oh-and-it’s-nice-to-meet-you-too, and Georgie grins. She hadn’t expected much when she dragged herself out tonight, prompted more by the vague feeling that she really ought to make some friends this year (apparently, her tutees don’t count, thanks Mum) than any real desire to do so. Then, she’d looked across Balliol Bar to see the student who’d interrupted their Modern-ish Lit prof in lecture yesterday, holding a briefcase in his lap and scowling at his beer as if it too wasn’t planning to analyze Jane Austen through a post-colonialist lens this year. Georgie had headed over as a gesture of BAME Literature student solidarity, and now it’s been an hour and she’s still here, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Jon doesn’t seem to be a fan of eye contact, which gives Georgie plenty of opportunity to observe. None of his initial red flags—being dressed like a professor on TV, for one—have proven to be signs of a deeper rottenness yet. There’s something in Jon’s gestures—abrupt, abortive, like he’s holding himself back—that assures Georgie that he’s not just doing this as an ego boost. This is all to say that the last three hours of banter and infodumping have been wholly pleasant. Probabilistically, it can’t last.
“Do- do you want to go back to mine?” Jon asks, and god does Georgie hates being proven right sometimes. It’s not that Jon’s unattractive, per se—Alex would have called him “hot in a murder victim kind of way” (and the memory of her voice hurts, but less than it would’ve a year ago)—but Georgie had hoped for a little more class. Plus, even if Jon seems harmless and even if Georgie's not scared, she'd rather not run the risk of being called a bitch tonight. She starts scanning for nearest exits.
Something about her silence must’ve clued Jon in because he quickly exclaims, “Not like that! God, sorry, not like that.”
Georgie pauses in her room surveyal. “Oh?”
“Sorry, sorry, I just meant that- that I’d like to keep talking to you, but it’s really loud here and I can’t think of anywhere quieter that’s open right now. I promise. But in retrospect, I can... I can see how that might’ve sounded.”
He looks earnest enough, and a little flushed as well. Georgie wants to—does—believe him. But she takes a second to size Jon up anyway. Between the eyebags, height (or lack thereof), and twig limbs, he looks like someone she could defend herself against if needs be. Also, she kind of does want to learn more about emulsifiers, or just watch him as he talks about them.
“Well, as long as you mean it—” “I do.” “Then, let’s go.”
(Georgie wakes up seven hours later with a crick in her neck and an Oxford sweatshirt she doesn’t own draped over her shoulders. Her hair’s a mess—she hadn’t pineappled it last night, and the back of this chair(? yeah, it’s a chair) is definitely not silk—and the time is… shit. Oh, and there’s Jon, perched on his bed and looking at her.
“You, ah, fell asleep during the ghosts debate? I didn’t know whether or not to wake you.”
“Yeah, I figured,” Georgie says, rolling her neck and wincing. “Sorry for stealing your chair.”
“Tea?” Jon asks, holding out a mug Georgie’s almost certain was just in the godforsaken microwave. Not that she hasn’t done the same thing on many an occasion.
“Sorry,” Georgie says, “I should probably be going; I’m gonna be late for a lecture. But before I leave—do you want to do this again tomorrow?”)
-
2.
Georgie spends some time deliberating over when to pop the question. It’s not fear holding her back; it’s practicality. There’s only a small window of feeling—after “certain she wants this” but before “starting to think losing Jon’s company would require her to take another gap year”—where taking the risk is worth it, and the second stage is coming up much faster than anticipated. (She’s never thought of herself as someone who falls for people fast—she hadn’t even realized her feelings for Alex until it was far too late—but now this. Maybe it’s another side effect of getting a philosophy lesson from a corpse. Or maybe it’s just a Jon thing.) All in all, it’s only been three weeks after their first meeting before she asks.
“Are you seeing anyone else?”
“What?” Jon asks, eyes jolting from his book to scan his room for uninvited apparitions. They’d both been unusually absorbed in their readings for the past hour, only interrupting the silence with scoffs and huhs.
“No, like, are you seeing anyone else romantically?” Jon frowns, and a thread of doubt worms its way into Georgie’s throat. “That is what we’re doing, right?” Granted, lunch meet-ups in the dining hall that spill over into long and unproductive study sessions might not scream “date,” but there’d also been a fair amount of (well, okay, Georgie-initiated) arm-around-the-shoulder action a few times. Also, hand-holding, of the fingers-intertwined variety.
“Oh. Um, yes, we’re romantically involved, or I suppose I should say that I hoped we were and didn’t know how to ask for clarification”—note to self: communicate clearer in future, Georgie thinks—“and no, I’m not seeing anyone else.”
Georgie had thought as much, but the confirmation is nice. “Cool. Me neither. Want to keep doing that?”
“Seeing each other?”
“And not anyone else, yeah.”
“Oh.”
“Maybe even start calling each other girlfriend and boyfriend?”
“Oh. Um.” Jon’s leg starts to bounce, which doesn’t seem like a good sign. Georgie waits.
“It’s not that-” Jon begins, then cuts himself off with a frustrated sigh. “It’s not that I don’t want to, believe me. I just—I have a… ground rule. That you may not be happy about.”
“Just one?”
“What?” Jon looks startled out of his worry for a second, which Georgie counts as a success.
“Well, I mean, if you’re talking about boundaries, I’ve got plenty. Routines that I’d need you to work around, stuff I don’t want to talk about, and if you’re ever even slightly sympathetic to the Tories…”
Jon doesn’t even laugh at the last one, and she knows he’s not a Cameron cocksucker. Something’s really bothering him.
“This one is… a pretty big deal.”
Georgie tries to keep her tone reassuring. “Let me be the judge of that, yeah?”
“Okay,” Jon says, “okay, yeah,” then nods decisively. “I’m… not going to have sex with you.”
What?
Jon continues, hands fluttering nervously as he explains. “I mean, I can’t say for certain that I’ll never change my mind, but if we’re doing this, it should be under the assumption that I won’t. And it’s not—it’s not a you thing, I swear, it’s just the thought of doing that with—with anyone is just…” he shudders slightly, and Georgie gives him a sympathetic wince. “And I know that’s a dealbreaker with a lot of people. I think I’m—well, it’s called asexuality, there’s some books I found if you don’t believe me, here, I’ll write the titles down—” Jon reaches for his briefcase, presumably to find paper and pen, but Georgie grabs his hand before he can.
“Jonathan,” she says. He tightens a little at the sound, and damn if that doesn’t near break her heart. “Jon. I believe you. And”—she squeezes his palm—“I still want to be with you.”
“Are you—are you sure?”
“Completely. Honestly, I’m kind of relieved?” Georgie says, realizing as she replies just how true the words are. “I’m not sure how I feel about sex yet either, really. I’d wondered, each time I’ve been over, if you’d try to… and then you never did, and I was always glad. I’m not like you, I don’t think—the thought doesn’t repulse me, it just… might not be something I’m ready for yet.”
“But you think you’ll want to later?”
Georgie shrugs. “Well, yes and no? People are hot, but even if I changed my mind about sex, I wouldn’t ask you for anything you don’t want to give me, and I doubt I’d be so horny that we’d need to renegotiate our relationship. I’ve been doing just fine dealing with everything single-handedly. Or,” she amends, “sometimes double-handedly.”
And there it is: Jon laughs, a rusty exhale that makes Georgie smile more than anything.
“So…” she whispers, bumping her nose against Jon’s, “Unless my boyfriend has any more objections…”
“Just to—just to clarify. That’s me?”
Despite her best efforts, a giggle escapes Georgie’s throat. “Yes.”
“Well. In that case. He does not.” Jon says. “Oh. Except. Can I kiss you?” he asks, which conveniently answers one of Georgie’s unvoiced questions.
“Absolutely.”
Their lips meet despite Jon’s grin, but only because Georgie’s smiling just as wide as he is.
-
3.
That conversation, it seems, marks the beginning of Jon-initiated physical affection. Georgie had assumed before that his lack of cuddliness was fully a result of touch sensitivity, but it's clear now that although the sensory stuff was a factor, Jon had also been holding himself back, trying to avoid any touch which could be seen as either too clingy or a prelude to sexual activity. Now, on some days, there’s a head leaning against Georgie's shoulder in the dining hall, a leg swung over her lap as they sit on his bed, an arm around her waist when they walk to Modern-ish Lit together. It’s not all effortless—Jon still moves like he half-expects Georgie to bat his hand away, and sometimes Georgie forgets to ask before she touches Jon on bad sensory days—but they’re getting there.
Currently, Georgie’s wheeling a shopping cart around Tesco with Jon draped over her back like a very determined lichen. It was Steve-from-down-the-hall’s birthday last night, so Jon and a few of Jon’s acquaintances-turning-friends from a budding local urban exploration group had come over to duck into the party and snag several bottles. Georgie’s more than a little hungover, and Jon is no better for wear—he doesn’t drink, but staying up all night has taken its toll.
Jon’s wearing a sleeveless top that, on second thought, may actually be an old skirt of Georgie’s. Either way, he looks great. Georgie’s in her pajamas, and also, for some reason, a top hat? Between the outfits and Jon’s posture, they’ve gotten a few looks, but being literally fearless does wonders for one’s ability to ignore that stuff. Plus, Georgie knows almost all the employees here. They’ll have her back if needs be. Georgie’s not bothered, not by the other shoppers and not by her barnacle boyfriend—Jon’s not heavy, and he matches her every step, only disentangling himself to add items to the cart. She’s just glad they’ve both stuck around long enough to see each other like this.
In fact, there are a plethora of behaviors Georgie can sort into pre-commitment and/or post-commitment Jon things. She’ll make a Venn diagram once she’s certain her observations are solid. Pre-commitment things that Jon has since dropped include making his bed in the morning and keeping his professorial garb on at home. Things that go into both categories are Jon’s love of debate, the posh accent (though sometimes, after Jon’s just finished up a stilted call to his grandmother, his “of”s sound more like “off”s), and the fact that every time Georgie comes over, he opens the door before she knocks, like he’s been listening for her the whole time. Post-commitment, there’s calling her “George” when he’s sleepy; launching into completely sincere dramatic readings of his assignments to help him think passages through; stimming without looking self-conscious about it; and luckily for Georgie, cooking.
“Pasta tonight?” she asks as Jon squints at two identical-looking tomatoes so hard Georgie thinks they might explode.
“Mm.”
“The one on the left is a bit bigger?”
Jon puts the other one down with a scowl. “Maybe.”
The kitchens in Jon’s building have a stovetop and just enough counter space for prep. Georgie insists on helping this time, so she chops vegetables as Jon gets the noodles going. As the water nears boiling, Jon begins to hum something that Georgie thinks is meant to keep time, tapping his foot to the rhythm.
“Whatcha singing?”
“Oh,” Jon says, foot no longer tapping. “I didn’t notice—that is—it’s just. Something my grandmother sings when she’s cleaning.”
Jon doesn’t talk about his grandmother much, but Georgie can fill in the blanks. Again, she's been in the room for some of their phone conversations, and though she doesn't understand Urdu, she does understand silence. So she doesn’t push, just says, “Well, it sounds nice” and keeps chopping. Jon doesn’t sing, or speak, for the rest of their time in the kitchen.
Georgie’s dad said something once about vulnerability being a mutual exchange, and it’s stuck with her ever since. (Seems even more relevant now, since the no-fear thing means vulnerability doesn’t cost her much anyway.) Five minutes into a very silent dinner, Georgie speaks.
“You know, during first term, on the weekends, I didn’t eat dinner at all. Or any meals, really.”
Jon doesn’t move, but she can tell he’s listening.
“It made sense to eat on weekdays, because I’d always come across a cafeteria on my way to class. But on weekends, it was way too much work to drag myself out of my room, sometimes even out of bed. There didn’t seem to be any reason to. And I always had some rolls on hand that I’d taken from the dining halls earlier that week, so it’s not like I was starving myself. But still. Wasn’t great.” Jon nods, which is enough encouragement for Georgie to finish. “So I guess what I mean is, thank you? For being a good enough reason.”
Georgie takes Jon’s hand, and he squeezes back.
(A few days later, when Georgie’s almost forgotten the incident, Jon pulls the blanket tighter around them and says, “I think I’m going to tell you about my grandmother now, if that’s okay,” and Georgie says, “okay.”)
-
4.
Georgie hasn’t had a bad episode in a long time, but then her dad gets into a car wreck and he’s fine, he’ll be fine, but the bill’s gonna be hell to foot, and Georgie should be calling her English course freshers to see if they or their friends want any more tutoring hours, but instead she hasn’t brushed her teeth in four days and she’s missed her weekly scheduled room cleaning and she has that marked in her calendar for a reason, she has a routine for a reason, but every limb feels heavy and she’d rather stare at the ceiling and wait for it to collapse on her the way it one day will and therefore always has been. She misses Alex. She misses home. She misses being able to move without feeling like she’s dragging her body in a bag behind her.
Jon finds Georgie on what she thinks is a Saturday. He takes a second to scan the room before his eyes alight on the pile of blankets she’s under. “You haven’t been answering my messages,” he says.
“Please go away,” she replies.
The one time Jon had a meltdown in Georgie's presence, he shouted at her to leave, immediately. Georgie thinks she it's only fair to extend Jon the same chance to escape, never mind that his brain in crisis does better alone and hers doesn't.
Jon does go away, but only to the other side of the room—where Georgie had accidentally knocked over her laundry hamper two(? three?) days ago and then stared at it until it felt like her insides had been hollowed out—and starts picking up each item of clothing on the ground, inspecting it, and shoving it back in the basket.
“Is this clean?” Jon asks, holding up a pair of knickers. Under most circumstances, the image would be funny, but as it is, it’s just surreal.
Georgie sighs. “I don’t think there’s a single clean thing in this room.”
“That’s good to know,” Jon says, and then, “Maybe you should get up.”
“Make me,” Georgie says. He does not.
As Jon continues to tidy up the floor, he asks her various bite-sized questions—trying to ground her, she assumes. Where did she get these jeans? What’s that poster on her wall of? Does she need the notes from Thursday? How is she doing? That last one, she elects not to answer.
When Jon’s done with the laundry pile, he asks for a hand to lift the hamper upright again. Georgie considers calling him out on the ruse, but finds that it’s easier to take Jon’s hand as he half-pulls her out of bed. Standing upright makes her a little dizzy, but he holds her still until her vision clears.
But then they go to lift the hamper, and Georgie drops it again and Jon doesn’t catch it fast enough and the clothes go spilling over the floor again, and she screams something at Jon that burns in her throat and Jon blinks and blinks and hardens and yells something back and Georgie wants to throw something or hide or fall asleep but instead she just tells Jon to get the fuck out out of her room.
“Fine,” Jon snaps, and wrenches the door open. He pauses before he takes his first step into the hall. “I’ll be back in an hour, if you want me here then.”
Georgie curls up on the ground and thinks about what Jon breaking up with her would look like and she isn’t scared, just sad, and then she counts prime numbers until she falls asleep again. And then Jon does come back, and Georgie is no less frustrated and Jon is no less hurt, but he’s holding a takeout bag. (Georgie tears through the wrap, and then, upon Jon’s prompting, all of his kebabs too, and he sits there until she’s finished. Once she’s full, she feels a little less heavy.)
-
5.
Georgie practically runs up the stairs to Jon’s room, phone still clutched in hand. “URGENT,” the text had read, and Georgie had felt a sharp curiosity course through her.
When Jon opens the door, he’s practically vibrating. “I figured out a way to get into the Sheldonian after-hours,” he whispers.
“No fucking way,” Georgie whispers back. “Seriously, how? We have to tell the others right fucking now. But how?”
Georgie had recently dragged Jon into her latest obsession—Oxford history—though “dragged” implies that he hadn’t come extremely willingly. She’d wondered if the incident in the medical building would come up, but Jon had quickly turned to fixate on something else. For the last month, Oxford’s main theater has been the subject of most, if not all of their conversation. That's spilled over into their conversations with their urbex friends (read: all their friends), which has then spilled over into their collective ability to engage in academia. Each member of their friend group—going on different days to deflect suspicion—has been on a tour to scope out the surveillance cameras’ blind spots. Plus, they’ve pooled their money to buy a fancy lockpicking kit.
“Well,” Jon says, hands flapping wildly as he looks for his phone, “I was talking to one of the violinists who played there last year, and then there were some blueprints in the Balliol Library—here, I took pictures—and…”
There’s more planning to do, obviously, if the six of them want to achieve their ultimate goal of “don’t get caught, like, seriously.” They practice treading lightly, quiz each other on floor plans, and (at least try to) confine themselves to a strict sleep schedule to keep their reflexes sharp. It’s unbelievably overkill, but such is life.
Then, there’s scheduling, which is difficult because Marie has two big assignments coming up and Steph works night shifts five days a week, but eventually, the expedition is a go.
Two weeks later, Georgie finds herself standing on the wood floor of the Sheldonian Theater, looking up at the barely-moonlit ceiling.
“Wow,” Jon breathes over a chorus of April’s “holy shit!”s.
“Kind of stupid that Truth is white,” Georgie says, but her voice is tinged with as much awe as Jon’s is.
Jon lets out a huff of laughter. “Next time, we can break in and repaint.”
“By stacking like ten ladders on top of each other?”
“Obviously.”
Georgie’s seen the ceiling before on daytime tours, of course she has, but those times, it was always just a painting, no less shiny and solid than the rest of the theater. The fresco she sees now is smudged with shadow, but that only makes it look more real. It depicts a vortex of orange clouds surrounded by scholars and cherubim. The figures curl themselves around the perimeter, simultaneously drawn into and bracing themselves against the storm. In the center of the swirling mass, Truth raises itself up, holding out its glowing hand. Structural support beams run over the mural to hold the ceiling up, sectioning off various parts of the scene. Every figure is drawn in exquisite detail; the shadows of their robes, the strands of their hair. But from down where Georgie stands, the whole thing just looks like an ancient mouth straining against a golden net, ready to consume them both.
“It’s beautiful,” Georgie whispers, and then, because one time doesn’t seem enough, “It’s beautiful!”
“You’re beautiful,” Jon tells the ceiling, though his whisper doesn't carry very far.
“You’re beautiful!” Georgie whisper-shouts at Jon. (Georgie senses, more than hears, an exasperated groan from Nick behind her, but she pays him no mind. She’s earned the right to be this sappy, thank you very much.)
“So are you!” Jon whisper-shouts back.
“I am!”
Most of their friends begin wandering farther off, but Jon and Georgie stay put. The Sheldonian is a flat-floor building. There’s no raised platform that draws the line between stage and audience, just an area with chairs and one without. Whatever secrets the two of them whisper to Truth, it is both call and response.
“Sometimes, I feel so lonely I could scream!”—from Jon.
“I wish I remembered what fear felt like!”—from Georgie.
“I don’t understand poetry and I never will!”
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong because I don’t know what I’m doing!”
“I wish I’d chosen a different course! I have no idea what to do after graduation!”
“When professors call me Georgina, I feel physically ill!”
“I hate having short hair!”
“I hate having long hair!”
“I wish I’d actually taken my Urdu lessons seriously when I was younger!”
“I don’t feel guilty about quitting all my clubs in first year but I feel like I should!”
“We should be a little quieter!”
“I agree!”
A pause.
“I’m going to fail all my exams!”
“Funny, I’m gonna fail all of mine!”
“I’ll always feel like a disappointment! And I love my girlfriend!” It’s not the first time Jon’s said it, but the words send a thrill through Georgie anyway.
“I stubbed my toe yesterday and it still hurts! And I love my boyfriend!” It is the first time she’s said it. It feels right.
“I’m going to try to get to the balcony without being seen!”
“Good idea!”
“I really do love you,” Jon says again, and begins to move towards the nearest staircase, where Steph and April appear to be arm-wrestling. As Georgie watches his back, she’s suddenly struck by another memory—someone else Georgie loves standing in a building she’s not supposed to be in, taking one of her very last steps away from her. The feeling that rises in Georgie isn’t fear, but it must be the closest thing to it.
“Wait,” she says. (Jon turns around. He really is beautiful.) “I’m coming with you.”
-
1
It’s third year, which means fast-approaching papers and goodbyes and post-graduation uncertainties, but it also means Georgie and Jon (and Nick and Marie, but they aren’t arriving until tomorrow) are moving in together.
“You’re gonna have to try to hold still,” Georgie says as she attempts to apply a second coat of purple to Jon’s pinky nail.
“I am,” Jon says. “Can’t you tape around it?”
“I don’t know which box the tape’s in,” Georgie says. “And since someone insisted on having his nails done before we began unpacking…”
“New place, new hands,” Jon says. “It just makes sense.”
“It really… doesn’t… but… there! That’s all of them! Now, just- don’t touch anything for the next ten minutes. I’m gonna do mine now.”
“Yes ma’am.” Jon gives a mock salute, and of course, grazes his nails against his hair in the process. “Oh, shit.”
“You’re the worst. I’m stealing all the blankets tonight for revenge.”
“Which blankets did you pack?”
“I thought that was your job?”
“It definitely wasn’t…”
“Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no…”
“What did you say the last time I asked you to check the packing list…?”
“Shut up!"
“No, I don’t think ‘shut up’ was it. I’m pretty sure it was more along the lines of ‘I’m not an idiot, Jon,’ but if you’re sure…”
“We can check if they’re still there after our nails dry, okay?”
“Okay.”
A few minutes pass.
“I think we should get a cat,” Georgie says. “Do you want to get a cat?” and Jon breaks the holding-still rule again by shouting something incomprehensible and flinging his arms around her.
(Later, over takeout and scuffed nails:
“This year will be a good year,” Georgie tells Jon. “I can feel it. And if it’s not, I’ll make it good.”
“I’ll make it good, too,” Jon says, “Or I’ll try to, at least. I promise.”
And Georgie believes him, and Georgie is not afraid.)