Flightless Bird || l.s. ✔︎

CURTAIN CALL

A/N: This chapter takes place roughly two months after the previous chapter.

I was alone in our flat. Harry was out running errands. I wanted to go with him but mysteriously he said that he preferred to go by himself.

I knew he would be dropping by his publisher's office to pick up the page proofs of his book. Surely I could have come along. We didn't get many days off, especially Harry with his new position at the company. I was hoping we would spend the whole afternoon together. Instead, I tidied up our flat and got a head start on dinner.

At half past six I heard his key in the door.

He walked in and I knew immediately why he left me at home.

"Your hair."

He smiled. "Do you like it?"

His hair was cut short above his ears, buzzed in the back and wavy on top. His curls were gone.

"Your curls."

Harry dropped his keys on the kitchen island and stood across from me. "Are you crying?"

"No!" I was. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I knew you'd throw a fit."

"I'm not throwing a fit!" I yelled. "I just wasn't prepared!"

"I thought it would be more appropriate for work. I want to be taken seriously." He sat down on the couch. "Come here, touch it."

I approached him warily, like he was a new animal. I stood between his knees and placed my hands on his head.

He glanced up at me. "Well?"

"Okay, you look handsome."

Harry dug into his briefcase and plunked his manuscript down on the coffee table. His book on Swan Lake was being published by Cambridge University Press, an academic publisher. He had a lot of interest from trade publishers but they all wanted him to write a memoir, which he refused to do.

I thought a memoir was a great idea.

"You should consider doing the memoir as your next book."

He flipped past the cover mockup to the loose-leaf pages of the manuscript.

"What would I even write about? The whole world already knows my deepest darkest secrets."

"You could write about me! About how I'm the love of your life!"

"Maybe you should write a book."

I pondered this. It wasn't a bad idea...

Much like Harry's speeches about Tchaikovsky, his book was five hundred pages long. As his dutiful boyfriend I had to read the whole manuscript even though I only understood about ten percent of it. That didn't stop me from bragging to anyone who would listen about my boyfriend the brilliant author!

Harry was as meticulous about the publication of his book as he was the ballets he staged. He was involved in every aspect of the process from cover design and layout, down to the typography, paper stock and binding.

These were the final page proofs that would go into production. Harry wanted to take one last look to make sure not a single comma was out of place.

Carefully, I flipped to the dedication page:

For Hans Faust

Marcus Aurelius once said "The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing"