Sören was on his way to a pre-surgery consult, and washing his hands. He'd come into work with a headache and body aches, feeling even more tired than usual, which he'd chalked up to not getting enough rest lately because of his schedule. And now, a mighty sneeze came on. He reached for the paper towels just in time, sneezing violently into a wad. One, two, three sneezes. Sören snuffled and groaned.
Ed was right there when it happened and he gave Sören a disapproving look. "Sigurðsson, go home."
Sören made a little disgruntled noise, not wanting to leave them short-handed.
Ed shook his head, firm in his stance. "No offense, but you look like shit, your eyes are all glassy. You're probably sick, I don't want you getting everyone else sick. Go home. And if you're sick, take a few days if you need them."
Sören had a flu shot earlier that month, but he also knew it wasn't a hundred percent effective, and he knew if he was sick, Ed was right - the last thing patients recovering from surgery needed was to be exposed to a cold or flu.
It was a gloomy late October day - Wednesday, the twenty-third of October - as Sören went to the train station, looking like it was going to rain anytime now. The weather seemed to match his grumpy mood; as badly as Sören needed time off, he didn't want it to be under these circumstances. Sören wore a mask and gloves on the train to be on the safe side and sure enough, as he waited for the train he started to have chills, like someone had turned on the air conditioning in the train, even though he knew that wasn't so. He also felt even more exhausted, just the simple act of walking to the station and boarding the train made him ready to keel over. In an attempt to keep himself awake and not have another incident of falling asleep on the train, Sören put in his earbuds and his metal playlist. He leaned back and kept his eye on the stops as Tool played.
'Cause I'm praying for rain
I'm praying for tidal waves
I wanna see the ground give way.
I wanna watch it all go down.
Mom, please flush it all away.
I wanna see it go right in and down.
I wanna watch it go right in.
Watch you flush it all away.
Time to bring it down again.
Don't just call me pessimist.
Try and read between the lines.
And I can't imagine why you wouldn't welcome any change, my friend.
I wanna see it come down.
Bring it down
Suck it down.
Flush it down.
The walk back from the station was miserable. It was raining now. Sören still had chills, his head was pounding, and his nose was running underneath the mask. Hot tea, he told himself. It became a mantra to keep him going, the promise of the reward once he got to the flat. Hot tea and a blanket. Hot tea and a blanket...
Sören made a little noise of surprise under the mask when he saw Anthony's Audi outside the house. It wasn't time for Anthony to get out of work yet, and Sören wondered if Anthony was sick too. "Shit," Sören muttered, remembering when they had flu together a year ago. Being sick on his own would be bad enough, but both of them being sick was going to be even less fun. Nonetheless, the doctor instinct in Sören kicked in and he found himself walking faster, wanting to check on Anthony, make sure he was all right.
Sören heard moaning as he came up the stairs. Oh god, he really must not be feeling well. Sören rushed, even though his asthma protested. He opened the door and the moaning was louder now that he was there in the flat. Sören took off his mask and gloves, washed his hands, and hurried down to the bedroom. "Anthony, I'm here. Anthony -"
Sören was just in time to witness Anthony on the bed, naked, shuddering and gasping in the throes of climax... coming in the mouth of another man. Young. Blonde. Blue eyes meeting his, widening with surprise, then narrowing with mockery as the lips smiled around Anthony's cock, seed spilling out the corners of the pretty mouth.
Sören stood there for a few seconds just shocked, and then he heard himself make a hysterical keening noise, and Anthony sat up with a gasp. He looked at Sören, eyes wide with panic. "Oh shit. Sören..."
The guy who'd been giving him a blowjob swallowed, and also sat up, smiling. "Hello," the younger guy said. "Nice to meet you." He had a pleasant, public-school educated voice.
Not thinking, just feeling, Sören strode to the bed and backhanded the other man as hard as he could. The younger man held his face after he'd been hit, and then Sören turned to look at Anthony, feeling the rage rising in him - rage and grief. All Sören had wanted was to come home and rest, hot tea and a blanket, and instead his entire life was falling apart, had come undone within a couple of minutes. "You," Sören said, his voice shaking. His entire body was shaking now. He pointed at Anthony and then he just pointed-pointed-pointed, hand trembling, breath coming out in little gasps. "You. You..."
"Sören." Anthony looked up at him with tears in his eyes. "Sören, I'm sorry. Sören, I'm -"
"Shut up." Sören fought the urge to backhand him, too. "I don't want to hear anything out of that filthy fucking mouth of yours right now." Sören turned to the other man, who was watching all of this with what looked like amusement. "Not as filthy as yours, however."
The younger man just laughed at him. Somehow that was even worse than some sassy comeback. Something in Sören's head snapped. He found himself going to the clothing discarded on the floor - it was pretty easy to tell which was Anthony's, he'd apparently left work early and there was his suit on the floor, the younger man had been wearing a dark blue sweater and light blue jeans. Sören picked up the sweater and jeans and socks and grey boxer-briefs and he threw them at the younger man. "Get dressed and get out."
"Can I at least call a cab first -"
That made Sören even angrier. The audacity of asking to stay a little longer, to call a cab so he wouldn't have to walk in the rain or take a bus or the train or the Tube like some peasant. The audacity of asking to stay in this flat, their flat, just a few minutes more to make that call. Sören found himself snatching the clothes that he'd just thrown, bundling them under one arm, and yanking the younger man up from the bed by his ear, dragging him to the door, opening the door, and giving him a shove onto the top step - naked. Sören threw the clothes at the guy again, this time hitting him in the face with the clothing. "GET! YOU! GONE! YOU HO!"
Sören slammed the door behind him. A few seconds later, there was a knock at the door. "I need my shoes."
You can walk home bloody barefoot for all I care. But Sören looked down and the man's shoes were next to the shoe rack, brogues but a larger size than what Anthony took. Sören picked them up, making a face as he handled them as if they were contaminated, and then he opened the door up just a few inches - enough to once again smack the other man in the face with his own shoes, before he tossed them down the stairwell. Then Sören slammed the door again.
Sören was shaking again. He could hear himself breathing raggedly. His heart was slamming in his ears, head spinning. The pit of his stomach was rising, an icy grip around it. This was the very last thing he'd expected to come home to, and Sören knew, as he slowly stepped away from the door, that very soon he was not going to have a home anymore. There was no way he could stay here, after this.
For the first time, Sören understood how someone could commit the act of murder. It was tempting to grab a knife from the kitchen, stab Anthony, and then himself. Get yourself under control. Sören made himself take deep breaths, began running the scripts in his head that he did before a long surgery.
Before he could think of what to do next, Anthony came out - dressed now, in a white button-down shirt and charcoal-grey suit trousers, from the suit that had been on the floor. In his haste to get dressed two buttons were done wrong. Anthony noticed Sören looking and he swore under his breath and began fixing them, with shaking hands. Then Anthony marched into the kitchen and put on the kettle.
"What do you think you're doing?" Sören asked.
"Making fucking tea."
It would have been hilarious if Sören were not so angry... and so sad, watching his relationship, his entire life, shatter before his eyes. It was such an Anthony thing to do, so painfully British. For once, Sören didn't nag at him to wash his hands before rummaging around in the kitchen. Sören walked to the armchair in the living room and sat down. He didn't quite understand why he was sitting first, rather than going straight to the bedroom to pack and get out of there - and he was going to do that, he wasn't staying here after this, no matter what Anthony told him - but he made himself sit anyway.
Anthony made two cups of tea and put Sören's in front of him on the coffee table rather than handing it to him. Anthony sat on the couch and for a moment he just buried his face in his hands. Sören watched him shaking and he heard the telltale breathing patterns that indicated he was crying. Usually if Anthony cried it made Sören feel bad, hurting for him, wanting to cry too. But now Sören just watched, not feeling bad for him at all.
Anthony finally took his face out of his hands, still crying, and he had a few sips of tea, and then he leaned back against the couch. "I'm sorry," he said.
"You're sorry you got caught," Sören said, feeling utter contempt. "You're not sorry you did it."
"No, I am," Anthony protested. He sighed, and he looked Sören in the eye, and then he fell apart and started sobbing. "I'm so, so fucking sorry..."
"I don't want to fucking hear it," Sören said.
Anthony just cried harder at that. Sören thought about getting up and packing right then, but something in him made him stay at least a little while longer. "So..." Sören pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his face. "Is that your new boyfriend? Do you love him?"
Anthony gave Sören a withering look, as if the mere question offended him. "No," Anthony said. "It was just sex."
Sören wasn't sure if that made it better or worse. "How long has this been going on?"
Anthony looked down and grimaced. "I got an account on Grindr two weeks ago. I got a few messages but his was the first I replied to, and that was a few days ago. So I arranged to go home from work early..."
Sören did the mental math and then he laughed - not a pleasant laugh, a bitter laugh - as the lightbulb went off in his head. "You weren't texting a client that one night, were you?"
"No," Anthony admitted.
"You..." Sören swallowed hard. That made him even angrier than catching Anthony in the act. "You lying-ass motherfucker."
"I'm sorry -"
"I told you, I don't want to fucking hear it. Don't give me this sob story about how fucking sorry you are, because if you were truly sorry you wouldn't have done it in the first place. You've been lying to me for at least two weeks now."
Anthony had some more tea. That prompted Sören to have a sip of his, even though Anthony made it and it felt like accepting poison from an enemy. And then Anthony went on. "He was the only person from... the app... that... I... fu..." Anthony winced, closed his eyes, and facepalmed. "Today was the first time."
"And you expect me to believe that."
Anthony opened his eyes and glared. "Sören, I can't force you to believe me. But today was the first time. The only time. I wasn't planning on seeing him again after today -"
"Sure."
A moment of awkward silence hung between them, and even as Sören had doubts as to the veracity of anything Anthony said, his curiosity still got the better of him. "What's his name?"
"Scott."
"Scott..."
"Anderson."
"How old is he? He didn't look that old."
"Twenty. He goes to UCL." Anthony shrugged. "That's really all I know. And I know that much because I asked, because... yes, he seems young."
"So you like them young?"
Anthony facepalmed. "I had specific requirements. No drugs, no diseases, no strings, discrete..." Anthony's voice trailed off and Sören knew he was stopping himself from getting into any other particulars of what he'd said on Grindr. "He was the first person to respond to my profile who looked attractive and actually met the no strings requirement, wasn't hinting at wanting more than just a one-time hookup."
"No strings?"
"I told you, I don't love him. This wasn't love. This was just me getting my needs met."
"Was it really."
Anthony broke down crying again. Sören watched him cry, sipping his tea, and he thought again about getting up, packing, and leaving. But then Anthony choked out, "No, I don't love him. I love you. I want you. But you're never around. You're always working, or too exhausted from working. And when you're not, you don't want to go out anymore. You want to stay home and draw or paint. I don't mind that sometimes, but I mind it being all the time. It feels like a rejection. You love your art more than me. I have needs, and you're so fucking self-absorbed." Anthony swallowed. "I am not going to beg to get my needs met."
Sören hissed like a wounded cat. "You have the nerve to call me self-absorbed? You shallow, superficial fuck -"
Anthony's eyes widened and Sören knew he'd hit below the belt. Sören went on. "Yeah. You heard me. You think you're hot shit because you grew up in a mansion, you went to public school, Daddy bought you 'just a Lexus' when you learned how to drive, you have an Audi, you have a Rolex, you live in a posh flat on the riverfront... all outward decoration because you're fucking empty on the inside. You hang out with empty, vain, narcissistic people instead of friendships with real substance. And now that we're past the shiny new relationship stage and things aren't fun all the time, you're done with me and you're off fucking pretty boys from Grindr -"
Anthony recoiled, blinking as if Sören had hit him. Sören clenched his teeth and made a seething noise. Anthony shook his head, the tears coming on again. "I'm not done with you, Sören. We can fix this..."
"No, we can't."
"Sören. I'm sorry. I -"
"I told you, stop with the fake apologies already. They mean nothing. But then, what else do I expect, from some fake, vain, posh fucking twat like you -"
"Sören, please." Anthony shivered, sobbing a little more, then crying silently. "I told you. I love you. I don't love him -"
"And yet, there he was, giving you a blowjob instead of me. You know, you could have asked. But you didn't. Am I not good enough for you anymore?" Sören sneered. "What does he have that I don't? A trust fund? A Lexus? A yacht?"
Anthony had an angry look on his face, once again seeming offended by Sören's accusation that wealth and outward appearance was all that mattered. "A bigger cock, for one thing."
Sören got up, backhanded him just like he'd backhanded Scott, and then he marched off to the bedroom. He'd heard enough. That was the final nail in the coffin. There was no going back. There was no fixing this. Sören was done.
Sören went to the hall closet and pulled out a garbage bag. Then he went to the laundry hamper in the hallway and grabbed his dirty clothes out of the hamper, stuffed them in the garbage bag. He left the garbage bag by the door of the hall closet and made his way to the bedroom. He pulled out his suitcase and his duffel bag, and started raiding the closet for his scrubs and his other clothes - shirts, sweaters, jeans, leather pants. His heavier winter outerwear. He decided to take the two suits from Emporio Armani, even though he never wore suits. Never know if I might need them, like to go to a funeral or something.
Anthony came in as Sören was getting his underwear and socks. "What... what are you doing?"
"What does it fucking look like I'm doing?" Sören paused. "Packing. I'm not staying here. I can't stay here. I won't. I'm not going to sleep in the same fucking bed that you were fucking him in..."
"Sören, please. We..." Anthony exhaled sharply. "I shouldn't have said what I did, in there."
"You're goddamn right, you shouldn't have." Sören continued getting out his socks and underwear. "But you did anyway. Which speaks fucking volumes."
There was a pause, as if Anthony was in shock, not able to believe what he was seeing, watching as Sören continued to pack. Then Anthony's voice quavered, "Sören, we can still fix this. We can go to counseling together. We can postpone the wedding while we work on our issues -"
Sören whirled around. He gave a bitter laugh. "Oh, the wedding?" Sören took off the engagement ring and threw it at Anthony's face. He missed, and he heard the ring chime as it bounced off the wall in the hallway, chiming again as it fell to the floor. "The wedding is fucking off, asshole. You have some real fucking nerve to think I'd walk down the aisle with you and let you swear a fucking oath to me when you fucking lie -"
"Sören, please..."
The pleading just made him even angrier, and, heart pounding, Sören lost his ability to even communicate in English. "Þú ert lygandi sekkur af skít. Þú hefur einhverja raunverulega fjandans taug til að hugsa um að ég ætla bara að vera hérna eftir það sem þú gerðir og þiggja afsökunarbeiðni þína, treysta öllu því sem þú segir, að ég vilji sofa í því rúmi, að ég vilji snerta þig, halda þér, fokka þér..." Sören shook his head and snorted with disgust.
"Sören, I don't understand a word of what you just said."
"Good!" Sören threw his socks and underwear on top of the clothes in his suitcase. "Þú átt ekki skilið eitt einasta orð frá mér, þú sorglegt, lygandi stykki af skít."
Now that his clothes were packed, Sören had to decide what else was staying... and what he was leaving behind. Sören got the pillowcase with the remnants of his bunny and shoved it in the duffel bag. He grabbed Tony the tiger - even though it was a gift from Anthony and a reminder of him, Sören was used to hugging him and sleeping with him when he was feeling sad and vulnerable. Sören went to the living room and got the Wacom tablet, and his portfolio - he needed his art. He also grabbed the hollow book where he kept dried petals from the flowers Anthony had given him and the collection of handwritten love notes - for some reason he felt compelled to take those. But he decided to leave behind the books of poetry Anthony had given him that first Christmas. And Anthony could have the Rolex, which Sören barely wore. Sören took his Pusheen mug out of the kitchen cupboard where they kept mugs and glasses and bowls; the Pusheen shirt that Anthony had given him was in the suitcase. It was a reminder, but it was also something Sören would have bought for himself, and it was also practical - he needed shirts, he would need a mug for coffee.
The Fabergé egg, a gift from Anthea, was sitting on a shelf. It had been a gift for Sören, and Sören knew Anthony wouldn't begrudge him taking a gift that was his - I could sell that and buy a really nice place, Sören thought to himself. And then he felt a twinge of guilt about the idea of selling something from Anthony's gran. He decided to leave it here, let Anthony have it.
He grabbed his laptop. Anthony was in hysterics now, sobbing, realizing that this was not a drill, this was happening, this was real, Sören was leaving. "Please," Anthony begged. "Please, don't go, we can fix this -"
"Þegiðu. Haltu kjafti."
And like that, it was done. Sören zipped up his suitcase and his duffel bag. He marched on ahead, lugging them, making a beeline for the door. He took the key to the flat off his keyring and tossed it on the coffee table - it missed, landing on the floor. Sören didn't care. He opened up the door and started going downstairs, the duffel bag slung over a shoulder, wheeling the suitcase behind him.
And there was Anthony, following him down. They were in the downstairs entrance together, and Sören was angry at himself for not being able to move faster - he could feel a coughing fit coming on, the achiness settling back in, and he was suddenly too hot in his scrubs and his leather jacket. Just before Sören could reach the door to go outside, he heard Anthony's voice.
"Please, Sören, don't leave. Don't leave me -"
Sören turned around just briefly, taking one last look at Anthony in tears, in pain. This is how I'm going to remember you. You broke my heart, you broke my life, I want to remember you suffering.
Without a single word, Sören turned his back and marched out.
Sören had no idea where he was going, what he was doing. He found himself walking back to the train station, but when he got there, he didn't get on a train or the Underground. He took a seat on a bench, gave into a coughing and sneezing fit, trying to cover his nose and mouth, feeling guilty about all the germs he was spreading around - feeling less guilty that he might have given the flu to Scott and Anthony, good, they fucking deserve it - and then he pulled out his cell phone and called a cab.
He closed his eyes, and now, finally, the tears came. Slowly and quietly at first. By the time the cab arrived Sören was a wreck, sobbing all the way into the back of the car.
"You OK?" the driver asked.
"No," Sören said.
The driver passed Sören a box of tissues with a sympathetic look. Then he asked, "Where to?"
"Hotel."
Sören spent the next three days in a hotel. He crashed as soon as he arrived, and the following two days were a sort of hell as he coughed and sneezed and puked and shat and had rigors so fierce he thought he was going to break a tooth and he burned and burned and burned with fever, having wild fever dreams about burning ships, waking himself up screaming "BURN THEM ALL".
On the third day Sören still felt terrible, like he had a really bad hangover even though he hadn't touched a drop of alcohol. But he also knew the hotel, while clean and comfortable, was not the best place to recover from the flu - he needed a place of his own. So he ordered room service with coffee, and made himself take a shower while he waited, then he set up his laptop and started charging his cell phone. He needed to set about finding a new place to live.
He'd heard the phone ring in his tossing, turning fever haze over the last couple of days, and he'd let it go to voice mail. Now, as he ate his toast and drank coffee, he checked his voice mail and it was all from Anthony. "Sören, I'm sorry. Please. I love you. I miss you. We can work this out. Please come home." "Sören, it's Anthony. I am so, so, so sorry." Anthony sobbing into the phone and then just hanging up. "Sören, please. Let's fix this. I need you."
Each voice mail was more and more hysterical, until there was one of Anthony just crying, not saying a word. That was the last one. Sören replayed it, feeling a sort of bitter vindictiveness about the sound of him crying, much as once upon a time that sound would have set him off crying too, would have made Sören move mountains, snatch the moon out of the sky to make it better.
There was no way of making any of this better. Sören could not forgive, and he could not forget.
"Go fuck yourself," Sören muttered to the phone as he deleted the voice mails, and then he quipped, "Or you know, let Scott do it." He laughed at his own joke and then he threw his phone across the room, angry with himself for making it - even angrier with Anthony.
The first order of business was trying to find a new place to live. Sören checked Craigslist and looked for available apartments. The key was to be closer to work and have less of a commute and thus buy himself more time for sleep with his crazy schedule, but as much as Sören made fun of Anthony for being posh on his way out, Sören had also become accustomed to a certain lifestyle and he didn't want to go back to something like where he was living in Bromley. Nor did he want to pay out the nose for someplace really flashy, where he'd just be there for sleeping and eating while he spent a hundred hours a week at work.
He narrowed the selection down to a couple places in Covent Garden and Holborn. One of the places in Covent Garden looked really nice, a second-floor flat in a light-colored brick building on a street lined with cherry trees. Sören smiled a little at pictures of the cherry blossoms in spring and he thought about it, and that was going to be his first choice and then he poked at the other listings and one of the locations in Holborn was ideal - a short walk from the National, but that also meant it was a short walk from Lincoln's Inn Fields, and that was a bit too close for comfort for Sören.
Sören decided he'd take a little while to consider it further. He finished his toast, and he opened up a new tab on his laptop to check the latest local news, news for the rest of the UK, and the world news.
Then his morbid curiosity got the better of him and he found himself looking up people named Scott Anderson on the Internet. There were, of course, a lot of people named Scott Anderson, so Sören put in the University of the City of London as a qualifier. That led to a Facebook profile and a Twitter account. The Facebook profile was locked and Sören staunchly refused to use Facebook so there was no way for him to sign in and look without creating an account himself, but the Twitter account was public - mostly memes and asking his "mates" who wanted to go to the pub or to this or to that... but then he scrolled and saw a status message of:
lol i signed up for grindr, hope it gets attention from some hot daddies and not a scrub.
And there was a link to the Grindr profile. Sören pursed his lips.
Against his better judgment, Sören set up a fake Grindr account with a throwaway e-mail, not intending to use it seriously. He just wanted to look at Scott's profile, even as he hated what he was doing, couldn't believe he was doing this, was irritated with himself.
He almost choked on his orange juice when he saw the username. Scotty2Hotty. "You threw our entire life away to fuck Scotty2Hotty," Sören said aloud, incredulous. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and he found himself getting even angrier, that Anthony had done what he'd done with this twit. Sören did a double cringe when he saw Scott used the same handle across social media - he hadn't noticed his Twitter was under the same username, but there it was, and he was on Tumblr there too.
Sören took a moment to bury his face in his hands, making little screaming noises.
Then Sören browsed the gallery of selfies on Scott's profile, looking at Scott's body - Scott was definitely a twink - and the dick pics. Ordinarily Sören had no issue looking at this sort of thing - he'd watched his share of porn in the days before he and Anthony got together, though he tended to prefer well-written erotica - but now he felt cheap and gross and disgusting looking at Scott's gallery, even moreso when he wondered what kind of Grindr profile Anthony had and if Anthony was on display like a piece of meat to attract people like this, if Anthony had dick pics for the world to see. He thought about trying to do a search for Anthony's account but his heart was racing again, the fury in him rising, knowing he'd probably end up breaking his laptop and he rather needed that.
Sören clicked out of the Grindr tab and took some deep breaths, trying to calm down. He needed a distraction before he acted on the impulse to look up Anthony on Grindr. So he called the contact number for the flat in Holborn.
Sören expected to have a wait time, and more days in the hotel if not weeks, but the landlord told him that the place was vacant and freshly cleaned and if he showed up today and he liked the place and had a deposit, he could move in as soon as he wanted to. So Sören made himself get dressed - he felt guilty about going out when he was sick, not wanting to spread the flu to others, and he added a mask and gloves to help protect other people from his germs. Just as he put the mask on, his cell phone rang again, and it was Anthony.
Sören thought about letting it go to voice mail, but Anthony had already spammed his voice mail enough over the last few days. I am going to nip this shit in the bud right now. "Jæja," Sören snapped, letting Anthony hear the irritation in his voice.
"Sören. Hi."
"What. What."
"Sören. Please come home. Please, let's work on this." Anthony was crying again. "I miss you. I miss you so much. I need you. I love you. I'm falling apart without you, I feel like I'm drowning..."
Sören gave a bitter laugh. "Learn to swim." Then he ended the call.
Five minutes later, just as Sören was putting on his Doc Martens, about to head out the door, the phone rang again. "Anthony Hewlett-Johnson, I swear to fucking god."
"Please."
"You. Stop. Calling. Me. We are done. This is done. Over. Finished. Gone. Goodfuckingbye." And then Sören hung up.
Sören looked out the hotel room window at the rain pouring outside and gave a reluctant sigh, not wanting to go out in that weather when he was sick like this. That too was Anthony's fault - he could have been resting, recovering at home if Anthony hadn't done what he'd done.
He still loved Anthony, and he hated that he did. He couldn't just get over a love like that, the great love of his life. But his heart was broken, and above and beyond that, his pride had been wounded. He had been disrespected - first by Anthony's friends, now by Anthony himself. He had been an abused child, he had been bullied in school, he had been raped by a stranger in Iceland, and he was not going to stand for the man who was supposed to be building a better life with him, turning out to be shitty too, yet another villain in the tragedy of his life. He had been insulted, and no one treated him like that with impunity... Not anymore.
Nonetheless, Sören shed a few silent tears. The rain was coming down, and so was his future, and all of his hopes and dreams. He, too, was going to have to learn how to swim in the flood.
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