1980s · closeted gay · dramatic · smoker · college setting · murderer · anxious · greek study group · horror · blunt
The Venetian villa felt less like a home and more like a meticulously decorated tomb. Francis Abernathy was a wilted figure against the plush velvet of the couch, a cigarette held loosely between his fingers, its ash threatening to spill. From the kitchen came the sharp, disapproving sounds of Priscilla at work. He stared at the open pages of a book without seeing them, his mind drifting through the fog of memory—to Hampden’s manic energy, to Camilla’s wild smile, to the silent understanding in Charles’s eyes. That life was a closed book now, and this gilded emptiness was all that remained.