Danijel Alaric Taylor didn’t want to turn twenty-one. He didn’t want to leave his childhood behind, not while it still owed him so much. He felt like getting up and doing something completely childish, like running across a river in tennis shoes, even though the temperature was below freezing. Something more daring would be even better—balancing on a tenth-floor balcony railing, for example. He loved heights, and he loved adrenaline.

Jessica and Christina had realized those things for themselves a few days before when they’d gone up to the top of the TV tower: the girls had waited one floor below while Danny went up to the highest platform, where he’d clambered up onto the railing until the security staff had dragged him back down by his sweatshirt.

That was probably how the girls had hit upon the idea of buying him a ticket to go bungee jumping for his birthday. The vacation they were all taking in the mountains was the perfect opportunity. He’d gone bungee jumping once before, as a teenager, and now he could hardly wait to do it again.

He waited impatiently for dawn to arrive. His gaze drifted to the hotel window. He didn’t like the fact that it was closed, nor the fact that they were on the third floor. If someone came through the door, he’d have nowhere to run. Fight or flight. If he had the choice, he’d always pick flight. Not because he was afraid to fight, or even because he was worried about being injured—he’d been used to pain since childhood, and was able to block it out almost entirely—but because he’d learned early on that fighting back generally made conflicts worse. The more passive you remained—the more silently you removed yourself from the situation—the better things turned out for everyone involved.

Only now did it occur to him that, even if he were on the first floor with the window open, flight wouldn’t be an option. After all, he couldn’t just leave behind the two girls lying here in bed with him. So “fight” would be the only option open to him. He’d face any battle for those two, no matter how impossible the odds. He’d die for either of them.

A cynical smile played on his lips. As if it mattered whether he’d die for them. His life wasn’t worth anything anyway.

He rose to his feet quietly. The fact that a girl was sleeping on either side of him made him break out in a grin. Never in his life had he dared dream of actually having a serious girlfriend who knew about his situation. Not in this lifetime. And the fact that she was so okay with Christina was practically a miracle. He’d always taken it as a foregone conclusion that no woman in the world would accept his connection to Christina—a reaction he could certainly understand. How was he ever supposed to explain to a girl that it was okay for him to sleep in the same bed as his best female friend, but that he’d have a problem with his partner doing the same thing?

And yet, from his point of view, the explanation was a perfectly simple one. It wasn’t just that he knew with absolute certainty that she would never touch him in the wrong place—it was more that she was a part of him. She was like his twin sister, like a mirror image of himself. He knew she was an attractive woman, he was aware of her assets, but he wasn’t attracted to her. He didn’t believe in higher powers or any of that other spiritual crap, but he was still absolutely sure that Christina was his soulmate.

He wondered briefly whether he ought to take Leika out before he went running, but then he decided she’d be all right to wait—they’d stayed up late the night before, and she’d been out right before they’d gone to bed. He wanted to run a little faster than normal this morning, to see if he could finish his nine miles in under an hour. Working out was the best way he knew of getting undesirable thoughts out of his head. And he’d been having a lot of those lately.

Danny slipped into the bathroom and did a quick check behind the door. He hated his own stupid habit of checking behind the door whenever he entered an unfamiliar room, but he’d never managed to shake it.

After brushing his teeth and changing into his workout clothes, he left the hotel room.

Outside, he settled into an easy jog at first, and then gradually increased his speed. He turned his music up as loud as it would go. Still too quiet. Even with the blaring music and the fact that he was practically sprinting, the thoughts crept back into his head.

Most days, he kept the obsessive-thinking carousel well under control, stopping it with pure optimism and positive attitudes. But on emotional days like this one, it started turning again.

Ten years, the woman at the AIDS info center had said. AIDS developed after ten years, on average. He’d managed to alleviate his girlfriend’s fears about that statistic, but he hadn’t convinced himself with his own arguments. He knew he was well above average in many respects, but he had deficits in others.

Did that make him average overall?

Danny wasn’t sure. Even if he’d been absolutely sure he was well above average in every respect, that wouldn’t have stopped the disease. AIDS would still have turned up eventually, there was no question of that, and “eventually” probably wasn’t too far off in the future. He’d already come to terms with the fact that he wouldn’t see his thirty-first birthday. What choice did he have but to accept it? If he made it to thirty, he’d be ecstatic.

The thing that really bothered him was that he’d be leaving people behind. Christina. He had plans for her. He wanted to secure a future for her so that she’d be okay without him. She’d get there—she was going in the right direction.

And then there was Jessica. Thinking of her made him run a little faster. Getting involved with her had been a mistake. A mistake he’d made for purely egocentric reasons.

At first, it had only been a game. How could he have guessed that she was so taken with him? How could he have suspected it would work between them, despite all clear indications to the contrary? How could he have known such a deep emotional bond would form between them? Was it possible for one person to have two soulmates in life?

Never in a million years would he have thought he was even capable of loving another person more than he loved himself and Christina.

But what was his love even worth? He’d loved his mother deeply, the way all sons did. And how had that turned out? He’d ruined her life, and now there was no place in her world for him. Since Liam’s death, she’d spurned him and his love. And then there was Rex. He’d loved Rex with all his heart, but his love for the dog hadn’t saved it.

No, his love wasn’t worth anything. His love was dangerous.

And his trust? He’d never trusted anybody the way he trusted Jessica. He’d never dreamed a day would come when he’d voluntarily allow someone else to touch him, and now it had happened. He knew in his heart that they could trust one another unconditionally, but his head was still struggling to make it happen. Danny ran even faster. One day, he knew, he would break Jessica’s heart. He kept weighing the alternatives over and over, trying to figure out how to minimize the damage.

Would it be better to break up with her now, or to wait until fate separated them? Which would she be able to handle better? Normally, he could guess what she would think about any given thing, but not with this—because she didn’t know the answer herself.

He’d run far too fast, finishing his first four and a half miles sooner than planned, so he turned around and began running even faster in the other direction. When he got back to the hotel, he was completely drenched in sweat.

He opened the door, grabbed his phone, and whistled softly for Leika. She ran up to him, wagging her tail, and let him scratch her ears. The prediction he’d made to Jessica about becoming best friends with the dog had long since come true. Leika was still very young, not even three years old. As much as he loved the dog, he secretly hoped he would outlive her. He knew it was twisted, but the thought of having at least that much time left was strangely comforting somehow—at least it was a lifetime, if not exactly the one he should have gotten.

Jessica and Christina were still dead to the world. Danny put Leika’s leash on before quietly leaving the room and heading down the stairs. He never used elevators if he could help it—the tiny, cramped space reminded him of a coffin.

As they walked, he read the messages on his phone: countless birthday wishes from his students, his friends, Jörg, the other children from the home. He flipped through them quickly for now, planning to reply later. His mother hadn’t written, and Danny knew not to expect a message from her later, either. It was the same every year.

Disappointed, he put the phone away, though he was suddenly so furious that he felt like chucking it across a field. His brother, who had never lived, was all she ever thought about. Not wanting to scare the dog, he suppressed the urge to kick the wooden fence surrounding the nearby cow pasture.

Danny shook his head, trying to clear the unpleasant thoughts away. What he needed now was a cold shower and some distraction. There was plenty of snow on the Tyrol mountaintops. He, Jessica, and Christina would be going up there later. A cable car ride, that would be perfect today. If he was lucky, they’d get a gondola all to themselves, and then maybe he could climb out a little. Just a little, so that the girls didn’t have heart attacks. He was in the mood for heights, and he urgently needed adrenaline.