El.

“Léon began anew, music and the vision of Félix’s freckles buzzing through his mind as he became aware of the Saussine guests pausing at the house entrance, staring at him. He’d arrived, and his tie was still undone. Over, under, fold, tuck. Why was that so hard?!”
― Eliot Schrefer, Charming Young Man

“As he slotted the folded letter neatly into his music theory book, Léon felt a chill flood of something he realized was loneliness. He wanted Félix to be proud of him, and not to worry, but who could he be honest with? Charlotte and his mother were depending on him to keep them from poverty. Marmontel didn’t have an interior life, as far as he could tell. Reynaldo was Reynaldo. Robert de Montesquiou might have become a friend, but that adventure had ended terribly. Could he be honest with Félix? Everything he was going through felt foreign to their life of woodland walks and feeding ducks. How could Félix understand?”
― Eliot Schrefer, Charming Young Man

“We’re both weird outsider fairy creatures, you and me, aren’t we?” Marcel said, his voice reducing to a dramatic whisper. Then he disappeared into the shadows of the hallway, as if by a spell.”
― Eliot Schrefer, Charming Young Man

“Not when he was unnatural here and uncultured there. Charlotte was wrong. There was nowhere he could just be himself. Léon struggled to put words to it. “I’m wrong everywhere I go,” he said. “I’ll always be wrong.”
Charlotte wrapped her arms around him, and together they fell in the dark, wet grass. Her breath smelled like wine. “You could never be wrong with me.”
“Don’t start to hate me,” Léon cried into Charlotte’s shoulder. “I couldn’t stand it if you hated me.”
“I could never. Never.”
― Eliot Schrefer, Charming Young Man