by Eden Beck
That’s why he kept telling me it wasn’t what I thought.
It’s why he kept telling me I wouldn’t understand.
But he was wrong. I, more than most, would have understood—because I, also more than most, have been on the receiving end of blackmail that could ruin more lives than my own.
Olive gapes at Jasper in dumbfounded astonishment as he pushes through the crowd and climbs the stage. When he turns around, microphone in hand, his eyes zero in on me in the crowd.
For one moment we lock eyes, and in that moment, I finally understand what it is he means to do.
“I, Jasper, take full responsibility for the injury that occurred at the event last week.”
Gasps break out among the gathering crowd. Beside me, I feel Heath shift closer to me, and without thinking, I take his hand. Beck, on my other side, does the same.
It’s a solemn moment, watching Jasper’s star—one burning so bright—fall from the sky with each word that drops from his lips.
“More so,” he continues, without faltering, “I hereby acknowledge and take responsibility for the actions of the Bleakwood fraternity known as The Brotherhood—an institution that will no longer haunt these hallowed halls.”
I suddenly feel like I’m choking. My head swivels around until I meet Rafael’s eyes.
“Is he—”
“As head of the order, I do hereby on this day dissolve The Brotherhood. I end the line here, with me. All blame, all punishment, should fall on my shoulders.”
Now, I’m not the only one left spluttering.
Behind me, Dean Withers steps forward, his voice raising up above the crowd. “Are you sure this is what you mean to do, boy? Are you—”
“I am more than certain,” Jasper snarls, his eyes finally leaving mine only to fix like daggers on those of the dean. “And anyone who would dispute me is disputing the honor of my family.”
He pauses then just long enough to swallow once as his hand raises up to hold the envelope in his hand. “Though what you think of my family after this day …” he says shaking his head for a moment, but to this … this he seems unable to find the words. His eyes scan the crowd, the halls, the stairs with the reverence of a man realizing this is the last time he’ll see them.
“All the troubles of Bleakwood are mine, and mine alone,” he says. “No others should suffer because of my mistakes.”
With that, and with a heavy silence fallen over the crowd, Jasper lets the envelope fall from his hand. It flutters down to rest on the stage as he steps off it, walking through the parting crowd, right back to stand in front of the gathered administrators.
He stops as soon as he faces the dean.
“I’ll make things easy for you, Withers,” he says. “I offer you my full withdrawal from Bleakwood, effective immediately.”
The dean does not fight him, only nods once.
When Jasper turns to O’Brien, however, the college scout is not so quick to give in.
“You’ve done a very foolish thing, boy,” he hisses at Jasper. His eyes are dark, and his expression angry, but Jasper only shakes his head. “Think of what this will do to your family.”
“No, I’m doing the only thing that makes sense,” Jasper says. He breaks his gaze from O’Brien only for a moment, and in that moment, he looks at me. “If it doesn’t go without saying already, I decline the position at Oxford.”
“I don’t think you know what you’re doing,” O’Brien says, his teeth gritted together.
But Jasper just keeps looking at me.
“Oh,” he says, “I think I do.”
And with that, and with a single apologetic glance at Heath and Beck, he sweeps through the parting crowd and out of the great hall altogether.
Everyone around me remains frozen for a moment as what just happened begins to sink in. In a rage, I see Olive scramble up onto the stage and reach for the envelope left there. All eyes turn to her, watching with bated breath as she tears open the seal and begins to unfold the secret within.
But me … me … I have no desire to sit here and listen to Jasper’s secrets. I am, instead, compelled to follow after him.
After all, everything he just did … he did for me.
“Jasper!” I call after him, my footsteps thundering across the tile as I race out into the hall after him.
But not fast enough, it seems.
The moment Jasper turns around to look at me, someone else steps into the hallway between us.
It’s Neville.
And he punches Jasper squarely in the jaw.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“That’s for—” Neville starts before doubling over, his breaths growing labored. “Oh shit. Oh shit, that hurt.”
“Somehow, I doubt your hand hurts as much as my jaw right now,” Jasper says, his voice muffled through the hands he has clamped over the bottom half of his face. When he pulls his hands away, blood drips from his fingers down to the floor.
From the looks of it, Neville’s punch hit more than his jaw. Jasper’s face is already purpling and starting to swell, the blood from his nose a sure sign that it’s probably broken.
“That, that serves you right,” Neville stammers, his voice faltering further at the sight of Jasper’s broken nose—and more specifically, the blood dripping from it to the stone floor.
“Neville!” I gasp once I’ve finally found words.
I glance over my shoulder to see if anyone else saw, but we’re still surprisingly alone. The only sound coming from the other side of the door are the gasps and muttering of a crowd surely learning whatever it is Jasper has tried to keep secret for so long.
A secret he revealed for me. To try to save me.
When I look back at Jasper, he’s now the one doubled over.
“Should I go get the nurse?”
Jasper just shakes his head from where he’s leaning up against the wall, one hand now reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. As soon as his fingers touch skin, he winces in pain.
“No, no … Neville will only get in trouble,” he says, straightening up and tilting his head back to try to staunch the flow of blood. “And god knows, I deserve far worse.”
I rush towards him, but Neville grabs me by the sleeve as I pass. His face is frantic, his eyes wide and voice shaking.
“I’m so sorry, I—I don’t know what came over me.”
Further down the hall, Jasper glances our way. “Get out of here, Neville, unless you don’t want to be the only boy leaving Bleakwood today.”
I give Neville’s hand a reassuring squeeze and then help shove him back down the hall towards the dance. “Go knock over a case of champagne or something,” I whisper. “Then go see the nurse about your hand. No one will suspect a thing.”
Both Jasper and I watch him briefly for a moment.
At least Neville got what he wanted in the end. His satisfaction. No thanks to me, of course.
“I never thought Neville had it in him,” Jasper says as soon as the door swings shut behind Neville, but not before the boy shoots us one last guilty look over his shoulder.
At long last, I find myself alone in the hallway with Jasper. Though, admittedly, the picture of him right now is not what I imagined when I followed after him in the first place.
He’s a shadow of his former self.
It’s not just his likely-broken nose or swollen jaw. It’s something about the slope of his shoulders, the way his brow furrows, how his eyes avoid mine even as I draw close and take the borrowed cravat from my neck to dab at the trickle of already-drying blood on his face.
Rafael will just have to forgive me.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” I say, after a moment. “What were you thinking back there?”
Jasper’s eyes cut over to the door to the great hall, and he shakes his head. “I just …” He trails off and shakes his head again, turning away from me to stare off at the wall in front of him. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. What’s done is done. Do the reasons really
matter?”
In that instant, I see him start to slip away. I see him start to retreat into himself, as he always does.
But this time, I decide not to let him. Not so easily, anyway.
I move to stand in front of him so he can’t help but look at me.
“Tell me anyway,” I say, fixing him with a look he can’t escape from.
He squirms beneath my gaze. “I just … I thought that at least this way, maybe you’d at least have a shot.”
“So that’s why you gave up your position at Oxford? So I could move up one spot on the waitlist?”
His face goes red, and he pulls back from the cravat in my hand so he can turn his face away, just for a moment. “After everything I’ve done to you … it felt like the least I could do.”
“And dissolving The Brotherhood?” I find myself growing breathless at the memory of it. It all happened so fast, everything Jasper said … it’s still dawning on me. He did it, just like I asked. He really did it. “Was that a common courtesy as well?”
His head snaps back to face me. “No. No, that … that was a long time coming.” He pauses a moment, his eyes searching my face. “You were right when you said it had to be done. I should have seen that earlier. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Alex, but dissolving The Brotherhood isn’t one of them.”
It’s been a long time since I was this close to him. His hot breath is on my face, overwhelming me with the scent of champagne and iron and that unique musk that is wholly Jasper.
“I am so sorry, for everything, Alex,” he says, his voice just barely above a whisper. His eyes lift up to meet mine, an intensity there that isn’t rage or anger or frustration. “I know it’s too late for us, but I need you to know that I’m really, truly sorry. I never should have hurt you. I realized that when Olive …” He has to stop a moment and shake his head to clear it. “I realized I could never stand to see someone else hurt you … and I realized how disgusted I was with myself that I—”
I can’t let him finish.
I toss the cravat to the side and lift my other hand to cradle Jasper’s face in my hands.
“It doesn’t have to be too late,” I whisper.
I think back to the promise Rafael made me make. To forgive myself.
So that’s what I do.
I forgive myself.
And I forgive Jasper.
I forgive all of them.
There is a moment where the two of us hang suspended, our faces so close that I can practically taste him already. And then it is over, and I am falling into him once again.
But this time, this time there is nothing between us. No Brotherhood. No lies. No secrets.
Jasper makes no indication that he’s in pain when he pulls me, rough and with ragged breaths, into the closest classroom door. This time, when I find myself alone with him, my heart beats fast for a different reason.
Jasper’s eyes remain locked with mine as he pushes me onto a desk, but then he pauses, one hand resting on my shoulder, the other toying with one of the many buttons of my shirt.
“Alex, I don’t want to—I don’t want to do anything you wouldn’t’ want.”
“Oh, shut up Jasper,” I snap, closing the space between us again and kissing him so hard he winces. “I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life.”
The look in Jasper’s eyes turns animalistic, almost. “Me either.”
When he kisses me again, that animal passion floods into me. His hands rove, and soon the chill of air on my exposed skin makes me shiver.
And then I’m shivering with something else as, after nearly two years of pushing each other away, Jasper and I finally allow ourselves to be together.
I gasp at the feel of him, feel my breaths shorten, my head rush. His grip grows tighter, his hand wrapping around the back of my neck to steady me, drawing me closer to him as if we can never be close enough.
His possessive touch might once have scared me. Now, it pushes my labored breaths to a crescendo that leaves us collapsing, exhausted after breaking two years of building tension, into a heap of one another.
In the silence that follows, Jasper cannot seem to tear his eyes off me. He drinks me in, every inch of me, his eyes as hungry as his body was moments before.
It’s just me and Jasper. At long, long last, me and Jasper.
For a moment, anyway—until the doors from the great hall do the inevitable and slam open, the silence broken by racing footsteps that leave us little time to scramble back into our clothes.
But we’re not met by investigators, deans, or professors. We’re met, instead, by the sight of Heath and Beck bursting through the door—only to stumble to a halt at the sight of Jasper and me fumbling with the last of our buttons.
“This is not what I expected,” Beck croons, his voice finally forcing me to tear myself apart from Jasper’s sudden, protective grasp—trying, and failing, to shield me from our sudden intruders.
I glance at where Beck and Heath stand frozen in the doorway, unsure expressions flitting across their faces.
“And what is it you expected?” I ask, one eyebrow raising as I meet Beck’s gaze.
It doesn’t last long, however, because Jasper is the one to nudge my chin back to face him, his eyes once again locking with mine so that it’s my turn to find myself unable to escape. I am falling into him, and this time, I don’t pull myself back.
“Certainly,” he says, leaning in so his lips ever so gently graze mine again, “not this.”
He ignores the pain in his jaw and kisses me again—once, long and deep—before I’m snatched away by Beck’s suddenly appearing arms.
I screech, only to immediately clamp one hand over my own mouth so as not to draw too much attention. Fortunately, the momentary diversion of Jasper’s damning family secret seems to have passed, leaving my squeals to be muffled by the rising sounds of the string quartet as the music once again swells down the hall.
Beck does not put me down right away, but instead spins me around once more for good measure before he plants me down on unsteady feet and swoops in close for a kiss of his own.
Mischief is once again alight in his eyes when I open mine to look into them.
“So, is it really over then?” Heath asks, still standing just out of reach. “The Brotherhood? The fighting … all of it?”
“Well, no guarantees on the fighting,” I say, forcing myself to look away from Beck to Heath. “But the rest of it …”
“I meant every word,” Jasper says, stepping back to lean his tired body against the wall.
Heath stands awkwardly for a moment, still in the open doorway and looking like he’s unsure of what he’s supposed to do next. A series of conflicting emotions flit across his face, each one more confused than the last until I can’t stand it anymore.
“Get over here,” I call out with a laugh, forcing myself off of Beck only to be immediately swept up into Heath’s expectant arms. “If this is really going to be Jasper’s last day here with us, then we might as well give him a proper sendoff.”
When Heath sets me back down, there’s a moment when his back is to the others and I take the opportunity to lean in close and rest my head against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He freezes for a moment, his muscles tensing around me. “For what?” he whispers back.
I take a second to bury my face into his chest. When I reemerge from the fabric, he presses his lips to my temple, and I feel butterflies erupt in my stomach. This time, when I feel them, I don’t force them down. I let them grow, let them take flight.
“I’m sorry I made you wait so long,” I say, finally tilting my head up to look him in the face, “to admit, even to myself, that I love you.”
I turn my head to look at Jasper and Beck, standing just beyond. “All of you. Every last wretched one of you.”
Epilogue
The halls of Bleakwood are not the same after that day.
And yet, in a way, they remain exactly the same.
Just … a little emptier.
It’s incredible what the void one man can leave. But in this case, I suppose Jasper’s leaving left more than a man-sized void. Because when Jasper left, he took The Brotherhood with him … and it turns out that I was right.
The Brotherhood took up altogether too much space here at Bleakwood.
And still … as I find myself standing outside in the early summer air, knowing this is my last day here, I find myself missing it.
If only just a bit.
“Are you coming over, Alex, or are you going to be an imbecile and wait up there all day by yourself?”
Beck is grinning up at me, hand outstretched from where he waits for me at the bottom of the stairs. Behind him, Heath is animatedly chatting to an older woman who has been staring at me with narrowed eyes for the last fifteen minutes.
As if I needed another reason to fidget nervously in my ill-fitting uniform.
Sigh.
I’m going to miss this ill-fitting uniform.
Today, the day of our graduation from Bleakwood, is the last day I’ll ever wear it. Even if it is underneath the graduation gown currently swamping me.
Without any more excuses to wait, I take Beck’s hand and shyly let him lead me down to the courtyard where he introduces me to his grandmother.
At first glance, she looks like the dowager countess of some old historical romance, a relic of an era passed. Her shoulders are pulled tightly back, not stooped with the age that lines her face, and her posture remains so erect that I’m pretty sure a ruler would have a hard time competing with her.
But for all her grace and pomp, she takes one good look at me, glances at her grandson, and then gives me the broadest, warmest smile that I’ve ever seen.
“I’m glad to see someone has finally managed to get my Beck into line,” she says, clasping one of my hands in both of hers. “I’ll tell you, we were all worried he wouldn’t even make it through Bleakwood, with his track record, you know.”
I arch an eyebrow over at Beck. “Your track record? This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
Beck looks away and clears his throat, loudly. “That’s enough, Grandma. Shouldn’t you be getting over to the commencement ceremony already?”