by Sara Wolf
“Someone needs to put you guys in a room and give you a crash course on how to be honest with yourselves,” I sigh.
“Don’t.” Alistair crinkles one brow.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t act like you don’t need that crash course just as much as us, new girl.”
Me? No. I’m better. I’m getting better.
I’m trying.
Before I can muster words Alistair walks into the crowd, and Maria trails behind him like a platinum bloodhound, very pointedly knocking into me with her shoulder as she passes.
“H-Hey! Fuck you! And your henchman!” I regain myself and yell after him. “Henchlady! Sorry; fuck you and your henchlady, actually!”
Alistair raises one hand in mild recognition and disappears into the trees with Maria, but not before she looks me up and down.
“He or she. Both are fine for me.”
And with that rare multi-worded assertion, she walks into the forest. Alone. Finally alone. He distracted me! He distracted me with worrying about Bianca and about far-less-important bullshit! Who knows how many people took pictures of Ana while he was blabbing my ear off? I frantically grab the nearest person by the shoulder.
“Hey, hi, I’ve got an emergency. Can I see your very personal phone? And look through your very personal pictures? It’s very important.”
“Uh,” The drunk guy blinks at me in French. “Oui? This is a strange way to flirt with someone.” He pauses. “There are a lot of cat pictures, and I have a very nice collection of fedoras -”
I wrinkle my nose. “Ugh. Never-fucking-mind.”
I waddle into the crowd and find Ana dancing with a tall guy with sandy hair who looks like he plays rugby or the Hunger Games or both. I tug at her elbow.
“Hi,” I say. “Sorry to bother you during the critical part of the mating ritual, but we’ve got a problem.”
She’s clearly been chugging her cup, a darker wine flush on her cheeks as we stagger out of the crowd.
“I saw you!” She giggles. “Talking with Pierre! He seemed nice.”
“Well he did say ‘I collect fedoras’, which are the three sexiest words in the English language.”
“I thought you liked Ciel?” She squints at me. “But then you went on a date with Alistair last week.”
“I!” I screech, then immediately whisper. “I did not.”
“What was that picnic basket all about, then?”
“We had a deal. His end of it was setting me up with Ciel.”
Ana’s face falls. “Oh. Oh no. Chunhua’s been telling the whole school.”
The stares. People were definitely looking at me and Strickland. Together. That’s what he meant by ‘ignore them’.
“Good. Great. Fantastique!” I throw my hands up. “Because what any adolescent girl needs is more problems, not less!”
Ana’s lip begins to wobble. “I’m…I’m sorry, Lilith. I tried to stop her -”
“No no,” I soothe. “I’m not mad at you. Go back to dancing, okay?”
She beams. “Okay. I trust you.”
The words feel like knives going down. In any other situation - in any other school - her fear of having even one picture taken might seem like paranoia, but like Bianca said; Silvere is special.
And, besides.
I know paranoia.
I know the sort of paranoia that helps you survive. Keeps you safe. Unhurt. I know how it feeds, how it demands to be fed. How it feels like no one else can stop it, and you’re at its complete mercy as it steers you off a cliff’s edge and into an endless pit. I know what it feels like, to desperately want someone else to step in and stop it. Someone to hit the brakes when it feels like you can’t.
I need to see everyone at this party’s phone, and fast. But like hot cheddar hell that’s going to happen. Our phones are our diaries, our best non-judgmental friends. I might as well be asking people to donate their organs.
“Lilith?”
That silky-smooth voice. My stomach evacuates through my nose and I want to dive headfirst into the nearest blackberry bush, thorns and all, but I’m trying. I’m trying on this annoying new costume called real bravery, and it makes me whirl around to confront things instead.
“H-Hi. Ciel.”
Dressed in all black, he looks like a particularly fashionable shadow. His smile is warm enough, but I can’t be sure because my affliction of not-being-able-to-look-him-in-the-eyes-itis has gotten to the uncurable stage. Apparently when someone tries to maybe-almost kiss you, it’s hard to get it out of your head. Chalk that realization up to Personal Growth™.
“You look nice tonight. And sort of worried.” He smiles, completely oblivious to my internal twisting.
“Pretty much always,” I flush.
“Is it something I can help with?”
“Oh, it’s - it’s mostly impossible.”
“Haven’t you ever seen a Disney movie? Nothing’s impossible.”
I half-laugh. “Okay. Sure. Theoretically, I need to look at everyone’s phone at this party. Like, now.”
“Certainly not an easy thing,” Ciel muses, chin in hand. Then he perks up and flashes that grin. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
I watch him disappear into the crowd and re-appear with someone equally tall. They talk French as they approach, and my lungs decompress.
“No,” I whisper.
“Fuck no,” Alistair blurts when he sees me.
“Come on, Ali,” Ciel puts on a winning smile so bright it dwarfs the bonfire. “It’ll be fun! Think of it like a massive test.”
“And I don’t feel like grading papers right now,” Alistair insists. “There’s no way they’ll agree if it’s me - you know that.”
“Of course they won’t. That’s why I’ll be doing the talking.”
“Uh, what’s going on?” I try.
Alistair ignores me. “You hate talking to them, Ciel. Why are you doing this?”
“To help a friend, obviously.”
Alistair stares at him, hard and pointed. “Is she?”
Ciel doesn’t waver in his smile. “Isn’t she?”
There’s a weird quiet, the heavy kind. Something between them snaps - a rubber band against a wrist, some invisible violin string I can’t see. And then Ciel turns and leaps onto the biggest stump he can find with his gazelle legs.
“Attention! Attention, si vous plais!”
The music dies down, and the seething mass of the party dims to pulsating curiosity as everyone looks to Ciel. He speaks rapidly in French, his smile so incredibly warm and his hands waving animatedly as he talks. The crowd starts nodding, pulling out their phones from every pocket and backpack and purse. Like a miracle, a line starts to form in front of Ciel, people murmuring and laughing as they stand there waiting. Willing. Ciel turns to Alistair and I, grinning as he steps off the stump.
“There, Lilith. Alistair will help you search through the phones.”
“He will?” I ask.
“I will?” Alistair quirks a brow.
“Yes. You heard me - it’s a matter of campus security, after all.”
Alistair’s exhale is so exhausted I swear he’s going to drop dead asleep any second. “Underhanded as always.”
“I like to keep it consistent,” Ciel agrees genially, then motions. “Go on, you two. Get to work.”
As Alistair lumbers towards the head of the line grumbling, I flash a smile at Ciel. “You - you didn’t have to do all this for me.”
“I know,” He teases. “But I did anyway.”
There’s hope.
There’s hope, isn’t there? My chest swells up. It’s creepy of me, but I can smell the heat of his body - faint rain and a hint of sweet mint cologne and warmth. I look at his shoulder. Not his face. Not yet. But close.
“T-Thanks. Seriously. I owe you a lot more than a Snickers.”
“Two Snickers,” He asserts playfully. “And a dance.”
My heart thunders. “D-Dance. Yeah.”
&n
bsp; “Or, if you’re really feeling generous, that interesting little piece of fur.”
He still wants it this bad? “Uh, might have to take a raincheck on that one. It’s gone.”
“Gone?” He cocks his head.
“Someone broke into my room and took it. Or I misplaced it. Occam’s razor, right?”
Ciel’s smile is as easy as the bonfire eating wood. “Right. Well, when you find it, call me, would you?”
In a blink he touches my wrist, pulling my arm out slightly, and every part of me is blissfully okay with it. My brain rests easy, my fear quiet. With one of the metallic sharpies being passed around the party, he writes gently on my skin. I look down. Numbers. Oh shit. A phone number! His phone number. Ciel Lautrec’s fuckin’ phone number!!!
He finishes, looks up, and winks, and I watch him disappear into the crowd - black on gold. My heart tries to take off through my throat and I barely manage to pull it back down. An almost kiss, and now this. This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. Out of all the girls here, out of all the people he could give his number to…good things don’t happen to me all at once like this -
“Pierce!” Alistair barks. “Get over here!”
Unsteadily, I wobble over to Alistair. He glowers deeper.
“When did you get drunk?”
“When did you get nosy?” I manage, grabbing the first offered phone in the line. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Surprisingly, Alistair doesn’t try to argue. “What are we even looking for?”
“Ana. Anything of Ana in these pictures.”
“Sequeira?”
“The Ana I’m friends with.”
“You don’t use her last name?” Alistair’s brow raises.
“You don’t use her first name?” I shoot back.
We’ve come, for the millionth time, to a frowny impasse. He goes through people’s phones with me, assuring them in French as I assure them in English we’ll only be looking at the most recent pictures taken tonight. That’s not to say people don’t frantically delete their nudes and bad selfies right before handing the phones to us. It’s only when we’re halfway through the line do I realize Alistair and I’ve been standing practically shoulder-to-shoulder. I can feel his heat radiating through his jacket shoulder and into mine. And it’s been okay. The fear’s been quiet.
Except the moment I recognize that it comes clawing back, and I step to the side and make room between us. The next person in line walks up to me.
“Ana!” I glance up as she hands me her phone with faint concern. “I know this looks bad, but I just wanted to be thorough -”
Ana’s arms around my neck stop me, her smell of wine and sweat and vanilla everywhere. The first hug I’ve gotten here. The first hug I’ve gotten from someone new in a long time. My arms freeze against her.
Don’t push. Don’t run. It’s okay. She won’t hurt you. She won’t.
“Thanks,” She mutters into my chest. “No one’s ever…no one’s ever taken it this seriously before. I’m…thank you.”
“H-Hey, it’s no biggie. I promised, didn’t I?”
“It’s big.” Her face is so far buried in my sweater she’s barely intelligible. “It’s a biggie to me.”
I lift my shaking hands to hug her back. Slow. Breathe. She’s warm against my palms. Real. Bones and muscle - all it capable of turning on me. A slap. Pulling my hair out. Pushing me. It doesn’t matter how nice she’s been to me; in this moment she could do anything.
What are you doing, letting all of her this close?
Breathe. In, out.
I pray to God she doesn’t notice I’m stiff as a board. It’s an agonizing eternity. Just hold on for one more second. One more. When Ana finally pulls away, my heartbeat mercifully slows. I hand her back her phone, and she trots over to dance again. Not the worst, but not great. At least I didn’t freak out on her. Getting better. Trying to. In centimeters. Smaller - microscopic centimeters. Er, millimeters. Whatever.
I catch Alistair staring at me out of the corner of my eye.
“Got rigor mortis of the eyeball, Strickland?” I ask lightly.
“No.” He jolts back to business. “I’m just surprised you do something as normal as hug people. That’s all.”
“What did you think I’d do? Strangle them?”
“Yell about the size of their various body parts?” He offers. “Call them a waste of good genes?”
“That was one time,” I wince. He stares. “Okay, two times. And, like, a half. I’m learning.”
“How to annoy me with maximum force?”
“No,” I sniff. “Manners.”
“At the slowest rate humanly possible, it seems.”
“Yeah, well. Good things come to those who wait. Etcetera.”
We finish the last few people in the line, the party already starting to beat out its rhythm again. None of the pictures had Ana in them, and I throw her a reassuring thumbs up over the crowd and she smiles. Someone tosses another ten logs on the bonfire, and the flames lick the diamond stars ever higher. Alistair turns to me.
“Satisfactory enough for you?”
“Yeah. Uh. Thanks for the help. And, you know. The other help.”
“Other help?”
“Setting the, um. Date up. With Ciel.”
He scoffs. “Judging by the sound of what happened, it’s not exactly something to thank me for.”
“No, it’s -” I breathe in. “It’s my fault. I screwed it up. But you still, you know. Held up your end of the bargain. Made it happen. Gave me a chance. So. Thanks.”
“You’re talking like it was a one-time thing. It isn’t. We made a blood promise.”
“I know. Just…thanks.”
Alistair’s quiet, and then his eyes slice back over at me; “You turn awfully meek and polite when he’s mentioned.”
I fight a blush that feels more like a rash. “So?”
I can feel his stare on my face and it sucks. All of it sucks. I’ve been giving him big fiery balls of grief since I got here, and now he knows my biggest weakness, the one thing I’d do anything for.
Just to feel normal.
But I know his, too. Rose.
“Archenemies.” I blurt. He blinks.
“Sorry?”
“Archenemies. Like, super enemies. That’s us.”
“Isn’t ‘enemy’ enough?”
I wave my hand. “You have a ton of those. A whole list. But I’m not like them.”
“No,” He agrees dryly. “You have a distinct sense of superiority.”
“Well, yeah. But that’s not why. It’s because you…you know. Hate me back.”
“Enchante,” He drawls in French. “Without you to tell me what to feel, I’d be lost.”
“I can tell, is all.” I assert, picking at the hem of my sweater nervously. Nervous at how honest I’m being. “You don’t hate the others. Okay, so, maybe you hate Gabe. And that’s legit because he’s a creep. But, like, Chunhua, or Borbeau, or the guy running in the hall before sixth period. Everybody you harp on, you don’t actually hate. You just look tired around them.”
Alistair is unmoving, the bonfire’s amber flickering over the hollows of his cheekbones.
“But you hate me. I can hear it in the way you talk to me. I mean, you talk to me, period. You bother. With me. The more you bother with someone, the more you hate them. So. That means you must hate me more than everyone else. Like, a lot more.”
I blurt a laugh at how rambling I sound.
“Let’s be real; you were right. You were right to put me on your hate-list. I’ve hated you the second I met you and I don’t care if that’s petty. We can hate each other in peace. But I don’t wanna be just another name on that list. I cut my own bangs, I dance good, and I can eat three bags of hot cheetos in under thirty minutes. I’m bonafide dope. I deserve way more. Hence, archenemy.”
There’s a long silence, the party noises fraying at it. Prickland staring at me. Just…staring. Not with the all-consu
ming laser-eye. With…a normal eye.
“So.” I start nervously. “So, what do you think?”
He musses his hair and exhales. “Archenemy it is, then. A bigger title, for a bigger pain in my ass.”
We have names, now. Names for the barbed-wire thing between us. It feels safer. Standing there, watching him stand there, fills my chest with a little bit of peace. Just a smear, a smidge, a thimbleful. It’s okay to let him stand near me like this. Because if I give him a wide enough berth, a big enough nametag in my head, he won’t be able to push his way inside.
If I give him a label big enough and loud enough, I’ll always hear him coming.
35
The Shadows (Or, How even as you sleep, yours gets longer)
You know what they say - the walk back is always harder than the walk there.
They don’t say that, actually. I just made that up. But it sounds hells cool, and my feet hurt from the countless roots on the trek back to the dorms, so it’s also realistic. And unlike Ana, who’s skipping ahead of me with all the drunk alacrity of a thoroughly-catnipped feline, I have to slog it without the painkilling ease of ethanol-altered brain chemistry.
“What’s it like?” I ask her curiously. “Being drunk?”
“Lovely,” Ana giggles, pulling a vermillion tree leaf to her chest. “Like floating on a cloud.” She staggers to a stop. “Wait. Don’t tell me you’ve never been…?”
“Not technically.” I spider my fingers together. “I mean, unless you count chugging your best friend’s mom’s hidden flask of Irish peat bog whiskey once and then immediately throwing it all back up in her favorite vase and blacking out on her bed.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Middle school was my wild era.”
“Why?”
“I was, like, mad. At my dad for leaving. And at the world for being shitty? I dunno. Just angry all the time. So I tried to make somebody suffer.”
“And that somebody ended up being you,” She says wisely.