Fence--Striking Distance

by Sarah Rees Brennan

  All good, Coach’s voice said in his mind, cynically.

  He’d been silent for too long, he realized. Coach was giving him a keen look, sympathetic but still uncomfortable to receive. Her eyes were searching for an answer he’d just realized he didn’t have.

  “So that’s your teamwork assignment,” said Coach gently. “Go think about yourself.”

  And dating, apparently. Harvard nodded and left the coach’s office, somewhat dazed.

  There was always so much other stuff to do. He didn’t want to let anybody down. Like he’d told Coach, he was fine, and he wanted to make sure everybody else was fine, too. He wasn’t lonely. He had Aiden.

  Usually.

  He climbed the stairs, dark paneling on all sides. The stairs seemed narrower than normal today.

  Maybe another reason Harvard hadn’t tried dating was Aiden. Romantic stuff came so easily to his best friend. When they went into the city, Aiden was constantly approached by admirers and modeling agency scouts. All Aiden had to do was smile at people, and they fell in love. Aiden had his own devoted fan club, a group of boys Aiden had nicknamed the Bons, who came to every fencing match. Trying to date with Aiden around would be like learning to play a keyboard around the world’s foremost concert pianist.

  When Aiden was busy with a guy—which, in recent years, happened more and more—Harvard had his team, his family, and other friends. Kally and Tanner were good guys. Kings Row was a great place. Someone always needed help with fencing or homework. Harvard led a very full life.

  Yes, Coach had said. But are you happy?

  Harvard walked slowly down the hall to his dormitory, lost in thought.

  When he opened the door, he found his roommate hunched over his laptop like a vexed cat brooding over an unsatisfactory dead mouse. His green eyes flashed with displeasure at being interrupted.

  “Hey,” said Harvard. “You seemed off earlier. You okay? Want to talk?”

  “I need quiet!” Aiden snapped.

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  Harvard gazed around. Something else was weird, besides his uncharacteristically cranky roommate. Their room was festooned with piles of flowers and chocolates. Aiden’s bed was covered in roses and ribbons and cake, as if an unscrupulous thief had robbed a wedding and abandoned their loot.

  Harvard was used to such displays on Aiden’s birthday and Valentine’s Day, but both were months away.

  “Where’d all this come from?” Harvard asked.

  “All what?” Aiden made an impatient gesture with his finger, and then glanced around the room. “I don’t know. Some people wandered in with some stuff, I guess? There have been many interruptions during the past hour. Including you.”

  The room really did remind Harvard of Valentine’s Day. Every Valentine’s Day, Aiden got such a deluge of cards and gifts that Harvard feared they might drown in candy waterfalls and storms of lace-edged cardboard hearts. Harvard had never received a valentine himself. Except from Aiden when they were little, in a cute, platonic way. But Aiden hadn’t given him one for years.

  Harvard wandered uneasily over to his own bed, skirting around the suspicious lumps under the blanket of petals on the floor. His bed was also covered in presents. (Their beds were pushed together, and gifts seemed to have flooded in from Aiden’s side.) He made out several fruit baskets, but he couldn’t see his pillow, and he knew a pineapple wouldn’t be a good substitute. A pineapple pillow did not promise restful slumber.

  He poked at the heap, wondering if there was any way he could shift the presents around so he could sleep comfortably tonight. The pile of offerings tilted like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, then a flood of chocolates splashed onto the floor. Harvard let out a squawk.

  “Aiden!” said Harvard. “My bed’s a disaster!”

  “Great,” murmured Aiden.

  Harvard was receiving the impression Aiden wasn’t really listening.

  Against his better judgment, Harvard peered at the note affixed to the largest fruit basket. It was a square of white cardboard reading, Heard you might need a new roommate, Aiden! A note on a box of chocolates wrapped with a dusky crimson ribbon read Call me lover roomie.

  “Huh,” said Harvard.

  He thought again of their first day seeing Kings Row, when he’d asked Aiden to be roommates. Aiden had been talking excitedly about the harvest festival in town. Harvard had looked forward to going with him.

  Only he hadn’t. Aiden had gone with a date instead. People said the Kingstone Fair was a guaranteed great date. Harvard had never actually been to the fair.

  “Are you… in the market for another roommate?” Harvard asked.

  “Don’t bother me with absurd questions,” said Aiden.

  Harvard didn’t really think Aiden was. Of course, he’d seen Aiden cast off people with a shrug, as if they didn’t matter, all the time… but Harvard was different.

  About twenty guys had sobbed on Harvard’s shoulder saying they’d thought they were different, wailing over Aiden while Harvard patted them on the back. But obviously, that was… not the same.

  This was probably just a misunderstanding.

  But… if Aiden did want a new roommate, who would Harvard room with? He got along well with everybody and didn’t have anyone specific to ask. Just as he usually didn’t have anyone specific to hang out with while Aiden was busy on his dates.

  “Coach made some suggestions to me just now,” Harvard said tentatively. “About the team bonding exercise.”

  “Yeah, yeah, go on a picnic, make a graph. Do whatever you like,” snapped Aiden, crunching up another piece of paper. “Leave me alone.”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  Harvard retreated from Aiden’s mood and the gift apocalypse occurring in his room. He went into the hall to get a breath of air. Once he did, a basic strategy formed in his mind.

  It was pretty clear what Harvard’s next step should be. He took out his phone and called the person he knew would help, no matter what his problem was.

  He smiled as soon as he heard her voice on the other end of the line. “Hey, Mom. Just called to say I love you. And, uh… do any of your friends have a daughter my age? Who might be interested in going on a date? With me?”

  3: AIDEN

  I believe you should start as you mean to go on, so I was born gorgeous, Aiden wrote.

  So what if it was a lie? Aiden was literally being blackmailed to write this. Two wrongs gave Aiden the right to do anything he chose.

  He looked distractedly about the room—it seemed as though there was more stuff in here than usual—in search of inspiration for his great work of fiction. Their shadowed bedroom floor stretched on like gray desert until it met the forbidding mahogany door Harvard had closed behind him. Aiden wanted to crawl under the beds he and Harvard had pushed together in the center of the room and hide there.

  Actually, Aiden hadn’t been a prepossessing child. He was born premature, so his first baby pictures were of him looking like a shriveled hairless hamster in a plastic cage in the NICU. Even when he was out of the hospital, Aiden stayed shrimpy and spindly.

  I had an oppressive childhood in many ways. “Stop doting on me, Mother, I have things to do,” I would be forced to tell her. “Go to the country club; those charity galas won’t organize themselves.”

  Maybe if he’d been a cuter baby, his mother would’ve stuck around. She was a model; she was always poised for the next great photo op. But by the time Aiden was cute, he’d looked too old to be a good accessory, and she didn’t want the world identifying her as the mother of a teenager. She’d had other kids later—adorable, curly-haired tots with some soccer player in Spain—and taken glossy photographs with them. He’d seen them smiling perfect-family smiles at him from a magazine.

  When Aiden was younger, he’d told himself he remembered his mother leaving, the sounds of shouts and thrown gifts and the screech of a sports car in the driveway. The truth is, Aiden was too young when she’d left. He couldn
’t possibly remember her leaving. He was remembering other women leaving, long after his mother.

  His dad hadn’t had any other kids. When he had Aiden, he’d discovered he didn’t find fatherhood amusing. What his dad did find entertaining, and worth collecting, was women. Kids were boring because you had to keep them, but you could always find a brand-new shiny romance if you had enough money to pay for it.

  It didn’t really matter that Aiden couldn’t actually recall his mother leaving. They all left in a similar way. His dad’s women were all the same.

  Aiden had believed one of them was different. Once. A long time ago.

  When he was five, his father had taken up with a Brazilian singer foolish enough to believe faking a maternal instinct would please his dad. Aiden used to follow his father’s girlfriends around the house, allured by the glitter of their jewelry and the scent of their perfume and the sense that something exciting and glamorous was happening. The Brazilian one used to take his hand when he chased after her, slow her step, and tell him stories as she did her eye makeup. She used to hug him and say, “Aiden, you’re so cute.” (Total lie. But he was a little kid back then, so what did he know?) When she and his father got engaged, she showed him the ring, told him they were going to be a family, and asked if she could adopt him. She told him she wanted to be his mother, and could she? Aiden said yes with all his heart.

  His dad had married eight women so far. He didn’t marry that one. She left more quietly than most, but she left. There was no screaming, no screech of a car in the driveway, only her engagement ring left gleaming in the shadows of their big cold house. She didn’t even bother to say goodbye.

  Whatever. She was only one of many. Aiden didn’t even remember her name now, and he was never fooled again.

  Aiden had cried every night for two months after she’d left. Then he’d started school and met Harvard.

  Hadn’t Harvard been around, just now? Aiden could’ve sworn he’d come in. Aiden was occupied wrestling with writing and trying not to dwell on Coach’s hideous threat.

  Mostly, Aiden found it both useful and amusing to know other people’s weak points. Eugene’s was the fear of letting people down. Seiji’s weak point was his former fencing partner, Jesse Coste. Aiden had used that weak point to needle Seiji and beat him in their tournament. Seiji was a better fencer than Aiden. Seiji should’ve won. Aiden had proved what his father always said was true: Caring was for losers.

  Everyone had a weak point. Harvard did, as well. Aiden couldn’t bear to think about it, because Aiden couldn’t bear to think about hurting him.

  Harvard was Aiden’s weak point. Coach knew his secret. She knew it would work when she’d threatened to separate them, after even the threat of being removed from the fencing team hadn’t been effective. Aiden had clearly been a lot more obvious and pathetic than he’d realized.

  Aiden found himself chewing on a fingernail, stopped, and scowled at himself. What was he doing? He wasn’t a beast of the field.

  Where has Harvard wandered off to? Aiden wondered. It wasn’t like him to not be here when Aiden wished for him. Perhaps he’d gone to find someone to deal with this mess.

  Aiden swiveled in his chair as he took in the full extent of the situation. Their room was a vortex of paper hearts and flowers and chocolate boxes. It looked as though someone had eaten Valentine’s Day and thrown up everywhere. Aiden didn’t even like Valentine’s Day.

  He squinted at his own bed with sudden outrage. He leaped up and began to toss garbage onto the floor until a way was cleared and he could rescue his stuffed bear from the wreckage. Aiden pulled his bear free and began to pick out the cream-cheese frosting matted in his fur. What had possessed some idiot to put red velvet cupcakes spelling out U R SEXY on Aiden’s bed? Aiden already knew he was sexy. There was no need to assault a helpless stuffed animal.

  He carried his bear back to the desk with him, and typed: On my first day of school, I met my best friend, Harvard.

  Simple as that, the first true thing Aiden had written.

  Aiden’s clearest memory of early childhood was his first day of kindergarten.

  Some of the other kids had cried. Aiden hadn’t. Crying was better done alone. It felt much worse to cry when there were people around and see them not care. Aiden hadn’t been around other kids much, and hadn’t known exactly what to do with them, but they were more interesting than the toys. Aiden had toys at home. He’d hung back and watched the crying, the teacher trying to calm the riot, and the kid who was trying to help the teacher.

  Harvard had been the tallest kid there—and the kindest. He’d gone to every crying kid and told them this was a big change, but he knew they would be brave. He’d had a stuffed bear under his arm and when a tiny girl couldn’t stop sobbing, he’d pretended the bear was giving her a kiss, bumping the little plastic nose against her tearstained cheek. He’d given the girl a smile, warm as the sun, and she’d been helpless to do anything but smile back.

  Harvard was the biggest person in any room, even when he was small.

  Aiden had followed him around, trailing so close that when Harvard stopped unexpectedly, Aiden walked right into him. Harvard turned, looked down at Aiden’s face, and came immediately to a beautiful but entirely wrong conclusion.

  “Oh hey,” were Harvard’s first words to Aiden. “If you like the bear so much, you can have it.”

  He’d placed his teddy bear in Aiden’s arms, and then patted Aiden on the shoulder. Aiden had reflexively clutched the bear and stared up in panic at this marvelous boy. He’d tried frantically to think of some way to keep the warm, steady light of Harvard’s attention, and found himself frozen with fear by the impossible magnitude of his ambition. He’d known, he’d known, that Harvard would turn away.

  Harvard hadn’t. He’d kept looking at Aiden, then for no good reason at all thrown an arm around Aiden’s skinny shoulders.

  “I’m Harvard,” he’d said. “What’s your name?”

  “Aiden,” Aiden had squeaked.

  “You stay by me, Aiden,” Harvard had told him.

  Aiden always had.

  He’d kept the bear, too. Good thing he had, since it couldn’t run off and desert him like everyone else.

  The door opened, and Harvard returned, sliding his phone into his pocket and looking just—not the same as when they were kids, but essentially the same. Mature and responsible for his age, no matter what that age was. Aiden relaxed fractionally. In a world of blackmail and inexplicable cupcakes, Harvard made sense.

  “Where did you go?” Aiden demanded. “Why did you go?”

  “You told me to leave you alone,” Harvard answered. “So I went out.”

  Aiden held up the hand that wasn’t holding his bear in protest. “That’s a very strange interpretation of my words.”

  Leave me alone obviously didn’t mean Go away and actually leave me all alone. It meant Your supportive presence is always welcome, but please don’t talk to me about the fencing team right now. Harvard had heartlessly and senselessly abandoned Aiden in his time of greatest need.

  Since Harvard had come back, Aiden was prepared to be forgiving.

  “Can’t believe we were abandoned like this,” Aiden told his bear loudly. “You’re my only friend now, Harvard Paw.”

  He used the bear’s little paw to hit Harvard in the arm as punishment for his crimes.

  Harvard rolled his eyes. “I stepped out for ten minutes and called my mom.”

  “Okay, you’re off the hook,” said Aiden. “Please explain life’s mysteries to me. Is there a reason my bed is covered in cake? Are the students of Kings Row doing a reenactment of the French Revolution?”

  Perhaps the entire school had got high on paint fumes today.

  “Marie Antoinette didn’t actually say ‘Let them eat cake’ about the starving peasants,” Harvard said conscientiously. “That was just something people said to feel okay about cutting off her head. You can’t trust surface reports of history.”


  “Can’t trust much in this life,” drawled Aiden. “Can you unravel the cake mystery?”

  “My bed is covered in gifts for you,” said Harvard slowly. “Gifts that, since they are on my bed, I am keeping.”

  Aiden fussed with Harvard Paw, who still had remnants of frosting on him. “Sure, sure.”

  He always let Harvard eat the Valentine’s Day chocolates Aiden got, partly to make his best friend happy. Partly out of guilt.

  “There are notes everywhere from random students asking you to consider them as your new roommate,” Harvard continued, a strange note in his voice.

  Aiden hugged his bear to his chest and recalled he deserved to be showered in sympathy. “Right! You won’t believe the horror of the day I’m having! Coach threatened me.”

  No sympathy was forthcoming. The world remained unjust.

  Harvard was frowning at him. “What are you talking about?”

  Aiden made a face. “Coach said that if I didn’t do this imbecilic team bonding exercise, she’d make me switch rooms. Now I have to write an essay.”

  “Oh,” said Harvard. “Yeah, that’s… about what I thought must’ve happened. So that’s what you’re doing.”

  Sympathy was forthcoming at last—Harvard was off his game today—when Harvard slung his arm around Aiden’s shoulders and tugged him close. It was the same old gesture, though Harvard’s arms were far bigger and stronger now, and Aiden’s shoulders thankfully less skinny. Aiden let himself lean in.

  Harvard’s face was clear now, free of whatever had been preoccupying him. He was even smiling a little. “Aw. Would you miss me?”

  Aiden elbowed Harvard in the ribs. “Hardly. But imagine the hideous consequences if I had to switch rooms. Either I have to put up with some miscreant like Nicholas Cox, or my roommate falls in love with me, and you know what happens next. Scenes. Tears. Unreasonable demands like ‘Why can’t you remember my name?’ Besides, it would disrupt my elaborate scheme to kill you and have the only single room in Kings Row. Imagine the trouble I could get into with my own room! I couldn’t let anyone get in the way of that.”