“Obviously, me too, but infirmary first,” said Jesse sternly.
“I will take care of him,” Melodie promised Nicholas, while Eugene nodded. “Please go tell Coach Arquette.”
Nicholas wasn’t sure what was going on, but it seemed as though Melodie and Eugene would be friends. That was nice. As for Jesse, Nicholas figured Jesse thought he knew best about everything.
The three lurched away, Jesse and Melodie mostly supporting Eugene between them. Nicholas ran up the pathway to tell everyone what had happened. Coach Williams peeled off instantly to check on Eugene, and Nicholas fell into step with Seiji with a sense of relief. Yet, he still couldn’t catch Seiji’s eye. Seiji wandered through Camp Menton without seeming to see any of it, to all appearances lost in a private vision.
Assistant Coach Lewis stayed with them as they were shown to their sleeping quarters. Coach Arquette dropped Nicholas and Seiji at the room they would be sharing first.
Seiji remained just as quiet as he had been when Jesse was around. Nicholas couldn’t help wondering if Seiji would be this absorbed with Jesse the whole time they were there. Was it not enough that he had to compete against a memory of Jesse back at Kings Row?
Nicholas couldn’t worry about that. Not when he and Seiji were here in France to fence together. This was going to be awesome. He couldn’t let Jesse Coste spoil it.
Shoving those thoughts to the back of his head, Nicholas pushed the door to their room open. Seiji seemed to barely register Nicholas’s reaction and moved past him to enter the room while Nicholas stood openmouthed in the doorway.
The room had a circular window like a ship, as though they were going on a fantastic voyage to adventures. There was a ceiling that came to a high triangular point, and broad rafters above their heads. Through the circle of the window, Nicholas could see stars starting to appear, but there were already far more stars than he had ever seen in the city, as though someone had filled a cup to overflowing with light. A cloth-covered dressmaker’s dummy stood in the corner, undressed and facing the wall, as if waiting to be dressed in Kings Row colors. There were two beds with crisp white sheets standing parallel to each other with iron bars at their heads. Nicholas loved his and Seiji’s room at Kings Row. Here was another beautiful room, in a beautiful place where he could learn all he wanted about fencing.
Nicholas had no idea what Camp Menton had in store for him and Seiji, but he couldn’t wait to get started.
13 HARVARD
Coach Arquette showed Harvard to a quaint cottage that Harvard’s mom would’ve called a bijou belle demeure, then left him on the doorstep while she showed Nicholas and Seiji to their room. Dying roses twined up the crumbling stone cottage, nestled in among the trees. Harvard headed down a narrow hall, walking softly on the uneven flagstones of the floor so as not to disturb anyone sleeping, and trying not to wonder where Aiden had disappeared to.
He and Aiden were going to be sharing a room here. The thought made Harvard’s stomach shift, a thrilled and uncomfortable flutter wanting to be born there. Harvard told himself he was being ridiculous. He’d had sleepovers with Aiden a thousand times. He and Aiden had been sharing a room for their entire school life. This couldn’t be any different. He wouldn’t let it be different.
Coach Arquette had said their room was upstairs on the right. Harvard went up a narrow stone staircase with a very strange picture halfway up that portrayed several cats, several nuns, and a swing. Upstairs was a whitewashed hall with a tapestry on the farthest wall. One of the heavy oak-and-metal doors was open, and someone was hanging off the iron ring that was the door handle, a grin plastered all over his face.
A revelation came to Harvard, bright as the stars in the night sky over Menton. He’d forgotten Kings Row and Exton weren’t the only Americans at Camp Menton. MLC was here as well.
Here was Arune Singh, his old friend from elementary school. They’d reconnected at the match between MLC and Kings Row and had been texting since then. Mostly memes, but friendly ones. Arune hadn’t begrudged Kings Row their victory against his school. Arune was like that: a good sport and a better friend.
“Arune,” breathed Harvard, and threw himself into his arms for a bro hug. Arune returned the bro hug with enthusiasm.
“Hey there, Harvard. Great to see you, too. Where’s the pip-squeak?”
“Uh…,” said Harvard.
It had been a while since Arune had seen Aiden. Back when Aiden was ten, he was still kind of short and slight and shy and didn’t get as much attention as he did now. He’d always had Harvard’s attention, of course. Harvard had never seen Aiden growing up as Aiden changing, but instead as the world reacting to Aiden correctly at last. The world was finally giving Aiden his due.
Still, he knew Arune would be surprised when he saw Aiden. And for the first time in his life, Harvard wished that he and Aiden weren’t sharing a room.
Aiden had made it so clear that he had far better things to do than hang out with Harvard.
“You know what? I’m beat. Let’s catch up tomorrow, Arune, okay?” said Harvard. “And let’s train together. I’ll show you some moves.”
“Maybe I’ll show you some of my own,” said Arune. “Can’t wait.”
They fist-bumped, and Harvard went into his room. It was nice, far bigger than the room he and Aiden shared back at Kings Row, with a pitched ceiling and rafters high above Harvard’s head. There was a dried sprig of lavender, tied with twine, hanging in the casement window. And there were two narrow white beds with intricate iron headboards pretty close together.
On instinct, Harvard crossed the room and began to push the two beds together, the way he always would have before. Then he realized what he was doing, bit his lip hard, and began to hastily move the beds farther apart.
“Great idea,” Aiden said from the doorway, and Harvard started.
Aiden’s hair and face were wet, as though he’d been splashing water on them. His eyes were wide open and poison green.
“Let me help,” Aiden continued, and shoved the other bed against the farthest wall, into the darkest corner of the room. “Much better.”
“There’s no need to be childish,” Harvard told him.
Since Aiden had done it first, Harvard pushed his own bed against the opposite wall. That way, at least they were even.
“If you’d rather be farther apart, I’m sure you could share with Arune,” Aiden bit out. “Saw that touching reunion in the hallway.”
“There’s no talking to you at all,” Harvard said, exhausted. “Sometimes I wonder why I bother.”
“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” Aiden agreed in a silky voice.
Aiden hadn’t spent the night in his and Harvard’s dorm since the night they kissed and Harvard had said he wanted it to go further before realizing they had to stop their charade. No doubt Aiden had been avoiding the awkwardness. Now the awkwardness was here in France.
Worse than feeling awkward, Harvard also felt so guity.
Normally, they would have pushed the beds together. Harvard would have invited Aiden onto his bed, or Aiden would have simply crawled onto Harvard’s blankets, smug and as certain of his welcome as a much-beloved cat. They would have spent their first night in Camp Menton talking until dawn lit a path over the sea, Aiden making mean jokes that Harvard laughed at and sharp observations that Harvard used to navigate the world. Aiden would have said Harvard was a great captain, and, with Aiden beside him, Harvard could have believed it was true. In the mornings, Harvard used to coax Aiden awake. Aiden always wanted to cuddle closer and sleep in.
Harvard sighed and unzipped his suitcase, then glanced over his shoulder and caught Aiden stripping his shirt off, a bar of moonlight across the arched line of Aiden’s back. Harvard looked away fast.
They couldn’t pull the covers over their heads and talk the night away, forgetting everybody else in the world. If they were under the covers, close and warm, it would be far worse than Aiden sleeping nestled against him on the plane. Now only
a glimpse of Aiden by moonlight made vivid memory flash inescapably across Harvard’s brain, Aiden’s hair loose on a white pillow, every treacherous instinct in Harvard’s body forgetting reason and only understanding desire. There had been no doubt in Harvard’s mind what he’d wanted when Aiden asked if he was sure. His whole body had said: Yes, I want to; yes, I want everything.
He still wanted.
That was awful of him, Harvard thought miserably. Maybe it was creepy, even, to stay near Aiden when he felt that way. But they were best friends: What else was he supposed to do?
Even the bright moment of recognizing a familiar face in a new place felt spoiled somehow, turned bitter by Aiden’s acid tongue. If things were different, Harvard wouldn’t have been so delighted to see Arune. Harvard was secure in possession of a best friend; Aiden so supremely the best Harvard didn’t truly need any others. That was how it had always been.
At least it was before Harvard ruined everything between them. He’d tried to fix things, the day after that night. He’d promised that he and Aiden would be friends as they always had been, that friendship was what he wanted. He’d done what he had to do to fix them, the unit that was Harvard-and-Aiden, the most important relationship in Harvard’s life.
Only they were still broken.
Harvard slept uneasily that first night in France, with the moon’s rays searchlight bright in his eyes, and when he dreamed, he dreamed that he was hiding and didn’t want to be found out.
When he woke, Aiden’s bed was empty. He got out of bed, forcing himself to smile and remembering his promise with Arune. Even if Aiden didn’t think Harvard was worth hanging out with anymore, someone else did.
He made his way down a narrow path toward the orchard dining area. In Menton, on the border of Italy and in a pocket of ultra-Mediterranean sunshine between the mountains and the sea, the weather was almost always gorgeous.
Arune was at a table crowded with MLC students and their friends, and he waved Harvard over and introduced him to everyone. They seemed like great guys and girls. A couple were Italian, so Harvard tried out his few sentences of lousy Italian and laughed as a girl named Chiara taught him how to pronounce the words correctly.
Then Chiara’s face slackened in awe, as though she’d suddenly experienced transcendence.
Said transcendence was Aiden, moving gracefully around the picnic tables toward them. Harvard willed himself to look away. Everybody in the orchard watched as Aiden went by. Harvard had promised himself that he wouldn’t be just like everybody else. He failed to look away, all the same.
For a moment, with the shadow of leaves, he thought Aiden looked sad, and Harvard’s heart clenched, feeling for an instant as though they were back in elementary school, when Aiden was so much smaller and Harvard always wanted to protect him. Aiden, has something made you unhappy?
Then Aiden reached their table. Sunlight poured gold onto his face and his hair, and it was clear there was nothing wrong with him at all.
“Well, whoa,” said Arune. “Harvard wasn’t kidding when he said you’d changed at our match together. This is a glow up like a supernova. Hey, Aiden. Nice to see you again. It’s been a long time.”
Aiden arched an eyebrow and regarded Arune without speaking. The whole table hushed as they waited for a reply that clearly wasn’t coming.
Harvard dropped a pebble of conversation into the pool of awkward silence: “You remember Arune? From elementary school.”
“Oh, right, Armand,” drawled Aiden.
Aiden was often carelessly rude to people, while Harvard felt he should be carefully polite. Harvard didn’t approve of Aiden’s behavior or anything, but often it made him smile and relax a little.
Harvard didn’t feel like smiling or relaxing now. No matter how often Harvard told himself that this was normal, that nothing had changed, he wasn’t sure he believed it.
14 SEIJI
The dummy in the room Seiji was sharing with Nicholas looked vulnerable and lonely, standing in that dark corner. Seiji wished it wasn’t there. Then he told himself he was being ridiculous. It didn’t matter that the dummy was there.
It didn’t matter that Jesse was at Camp Menton.
Seiji closed his eyes and there was Jesse, dominating the landscape of sea and lemon trees as he dominated everything else.
Every time Seiji saw Jesse, he felt as though he were still trapped in that single cold moment at the end of their fencing match, when Seiji had realized to his incredulous horror that Jesse had won. He felt like he was losing the match all over again.
Seiji sat on the edge of his white bed and stared down at his empty hands. He’d thought, back then, he wouldn’t ever be able to bear picking up an épée again. That would have left his whole life empty.
His father had been wrong when he said Seiji could pick his battles.
There were times in your life when you were trapped and had no choice at all.
Seiji’s eyes snapped open.
If he was trapped, he was going to fight. Jesse was here, and they were inevitably going to be fencing each other. He tried to imagine what it would be like, finally facing his old partner on the piste after so long. He tried to visualize himself winning point after point, regaining the power he’d thought he’d lost in that match, but he couldn’t manage to make the vision feel real.
His thoughts were interrupted, as usual, by Nicholas.
“Isn’t this the coolest room?” Nicholas asked enthusiastically. “We should dress up that dummy.”
Seiji lifted his suitcase onto the bed and riffled through it, pulling out the shower curtain he had meticulously folded before they left Kings Row.
“You’re a dummy,” Seiji told Nicholas, comforted. “Help me hang the shower curtain up between our beds so I don’t have to see your stupid face.”
Nicholas’s stupid face was grinning as he complied. Then he prowled around the room, opening his suitcase and pulling out clothes so he could dress up the dummy in his Kings Row blazer. Nothing Nicholas did ever made any sense.
While Nicholas’s back was turned, Seiji took a moment to survey Nicholas, taking in his scruffy hair and the long limbs that extended from the black tank top he always wore. He was so different from Jesse, who was shiningly blond and composed at all times.
Yet Seiji couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something similar about Nicholas and Jesse. Something Seiji couldn’t quite place, even if it was just the way each boy drew Seiji in toward them.
Seiji clamped down viciously on that thought and drew the shower curtain closed so he couldn’t see Nicholas. He refused to go there.
Earlier, in a miserable daze at being confronted with Jesse on arrival, Seiji had felt his most ferocious pang of unease when Nicholas went back for Eugene. Camp Menton would be fine, if Nicholas stayed beside Seiji.
“Were you listening to everything the Camp Mention coach was saying? All the rules and the curfew and stuff? Was it this intense in France when you were here before?” Nicholas asked as they got ready for bed, the shower curtain in between them.
“The standard of fencing is far higher in France,” Seiji reminded Nicholas. “And, of course, your fencing is substandard, even for America.”
“You’re such a comforting friend,” said Nicholas in a tone that informed Seiji he was being sarcastic, except for the friend part. Since the curtain was between them, Seiji let himself smile.
Seiji hesitated, reluctant to admit he hadn’t heard a word the coach had uttered. “What precisely was she saying?”
“Like that we can’t skip classes or be late, and that if we break curfew maybe they behead us, and they’re going to train us until we drop?”
“You can’t expect them to go easy on you like I do, Nicholas,” said Seiji, and Nicholas snorted loudly from behind the ducks.
“I’m glad we came,” Nicholas announced decisively. “And I’ll take any match I get. I want to. It would be great if Jesse Coste challenged me. I hope he does.”
“J
esse?!” Seiji exclaimed.
Once again, Seiji relived that cold, eternal moment when he realized that Jesse had beaten him at nationals. Nicholas shouldn’t feel that way.
“You shouldn’t fence against Jesse.” Seiji’s voice cut the night air. “You can’t compete with him. He’s better than you are.”
Nicholas went silent, so Seiji must have won the argument. Seiji climbed into bed and set his alarm for four AM, Central European Standard Time, because Seiji wouldn’t let jet lag tell him what to do.
When he woke, the gray dawn light was reflecting off the sea and into their room, quivering like liquid so that the ducks on their shower curtain seemed as though they were in unfamiliar waters. Seiji could hear Nicholas snoring from behind the curtain, which usually made Seiji want to smother Nicholas in his sleep.
This morning he was so desperate he wanted to shake Nicholas and ask him for company, but Nicholas wouldn’t be even marginally coherent this early. Besides, in the cold light of morning, Seiji’s path was clear. Seiji didn’t need anyone to protect him from Jesse.
This was a training camp, and Seiji was here to train. He’d lost his fencing partner, but he hadn’t lost fencing. That was why he had come to France the first time, after losing to Jesse so catastrophically. France had reminded him that no matter where he was, if there was a piste, Seiji was where he belonged.
That was still true. Jesse couldn’t take that.
15 NICHOLAS
Nicholas dreamed of a trophy gleaming gold, which said, in Seiji’s voice, “He’s better than you are,” and his father’s newspaper clipping, which folded itself into a paper airplane so that it could fly away from Kings Row to find Jesse.
He woke up in a hopeless fight with the bedsheets, the sunlight shining through their curtains yellow as lemons or ducks, and realized he had slept through his alarm.
Oh no. Seiji.
Seiji got up every morning at four AM to train, but recently the two of them had been waking up early to train together. Nicholas had even been able to persuade Seiji to eat breakfast at a reasonable hour. He sat at Bobby and Dante’s table with Nicholas and sometimes Eugene. Occasionally the captain even sat with them—and with the captain came Aiden, so it was the whole team. Those mornings were the coolest, but Seiji wasn’t used to hanging out in a crowd. Nicholas had made a bargain with Seiji: Seiji would help him during practice, a hand on his shoulder or an arm correcting his form. In exchange, Nicholas would intercept any fist bumps or people talking to him when Seiji didn’t want them to. Unless Nicholas was there, Seiji would eat by himself.
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